Life is just nature’s way of
keeping meat fresh.
- Dr. Who, 2005.
Essay 1 examined the Christian House of God and found
its god – and its model for the meaning of life – incredible. Having found
that, must we now, necessarily, hold that there is no God and no special
meaning to life? Must we be subscribers to Dr. Who’s view that “life is just
nature’s way of keeping meat fresh”?
In a word – no.
THE DEATH OF GOD?
Many believe that to demolish religion and its god is
to demolish God. This belief is inherent in philosopher Nietzsche’s famous statement:
“God is dead, and we have killed him”. But Nietzsche had only killed the
primitive “g” god of the Bible, he had not sought any and every possible and
rational “G” God and been able to dispose of them. After Nietzsche, atheists lined
up to dance a jig on the supposed grave of God – but what if they have been
dancing on the wrong grave – and empty anyway?
Is it enough to dispatch a religion’s god to be able
to declare the death of God, and is it enough to demolish a religions’ meaning
of life to be able to declare the end of special meaning? Does the end of a
“t” truth, however widely held, spell the end of “T” Truth?
DISBELIEF NOW THE DEFAULT SETTING FOR HUMANITY
Since the Enlightenment, an increasing number of
people believed so and disbelief became established as an “H” House – a way of
thinking, a belief system – a position that quickly became the default setting
for the vast majority of educated humanity. Now belief in God, special meaning,
and/or ultimate purpose has to be justified – rather than the reverse – as
previously had been the case.
THE HOUSE OF DISBELIEF
Can disbelief truly be described as an “H” House?
I think so. It has many of the characteristics of the
House of God: it has its own bible (On the Origin of Species); it has its own saints
(Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Darwin, Bentham, Marx, Bertrand Russell, Freud,
Sartre); it even has its own zealots (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Phillip
Adams, Michael Shermer). It also has incredible doctrines: all is matter and/or
energy; the universe is entirely mechanistic; all behaviour is causal; life is a
spontaneous consequence of the accidental beginning. And it has dogma: free
will cannot exist; the spiritual is just animal emotion; we are just “lucky
meat puppets” (Pinker) – under the control of our puppeteer “selfish genes”
(Dawkins); existence is ultimately meaningless and purposeless.
FUNDAMENTALISTS?
Many of the residents of the House of Disbelief even display
the fear and loathing characteristic of fundamentalists. This is behaviour of
people whose comfort has been disturbed – it must never be forgotten that “H”
Houses, like “h” houses are about comfort.
But what comfort could “D” Disbelief offer?
THE COMFORTS OF DISBELIEF
Similar comforts to those offered by the House of
God. Firstly, the comforts of understanding and, from that understanding – control.
Our physical sciences offer us an understanding of the physical universe, and disbelieving
that anything other than the physical universe exists leads us to the
comforting belief that we have complete understanding (or will have when our
physical sciences complete their Theory of Everything – not far away in their
opinion). The corollary to this belief is the comforting expectation that, with
complete understanding, will come complete control – even eternal life. Disbelief
also offers certain mental comforts – if atoms and energy is all, and
everything is relative, then absolute right and wrong do not exist – and no
need for that old killjoy, guilt. And to demolish any God is to demolish
irksome judgement – and punishment. Disbelief’s motto is: if it feels good and
is not outside our secular laws – do it.
When one talks of a population – a large group – one
must generalise, but there is no doubt that “D” Disbelief offers many comfort
from behaviours which are not illegal but were previously seen as “crimes
before God” – for example, infidelity towards spouse and abandonment of children
to chase a more attractive partner. Disbelievers often criticise the residents
of the House of God for wishful thinking – maybe an equal amount of wishful
thinking lurks within their disbelief?
WHY EXAMINE THE HOUSE OF DISBELIEF?
The House of Disbelief has rarely been identified,
let alone subjected to examination. Having previously found the fabric of the
House of God to be unsound and an unsafe place to dwell, maybe we should also
examine the fabric of the House of Disbelief? If it is also found to be unsound,
maybe its certificate of occupancy should be revoked – to protect the poor
souls within?
Protect them from what?
From missing the opportunity to evolve spiritually –
and the greater enjoyment of life this evolution can bring.
What “greater enjoyment”?
If we raise our consciousness of an animal act to incorporate
the spiritual into the experience, we can experience ecstasy rather than just
the contentment of an animal need or drive. For example: by making love rather
than having sex; by dining rather than feeding; by being in the moment rather
than speeding through it to “get” somewhere else. If we raise our consciousness
of the universe above the obvious existence of its matter, if we raise our
consciousness of our selves above our bodies – we take the opportunity to discover,
enjoy, and evolve the spiritual factor of the animal equation – our self/soul/spirit
– call it what you will.
We will examine more evidence for the existence of
the spiritual and of life’s spiritual opportunities in Essay 3, but here our
task is to examine Disbelief – disbelief of the existence of the spiritual; disbelief
of the existence of a “G” God; disbelief of special meaning and/or ultimate
purpose – the fabric of the House of Disbelief.
