Thursday, October 05, 2006

The Alien

Imagine, if at all possible, an alien entity that, among other things, has the following characteristics:

  • Is millions of light-years in size. Since a light year = 9.5 trillion kilometers, this thing is well over 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 meters tall (and throws a lot a weight around!). That's a million and half times the distance of (the now demoted) Pluto to the Sun.

  • Was born shortly after the Big Bang and still around, meaning it's been alive for more or less 14 billion years.

  • Has neural powers that surpass all computers and human brains put together.

  • Has absolute psychic predictive ability such that it knows what's going to happen in the future to all things big and small anywhere in the universe. (I guess when you've been around for eons you kind of get the hang of how things go).

  • Can effortlessly withstand and resist the crushing gravity of a black hole (from which not even light can escape). In fact instead of being devoured by it, this thing has black holes for lunch!

  • Can exceed the speed of light should it choose to do so and go as fast as it desires. Oh, much much faster than the man of steel, indeed.

  • Won't even be bruised, much less killed, were we to bombard it with all the atomic and nuclear weapons humanity can and has ever produced.

Do you think there's such a monstrosity out there? I certainly find it insane to seriously consider such a claim, Russell's teapot notwithstanding.

And yet there are not a few humans who are asking everyone to believe that an entity far far greater than the above hypothetical alien in fact exists out there. And that this entity, besides having all the powers outlined above, also has the ability and capacity to create entire universes and in fact produced this very world of planets, stars, galaxies, and life that we live in. Well, these people are right about one thing. It truly takes an inordinate amount of irrationality--i.e., faith--to entertain such a thought and fully delude oneself that it actually is true. "Crazy" does not begin to describe it.

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