Illogical

It's discouraging to read this article and see how many parents are starting to avoid vaccinations for their kids, due to the anti-vaccine hysteria some people have managed to create.  What's even scarier is that many of those surveyed don't seem to realize that failing to vaccinate their kids puts their children and their communities at risk for some dangerous diseases.

Did Jesus die for Klingons?

There's an article here about the issues Christianity faces if there are really other species out there. "If the whole of creation includes 125 billion galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in each, as astronomers think, then what if some of these stars have planets with advanced civilizations, too? Why would Jesus Christ have come to Earth, of all the inhabited planets in the universe, to save Earthlings and abandon the rest of God's creatures?"

Frankly, anyone who's never thought about this before now wasn't really thinking.  As a great philosopher (okay, it was Douglas Adams) once observed, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

We're not even a pebble in the vastness of space.  Thinking that we're so important that god loves us all personally, wants to redeem every one of us, and listens to every thought we have, seems just a bit on the egotistical side.