ON THE MEANING OF LIFE
CONCLUSION
“In my journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the breath of his body.”
- Charles Darwin, Autobiography
These essays have been a search for the any “more in man”, and a search for any more in life – meaning beyond the personal, purpose beyond the animal – even for a “G” God beyond the “g” god of religion. In other words for any “T” Truths in life beyond our relative “t” truths.
The first two essays examined humanity’s main belief systems – our “H” Houses of God and of Disbelief – and the third essay asked us to venture outside of those comforting Houses to explore for the meaning of life along the undulating “Road to Truth”. To summarise the findings of the essays briefly for this conclusion:-
AN EXAMINATION OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
This essay found the Christian House of God to be a shelter for the
fearful – not a home for Truth. A place where seeking truth, “eating from the
Tree of Knowledge”, is even seen as a sin – in fact our “original sin”. As a
result the House of God has actually enshrined ignorance and become thereby an
ally to meaninglessness – its incredible models for life’s special meaning (salvation)
and ultimate purpose (eternal reward or punishment) turning people away from
the idea of life having any meaning or purpose at all. Just as its pathetic, human,
male “g” god turns people away from the possibility of any “G” God.
This House’s god is male; brutal; ethnic cleansing; slavery approving; sexist;
parochial (having one chosen people); needy (for worship); jealous (of other
gods); and vain (in need of praise). In sum, a lesser man-god of our
pre-scientific, semi-nomadic tribal ancestors made in their own image.
The foundation stone of the Christian House of God is the Bible. Claimed
to be the work of God – directly and/or by inspiration – the Bible is full of contradictions
and errors:- erroneous creation mythology; incorrect cosmology; false and politicised
history; contradicting Gospels; zealous and doctrinaire letters; and the dyspeptic
ravings of misogynistic prophets (Revelations in the New Testament being the latest
and most psychotic example). In all, blatantly the work of
man, not God.
In the Bible is also the story of a remarkable person called Jesus who brought us “T” Truths – whether he was virgin-born, a miracle-worker, Father Son and Holy Ghost, or not. However, the light of his simple Truths – love, forgiveness, and doing unto others – became hidden under a bushel of theology as the Jesus movement was built into a “H” House. Jesus’ words were constantly embellished with Old Testament references by the Gospel writers in an effort to give him scriptural authority in Jewish eyes. Ironically they located him within the ancient understandings that he tried to lead his people away from: “You have heard it said an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you turn the other cheek”. As well as contradicting the scriptures Jesus turned over the money-changers tables; constantly challenged his religion’s officers; worked on the Sabbath; defied religious law to protect the adulteress; dwelt with the outcasts and the unclean. He was a rebel, a radical and, dangerously, drew larger crowds than the high priests. He threatened the power of religion and it was religion that killed him – not “the Jews” or the Romans.
Jesus’ teachings of love and forgiveness were forged into a religion after
his execution – a religion which came in time to kill millions. How did this
happen? In the building of the “Christian” House of God, doctrine and dogma
became an industry –
As we stand now, the House of God has been reduced mainly to a rump of evangelical and/or fundamentalist ratbags. But there are some encouraging signs of returning to Jesus (Bishop Spong, Francis McNab, the Jesus Seminar). Unfortunately, many who throw out the bathwater that is religion, tend to throw out the baby of Jesus’ Truths.
AN EXAMINATION OF THE HOUSE OF DISBELIEF
This essay examined atheism and found that disbelief has also become an
‘H’ House, with doctrines, dogmas, saints, zealots and its own bible (The
Origin of Species). This essay examined the main pillars supporting the House (the
question of evil; the immensity of the universe; the Holocaust; the fact of evolution;
the death of children; the multiverse; the question:
“who made God?”; that bad things happen to good people) and found them to be
unsuitable foundations for a sound House.
Disbelief is not a search for Truth but a desire for there to be no “T” Truth.
