The End of Belief and Our Habitually Closed System of Thinking

We live on an amazing speck of rock about four and a half billion years old in a vast universe about ten billion years older. Despite or because of some amazing chance events and near catastrophes, it has taken most of that time for us to emerge as an extraordinary species.

Extraordinary, particularly because we seem to have the potential of being conscious.

While some of our nearest cousins can recognize themselves in the mirror, we seemed to have hit the fast track a mere 7 million years ago. Now, here we are reading magazine articles and wondering who we are and what this strange phenomenon called “life” is that we find ourselves a part of.

The brilliance of our species is evident everywhere — in science, in the arts, in its ability to live together in huge colonies, to cooperate on amazing projects, and so on — presumably related to our relatively large brain.

We also seem to have some attributes that jeopardize the very survival of this rare planetary home.

It is precisely because of the nature of this planet that we are like we are. We are literally its offspring. And yet, paradoxically, we threaten the world that gave birth to us.