We are infinitesimally small.
Our brains aren't big enough to answer the question.
Eggs for breakfast, food and water for the dog, and $5.50 for a gallon of gas were all small enough for our primitive minds to handle.
The news of something we can't fully comprehend provoked the biggest questions.
What are we?
We're not where we're supposed to be.
"Are we ourselves?"
There is a God.
One of the first images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, which is about a million miles above Earth, was unveiled by President Joe Biden at the White House.
The Wall Street Journal said it was a picture of some of the oldest and most distant structures ever observed.
The New York Times described the picture as a patch of sky. There is one that can be seen from the southern hemisphere.
The patch of sky was amazing.
Astronomers use a kind of Cosmic Telescope to look at a huge cluster of galaxies four billion light years away. The light from the galaxies behind the cluster is magnified by the cluster's gravitation field.
It is possible to see distant galaxies that stretch back to the beginning of time. It's a machine that finds planets.
The machine-makers are researchers from the University of Arizona, who developed the NearInfrared Camera instrument. It is designed to look through clouds of hydrogen and dust that would normally obscure the stars.
The NIRCAM's focal plane is similar to a digital camera's image sensor, according to the primer.
The past can be seen.
President Biden said that this is the oldest documented light in the history of the universe.
A billion is a number so large that it's hard to remember. Context is needed to understand light that has traveled 13 billion light years.
The light is moving at a speed of 670.6 million miles per hour. According to Space.com, a beam of light can travel 6 trillion miles.
You could travel around the planet 7.5 times at that speed.
Science created light years to measure the distances of space. Carl Sagan said that our planet was a lonely speck in the Cosmic dark. There is no hint of help coming from somewhere else to save us from ourselves.
He seemed to move away from God or the idea of an all-powerful creator when he was closer to the stars. He suggested that people who believe in God may not have imagined large enough. It points to something bigger and more awe-inspiring.
It's possible that he thought that. There are a lot of numbers.
The Milky Way contains 100 to 400 billion stars, according to NASA.
It is too large to comprehend, but it is smaller than a grain of sand in the larger universe.
It is one of the neighboring galaxies. It is light years away. It's more than twice the size of our own.
Do you believe in the number of galaxies?
NASA has an estimate of 2 trillion. Ask yourself if you can wrap your brain around that.
There are a lot of planets in the universe.
The estimated number of quintillions is said to be 700 by astrophysicists in Discover Magazine. 7 followed by 20 zeroes is a number of one million,000,000,000,000,000.
The observable universe is 93 billion light years in length.
A clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars can move a city dweller even if they are not used to it. It takes my breath away when it occurs to me.
A decade or so ago, a new tack was begun by organized atheists. They accused religious people of believing fairytales after being insulted by a Christian majority.
The group American Atheists started running advertisements on billboards and buses.
Is there anyone who needs Christ? No one. The holidays are a happy time.
There are millions of people who are good.
Go ahead and not attend church. Goodness's sake, just be good for it.
They wanted facts and evidence over faith and ritual. They think religionists are people who believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Lawrence M Krauss, director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, wrote a piece in the New Yorker in 2015.
He wrote that there isn't a relationship between science and religion. Belief in God isn't relevant to our understanding of nature. Humans have been liberated from the shackles of enforcedIgnorance for the past 500 years. We should celebrate this with gusto, no matter who it offends.
My dad would have felt the same way. He was an old cynic who was unafraid to point out contradictions in religious beliefs. He would disagree with the observation that science draws people away from religion.
My father was drawn to religion by science. He read x-rays for a living. He believed in the scientific method, but also that there are things in nature that can't be done by accident.
The shelves in his office were covered in books and journals. He reads about 100 pages every night to stay up to date.
He told me years ago that he believes in the existence of a supreme being if he reads more about the human body. Man's design is very well designed.
Billions of people who have walked this earth have been given an intimation of a creator. The world over, cultures have built societies around these beliefs. The Judeo- Christian values that inform the West have given way to the commons of government and law. Faith still informs our laws.
The human impulse to create God is a way for people to cope with mortality. It might be possible. It might be evidence of something more significant.
Science is a great source of spirituality. The feeling of humility and elation combined, is surely spiritual, when we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages.
Is that God's face in the universe?
The question won't be answered by the space telescope. It shows that the man of science and the man of faith are both travelers in a universe that is too small for them to see. They are not seeing anything.
Both of them can't see what's beyond the shore. They have no idea.
Imagine the wonders that can't be seen right now.
It's a feast that offers to such a curious species.
Phil is an editorial columnist. Please email him at philboas@arizonarepublic.com.
The article was originally published on the Arizona Republic.
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