Some of the thoughts presented here were first expressed in a blog entitled The Thinking Post, which was based on the premise that people across our planet at all levels and in all disciplines, cultures, and belief systems need large picture thinking from time to time.

Large picture thinking is an attempt to look at life and the world around us through the eyes of someone from another planet, or through the eyes of the Creator. In recent years, I have learned at my place of work that, to evaluate any situation objectively, it is very helpful to project oneself outside the situation, or outside the environment that the situation is in. Hence, to evaluate issues with planet-wide implications such as politics, globalization, religion, divine revelation, torture, etc., it is best to project myself outside the planet and try to see things through the eyes of an astronaut from space, a reporter from another planet, or through the eyes of the Creator. That is what I have attempted to do here in taking a critical look at life and the world around us from the outside. Large picture thinking is an attempt to see things in the context of the large picture of human history and human understanding.

Here are a few large picture perspectives: there are billions of solar systems akin to ours; there may be millions if not billions of planets akin to ours; there are 6,910 different documented languages on our planet; you and I share a spaceship with 6 billion+ other humans, traveling through space at the high speed of 67,000 miles or 107,826 kilometers per hour, day in day out; there are billions of microscopic creatures co-existing within and without each of us in a parallel universe – on our skin, in our bowels, in our carpets, and on our sheets; and there are over 50,000 different religious belief systems on our planet. Few of us are used to dealing with such perspectives.

What I present in the following short essays is one person’s understanding- mine and mine alone (my wife does not share the ideas that appear here) - with all the limitations and proneness to error of one fallible mind with its limited understanding of the depth and breadth of human knowledge. That is why comments, expansions, adjustments, counterpoints, rebuttals, etc., etc., to the ideas presented are very welcome at the email: ajmeagher.aol.com.