'When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what it is that I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'There is no God.' The mind staggers in its attempt to grasp the idea of a being that could do that. It is futile to attempt it. It is not the works of some God that I see there. I am face to face with a power that baffles speech. I see no lineaments of personality, no human traits, but an energy upon whose currents solar systems are but bubbles. In the presence of it man and the race of man are less than motes in the air. I doubt if any mind can expand its conception of God sufficiently to meet the astounding disclosures of modern science. It is easier to say there is no God. The universe is so unhuman, that is, it goes its way with so little thought of man. He is but an incident, not an end. We must adjust our notions to the discovery that things are not shaped to him, but that he is shaped to them. The air was not made for his lungs, but he has lungs because there is air; the light was not created for his eye, but he has eyes because there is light. All the forces of nature are going their own way; man avails himself of them, or catches a ride as best he can. If he keeps his seat he prospers; if he misses his hold and falls he is crushed.' (p.164-165)
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Looking at the stars reveals a vast, impersonal power where humans are tiny incidents, making it hard to fit a human God into this picture.
- In plain terms
- The starry sky shows a huge force that doesn't care about humans, so a personal God seems unlikely.
- What can you take from it?
- The universe seems too vast and unhuman to fit a personal God.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Can you feel close to divinity in an unhuman universe?
- Does the lack of human traits in nature matter to you?
Another view
Some find mystery or awe in the vastness rather than impersonal force.
More from John Burroughs
'The deeper our insight into the methods of nature . . . the more incredible the popular Christianity seems to us.'
Permalink to quote #5 'Science has fairly turned us out of our comfortable little anthropomorphic notion of things into the great out-of-doors of the universe. We must and will get …
Permalink to quote #7 'Hence when the man of science says, 'There is no God,' he only gives voice to the feeling of the inadequacy of the old anthropomorphic conception, in the pres…
Permalink to quote #4
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