"Our place in the Universe"

As I watched a program on TLC where scientists were presenting their theories of future events, one thought seemed to come to the forefront and that was what our role or place do we have in the universe. It may be true that "some" of the science fiction of today will become science fact for future generations, what and how remains to be seen. Do we really have any place in the universe as aggressive and violent as humans are? Scientists look into the future and don't see more intelligent life, but life forms they equate to prehistoric man (or less). This seems like a more inflated view of humanity than we should have, if there is life out there how do we know they are not avoiding us because of our violent and overly aggressive nature? Or might there not be a spectrum of life from bacteria or microbial right up to even more intelligent than us? But the question remains, what is our place in the universe.

So then what is our place in the universe? We have no way to travel through it (making it to the moon and back doesn't really count when you take into account how vast the universe is), we cannot affect or change anything in it. I will go even further to a truth that hits home: none of us can even change one other person, the only real power for change we have is to change ourselves, and most of the time people don't even use that. (This does not mean we can't be the catalyst for change in others, but it is not us that makes the change, it is that persons will and capacity that changes themselves.)

So what is our place in the universe? A better question may be "do we need a place in the universal community", or even to ask ourselves "why do we need to feel we have a place in the universe". The one little place we do have in the universe, earth, is a mess. Maybe we should stop looking out and start looking in at our own planet with everything that is happening and ask "Do we deserve a place in the universal community?".

If we can't get it right for everyone here on earth, do we really need to subject the universe to how wrong we have gotten it?

I'm going to give you one simple guideline, if everyone used it, it would change the world we live in now to a eutopia.

"Love thy neighbor as thyself". The Bible, Mark 12: verse 30.

We do have a guideline for life, change, and even happiness, the problem is that society has fostered an attitude of selfishness and when you couple this with the aggressive and violent tendencies of mankind you get the world we have today. What we need is to come back to a lifestyle that considers the next person before ourselves, and the satisfaction from those actions would be more rewarding than even getting your own way.

What is our place in the universe? Maybe it is to help and love our fellow man. That would be a truly noble place.

This was much longer than I planned, but I hope it makes you ponder your place in our world and how much better of we would all be if we followed the precepts of the Bible.
Bob