We look up and wonder

You asked:

Even if we could ... so what? Who really cares?

This is a great question that gets right to the heart of living. There is something in the nature of a human being that when confronted with a mystery wants to solve it. I believe it is the same part of my nature or closely connected to the part of my nature that wants to win. Why do I think that - because we like to win at solving crossword puzzles, or who-dunnit theatre plays or TV shows. If our neighbour solves them before us we feel inferior to them. Like when I lose at chess, I feel that this other person is better at thinking than me. Maybe it is just me but it seems quite common.

If you don't believe me try losing at everything you do, it ends up being unsatisfactory. Winning is a fundamental basic of life on Earth: ie. get one up on your fellow being, get some advantage, do better than your peers, survive to breed, solve a mystery. The desire to succeed, to win, is strong. In some ways it's the opposite of the desire to run away scared, which is also a big driver in our lives.

So in summary I associate solving mysteries with winning and the avoidance of solving mysteries with some kind of fear.

Christianity takes away the need to solve many mysteries, such as Why does the Universe exist? -- but introduces many others. I was having a conversation with my bosses wife the other night, she is a Christian and wanted to know what I thought about God allowing a 17 year old friend of her daughters to be raped and killed. What does one say to that?? The ultimate answer is "it's a mystery" isn't it? She could not accept this, she preferred to take the route that God is limited in some fashion and does not have ultimate control over what is going on. This is the only way she could keep loving God, her God could not have allowed this to happen, therefore he must have been unable to stop it.

Inherent in Christianity is a mystery that I believe we are fundamentally unable to solve, so by my previous rationale this in turn goes against our very natures, goes against the desire to win, and therefore plays on some fear within us.

I think this is the biggest reason people turn away from Christ, this tension.

You also wrote:

They find comfort in there being "no one truth."

I don't know anybody in this camp, almost everyone I have spoken to has strongly resisted the idea of "Truth is Relative" and say how ridiculous the notion is. The time of the idea has yet to come, if at all.

Question: If our world had constant cloud cover and we had never seen the stars, do you think that we would have reached for the sky, or be asking these questions about how the universe works?

You asked:

What the heck is "vacua" -- plural for vacuum?

Sure is !

You never answered my "What kind of beans?" question.

Ooops my apologies, the typical Heinz baked beans tin with a #57 on it! I'm a basic lad.