Disbelief finds justification for its non-belief in Truth in theism’s flawed
“t” truths: – there is no “G” God because the House of God’s stone-age “g” god doesn’t
exist; there is no special meaning to life because religion’s special meaning
is incredible. Most atheists are actually anti-theists. Atheism is not a strong
stand-alone philosophical position, it is a-theism and
could not exist without theism. Atheism would not occur to you if you looked
only at life’s mysteries and spiritual experiences (like
Disbelief views all human behaviour through neo-Darwinian spectacles which
bring the animal aspects of the human equation into sharp focus, but leave the spiritual
aspects of humanity a blur.
This final essay searches non-ideologically for any “T” Truths which may exist outside the blinkering walls of our Houses. It examines the mysteries of life like: consciousness; virtues; shame; beauty; music; mathematics; happiness; humour; and the amazing creativity of the universe. Overall this essay finds rational evidence for special meaning and ultimate purpose beyond flawed religious models – even evidence for a rational “G” God. Evidence that doesn’t require blind faith.
CONCLUSIONS
The above essays contain arguments from evidence for my following
conclusions about the big questions – God, Life, Meaning, Purpose, Happiness,
Everything.
GOD
The gods of the main religions were created by the males of ancient, pre-scientific
tribes in their own image: male, brutal, vain, jealous, sexist, and parochial (“His”
inventors always the chosen people). The Judeo/Christian god created everything
animal, vegetable and mineral in 6 days (except for women, whom he created
later – because he saw man needed a helper!). Our sciences have disproven this
simple creation story, and philosophy (once a footnote to Plato, but now science’s
handmaiden) likes to think that it has disproven God – “God is dead, and we
have killed him” (Nietzsche). However philosophy has not hunted “G” God, just contented itself with disproving the Biblical “g” god.
Does it necessarily follow, that because the Judeo/Christian god is dead, we can
declare the death of God?
Is it not a role for philosophy to use its tools to explore for a
rational “G” God? This usually makes atheists wail: “why does there have to be
a God?” There doesn’t have to be a God – there either just is – or there
isn’t. The question of the existence of God remains unanswered and important. “Important” not because there may be a God who needs our pathetic
praise, but because it could change our approach to life, to death, and most
importantly – to each other.
But what could a rational God be like? In the beginning was the Big Bang,
where (in simple terms) energy transmuted to matter (the obverse of an atomic
explosion where matter converts to energy). The secret of God must lie “before”
the Big Bang. The only thing we can know about the original conditions is that energy
must have existed. This mysteriously existing, absolute of energy is what we
try to approach when we use the word: “G” God. The question atheist Bertrand
Russell asked about the Hebrew creator god of the ancients: “then who made
God?” is answered: energy cannot be created (nor destroyed) – energy exists. And,
God didn’t “make” the universe, God became the
universe(s). Everything – all matter and energy – being the product of that
original energy, is a manifestation of God. Forget the “Holy Trinity” –
consider the Holy Unity. We might not be Gods, but God is us – all of us.
“Have I not
said ye are gods?” (John, 10:34).
The corollary is that the closest we will come to God in this life is
another living being – matter and life energy of God. A
thought to give pause to anyone who claims to love God – or fear God. Religion
is the worst thing that ever happened to God – if we are ever going to approach
God we must go beyond the imaginations of our primitive ancestors. Einstein’s
beautiful equation (E=mc2) enables us to know the relationship of
energy and matter, and our growing understanding of the large (cosmology) and
small (quantum physics) is opening a more amazing universe than was available
to them. To demolish religion’s straw gods is not enough to be able to declare:
“God is dead”. Philosophy is dancing on the wrong grave.
LIFE
Life occurred when the original inorganic chemistry of the universe
became organic – when life energy “entered” matter. How this happened is the
biggest question science faces – and why it happened is philosophy’s.
Most scientists think the “How” question will be resolved soon, and expect the
answer to confirm their consensus view that life just naturally occurred (in an
accidentally existing universe). So, if it is discovered that matter
becoming alive is a natural, mechanistic, chemical process isn’t that necessarily the end of any “Why?”
question – the end of any God, special meaning, and purpose in life? Aren’t we,
“Children of God”, just the spontaneous proceeding from the accidental – essentially
purposeless?
