No one knows for sure how many species of animals exist on Earth. In fact, some 10,000 species of animals are discovered each year, with over one and a half million species already described. Projections for the total number of species on Earth range from 2 million to 50 million. https://www.factmonster.com/science/animals/estimated-number-animal-and-plant-species-earthDo we think that any two humans, plants, animals, insects see the same world?
Galaxy observations
It's easier to count stars when they are inside galaxies, since that's where they tend to cluster. To even begin to estimate the number of stars, then you would need to estimate the number of galaxies and come up with some sort of an average.
Some estimates peg the Milky Way's star mass as having 100 billion "solar masses," or 100 billion times the mass of the sun. Averaging out the types of stars within our galaxy, this would produce an answer of about 100 billion stars in the galaxy. This is subject to change, however, depending on how many stars are bigger and smaller than our own sun. Also, other estimates say the Milky Way could have 200 billion stars or more.
The number of galaxies is an astonishing number, however, as shown by some imaging experiments performed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Several times over the years, the telescope has pointed a detector at a tiny spot in the sky to count galaxies, performing the work again after the telescope was upgraded by astronauts during the shuttle era.
A 1995 exposure of a small spot in Ursa Major revealed about 3,000 faint galaxies. In 2003-4, using upgraded instruments, scientists looked at a smaller spot in the constellation Fornax and found 10,000 galaxies.
An even more detailed investigation in Fornax in 2012, with even better instruments, showed about 5,500 galaxies. Kornreich used a very rough estimate of 10 trillion galaxies in the universe. Multiplying that by the Milky Way's estimated 100 billion stars results in a large number indeed: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, or a "1" with 24 zeros after it. Kornreich emphasized that number is likely a gross underestimation, as more detailed looks at the universe will show even more galaxies.
https://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.htmlSo the question, Are we alone in the universe? is a tricky question.
“Better worlds, (I suggest), are born and not made, and their birthdays are the birthdays of individuals. Let us pray always for individuals, never for worlds.” (e.e. cummings, in nonlecture 2, from “i: six nonlectures” 1953) ...:We can pray.
Original life situation (Sitz I'm Leben)By the way, you seek the enigmatic oracle Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit in vain in Delphi: it is cut in stone over the door of my house in Kusnacht near Zurich and otherwise found in Erasmus's collection of Adagia (XVIth cent.). [Jung had acquired a copy of the 1563 edition of Erasmus's Collectaneas adagiorum, a compilation of analects from classical authors, when he was 19 years old.] It is a Delphic oracle though. It says: yes, the god will be on the spot, but in what form and to what purpose? I have put the inscription there to remind my patients and myself: Timor dei initium sapiente ["The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."] Here another not less important road begins, not the approach to "Christianity" but to God himself and this seems to be the ultimate question. (1975: 611). http://www.jungnewyork.com/photo_vocatus.shtml
Second Reading
From a homily on the Gospels by Saint Gregory the Great, pope
My Lord and my God
Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. He was the only disciple absent; on his return he heard what had happened but refused to believe it. The Lord came a second time; he offered his side for the disbelieving disciple to touch, held out his hands, and showing the scars of his wounds, healed the wound of his disbelief.
Dearly beloved, what do you see in these events? Do you really believe that it was by chance that this chosen disciple was absent, then came and heard, heard and doubted, doubted and touched, touched and believed? It was not by chance but in God’s providence. In a marvellous way God’s mercy arranged that the disbelieving disciple, in touching the wounds of his master’s body, should heal our wounds of disbelief. The disbelief of Thomas has done more for our faith than the faith of the other disciples. As he touches Christ and is won over to belief, every doubt is cast aside and our faith is strengthened. So the disciple who doubted, then felt Christ’s wounds, becomes a witness to the reality of the resurrection.
Touching Christ, he cried out: My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him: Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed. Paul said: Faith is the guarantee of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. It is clear, then, that faith is the proof of what can not be seen. What is seen gives knowledge, not faith. When Thomas saw and touched, why was he told: You have believed because you have seen me? Because what he saw and what he believed were different things. God cannot be seen by mortal man. Thomas saw a human being, whom he acknowledged to be God, and said: My Lord and my God. Seeing, he believed; looking at one who was true man, he cried out that this was God, the God he could not see.
