All men, Pasteur said, prostrate themselves at the feet of infinity. Because infinity is the one inescapable thing. Therefore, the religious, the irreligious, the atheist, the science-worshipper, all see infinity and can do nothing but kneel before it.

“He who proclaims the existence of the infinite – and none can avoid it – accumulates in that affirmation more of the supernatural that is to be found in all the miracles of the religions; for the notion of the Infinite presents that double character that it forces itself upon us and yet is incomprehensible.” ~ Louis Pasteur.

The atheist, every one of them (though they attempt to deny it,) admits both the infinite and the supernatural or the miraculous. (The one miracle they insist on today is the Big Bang, which has every signature, by their nomenclature, of “magic” or the supernatural.) But every day, the miraculous, the “spooky,” and the inexplicable discoveries multiply in “science.” And they stack their miracles, one upon another, while pretending otherwise.

The point is, and there doesn’t need to be one, but still… the point is that we all observe both the infinite and the miraculous every day. A thing is no less miraculous just because we can produce a seemingly reasonable theory to explain it. Just because the science-worshipper dismisses the miraculous as a simple process of evolution and time, doesn’t make the fact that food and all the riches that exist come from the ground, any less miraculous. Miraculously, a peach tree produces peaches, it might just as easily produce doorknobs. And if a peach tree did produce doorknobs, we would call it a doorknob tree and go on with our days unimpressed once the fact of the miracle becomes mundane. That depraved men (depraved in their nature and desires – self-seeking and short-sighted) somehow have produced civilization, and by that civilization they have fed, clothed, and housed billions and sheltered beneath the shade of legal structures the weak, ignorant, and foolish sons and daughters of mankind, is miraculous. It is a notable miracle that while barbarism, atheism, and communism all must balance their theory of everything on that first miracle (everything unprovably coming from the explosion of nothing far back in the impenetrable ether of infinity) they have been incapable of proving that they can produce a civilization that isn’t predicated on mass-murder and the annihilation of the weak. That there is not enough time, as we describe it, to produce the “everything” that exists, is no hindrance to these particular miracle-worshippers. It is, they declare, just because we haven’t used science to look far enough back, yet. It is a stew of improbability and supposition, but all of the science-worshipper’s theories rely on it.

But that is all preface. My point is that everything is a miracle if you can see it. You are worshipping something supernatural, one way or another – either the miracle of pseudo-science trying to explain away the supernatural while balancing on the head of the pin of the Big Bang miracle, or if you are someone that believes that the miraculous and supernatural both proceed from the intelligence and personhood of God, you are still kneeling at the feet of Deity. But can you see it? One explanation is made up to enable blind men to whistle through the graveyard, the other is explained by the Bible alone. Both admit the miraculous.

A sense of wonder at the mundane miracles around us – that is to say, that everything is a miracle, and that we are alive to see it, multiplies the miraculous – this wonder opens up our eyes to see even more of it. The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics involved some physicist admitting that “quantum entanglement” means that… ok, let me break this down in simple terms… say you have two particles (we’ll say they are photons) that are “entangled”. An aspect of one photon will depend on the same aspect of the other. So, if one is, say… rotating a certain way, the other one will too. Even if they are on opposite sides of the universe. Instantly. It’s called “Spooky Action at A Distance.” That’s what Einstein called it…. Spooky. Pretty scientific, eh? Two photons communicating and acting identically, immediately, across distance (no information needs to have “time” to “travel” between them) isn’t supernatural? But turning water into wine is just a crazy religious myth? Whatever, dude.

So, take the time to see the miraculous in the mundane. We’re all miraculous, meaty bags of particles. There’s no way we should exist. There is no way civilization should proceed from the depravity of humanity. Did you eat today? Miracle. Did you see a tree, a tulip, a table? Miracle. Did your voice, produced by the vibration of muscles in your stupid neck, form sounds that traveled through space and time to communicate some invisible feeling of love or passion or sensibility or pain or need to another bag of meaty particles whose ear hairs captured the sound and transmitted it to the brain to be translated? MIRACLE.

Recognize the miraculous in everyday reality, and then seek the First Cause. It’s a worthwhile exercise. This was a public service announcement.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.