No, the ultimate mystery of life is the existence of something rather
than nothing. An understanding of the mechanics of how matter became “alive” will
not put paid to the mystery of the existence of energy to become matter in the
first place. Existence is the biggest mystery of all. But how do we know that
we exist? Descartes famously said: “I think, therefore I am”, but I’m inclined
to say: “You think, therefore I am”. When I encounter the valid but alien thoughts
of another person about an object I am familiar with (“valid” because they
allow me to recognise the object; “alien” because they never occurred to me
about that object) – I can know three things: that that other person exists,
the object exists, and I exist. I have experienced the existence of thoughts I
could not think/make up.
Mystery for the proponents of a totally material explanation of life also
dwells in life’s non-material aspects – for example, the spiritual. Why was
MEANING
We are individuals living in a relative universe, and there is no doubt we
have personal, relative meanings. But because we have personal, relative
meanings does this necessarily mean special meaning cannot exist. Because we
have personal “t” truths, does this mean that “T” Truth cannot exist? I use the
capital “T” Truth to indicate things that are true for everyone, everywhere,
all the time. For example, we have ample evidence that we have physical bodies
with animal needs and genetic imperatives – it is therefore a Truth that we are
animals whatever personal truth we may hold for our own comfort. There is also
ample evidence that we are spiritual beings with spiritual needs – our spirituality
is likewise a Truth whatever personal truth we may hold for our own comfort. I
discuss in the essays the evidence that we have a corporeal body and a
non-corporeal self and that the sum of the human equation can only be
satisfactorily calculated by factoring in both.
The existence of the spiritual allows the possibility of special meaning.
The spiritual is, however, denied by post-modern philosophy which is focussed
on the materialism and relativity of our physical universe. Relativism is our
default philosophy, having a mantra of: “whose meaning,
whose truth?” Relativists imagine that because we have our personal, relative
meanings and truths there can be no special meaning, nor “T” Truth. They also imagine
that the demolition of the spiritual has somehow been achieved by the
demolition of religion (which is a misstep because, except for its art and music,
religion is venal not spiritual). Or they try to dispose of it by semantics – renaming
the spiritual as psychological and/or emotional. The true dualism of humanity
is not the Cartesian mind/body, but body/spirit. Mind is part of the body.
Some struggle with the notion of special meaning in
life because of death. Especially the premature death of young children (this
accounted for
PURPOSE
The purpose of anything is what it does. So what does the universe do?
The universe does creativity. Out of an explosive and chaotic beginning of
energy, matter and anti-matter, came amazing creativity. The great forces of
nature which have sculpted our universe got to work on the chaos – gravity led
to the creation of stars and the nuclear forces within them created stardust –
atoms of greater and greater complexity like carbon and oxygen. Out of stardust
came planets, and out of planets came – life. Relativity worked on life – relentlessly,
amorally, naturally, selecting for the good/better/best – in a process which
came to be called evolution (by one of the results of that process which became
miraculously conscious).
So the purpose of the universe is creativity, but does this creativity
have any ultimate purpose? To answer this we have to examine what has been
ultimately created. The peak life form we know of are
humans – but we are just animals, right? Humans have animal bodies which will
ultimately die, and if humans can be entirely described in terms of their
bodies then their lives are ultimately purposeless. But to describe humans only
in terms of their bodies is like trying to describe a book only in terms of its
paper. We have bodies but we are not our bodies – we are our selves. A body
changes its physical matter several times during a life, by the time we die not
one atom remains of our original body. But our selves are the same. The self,
soul, spirit – call it what you will – remains the same, but it evolves in the
course of a life. This is what the universe ultimately does – spiritual
evolution. (I discuss the evidence for humanity’s spiritual evolution in essay
3).
