This is a fairly early draft of a poem that came to me, one afternoon a little while ago. I do not regard myself as a poet but trying this genre, helps to express complex ideas, in a lot less words.
I say it is a draft, as to try and perfect it, would take a lot more work. For the moment I felt some might find it useful as we reflect on life death and eternity.
It is best read slowly and reflectively. I could have dramatised it with images and background music but instead I am taking a more traditional approach, where I invite the reader to experience their own images
There is a recording that you might find useful to listen to after you have read it yourself.
As the road of my life winds into the sunset,
and darkness grows on the horizon
I gaze into the darkness, closer than ever before
I wonder, wonder, as I have many times before
what lies in the darkness.
I wonder what it will be like, when that moment comes?
Will it be violent, and excruciating pain?
Will it be peaceful, a breath that just ceases to be?
Will it be long and painful, as disease, eats me away?
These are some reflections as I read theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Lawrence Krauss’s book ‘A Universe from Nothing’.
Krauss’s basic thesis seems to be that the laws of physics and particularly of quantum mechanics, show that the universe can have just happened without a Creator God.
If you look at my page on God’s existence (https://aquest-for-truth.net/existence-god/), I find it difficult to see this can be true. Krauss argues that resolving the infinite regress by arguing that an eternal being is necessary for there to be creation is logically fallacious. Consequently, as the infinite regress is unresolvable, then the best way to resolve it is to argue that the universe just happened or a universe from nothing. But of course that begs the point about what is ‘nothing’, which Krauss seems to consider in in terms of ‘dark matter’ and dismisses philosophical questions about the nature of nothing, not based on empirical science, as useless and a waste of time. This might be part of his problem. I will develop this more in later blog.
In the very profound War Movie ‘A Thin Red Line’, the main character, Private Witt, says ‘one person sees a dying bird and sees death; another sees a dying bird and sees glory’. In this reflection on life, nature and war, Witt points to a fundamental paradox of life, that the essence of life is beyond logic.
I always find it disappointing when people who are esteemed for their intellects make crass statements.
On his recent visit to Australia, I saw and heard Lawrence Krauss, Theoretical physicist and cosmologist, interviewed on the ABC 7.30 report and on the panel, at the moment, infamous ABC Q and A show.
On the 7.30 report, interviewer Leigh Sales gave him a seemingly Dorothy Dix question on God, namely