If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

The thing that deflated my conceits are the Hubble photos of the Ultra Deep Field.

In that one image, which is just a teeny tiny portion of the night sky, are countless galaxies extending off to the visible horizon. Each galaxy contains “billions and billions” of stars. And each may have untold numbers of planets. And each planet may have untold numbers of potential life-supporting ecosystems.

All of this in a segment of the sky this big:

Go outside tonight, take a ball-point pen with you, and hold it up in front of the night sky at arm’s length. The tip of your pen is about 1 millimeter wide, and at arm’s length, it would cover the 10,000 galaxies seen in the Ultra Deep Field image. That’s how unbelievably massive the visible universe is.

If you actually try to ponder this, you become completely awestruck.

And even if you then come to the conclusion that homo sapiens are not the center of the Universe, this need not necessarily undermine one’s belief in God; in fact, it may only increase your amazement at what he/she/it created.