Our physical evolution is driven by our animal survival needs and
genetic imperatives – but what is driving our spiritual evolution? It is being driven
by the human need to be happy.
HAPPINESS
Happiness is a uniquely human concept – humans constantly strive to be
happy, other animals just strive to be. What makes us happy has a lot to reveal
about the mystery that is humanity. We can feel happiness through our animal bodies
– for example: through the pleasant stimulation of our senses; having our bodily
needs met (food, water, warmth); having offspring (meeting genetic imperatives);
feeling secure; feeling healthy. We can also experience spiritual happiness –
for example: when we have our spirits lifted by natural beauty (admiring the Brazilian
jungle, a beautiful view, a beautiful animal); or human-made beauty (beautiful music,
art, literature); or both together (a garden). What does this say about us?
Because we can feel happiness through animal pleasures it can be safely
concluded that we are animals. And because we can feel happiness through spiritual
pleasures it can be safely concluded that we are spiritual beings. Spiritual
beings with animal bodies, seems to be the best description for human beings.
But happiness through animal pleasures is passing – continual tickle
will soon be pain; to get happiness from eating we need to be hungry; you need
to be cold to get pleasure from warmth; our health will go; our offspring will
die. We can be made to feel happiness for a while by animal means but we
cannot become lastingly happy people. The same applies to most spiritual
pleasures – these will also pass when we re-encounter the mundane. So, the big
challenge – and the key to humanity – is how to be happy, rather than just
feel passing happiness?
The only way to be happy is to be happy with our self. Humans have this
enduring need to be happy with the self – for self-respect; to love the self – and
until it is met, lasting happiness is not possible. How to achieve self
respect/love?
“Know Thyself”
is an ancient dictum found above the entrance to the
Life is an opportunity – to know and grow the self until we are happy
with the self (in other words spiritual evolution). Many get waylaid in this
process by confusing the body with the self and choosing animal paths to self love
that, at best, don’t work – or, at worst, are counter-productive. The most
common of these ways are usually power, money, fame, and bodily beauty. These
behaviours may have initially animal motives like animal survival – but they
make us feel self respect and self love through the apparent respect and love
they evoke from others. And “apparent” respect because these things usually only
produce in reality the resentment, jealousy and/or fear of others. The acquiring
of money, fame, and power also often involve Faustian
pacts against our soul. This is why the powerful, rich, famous, and beautiful
are often unhappy – or if not unhappy, deeply not-happy.
There are other animal ways to feel good about the self – through
membership of a successful group: a nation; family; football team; gang or
religion. Or we may indulge in negative actions against others – tall
poppy-lopping (trying to feel better about the self by bringing others down
below our size). Some give up trying to achieve self-love altogether and seek
distractions from self-knowledge (movies, books, work, magazines etc) or
attempt to soften the pain of self-loathing through escape (drugs and alcohol) or
seeking compensation (food). We all do some of these things some of the time and,
while offering passing happiness (or relief from unhappiness) they will not
make us lastingly and genuinely happy people.
Happiness is a popular area for academic studies. Usually they conclude
that we can achieve lasting happiness by having a meaningful job; by having a
purpose to our life; by having a partner; by belonging to groups or a community;
by having friends – in other words by being loved and being able to love and/or
respect the self thereby. All these things work because they have a positive
effect on our self image – they prove to ourselves our self-worth – that we are
worthy of our self-love through the proof of being useful and having the love
and respect of others. The love of others is crucial to our self-love because
it “authorises” it in our own eyes, and we make greatest progress towards gaining
the love of others when we realise love from others is best achieved when we
love them (they too desire to be loveable).
“If he acts for the good of others, he will receive the approbation of his fellow men and gain the love of those with whom he lives; and the latter gain undoubtedly is the highest pleasure on this earth.”
–
Charles Darwin, (Autobiography, P. 94.)
“The highest pleasure on this earth” – from: “the approbation of his fellow men” and “the love of those with whom he lives” – through acting “for the good of others”. Love, do unto
others – sounds familiar?
