
Once upon a time there was a brilliant scientist by the name of Giordano Bruno. He had a revolutionary idea. He said:
Innumerable suns exist; innumerable Earths revolve around these suns in a manner similar to the way the seven planets revolve around our Sun. Living beings inhabit those worlds.
-An Outlandish Idea
Giordano Bruno wrote extensively on the subject of a never ending universe and the infinity symbol we know and love today tends to be accredited to him. I’d argue the later point as artwork from Persian, Greek, and Minoan cultures display said infinity symbol. (I think it was Archimedes who coined the term infinitas- or unbounded in its direct translation???) Mathematicians like John Wallis gave numerical meaning to Brunos infinity symbol citing it was just a variation of the Roman numeral for 1,000 which tends to just mean ‘many.’ While Bruno would most likely agree with this sentiment it is doubtful he would want his philosophy restricted to mere numbers, as innumerable as they may be.
Everywhere is one soul, one Spirit of the world wholly in the whole and in every part of it, as we find in our lesser world also. This soul… produces all things everywhere; so that for the generation of some even time is not required.
-Giordano Bruno
While Bruno saw an endless array of worlds stretching out beyond all human conception he was still very grounded in his faith in God; God being the infinite in his holistic view of the universe. Modern Kabbalists will recognize his line of thinking in statements like:
God is infinite, so His Universe must be too. Thus is, the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of His Kingdom made manifest; He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say an infinity of worlds.
-Oh The Blasphemy
‘OFF WITH HIS HEAD!’
Giordano Bruno was savagely beaten and burned to death in the year 1600 for refusing to denounce his beliefs. Luckily, ideas aren’t so easy to burn at the stake and his legacy lived on. Science has taken huge steps towards understanding the infinite nature of the Universe since then.
On the other side of the coin we have modern minds with IQ’s so high half of us can’t even fathom some of the complex mathematics they are capable of wrestling down. One world renowned physicist whom we all knew of and respected said:
“Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t.”
-Stephen Hawking
Valid. Especially when one considers Hawkings country of origin. Westerners, especially of the Christian variety, tend to completely shut down around matters of science and refute basic facts. Anyone, myself included, raised in an environment where evolution threatens the frail ego of church goers almost immediately throws the baby out with the bathwater.
Imagine having such a fragile worldview carbon dating threatens your entire worldview.
Dogma tends to be small minded though. To hang on the letter of scripture and insist it was all written by God is put trust in words and stop searching for God in the world we live in. It’s backwards.
GOD DOESN’T FIT INSIDE A BOX.
That is all.