For much of documented history humanity gazed upon the stars and asserted that the entirety of existence held earth at its center. Religious dogma at the time insisted upon such a viewpoint.

As human beings came to understand the massiveness and arrangement of the universe the egotistical stance that held earth as the center could no longer stand. Despite the resistance of the clergy it was eventually decided that the earth must be demoted from the center, from its unique position, to mere mundaneness.

Did this demotion find human ego deflated? Of course not. There were, after all, many other ways to express an enormous ego. God, it seemed, did not die with the understanding that earth was not so unique. Life had not yet been found to exist elsewhere and has not yet been found to this day.

People who live their lives with such confidence believing some omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being holds them in such importance that it will alter the schedule of events for them alone exhibit egos unbounded and vast. They fail to notice that such beliefs are a contradiction. To be omniscient their god would depend on a future predetermined and unchanging while omnipotence would allow unrestrained ability. Such a being is impossible.

Even now, in this millennium, religion still exists and resists the knowledge which science delivers. Education, they demand, should be controlled and directed in such fashion as would permit the continued existence of outdated, ancient, and archaic beliefs. Science, it was determined, was a threat to the maintenance of humankind’s enormous conceit.

Even those in scientific circles now seem determined to promote a position of importance for those who stand around possessing a conscious mind and a seeing eye. The observer not only exists, it is conjectured, but the fabric of existence itself is affected by the observer’s gaze.

At this point I cannot help but to reflect upon some past thoughts of my own. I often considered my own existence and in my immaturity felt that should I cease to have consciousness the whole of existence would fade and embrace oblivion. I see this conjecture that the observer has some influence upon existence as an expression of bloated human ego. I see it as immature and self aggrandizing. This concept that an observer is not only inevitable but necessary to reality’s existence is no different than my youth’s thought that the universe would vanish with my passing. Reality, I posit, would do just fine without someone looking.

I must admit, however, humanity is simply being consistent in its arrogance.