I stated at the start of this section that to better understand human happiness
is to better understand about us and about our life’s meaning and purpose. We
have already concluded that if both spiritual and animal things make us happy
we are, then, both spiritual and animal. As for life’s meaning and purpose, it
is pursuing “the highest pleasure on this earth” – coming to truly know the
self is worthy of love – lasting happiness. Life in this challenging but
beautiful, relative universe allows us firstly to be our self, then to know that
self, and finally to grow that self – until we are happy. The best way to be
happy about the self, to love the self – it often takes us a lifetime to learn
– is through the love of others. The best way to get it is to love them.
EVERYTHING
Is a “Theory of Everything” possible? The House of God thinks so –
basically its theory of everything is that life is a once-only test created by
a male god, for the purpose of assessing a stream of newly minted souls for either
eternal reward or punishment. This is an idea generated around the campfires of
the Hebrew, nomadic tribesmen thousands of years ago. The “Christian” sect of
the Hebrew religion has as its theory of everything the depressing notion of
salvation – we were saved from our natural evilness and original sin (committed
in the mythical Garden of Eden) when religion murdered Jesus. This is total
nonsense and meaninglessness is a short half-step away. Attempts at intellectualising
this theory of everything have been made through convoluted doctrine but it remains
incredible. The overwhelming majority have their religion determined by the
accident of birth – they do not choose it by its credibility.
The occupants of the House of Disbelief also think that a theory of
everything is possible. In reality, their theory of everything is a theory of nothing.
They theorise that life has no special meaning or purpose – everything arose
accidentally and proceeded mechanistically for no end. Even the “miracle” of life
is merely a chemical consequence of the original accident. They like to imagine
that the theory of evolution resolves life’s mystery: “it is a mystery no longer because it is solved” (Dawkins). Humans are
just an arrogant fluke: “a lucky meat puppet” (Pinker) – whose
every behaviour can be totally explained in terms of animal survival instincts
and genetic imperatives. This theory of everything is almost as incredible as
religion’s, and hugely incomplete. It does explain how our bodies evolved, once
life came into existence, but has nothing to say about the fact of existence
itself – why there is something rather than nothing. It also cannot explain the
spiritual – only deny it. Trying to describe everything in purely materialist
terms is like trying to describe a book by only referring to its paper – you
can do it, but you get an incomplete, seriously deficient, wholly
unsatisfactory, and misleading description.
So, what can I offer as a theory of everything after my exploration for
meaning, purpose, and Truth?
A theory of everything must tackle the big questions of philosophy:
·
How is there something rather than nothing?
·
Who created God?
·
The “Why?” questions.
·
Is there an afterlife – and what is it like?
·
How are we to live?
How is there something rather
than nothing? In the beginning was the big bang which was energy becoming
matter – the reverse of a nuclear explosion where matter becomes energy – and
equally explosive. The only thing we can know about “before” our beginning is
that the original energy must have existed. Matter exists, we exist, there is something rather than nothing because the original energy
existed. This original energy is what we try to describe when we use the word
“God”.
If God created the
universe, who created God? God did not create the
universe – God, the original energy, became the universe. Nobody created this
original energy – energy cannot be created nor destroyed – it always was and
will be.
Why the universe? The relative
universe is hugely creative, and the answer to the “why?” question rests in what
is being created. The whole universe was formed out of the original energy – as
was life when it arose. The relative universe has sculpted, evolved that life. The
creativity of the universe rests in its relativity – good, better, best – the
driver of evolution. So the relative universe is an evolutionary machine – a
vast machine that has evolved our animal bodies – but there are ghosts in the
machine – our spiritual selves/beings. We have animal bodies but we are
spiritual beings, and they also are being evolved by the relativity of the
universe. What evidence is there that we are “spiritual selves” and not just
animal bodies? Let’s return to Darwin who, at the beginning of this conclusion,
we found standing in a Brazilian jungle – moved by its beauty. How could such a
hostile scene be beautiful to man (“hostile” because it was inimical to his animal
survival)? Why was
“By degrees it will become intolerable to him to obey his sensuous passions rather than his higher impulses, which rendered habitual may be almost called instincts.” – (Darwin, Autobiography, P. 94)
“By degrees” – is evolution. “Higher
impulses” – are “higher” than the animal. ”Rendered habitual [until] called
instincts” – is incorporated into the self. “By degrees…higher impulses…rendered habitual”
– is spiritual evolution. The answer to the “Why?” question, is spiritual evolution
– from the mouth of the master.