What follows is reason for great joy: Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. There is here a particular reference to ourselves; we hold in our hearts one we have not seen in the flesh. We are included in these words, but only if we follow up our faith with good works. The true believer practises what he believes. But of those who pay only lip service to faith, Paul has this to say: They profess to know God, but they deny him in their works. Therefore James says: Faith without works is dead.
(--from Office of Readings, feast of Thomas, 3july17)
I don't know what happens when people die
Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It’s like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can’t help listening
(--from song For a Dancer, by Jackson Browne)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU1rZa8Ur_Q
I haven’t said a word since you’ve been gone
That any liar couldn’t say as well
I just can’t believe the static coming on
You were my ground, my safe and sound
You were my aerial
(--from song, Treaty, by Leonard Cohen) http://cohencentric.com/official-lyrics-leonard-cohens-want-darker-album/
I was never looking for a new religion. I was perfectly satisfied with my old religion."
Other times, the Zen life wasn't enough. "I was sitting in the meditation hall one afternoon," said Cohen, "and I thought, 'This sucks. This whole scene sucks.' And I moved from that into cataloging the various negative feelings I had for the mother of my children. I found myself descending into a bonfire of hatred, you know – that bitch, what she'd done to me, what she left me with, how she wrecked the whole fucking scene. I was in there, I was in my robes, and the furthest thing from my mind was spiritual advancement. The furthest. I mean, I was consumed with rage."
That day, Cohen's rage gave way to a moment of unexpected grace, a kind of temporary epiphany. "There was sunlight on the floor of the cabin, where we were waiting to go see Roshi," he said. "There were leaves outside and the shadow of these leaves was on the floor. The wind moved, something moved, and I disappeared into this movement.
. . . The whole scene blew up. A dog started barking, and I was barking. And everything that arose was the content of my being. Everything that moved was me. . . . In certain blessed moments, we experience ourselves as the reality that is manifesting as everything. There's no 'I am one with the universe,' which is the cheapest mystical slogan." Cohen paused. "There is that moment," he continued, "and it decides that life is worth living. I was barking with the dog, but there really was no dog."
(-from, Leonard Cohen: Remembering the Life and Legacy of the Poet of Brokenness, Rolling Stone, 30Nov2016) http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/leonard-cohen-life-and-legacy-of-the-poet-of-brokenness-w452790
If the stars were all unpinned
And a cold and bitter wind
Swallowed up the world
Without a trace
Well that’s where I would be
What my life would seem to me
If I couldn’t lift the veil
And see your face
(--from song, If I Didn’t Have Your Love, by Leonard Cohen) http://cohencentric.com/official-lyrics-leonard-cohens-want-darker-album/
At first glance, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face then later tells Him he can’t see His face and live. Yet, the first verse states that he saw God’s face then continued to live. The confusion comes not from God’s face, but from our assumption of the word live.
In Hebrew, this word translated live in english is “Chayay.” In biblical Hebrew this word is taken from the Chai which means “life.” From other examples throughout Scripture, chayay is sometimes used, not to describe mortality or physical survival, but to be revived, strengthened internally into a full life or even to save a life. In other words, God was not saying that if Moses saw His face he would physically die. So what was He saying?
The Lord desires that we get our strength from Him. This was the clear message in the desert when He told Israel that “man does not live [chayah] by bread alone, but man lives [chayah] by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD (Deut 8:3). Here again, this was not referring to physical life, but instead it is about being revived or strengthened. Man isn’t revived or strengthened by bread alone, but he is revived and strengthened by God’s word. This is why Jesus quoted this verse to Satan during His 40 day fast. Jesus’ temptation wasn’t about eating physical food, but it was about being distracted by physical things for your strength rather than being “fed” from God. That is a temptation that we all are faced with, whether fasting or not.
This is what God is communicating here in Exodus. No one can see His face and continue to be revived and strengthened by natural means. No one can look directly at the Creator of Genesis 1 and simply call it a nice experience. Looking into the face of God can change us in such dramatic ways that our previous life is destroyed. But isn’t that what we want; to be dramatically changed?
(--from, No Man Can See My Face and Live, Hebrew Word Studies, Teachings / BY DOUG HERSHEY http://firm.org.il/learn/no-man-can-see-face-live/
Only love can break a heart
Only love can mend it again
(--from song by Gene Pitney) https://play.google.com/music/preview/Txzwcuylhvzbxqhdam5vnjjiozy?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics