God and Yuri Gagarin

Yuri Gagarin (1934 – March 27, 1968)

(wikimedia)

During the Cold War Soviets shocked Americans when on April 12, 1961 Yuri Gagarin completed an orbit of the Earth in his Vostok spacecraft spending 1 hour, 48 minutes on the trip. All Soviet people were filled with pride about Yuri Gagarin. He became the subject of massive state propaganda how the conquest of space demonstrated the scientific and technological superiority of the Soviet superpower.

Atheism class in Soviet Union
I do not know if the following story is true but it surely makes the point: 

Somewhere in the huge USSR a regular atheism class was on way. Scientific materialistic atheism was an obligatory subject in the Soviet school system as it was (and is) also in other Communist countries.

The teacher was telling the children about the hero Yuri Gagarin and said  "Now we know it for sure that there is no such thing as a god up there". For it was officially told by the state propaganda machinery that Gagarin told that he was looking and looking but could not see any God up there in the space.

At that point a little girl lifted her hand and asked a question: "Did Yuri Gagarin have a pure heart?"

The teacher was taken back: "What do you mean?"

The girl continued: "Bible says that those with pure heart will see God."

----------------------------
And the Bible indeed says so:  

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
Jesus, Sermon on the Mountain
Matthew 5:8



Disputed

"I looked and looked but I didn't see God."
As quoted in To Rise from Earth (1996) by Wayne Lee;

some websites quote him as saying "I looked and looked and looked but I didn't see God." on 14 April 1961, a couple days after his historic flight, but the authenticity of such statements have been disputed;

Colonel Valentin Petrov stated in 2006 that the cosmonaut never said such words, and that the quote originated from Nikita Khrushchev's speech at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU about the state's anti-religion campaign, saying "Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any god there."

Gagarin himself was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Variant: "No I didn't see God. I looked and looked but I didn't see God."
As quoted in What's Missing Inside You? (2006) by Paul Schlieker, p. 17.
Wikiquote



Not disputed!

Moscow from International Space Station April 12, 2012

ISS  image APOD

Облетев Землю в корабле-спутнике, я увидел, как прекрасна наша планета. Люди, будем хранить и приумножать эту красоту, а не разрушать её!

Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it! 
Yuri Gagarin

Russian phrase, handwritten and signed after his historic spaceflight, photo of facsimile published in Syny goluboi planety 3rd.edition (1981) by L. Lebedev, A. Romanov, and B/ Luk'ianov; the first edition was translated into English as Sons of the Blue Planet (1973) by L. A. Lebedev
Wikiquote


Death of Yuri Gagarin

 

The legendary Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 UTI

Wikipedia

"On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, he and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died in a MiG-15UTI crash near the town of Kirzhach.

The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and the ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square.

Gagarin was survived by his wife Valentina, and daughters Elena and Galina. Elena Gagarina, Yuri's oldest daughter, is an art historian who works as a director-general of the Moscow Kremlin Museums since 2001. His youngest daughter, Galina, is a department chair at Plekhanov Russian Economic University in Moscow."
Quoted from Wikipedia

Pillars of Creation and religious experience

Pillars of Creation

Hubble image NASA

This famous photo taken of a region in the Eagle Nebula where stars are born has awed humanity ever since it was taken by the Hubble telescope on April 1, 1995.

The human species is religious whether we want it or not. Religious behaviour is not a late social addition to our psychology and society within the evolving hierarchical power systems as Marxist philosophers have claimed. For archaeology clearly demonstrates that early man was a tool maker, homo habilis. Archaeology also shows that discoveries of early homo sapiens sapiens, possibly also homo sapiens neandethalensis,  demonstrate religious characteristics not even our closest relatives show.  Humanity is homo religiousis as clearly demonstrated by the Palaeolithic caves in Lascaux, France, or by the ceremonial burials with red ochre (blood) found in the Near East.

Atheism
Atheists define themselves as non-religious people and deny the claim presented above that religion is were integral part of humanity. Rather, fighting atheists think that religion is a negative learned attribute in the society occupied with paranormal phenomena and false views of the physical reality and something that should be washed away from our civilization.

As a human being an atheist also realizes the enormity of the Pillars of Creation and may be bothered by it. The image - and the reality it depicts - touches the religious wires in our being whether we want it or not.

So in order to reject this annoying feeling approaching religious some atheists spend quite a lot of energy to mock feelings created by such images and to emphasize their scientific explanations and facts on ground that belong to the scientific world view they so value above all.

Sunset at sea

(Wallpapers www.freeoboi.ru)

Ocean
In a discussion with some atheists I made the statement that the space is full of majestic music that tells about the greatness of the God of Israel (for He is the only true God).

Someone commented that he can not hear any majestic music from the space, only empty tinkering and ticking sounds and meaningless humming of radio waves.

Well, I think this person does not feel the awe of Creation when looking at the open ocean when sun sets in the horizon and the waves roll.

So it is not so much the reality out there, the Pillars of Creation or the turquoise sea, but what is in the eyes and heart of the observer.

<
Monotheism
For believers in the three great monotheistic religions deeply rooted to the Torah - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - the Pillars of Creation proclaim the glory of God.

 The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their utterances to the end of the world.
In them He has placed a tent for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber;
It rejoices as a strong man to run his course.
Its rising is from one end of the heavens,
And its circuit to the other end of them;
And there is nothing hidden from its heat.  
Psalm 19:2-6 NSAB