But, again – “Why?” – why spiritual evolution? We are not God,
but God is us – our matter is of the original energy; our life energy is of the
original energy; our self/spirit is of the Divine. There is no Divine
“Trinity”, but a Divine Unity. We, individually, are not God – but God is us
all. We, and every other animal, is how God
experiences material existence. Spiritual evolution – the raising of our
consciousness to incorporate the spiritual into the animal – means a more
Divine existence on Earth:
“Thy kingdom come/ On Earth
as it is in heaven”.
If we evolve spiritually – raise our consciousness to incorporate the
spiritual into animal experiences – we will en-joy life more. For example:
making love rather than just having sex; dining rather than just feeding (you
can “dine” on a piece of fruit); taking in the beauty of our world rather than
just passing through on animal business; incorporating the spiritual to our
creations (art, music, architecture, cooking); and perhaps the greatest of all
– loving one another rather than the animal competition of egos. We are creators
as well as creatures of the universe and when we bring love into our creations,
how much greater they are – and how much greater is life on Earth.
Is
there an afterlife? Life is energy,
and energy cannot be destroyed – the energy that was our life goes on for ever
in one form or another.
What
is the afterlife like? Here we enter an
area of some evidence and much speculation. Speculations can be useful in
philosophy as a starting point, but they are only as compelling as the evidence
they are based on. The House of God’s speculation that the afterlife is a place
where a stream of new souls get assessed on their worthiness for eternal reward
or punishment is based on the speculations and (often psychotic) revelations of
our primitive, pre-scientific ancestors. The House of Disbelief’s speculation
that no afterlife exits is based on no evidence at all – the scientific method
can only assess the physical world (a world becoming less certain by the day as
the solidities and certainties of Newtonian physics disappear down the curious
rabbit hole of quantum physics with its 13, or more, dimensions).
I discuss what evidence
exists outside of our Houses in Essay 3 (David Fontana’s objective study of the
spiritual world Is There An Afterlife? is excellent). The evidence
indicates that the afterlife does not resemble religious ideas – judgement is
self-judgement, and punishment or reward involves experiencing what you
inflicted or bestowed on others in this life. Some reports indicate that it is
a place where creations from our existence here (like art and music) are taken
to exquisite levels of beauty. We appear to have many lives on this present, basic
plane of existence as we choose – until we are happy with the self we have evolved
– and then we move into increasingly perfect planes of existence on a similar
evolutionary path. As well as the reports of unknown others we also have our own
experiences of life to rely on, and the experiences of reliable friends and
family. In the end life forces us to make decisions about
it (and any afterlife) in the immaculate process of self-creation it is. The
House of Disbelief denies free choice – everything is mechanistic and causal in
its world – but if there is one thing that life teaches us, it is that we are
what we choose – what we decide, what we create.
How
are we to live? – The ultimate practical question about life. Life is
an opportunity, not a test, and love is the key to making the most of it. Life
is an opportunity to come to know and create/evolve a self we can respect and
love. The best way to be able to love the self is through the love of others. Love
one another, forgive our enemies, do unto others as we would have them do unto
us – Jesus, whether he was only begotten Son of God, virgin born,
miracle-worker – or not – brought us the “T” Truth of how to live.
So, in essence, the everything of life in the relative lies in its
creativity. We are not our bodies which were created for us by the universe – we
are what we create with them.
Our selves.
Graeme Meakin, 2005 – Revised19th
November, 2008.