THE FABRIC OF THE HOUSE OF DISBELIEF
Firstly its foundations. The foundations of the House
of Disbelief are humanity’s scientific discoveries. These are solid foundations
– we prove the “T” Truths of our sciences by successfully using their products many
times every day. But the next layer of fabric is more problematic – the philosophical
beliefs which are built upon these scientific foundations – the pillars of the
House of Disbelief which hold up its sheltering roof.
What exactly are these beliefs, these pillars?
THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE OF DISBELIEF
·
“ -
bad things happen to good people.
·
“ - shortened and/or handicapped lives.
Are these pillars sound? Let’s examine them, one by
one.
The first few pillars fall broadly into the category
known as: “The Problem of Evil”. I put these pillars first because I think it
is safe to say that the perceived existence of evil in our world is responsible
for the greatest number of those who have lost belief in the existence of any
God and/or of any special meaning to life – those who now inhabit the House of
Disbelief.
I have just finished an interesting book titled: “50
Voices of Disbelief – why we are atheists”
(eds. Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk, 2009). If
The main arguments from evil against God and any
special meaning to life tend to fall under the headings: natural evil, moral
evil, and religious evil. Natural evil refers to the often violent – always uncaring
– forces of our physical universe, and to nature’s often brutal animal processes.
Moral evil refers to the evil we humans sometimes do, and religious evil refers
to the evil done in the name of God. There are other sub-headings, and where they
have enough points of difference I will treat them as separate pillars of the
House of Disbelief.
First let’s understand exactly what is perceived to
be the problem.
Much of the
“problem” created by the existence of evil stems from our definition of God –
our assumptions of what a “G” God must be and do – to exist. It is a problem
which has been around for a long time – this from Greek philosopher Epicurus
(c. 341-270):
“If God is
willing to prevent evil, but is not able to,
Then He is not omnipotent.
If he is able, but not
willing,
Then He is malevolent.
If He is both able and
willing,
Then whence cometh evil?
If He is neither able nor
willing,
Then why call him God?”
We have not moved
very far since Epicurus’ time in our understanding of what God must be – this
from modern philosopher, Dr. Stephen Law:
“God is
supposed by the Jews, Christians and Muslims to have at least three
characteristics: omniscience (that is, He is all-knowing), omnipotence (He is
all-powerful), and supreme benevolence. But it seems impossible to reconcile
the existence of such a being with the fact that there is a great deal of
suffering in the world. … As God is
supremely benevolent, He can’t want us to suffer. As He is omniscient,
He knows we suffer. Yet He is omnipotent, so He can prevent the
suffering if he wants to...God, if He exists, has all three of these
characteristics. Therefore God does not exist.”
(“The Philosophy Gym”,
P. 72)
So, then problem
is – if our definition of God is correct then “He” cannot exist.
PHILOSOPHY
ACCEPTS RELIGIONS’ DEFINITION OF GOD
Philosophy, never
wastes much time considering what a more rational “G” God than religions’ “g”
gods might be like – a God that more rightly addresses the way life is.
A God that can address the mysteries of life – “mysteries” because they are not
well addressed by either our religions or our sciences.
Academic
philosophy has had few original thoughts on God, always accepting religions’
definitions of what God must be. Is it too cynical to imagine that this
is because religious definitions are so easily demolished by the
academic/atheistic House of God? I say this because post-modern philosophy has seemingly
moved away from being a “footnote to Plato” and become, instead, the handmaiden
of science.
ANY GOD IS JUST A
GOD OF THE GAPS?
The majority
position of modern philosophy is that searching for any rational God is a waste
of time – any God being just a “god of the gaps” – a stop-gap explanation for
the few remaining mysteries of life – rapidly declining as science shuts them
down. Philosophy feels that our mysteries have been reduced into insignificance
by our sciences’ remorseless advance as they close in on their inevitable Grand
Unified Theory – a scientific Theory of Everything.
WHY MUST THERE BE
A GOD?
Disbelief’s
easy-out mantra when the remaining gaps are pointed out (or when it is pointed
out that they may be getting larger, not smaller) is “Why must there be a God?”
There is no
“must”, excepting that the question must still remain one of the Philosophy of
Meaning’s most important. “Must still remain” because there is enough evidence
for the existence of a God (and special meaning) – albeit grander and more
complex than the primitive gods and meanings any religion has managed to create
so far. I will examine evidence for a rational belief in a God and special
meaning in Essay 3, but here, let’s consider whether the House of Disbelief has
even successfully demolished religions’ ideas about God.
WHAT TRULY MAKES
FOR BENEVOLENCE IN A GOD?
Dr. Law’s
definition of God (quoted above) uses religions’ idea that God must be
“supremely benevolent”. But what makes for benevolence in any God? Is not the
parent who allows a child to grow by learning from life’s difficulties through
experience, more truly benevolent than a parent who protects its children from
life?
