[We take a break from our running series of contemplations on the Apostles' Creed, which will be taken up again in due course. This post is by a different member of our group.]
Not at the end, but in the middle:
The Universe will collapse into another big bang;
but beforehand
Galaxies will collide;
but beforehand
The Sun will overheat and expand, swallowing and burning up all its planets and planetary matter;
but beforehand
The Moon’s orbit will continue to enlarge, causing it to depart the Earth, causing great changes on Earth;
but beforehand
Tectonic plate activity will have swallowed up Earth's current land mass and will have formed new geological shapes in its crust;
but beforehand
The supercaldera at Yellowstone Park will have exploded and thrown a dust mantle around the Earth, blocking out all sunlight;
but beforehand
Life on Earth shall long ago have forgotten humankind and carry on in ways almost alien;
but beforehand
Several ice ages will have come and gone;
but beforehand
The human species will have come to an end, probably having made itself and its ecosystem of other life forms extinct;
but beforehand
My family, and everyone I know, will die after a course lengthened by human knowledge of medicine and food production, having lived lives more or less exploitative of the Earth; our lives profligate, cruel and unthinking, or not so much
None of this can be fixed: so what’s to worry about?
This worry is partly about whether I am doing it “right”
But there is no greater adult or adult substitute looking over my shoulder to see and judge what I am doing
So it’s tempting to think that I have to be my own judge and jury; except that there’s conscience
And where does conscience come from?
The operational rules of biophysics that confer evolutionary advantage are embodied in human conscience
But where do the operational rules of biophysics come from?
When the universe collapses into another big bang, expansion, subsequent collapse, and continuing process, the operational rules that govern that, where do they come from?
Well:
All there is is the ground of being.
And everything. In those terms. Is all. Alright.
