Do you believe that the earth is flat and does not move, while the stars, sun, moon, and planets circle around it in more or less regularly shaped orbits? If not, why not?

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

1. How “real” are the following items? (Rate them on a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is most real, 1 is least real.)

The person sitting next to you ———
The chair you are sitting in ———
God ———
The planet Uranus ———
Beethoven’s music ———
The headache you had last night ———
Human rights ———
Electrons ———
The woman or man in (not “of”) your dreams ———
Angels ———
The number 7 ———
Water ———
Ice ———
Love ———
Beauty ———
Genes ———
The theory of relativity ———
Einstein’s brain (when he was alive) ———
Einstein’s ideas ———
Your own mind ———
The color red ———
A red sensation (in your own mind) ———
“Unreal numbers” ———
The NFL ———
Your own body ———
Your soul ———

2. Do you believe that the earth is flat and does not move, while the stars, sun, moon, and planets circle around it in more or less regularly shaped orbits? If not, why not? (If so, why?)

3. If a tree falls in the forest when there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Why or why not? If no one ever sees, hears, or touches the tree itself, what sense does it make to say that the tree is “real”?

4. Does the universe itself have a purpose? If so, what is this purpose? If not, is it, as some modern philosophers have argued, just a universe of “matter in motion”—particles and electromagnetic fields acting according to the laws of physics?