If you were a
benevolent parent, able to construct a world for your child to grow in, what
sort of world would you construct – a safe theme park? This universe is geared
to evolution, creation, growth – is that not meaningful, does that fact make
you go “hmmmm?” – in a world which is meant to be accidental, mechanical, and
materialistic? We will consider these questions in more depth shortly – here, because
we are moving towards the question how our natural world is, we need to
consider the problem posed by the existence of “natural evil”.
The Oxford
Dictionary of Philosophy states the “problem of evil” to be: “the problem of
reconciling the imperfect world with the goodness of God.” There are two
presumptions here: firstly the presumption that the world is “imperfect”, and
secondly the presumption that what must constitute “goodness” in God is
settled. Let’s first examine the contention that the world is imperfect.
AN IMPERFECT
WORLD?
One thing that is
absolutely settled is that the world is not heaven – only meeting any
acceptable definition of the word “heaven” for some people, some of the time.
All things are definitely not as the House of God’s hymn-book would have it: “bright
and beautiful” – the natural world being more, as Shakespeare noted: “red of
tooth and claw”. At the micro level the battle to survive is dire and constant;
at the macro level the battle, if not quite so constant – is equally dire – and
more spectacular. And the natural dangers of the world are random – affecting
the good, bad, and ugly equally. It all seems so capricious – and pointless.
Is the natural
world therefore “imperfect” – and further – necessarily meaningless, and God
absent? Some think so. And some go further still – if the world has any intent
at all – it is evil :
“But if intent be truly manifest, then
what can we make of our universe – for the scene is evil by any standard of
human morality.”
-
“Rocks
of Ages”, Stephen Jay Gould. (Pp.205-206)
Humans are killed by nature’s often majestic and
beautiful creatures: leopards, sharks, bears, lions, and hippopotami. Some of
us are killed by creatures less majestic: spiders, viruses and bacteria. And some
people die victims of nature’s physical forces: storms, earthquakes, fires, floods,
volcanoes, and tidal waves. But is intent truly “manifest” in our physical
universe, do the dangers of the natural world establish its “evilness”, its “immorality”
– the “imperfection” referred to in the definition – and/or prove it therefore to
be necessarily meaninglessness?
MUST LIFE BE
Let’s approach this question another way. What must a
physical world be like to make any existence in it perfect, instead of
imperfect? Must it necessarily be a safe paradise for it to have rational
special meaning and/or credible ultimate purpose? Or would an existence in such
a world actually be the meaningless one – a total waste of time?
MAYBE AN EXISTENCE IN HEAVEN WOULD BE MEANINGLESS AND
BORING?
A heavenly existence, everything “bright and
beautiful”, devoid of the natural dangers of our physical world – while perhaps
proof of a Nanna/God – could be rationally argued to be boring and devoid of
any special meaning. To truly appreciate something we need “a bit of the other”
– if everything is beautiful, how do we know?
A MEANINGFUL LIFE INVOLVES DANGER
If life is as Neo-Darwinists would have it – is
rationally just about animal survival – then most people are irrational. We are
constantly doing irrational things: flying, driving, travelling, surfing, skiing,
sailing, swimming, snorkelling, football, bush walking, bike-riding – even the
most timid of us often do these things. Humans show by their behaviours that a
meaningful life needs to involve some challenge, some excitement, some
adventure, some danger – i.e. some unnecessary risk to the animal body
(“unnecessary” if all purpose is purely animal.)
A BANG OR A WHIMPER?
Those who think the purpose of life is just about
physical survival are on an ultimately futile quest – all lives must come to an
end. We are informed in Eliot’s The
Hollow Men that life can end with “a bang or a whimper”. Would an end with
a whimper prove a God and/or give more meaning to life? Why then should an end
with a bang remove it?
LIFE PROGRAMMED TO MAKE INTERESTING THINGS HAPPEN?
Life, in this
sometimes dangerous, sometimes beautiful world – is immaculately creative.
Relativity – you/me, safe/dangerous, boring/exciting, ugly/beautiful,
good/evil, allows, no it drives,
creativity. If we are to uncover any special meaning to life, even perhaps a
Divine purpose – we need to examine what exactly is being created?
WHAT SORT OF
THINGS ARE BEING CREATED?
Many things are
being created, and the “imperfections” of this relative world are as creative
as its beauties. Its sadnesses are as productive as its joys; its dangerous
thrills as much as its peaceful delights. Life’s disasters and existential angsts
have produced some of our greatest art: music, literature, painting, drama,
dance, film etc. In other words, the very things – the “evils” – which stop the
world from being what some people would call “perfect” – a paradise – have been
amazingly creative. Creative of art, but also of something else even more
amazing – we do not all have artistic talent, but we all have, and create/grow
in the course of a life – our selves.
