THE MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 634, 24 August 1951, Page 5

THE MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE

Sir,-Listening to the BBC talks on the nature of the universe as postulated by Fred Hoyle and some others, one is not at all convinced that there is any more in these assumptions than in any other "Anti-God" evolutionary theory. In fact, they are as empty of confirmation as "the holes in the Milky Way" referréd to. Mr. Hoyle’s conclusion that "human intelligencés are powerful enough to penetrate deeply into the evolution of this quite incredible universe," combined With hig admission that "we still have not the slightest clue to our own fate," seems meaningless to me. My belief is that the signal failure by the evolutionary school of thought in producing any documented evidence supporting the "monkey origin" of God’s highest creation, man, has turned their attention to the mighty universe as a field that would lend itself to the imaginations of man in his denial of the simple yet profound pronouhcemeént found in Génesis. There is ho hypothesis in this majestic pronouncement, appealing at once to the astronomer, scientist, poet, preacher and. humble peasant as the revealed word of the Creator himself. No more fitting conclusion can be found than in the words of the Psalmist: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handywork."

A.

STENBERG

(Palmerston North).

Sir.-Man’s conceit never fails to impress me; it is so boundless and won-derful-and wholly ludicrous. He is the magician par excellence, only he believes that his creations are actual realities. With each new advance in physical knowledge he proceeds to wrap round himself another fold of the garment of illusion. He not only declares the existence of a creator but even describes its very essence and attributes: It is something either personal or impersonal, according to religious disposition or philosophic bent; his conceit demands that it be one or the other.

Even Bernard Shaw, whose thought was more objective than ‘that of any man of his time, postulated a Life Force to give meaning to his own existence. He was thus no less gullible than the average man whose religious beliefs he despised and attacked. But in the race for other-world conceptions the clod ahd the intellectual must always remain equal because there can never be an occupant in the judge’s box. Man will not face up to the cold fact that his subjective worlds are firmly based on physical knowledge which in turn, in the last analysis, is grounded in sensation. Of the nature of the external world he can nevet have the slightest inkling. Outside and beyond the affairs of man his subjective theories have no correspondence, relevancy or meaning. Mercifully, man goes ints oblivion full of thé corncéits, illusions and delusions that vex and corisole and fortify him during this transient life;

GORDON R.

BEYNON

(Auckland).

Sir-‘"Ex Nihil" accuses you of a materialistic. bias in a letter from him which discloses beyond measure a bias in the opposite direction. How can the dreams of a thinker beyond the days of science compare with the facts disclosed by the photographic plate from the modern telescope? In the days of Thomas Aquinas, whom he mentions, the thinkers of his quality were burning to death other thinkers of a slightly

different kind. Surely a little reason (rationalism, if you like) is better than such unreason, admired by "Ex Nihil."

J. G.

HADDOW

(Auckland).