Preparing for the Miraculous

eing human and the copernican principle 129in denigrating all values and targeting especially humanityfor degradation. To quote one example among innumerableones: the biologist Lynn Margulis writes about “the tenaciousillusion of special dispensation” which humanity imaginesit possesses, but which “belies its true status as uprightmammalian weeds.” “Earth is going to die ... the Sunis going to die ... the Universe is going to die ...” is in ourcontemporary science literature an often repeated litany ofperdition. That this is going to happen in billions of years,while the very first life-forms on Earth are thought to haveappeared 3.8 billion years ago, and Homo sapiens only 2 millionyears ago, is not taken into account. Such pronouncementsdo indeed substantiate the truth of the Mother’s saying:“Materialism is the gospel of death.” What is the funa certain breed of scientists may find in divulging a convictionmeant to belittle and to hurt, while they should beaware that Science is a matter of process which has no roomfor metaphysical conclusions?The New Scientist of 20 December 2008 examined thequestion: “Who did most to knock man off his pedestal?”Was it the tandem Copernicus-Galileo who removed usfrom the centre of the universe? Or was it the tandem Linnaeus-Darwinwho put an end to the illusion that humansare created in the image of God and placed them amongthe animals? But then there is also the question: what is ahuman being, and what kind of human being is Sciencetalking about?The Copernican theoryCopernicus’ world and reasoning were much morecomplex and varied than generally assumed. He was afterall a man of the Renaissance trying to make sense of the oldand new cultural influences crisscrossing through his time.For the central position of the Sun, for instance, he arguedin the following way: “In the middle of everything stands