Our selves?
The
self/soul/spirit – call it what you will. Our body has been naturally created
by selection, but we are not our bodies – we are our selves. This “evil” world
is immaculately creative of self – paradise would create nothing but ennui.
How do we create
our selves?
The relative
world allows here and there; now and then; you and me – and good, better, best.
This natural world is not absolute but random, free rather than regimented,
neutral rather than interested – impartial rather than “evil”. We often freely
choose to be exposed to the thrills and the spills of its forces; to the
dangers of its delights; and we are moved by its often deadly beauties. “Know
Thyself” is ancient wisdom – appearing over the doorway to the Delphic Oracle –
and received as wisdom by many civilisations. The experience of these delights
and dangers which we will all have over a life are perfect for revealing our
self to be known.
Why is it wisdom?
Because it is the pathway to happiness, to the full enjoyment of life, and to
the taking of the ultimate opportunity that an existence in a relative world is
– the opportunity to grow/evolve the self. I will examine these ideas more
fully in Essay 3, here it is enough to note that this “imperfect” world is
perfect for some very meaningful things – more perfect than a safe ride through
an absolute “all things bright and beautiful” theme park could ever be. Must
life necessarily have no challenges with its charms; no dangers with its
delights; no death with its life – for it to have special meaning?
Maybe it is,
rather, an absolute paradise that would be meaningless – after all, only
relativity can be creative – the absolute is absolute.
BUT SO MANY ANIMALS ARE KILLED
Some would call the idea that life is about the
growth/evolution of self, an obscenity. Millions of animals have suffered and
died – just so that we can attain self improvement – isn’t that an obscene idea?
“Red of tooth and claw” animal life certainly is –
the creativity of relativity works through evolution – and evolution leaves a
long trail of bones. If life were a movie it would have to come with a warning:
“All the animals were killed in the making of this film!” Including, of course,
all the human animals – some brutally, some easily, some early (I will discus
the problem of early deaths shortly), some late, some grandly, some miserably –
that’s life. Must the fact of mortality for all living things necessarily
remove all/any rational special meaning and/or a Divine?
THE PHILOSOPHY OF
GOD AND MEANING IS GOING NOWHERE
The lack of
progress in the philosophy of meaning is a problem of philosophy’s ready
acceptance of religions’ definitions of God and of their models for meaning. I
come back to the underlying theme of these essays – shouldn’t philosophy be a
search for “T” Truths – for any rational God and special meaning – rather than
just an execution of others’ “t” truths in the shape of their irrational gods
and their incredible meaning of life (a test for eternity in heaven or hell)?
Among the
evidence the House of Disbelief cherishes for the non-existence of the
Judeo/Christian god is the fact that bad things can often happen to good people
– and good things can often happen to bad people. This is the conundrum
presented in the Old Testament Book of Job. Job was a good, god-fearing and
god-obeying person, yet a string of misfortunes befell him. The fact that
fortune and misfortune are indiscriminate – that the universe is indifferent to
your self – totally random and neutral, is sufficient evidence for many people
to reside under said fact as a sound pillar of the House of Disbelief.
When people lose God and meaning because bad things are
happening to good people and good things happening to bad people, they are
saying in effect that for life to have meaning it should be, at one and the
same time, heaven for good people and hell for bad people – to have a
metaphysical override. If this override actually existed, it would not take
long for everybody to be “good” – and, likewise, nobody would be bad – and nobody
would know the true self.
BEING ALIVE IS WINNING THE LOTTERY AND SHOULD PROCEED
THUS?
Many constantly speak about having life as “winning
the lottery” and expect that it should proceed thus – as if it were some sort
of a prize – only to lose faith in it when we find that it is can be more challenging
than rewarding. But have you ever noticed that “bad” times bring out the best
in your self (courage, determination, consideration) – and “good” times often
bring out the worst (greed, laziness, pride)? Should good people be denied
“bad” times, and the opportunities to know and grow the self they can bring and
should bad people be denied good times to know just how bad they can be?
Self-knowledge must always come before self growth/evolution.
STRIFE IS OFTEN VERY PRODUCTIVE OF GOOD
Great art and music often come from times of strife. An
analogy you will sometimes hear is that the 200, or so, years of the
Renaissance in Italy – a time of political upheaval, when Mafia-type thugs like
the Medici controlled the cities, and warfare swept the countryside – produced
some of the greatest art and literature the world has ever known, while the
similar period of time in peaceful Switzerland produced the cuckoo clock! A bit
unfair on the Swiss, but it has truth and you get the point.
Now I’m not advocating bringing bad times upon
ourselves, or doing random evil to others to help their growth along, just
observing that the fact that “evil” in the shape of hard times happening to
good people does not necessarily demolish a God and/or remove special meaning
from life. There is scientific evidence to back up the argument that adversity
can lead to growth. This from psychologist Jonathan Haidt:
“Adversity
may be necessary for growth because it forces you to stop speeding along the
road of life, allowing you to notice the paths that were branching off all
along, and to think about where you want to really end up.”
