I get annoyed when people suggest anything about the natural world proves God exists, because the whole point of faith is not to need proof, but I do sometimes think of eclipses as a cheeky wink from the Almighty

April 10, 2026 - 19:04 UTC

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To be your annoying atheist for a moment, I find myself thinking if, for example, eclipses have the effect of promoting the conditions for intelligent life. Being able to go straight from "that's amazing" to "what a neat thing God did" can be limiting.
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People will post sunset photos and be all “look at God’s gift!”

I’m all “it’s just sunlight refracting off air molecules in the atmosphere more because it passes through at a shallower angle and hits more during sunset.”

Yes, I am fun at parties.
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Wym that IS fun, I love hearing about that stuff 😂
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Intelligent Design weirdos: eVeRYtHiNg iS bY dEsIGn!
Bats: our wings are the same as your hands, but with big long spindly fingers and leather attaching them together. Coulda been something better, this is what I came up with.
Humans: we still have an appendix and wisdom teeth for some reason!
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I've travelled to totality and I will say it is uniquely surreal. It really feels like you've entered a different place because the lighting is all wrong. If there was one experience that ever felt like a glimpse at *something* divine, I would vote on that for sure.
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But think of all the cool things that do NOT happen here but somewhere else. It's the same case of coincidences, for example dreaming about somebody and later meeting them. You just won't remember all the times you dreamt somebody and didn't meet them. We only pay attention to exceptional cases,
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and gleefully ignore the common ones, the ones that aren't of notable exception. Humanity works like journalism. You'll see the news of that horrible car accident the other day, but you'll never read about all the days without car accidents.
Or when a terminal cancer patient "miraculously" heals
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I love the idea that yes the universe is totally random, and I am happy in my atheism, but I would laugh long and hard if it turned out that *this* particular thing was God’s Easter Egg. I have been wondering about this coincidence since my teens. I accept the randomness, but I’m not satisfied by it
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Certainly, if a divine being were going to give us some weird clue as to our significance, this is a pretty darn good one. But what does it mean? Let’s have a war to find out!
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Ironically a total solar eclipse actually stopped a war back in Ancient Greece, IIRC.
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See comment 'not surprising we have big moon because planet without big moon might have unstable access making anything more complex than algae unlikely'
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*axis
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