Al-Qaeda, Atheism and the actions of Fools. Does ANYTHING matter?

Usually my first thoughts in the morning when I first wake are my clearest.

Usually.

I tried to consider the infinity of our Universe even before I got out of bed this morning. I tried to consider "does it matter?"

Before even leaving the warmth of my bed covers, I watched this video clip and with each second, I was more amazed, confounded, confused and concerned on how I would insult those I love without any mean-spirited intention and word some comment in such a way to encompass all.

Thanks to Joel Geist and his incredible work at filming the Andromeda Galaxy, it just seemed to put so much of my lfe in perspective. I am not even sure the Universe owes me a perspective. I am not sure the Universe owes US anything.

I laughed inside that if each zealot that thought it was so necessary to take a life while screaming GOD IS GREAT, if every flag-draped soldier that fired every gun , frankly just if everyone could perceive what was evidence in this video, that all of our turmoil and hate and scheming and slaughter would all look so meaningless.

The Universe is the true infinite. The video reveals 100 million stars, each glowing, each coupled with chunks of matter just like our Earth swirling around and just viewing this reminded us or at least lets us know how microscopic we are on our planet, circling our sun, among other stars in our galaxy.

We have all acknowledged greatness in our lives. Many of us choose to follow the words of one leader or another. Some accept Gods and some feel so strongly about their Gods commands that they grab a bomb, a knife a weapon and kill young students in schools, maim women seeking abortions in a clinic, drop bombs on villages and slaughter satirists at their desks.

After accepting this video as truth, these actions seem so pointless. As I write these thoughts down, I realize that even the reverse of hate, that love and compassion and concern are probably equally as pointless and we are left with our self imposed rules, our guidelines on how we will live out our moment, while sitting on a chunk of dirt, swirling through the black void of space around a glowing star, neighboring a billion other chunks of dirt swirling around a billion other glowing stars.

The stars do not care how we act. The Universe has no position on our collective belief in its existence, our Galaxy among a billion other Galaxies that roam the void could really give a Galactic flying poop whether we pay our Sears bill, burn our dinner, slaughter another being or even get out of our warm bed in the morning.

How we do and what we do and how we choose to live it out is all up to us.
Recognize that you may follow the words of another. Question those words if it leads you to hate, slaughter or self-destruction. But regardless, to the Universe, to the Galaxy in the video, it makes no difference. It only makes a difference inside each and everyone of us and it goes no further.

Maybe in a big way, it is pointless. Not in a melancholy way, but in a way that makes you question if the pain you just inflicted, if the light you just extinquished, if the hurt you just leveled at another really mattered.

Watching this video may be beautiful, it may be overwhelming, it may challenge your beliefs, it may reinforce your belief in the cosmos (or Cosmo's), but it should make you pause a moment and a voice should utter quietly inside...

Really?

In response, I added a note.
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I just have always felt that when we didn't know where the Sun went in the dark, we prayed for the warmth to return. Before we understood the seasons, we begged the Gods to return the plants and return the animals for us to feast on.
And at some point, we listened to the words of one that said it was better to live alongside each other in peace, that everyone was your sister and brother, to share, to love, to cry over when they felt pain.
And we listened and his words became God. We learned it was wrong to steal their food, burn their homes, crush their lives.
Until someone came around and perverted those words for heir own greed and we bowed to the Gods, to the words and to the Man.
And we discovered bit by bit about the Universe and where the Sun went and why the crops grew and the animals returned. And the Gods started to fade and the power of the Man who held the God overhead began to fade and we learned to hate those that failed to believe in our Gods and the words and the power of the Greedy Men that held the God over their heads.
And our world grew tiny and we grew insignificant and the Man became more angry and led us to kill and slaughter in his name and in the perversion of the original message we had learned so long before.
We had been perverted into killing for love, to hating for peace and to place our Gods over the heads of all and force everyone that did not believe that our God knew where the Sun went and what would happen when we would cease to breath and that they were less than us and they should be crushed.

But somewhere a tiny flame of love burns, somewhere the words live to share, to give, to love before the hate and the greed and the Gods.
And eventhough we accept our tiny home on a tiny planet shared by an infinite amount of life, the God, the words spoken by a Man, the words that told us that we could live side by side still exist.
And we know where the Sun goes, where the animals graze when the snows come and we only need the Word to live.