-
Jonathan
Haidt (P.144 The Happiness Hypothesis).
Haidt backs up this idea by referring to several studies.
In summarising one of them (sociologist Glen Elder’s lengthy study) – he says:
“We
can say, however, that for many people … adversity made them stronger, better,
and even happier than they would have been without it.”
- (ibid, P151 - referring to Elder 1974 & 1998.)
SHOULD GOOD PEOPLE BE DENIED BAD TIMES?
Life in the relative is immaculately creative because
of its randomness – in its neutrality to “good” and “bad” people alike –
allowing anything to happen to anybody at any time. Who could rationally argue that
a “meaningful” life must be an experience that would deny people the
opportunity to be what they are capable of being, deny them of doing what they
are capable of doing – both good and bad. And coming to know in life, what makes
them truly happy – coming to know their selves thereby – have their choices to
this point led them to love who they have been revealed to be?
If, on the other hand, the only meaning you can glean
from life is the fun and joy of living, consider that enjoyment is greatly
enhanced by “a little bit of the other” – by the struggles and dangers – all
holiday is no holiday. Sceptics who deny what I’m saying, and who feel that a
hedonistic theme park would be in fact a delightful idea should read arch
atheist, sceptic, and pessimist Schopenhauer (“The World as Will and
Representation”) and consider his
analysis of sated desire as boredom, and his assessment that boredom is the
worst stress of all. Life’s randomness and neutrality means that it is never
predictable and boring. The knowledge that “evil” in the shape of sickness,
injury, misadventure – even death – can occur to any of us (good or bad) at any
time gets us out of bed in the morning to enjoy life and to achieve what we can
while we can – it’s our driver.
Any God who interfered in this natural, meaningful
life to bring only good to the good, bad to the bad, and fun to the stupid,
would make a boring nonsense of it. The fact that this does not happen is
actually evidence of the possible existence of a God, rather than disproof of
one.
Life is definitely not heaven. Time enough for
flopping about in the Elysium fields.
Now there is one
obvious problem with the above observations that life works perfectly, just as
it presently is, in the potentially meaningful creation/evolution of self. That
problem is the fact that life is not a flat playing field – our experiences of
it can be wildly different – some lives obviously more, or less, of an
opportunity for growth than others. Handicaps like sickness and injury appear
to limit our opportunities to engage life, and thus for any personal growth –
and an early death obviously reduces it to zero.
Many have lost
any meaning of life to this one – including
THAT WE MUST ONLY
HAVE ONE EXISTENCE IS SPECULATION
But
This
speculation is one allowed by both our “H” Houses (of God, and of Disbelief) as
a “fact”. It is so strongly held as a fact that it has achieved the status of
doctrine to both Houses. It is actually the only doctrine that both our “H”
Houses can agree on – enough to make us suspicious straight away?
THE HOUSE OF
GOD’S POSITION
The House of
God believes that life is a once-only chance given to a string of
newly-manufactured souls for the purpose of testing their suitability for
eternal life in either heaven or hell. The assertion of one life is necessary
to the House of God’s power over humanity – if you only have one go at life,
you had better come to us because we have influence over God and can be
instrumental in where you end up for eternity as a result of your only life.
If all the other
Biblical speculations on the universe have been proven incorrect – what are the
chances of this speculation being any better?
THE HOUSE OF
DISBELIEF’S POSITION
The speculation
that we have only one life is equally important doctrine for the House of
Disbelief. If we have only one life, any rational special meaning for life –
like its opportunity for self-evolution – is removed at one stroke by the fact
of early deaths.
But if we
actually have many lives the problem of the “evil” of a child’s death (while
still personally heart-breaking) is removed as a philosophical “disproof” of
special meaning and/or God.
WHAT PROOF IS
THERE THAT WE MUST HAVE ONLY ONE LIFE?
That we must
only have one life is just a pure idea – that is, an idea not supported by a
scintilla of evidence. The fact that the self, our being, finds itself with an
animal body once is only proof of one thing – that it can happen – hardly proof
that it must never happen again.
But there is,
however, some evidence that we have more than one life on this level of
relative reality. Such evidence must always be subjective (who can bring a lump
of another existence back for empirical examination?) therefore of varying
quality. But there is enough of good quality to support a rational belief that
we have even many lives in a relative world. Some have personal evidence
for believing more strongly in multiple lives in this world than others – I
speak of NDE’s, previous life phenomena, and ghost experiences – and other
paranormal experiences. I have had none myself, but have had two amazing experiences
related to me first-hand by friends (“amazing” because of the total reliability
and absolute credibility of the people concerned). There is also evidence in
the shape of work done by reliable scientists (David Fontana, “Is There An Afterlife?” is a good
example). There is more and I will examine it closely in Essay 3.
