Friday, 27 April 2007
Sparks
Divine sparks, each of our souls are just a divine spark within the eternal flame. We come to this life to learn, to experience, to understand what we can take back to the source. The spark remains lit throughout, in life, in death. Each experience is carried by our spark to the flame, enriching it, feeding it with the experiences accrued during our lifetimes
Steven Hawkings in Outer Space
Steven Hawking flew in one of NASA's planes and achieved a short period of weightlessness. The eminent professor is very pessimistic about humanities chances of surviving upon this island in space we call the Earth. His aim is to at some stage get to outer space, and hopefully for man to start colonies where as a species can survive.
Why the pessimism? He's convinced that we will blow ourselves to smithereens, or we will be wiped out by some global pandemic of some sort.
I don't buy that, no doubt mankind will have trials and tribulations including, possibly, many self inflicted wounds. There may be pandemics that kill thousands, or even millions of people, but to get to a point where mankind may die out is very very unlikely. Currently it's estimated that there are 6.7 Billion people, split approximately 50-50 between men and women. That's 3,350,000,000 (approx) of each sex, of which approx 1 Billion women are of childbearing age to wipe that number out totally would be highly unlikely.
Extinctions do happen, we, mankind, are responsible for many of the problems that are causing extinctions now, but the numbers are so large that we would have to wipe ourselves out. I think perhaps this is Professor Hawkins greatest worry, I personally do not believe that even the most crazed human would condemn the whole human population of the planet to death. There are, no doubt people of all belief systems that are working on methods of destroying life, some affecting humans only, others working on agents that would destroy all life. But is there something capable of actually setting off such a destructive chain of events? Unless it's done by someone who has either no intelligence or such a profound lack of morality and ethics I cannot see it, thankfully, happening.
Why the pessimism? He's convinced that we will blow ourselves to smithereens, or we will be wiped out by some global pandemic of some sort.
I don't buy that, no doubt mankind will have trials and tribulations including, possibly, many self inflicted wounds. There may be pandemics that kill thousands, or even millions of people, but to get to a point where mankind may die out is very very unlikely. Currently it's estimated that there are 6.7 Billion people, split approximately 50-50 between men and women. That's 3,350,000,000 (approx) of each sex, of which approx 1 Billion women are of childbearing age to wipe that number out totally would be highly unlikely.
Extinctions do happen, we, mankind, are responsible for many of the problems that are causing extinctions now, but the numbers are so large that we would have to wipe ourselves out. I think perhaps this is Professor Hawkins greatest worry, I personally do not believe that even the most crazed human would condemn the whole human population of the planet to death. There are, no doubt people of all belief systems that are working on methods of destroying life, some affecting humans only, others working on agents that would destroy all life. But is there something capable of actually setting off such a destructive chain of events? Unless it's done by someone who has either no intelligence or such a profound lack of morality and ethics I cannot see it, thankfully, happening.
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