Discussion of Hubble’s Discovery of Galaxies

So why is Hubble’s discovery of galaxies so important to the evolution of Mankind’s understanding of the Universe and Reality?

Let me illustrate with an example. Let’s say that you spend your entire life in your own local village. Everything that everyone in the village needs is provided. No one ventures beyond the village’s border. For such inhabitants, the village is their entire Universe. They have no knowledge of anything outside the village walls.

Then one day, someone ventures beyond the walls. Can you imagine the trouble that person would have trying to explain to others what a lake is, or a forest of pine trees, or even other people from other villages? First, the explorer would be severely punished by the villagers for leaving the safety of the village. Second, he would have a hard time explaining what a lake is to someone that had never seen a body of water larger than a puddle or what a forest was to someone that had only known the few trees in the village. What about the other people? Aliens! Terrorists! Run for your lives!!

This is exactly how Mankind has grown since the last Ice Age 11,000 years ago. Mankind consisted of hunters and gatherers that slowly found it easier to live in small villages. People in Mesopotamia had no knowledge of the people in China or Central and South America. As the population grew, villages grew into towns and eventually into cities. It is always the explorers that push the boundaries of what people know and understand.

The same is true for our comprehension of the Heavens. As explained in the essay on Hubble’s Discovery of Galaxies at www.jacob2012.com/essays/hubble, the Ancients saw a night sky that was filled with exotic sites that no one truly understood. They called special lights in the sky that moved ‘planets’ while the background stars were the complete Universe. It was obvious that everything revolved around the Earth.

This was the state of Mankind’s knowledge until Galileo used the telescope in 1610 to prove that not everything goes around the Earth (this was accomplished by viewing and documenting the 4 major moons of Jupiter). See http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/galtele.html for a full detailed story.

How did Mankind view God during this period? That is best exemplified by Michelangelo’s magnificent murals on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where he displays God as a white, elderly man in a white robe living in Heaven beyond the clouds. This perspective of God has worked for a long time.

Then along came Edwin Hubble. For a complete biography, visit http://www.edwinhubble.com/. Hubble used careful observations to rigorously prove that the Milky Way galaxy is not the edge of the Universe. In fact, the Universe was filled with a multitude of other galaxies well beyond the edges of the Milky Way.

Hubble pushed our boundaries of Heaven beyond Mankind’s comprehension. He was the first to demonstrate the true size and complexity of our Universe. Other astronomers have expanded upon Hubble’s work in the intervening 85 years. However, there are still many people that still consider God as depicted by Michelangelo: a white man in a white beard living in the clouds.

This depiction of God is now outdated and no longer appropriate. We need a new depiction of God to help us here in the 21st Century that includes what Mankind has learned in the last 120 years.