THE DEFAULT
POSITION?
Nothing can be
empirically proven in a non-empirical realm, but my point is – must the idea of
only one existence for the self be necessarily held as the default position –
by both sides – if all the evidence (such as it is) is against it? I will
examine this issue, and the quality of the evidence more extensively in essay
3.
DISEASE AND INJURY
The dangers of
life will mean that all of us will suffer the “evil” of injury and disease at
some times in our lives. Some cases will be severe and leave individuals
handicapped. Does this necessarily remove God and special meaning as some
insist?
As above, if we
live more than one life this argument is nullified. But physical disadvantage
does not necessarily remove life’s opportunity for self growth.
Last night on
TV I saw a program about children and adults with the disfiguring
Treacher-Collins Syndrome. I also have in my hand a magazine article about a
woman with a type of distorting muscular dystrophy-type disease who is very
severely crippled in a wheelchair. Such handicaps make any ultimate purpose, or
any Divine, difficult to see – meaninglessness is a short step away. But we
need to look more closely at the lives of the people I am talking about. One of
the people affected by the disease on the TV program last night was
successfully studying to be a doctor, the other in the wheelchair from the
magazine article is a successful barrister. I have read also an inspiring book recently
made into a film (The Butterfly in the
Diving Bell) written by a man who could only move one eyelid as a result of
a stroke. And we all know about the achievements of Stephen Hawking. These
people are more inspiring than any Olympic champion. All meaning has hardly
been removed from their lives – the opposite even.
IS AN ADVANTAGED LIFE MORE MEANINGFUL?
Also, does an “advantaged” life have more – or less –
meaning than a disadvantaged life? Consider the plethora of “beautiful” people
parading daily through our newspapers and glossy magazines – why so many drugs,
unhappy faces, and problems? If life is just about our animal bodies, beautiful
people have all the physical, animal advantages. In my own personal experience,
some of the most spiritually stunted people I have ever met have been “advantaged”
– physically beautiful, pampered, and/or financially endowed by parents and
family. Why do we use the word “spoiled” about such people?
What is spoiled? Not the body, but the self.
Physical disadvantage increases the challenges, the
opportunities for self knowledge. There is much heroism in a life of physical
challenge, many victories others will never know – many opportunities for
growth of self – and special meaning in life is not demolished. We are not our
bodies – but we are our selves.
KARMA
Some feel they have disposed of the problem of
seemingly random deformities, accidents and sickness by ascribing to the
Buddhist notion of Karma (the notion that nothing is random – all things happen
to us for some reason, usually to do with working out problems and/or pay-backs
associated with present or past lives – what goes around, comes around). This
is perhaps an all-too-easy answer, an idea that allows us to turn a blind eye to
the struggles of others. The struggles of others also let’s us know if we are
compassionate, caring, and loving.
But how about the
evilness of humanity?
The evil we do is
commonly called moral evil – murder, rape, torture, theft, violence, intimidation,
and the such like. It is used as proof
of the non-existence of special meaning and/or the evil of humanity.
DOES EVIL EXIST
AS A THING IN ITSELF?
But does evil in
fact exist? Is it “a thing in itself” – an object, a drive, a need, a
possession?
It is my
observation that evil only refers to a state of absence of something – not a
presence. Let’s consider the phenomena of cold. We have all experienced “cold”,
we think that we can “feel” cold when we touch something cold – but in fact we
don’t feel cold we just feel heat being conducted out through our skin – metal
always feels colder than wood at the same temperature because it is the better
conductor. But cold does not exist as a thing in itself – it’s just an absence
of heat. In the universe Absolute Zero (minus 273 degrees C.) cannot be
attained – everything has heat to some degree, nothing has “cold” as a thing in
itself, just relatively less heat than something else – usually us. Cold, then,
does not describe the existence of something, just an absence.
LOVE EXISTS AS A
THING, EVIL DOES NOT
Consider the
difference between the words “evil” and “love”. Like the word “cold”, the word
evil also describes a state of absence – an absence of love – it does not
describe the existence of a thing or a need. Love, however, does exist as “a
thing in itself”, as a need – we seek it, we want it, we need it, we give it,
we get it, we know its presence, we feel its absence, its presence makes us
happy – it exists.
BUT WE DO EVIL –
WHY?
But,
occasionally, we do deeds which can be fairly described as “evil”. Why do we do
them – are we doing it to be evil, to know evil, to feel
evil? To understand human evil we need to understand the reasons why we commit deeds
intended to cause harm, deeds devoid of compassion, devoid of love for our
fellows? What needs are we trying to meet – is there perhaps, indeed, a need
for evil as there is for love? Are we perhaps full of “Original Sin”?
No.
EVIL IS ALWAYS A
BY-PRODUCT OF SEEKING SOMETHING ELSE
Evil is, in fact,
only ever committed as a by-product of trying to achieve something else. For
example, evil is often committed in the getting of money, power, or fame. What
is the sponsoring need behind the getting of money, power, and fame? Is it, as Nietzsche
said, about humanity’s (basically evil) “will to power”?
