contemplation

If you contemplate the planet there is a wondrousness to it.

Deserts, mountains, oceans, forests, rivers, fields.

It is amazing.

More to the point, our experiene of it is amazing.

The Muslims, Jews and Chrstians would say that it is amazing because God made it.

There is a loveliness synonymous with existence.

The planet is lovely because God is himself a loving creator who made everything out of love.

Everthing he does, is good.

Atheists would say the planet is amazing by chance.

If you look up and contemplate the stars, these too can seem inherently extraordinary to behold.

The sheer vastness in which they shine.

The feeling of awe they inspire.

Of course the universe could be deemed quite small depending on the dispositions of whoever is doing the deeming.

The idea of a vast distance depends on your concept and context for distance and indeed vastness.

Muslims, Jews, and Christians say that the stars are awesomely beautiful in the vast heavens because God made them and he is awesome and beautiful and he creates on an awesomely vast and beautiful scale.

Atheists say the stars and the universe are what they are by chance.

If you come back to the planet and contemplate yourself... oh what a wonder is man. The way we are made. Physicality. Interactions. Experience. Learning. Joy. The indefinable something that we call life. Spirit. Consciousness. Soul.

Muslims, Jews, and Christians say that we have a life, a soul, a spirit, because God made us to be immortal spirits.

Atheists say we are an arbitrary congeries of biochemistry caused by chance.

A really quite extraordinary thing to contemplate is contemplation itself.

Of all the wonders of creation, including planet, stars and creatures, the most astonishing is our very faculty to contemplate, to behold, to consider, to experience, to savour the planet, the stars, the creatures, and ourselves.

I am suggesting that contemplation did not happen by chance.