So, I'm an atheist through and through. I've tried at various times in my life to entertain the notion of a god or some other sort of aesthetic or conscious order to the universe, but it's never really stuck. I've recently decided to abandon all that and just go with the thing that's always felt true to me - my own consciousness is just the result of evolution, which is the result of all the forces of the universe being exerted consistently over time. I don't have a soul and there is no afterlife. There are answers to the questions of where the universe came from and stuff like that, but it makes sense that we don't and can't know the answer. Filling that void with some made up stuff that sounds nice doesn't do it for me.
But this brings me to the interesting part. But: there is one thing that blows my mind, and it is enough to make me doubt this entire whole world view. Why is it that when there is a total eclipse of the sun, that the moon and the sun appear in the sky to be the exact same size? I mean, there are many other incredible things about the way the universe is constructed, but the incredible thing about them is usually that life itself could not exist without them. (Example: that unlike nearly every substance, solid water [a.k.a. ice] is less dense than liquid water, and thus the top of a lake freezes and not the bottom). These things can be (somewhat paradoxically, but successfully) explained with the reasoning that if things were not that way, we would not be here to ask the question. This, however, is not an answer to the sun/moon question. If they did not match up, life would be here just the same. Could it be a coincidence? I'm just not comfortable writing off the significance of this beautiful and profound fact with the word 'coincidence'.
As Sherlock Holmes says, when one explanation has been eliminated, whatever else remains, no matter how improbable, must be the solution. So, as improbable as it sounds, I suppose there must be some sort of aesthetic order to the universe after all.
Credit to Webb Mealy for the sun/moon insight.
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Hmmm... I think there are just too many other phenomena that don't match that aesthetic standard. Stars don't appear to be the same size as planets, planets don't appear to be the same size as the moon, etc.
Plus, the apparent size of each body changes throughout orbit, changing the effect of an eclipse when the moon appears larger than the sun and vice versa. I agree it's neat how closely matched the bodies appear to be from Earth, but I don't think it's anything other than chance. If a system is truly random, you should expect some elements to match without reason.
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