No, there is no
basic need and/or will for power – in and of itself.
WE ARE DRIVEN BY
ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL FACTORS
The human
equation is one of animal and spiritual factors. Some of our behaviours are
driven by our animal factors (for example, the survival of our animal bodies,
and the drive of our genetic imperatives) and some by spiritual factors
(feeling good about the self, experiencing beauty). And some are driven by both
animal and spiritual factors at the same time – these are often our more
persistent behaviours.
For example, the
above mentioned drive to get money, stuff, power, and fame. The getting of money
beyond enough for bodily survival, a house much grander than the need for animal
shelter would dictate, a car flasher than the requirement of transport, power
beyond enough to survive, fame beyond enough to feel sufficient self esteem to
propagate – and all the evils which usually attend the getting of these things to
excess – are as much about the human need for love/esteem/respect in order to
achieve happiness – as they are about our animal drives to survive.
ESTEEM IS THE
NEED, NOT EVIL
Esteem from
others that we feel a grand house, car, position will bring enables the
self-love we need to be happy (to be discussed more fully in the section on
human happiness in Essay 3) – and is the sponsoring need behind the (often
evil) actions we take to get them – not the doing of evil itself.
THERE IS NO NEED
FOR EVIL BEING MET IN THE DOING OF IT
The bottom line
is this: evil may be done, but it is never the object – there is no “need” for
evil being met in the doing of it.
Even seemingly
gratuitous violence, and wanton cruelty is about feeling superior to another –
exerting physical power over another to feel good about the self comparative to
another. This is behaviour usually perpetrated by bullies – people who are
animally superior to others and feel good about their self through this
physical superiority – people who confuse the body with the self. Of course
there can be intellectual bullies too, people who feel superior to others by
oppressing them mentally.
But surely
humanity’s evil needs and basically evil nature were revealed in the Holocaust?
Primo Levi said: “If
there is an
But rather than cease to believe in God because some
humans can do murderous, evil things, maybe we should be afraid that God may
cease to believe in us?
Before we draw conclusions about the human race from
the Holocaust, and about the existence of and/or the nature of God, or the
possibility of any special meaning in our existence, it should always be
remembered that the Nazis were defeated by humans. Millions of innocent people
risked and/or lost their lives, their health, their sanity, their futures –
under conditions of utmost bravery and often lonely, unwitnessed heroism – so
that bad should be beaten and good prevail. To believe Levi is to forget that,
and them.
Lest we forget.
WHAT IS THE REAL NATURE OF HUMANITY?
Accepting that the Holocaust was one of the most evil
chapters in human history, if we examine the broader sweep of human behaviour,
I say the real nature of humanity is love.
How do I justify this?
Sticking with the Second World War, I use as an
example the many people who emerged from that war with psychological damage as
a result of the evil things they witnessed, did themselves, or had done unto
them. Nobody emerged from the war with damage to the psyche because of missed
opportunities to do evil, and nobody was damaged because of any good things
they did or witnessed.
WHY DOES ONLY DOING EVIL DISTURB US?
Why does only evil disturb us? It must go against
some basic part of human nature to do, or witness, evil – witnessing or doing
good things has never damaged humans, only witnessing bad things. I speak of
the vast majority of humanity – there are of course psychopaths – people who
are not normal, who have been damaged.
PART OF THE HUMAN CONDITION IS SPIRITUAL
Witnessing,
doing, or experiencing good things done to ourselves lifts our spirits, makes
us happy – invariably. Witnessing evil is the reverse – invariably depressing
the spirit of healthy humanity. Witnessing evil does not damage the human
animal body, but it is damaging to the human spirit/soul/self – proof that the
human condition is to be spiritual beings with animal bodies – that the human
equation has animal and spiritual factors.
Some would say
that every bit of us is just animal and doing/witnessing evil is only damaging
to the psyche, part of the brain/body. But why should it damage human animal
psyche – attacking other animals is what animals do? Animals, other than
humans, are not psychologically damaged by tearing apart another animal (even a
baby animal) or witnessing other animals doing it.
PART OF THE HUMAN
CONDITION IS ANIMAL
However, some
part of the human condition is definitely animal. Humans sometimes do
violent (seemingly evil) acts for animal survival reasons – to protect our
animal bodies and/or our families (our genes). This does not stop another part
of us seeing these acts later, on reflection, as evil. So the very idea of
something being evil is not an animal idea – it must come from another place –
there is no right or wrong, good or evil in nature – in the animal kingdom –
just in humanity. We often describe an act which is despised “an animal act”,
and look down on any human perpetrator.
