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It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.

Richard Feynman#3

LifeHumanityReligionScaleCosmosUniverse

About this quote

What does it mean?
Feynman rejects the idea that the vast universe exists solely for human drama.
In plain terms
The universe is too big to be just a stage for humans.
What can you take from it?
Do not assume the cosmos revolves around human concerns.

Where it applies

  • philosophical discussions
  • religious debate
  • cosmic perspective

Putting it to work

  • gaint cosmic scale
  • critique anthropocentrism

Questions to consider

  • Does size diminish human significance?
  • What is the purpose of the universe?

Another view

Religious views often focus on meaning rather than physical scale.

More from Richard Feynman

  1. Principles You can't say A is made of B or vice versa. All mass is interaction.

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  2. On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention …

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  3. On the contrary, it's because someone knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows about that we can discuss. W…

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