The fact that we
despise a natural animal act and call it evil is just more proof for the
contention that the human condition includes a side, a factor which is beyond
the animal. But we definitely have animal bodies with animal needs and
imperatives which need to be met – most often first, because without the body
there is no experience for the spiritual self in this physical, relative
reality. Those whose animal survival is threatened don’t have the luxury of self
evolution – something rich nations should remember when formulating foreign
policy.
The bottom line
is that the real nature of humanity is love, we find evil disturbing. As I will
argue later, love is the only thing which makes us lastingly happy.
Some disagree,
holding instead that we are solely an animal, no better than any other –
randomly evolved, in a spontaneous, accidental, and entirely material universe.
Some would go further than this, believing that not only are we no different to
other animals – if anything, we are more evil.
·
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL – man is a wolf to
man.
The arch-pessimist Schopenhauer described Hegel’s
idea about history as the record of man’s inexorable progression – towards a
state of final perfection, spiritual evolution – as being a tasteless joke. He
also thought much the same about the idea of a “God of love”. For Schopenhauer,
history is simply the repetition of the same dreary truths – life is suffering,
it swings like a pendulum between pain and boredom, man is a wolf to man – over
and over again (The World as Will and Representation Vol. 2 pp. 442-3).
Many postmodern philosophers believe Schopenhauer to
be correct – postmodern pessimism is well stated by philosopher Julian
Young:
“The
idea of history as an inexorably rational progression towards utopia is a grand
and seductive idea. To the optimistic, self-confident nineteenth century it may
even have seemed true. But to us in bewildered postmodernity, us who live in
the shadow of the century of mega-crimes, the shadow of two world wars, of
Auschwitz, Stalin, Mao, Hiroshima, the Twin Towers and the poisoning of our
earth and sky, it is, I think, clearly – even obviously – false.”
(“The Death of God and the
Meaning of Life” P.77)
Grim stuff! But before we retreat into madness, or materialism,
or become religious fundamentalists for a little comfort (anything but endure
such hopelessness) let’s examine Young’s hopeless philosophy a little more
closely. The horrors and evils of the two world wars, while they involved many
evil acts, did not arise from any need to satisfy man’s evilness – they arose
from German need to restore self-pride, self-respect, and self-love – through the
restoration of their nation and national pride.
WARS ARE NOT ABOUT BEING “WOLVES”
There were elements of the need for animal
survival in the wars. On the side of the German aggressors whose economy was
severely depressed, hunger was common – they were firstly seeking present and
future (“lebensraum”) animal survival. And the other nations who were being attacked
retaliated in an effort to save their own animal lives, to restore/keep the
territory necessary for animal survival. But, as considered above, the majority
of those involved in evil acts on both sides in these (and other) wars have
deep marks on their conscious and unconscious selves about their actions even
to this day. The nightmares of returned soldiers are not those of missed
opportunities to kill and do evil, but come out of spiritual hurt caused by
evil perpetrated on them, or spiritual guilt for evil actions committed by
them.
This phenomena has been seen more recently, and well
catalogued, in the psychological problems of
But most of these were drafted, what of soldiers who
choose to go to war? Those documentaries we see of soldiers going off to WW l
& 2 laughing and smiling as they
boarded their trains or ships – what’s going on there?
HEROES?
They had been fed propaganda making them out to be brave
heroes. They are genuinely happy because they feel they are heroes – they are
self-respecting, full of self-esteem. But then the actuality of war proved to
be different, and left only scars on man. We see no propaganda pictures of the
actuality: returned soldiers waking in the middle of the night with nightmares
as a result of his own brutal actions and the brutal actions of others on him.
Many returned soldiers found it hard or impossible to return to society, hard to
sleep burdened with guilt – where is Schopenhauer’s “wolf” in the wee small
hours?
Man’s ideal of being the hero (which dwells within
the breast of every man) cries of the need to be loved, not the need to do/be
“evil”. The brave soldier marching off to war to the cheers and sobs of women,
to eventually return, bands playing – a bemedalled hero – is a universal male
dream. But, when the returning
THE ANGST PRODUCED BY DOING EVIL
Another example of shame when man behaves “like a
wolf” to fellow man is the amount of time it took for Germany to overcome the
national angst and shame resulting from the evils perpetrated by the Nazis in
the Second World War. For many it is still not overcome. Guilt and shame are
very damaging to humans – behaving like Schopenhauer’s “wolf” does not sit well
with humans – except in the case of a few who are pathologically disturbed. The
Japanese have also suffered shame for their actions in the War. It is
interesting that the younger generations seem to carry even more shame than the
perpetrating generations – evidence of spiritual evolution?
THE EVILS OF COMMUNISM
Julian Young, above, mentions Stalin and Mao as proof
of humanity’s evil nature. We have already considered fascism, but as great, or
greater, evils have been done throughout the world in the name of Marx's communist
“utopia”. Surely it was an example of man’s drive to prey, wolf-like, on his
fellow man, a proof of his evil? Many millions were killed – but was preying on
our fellow-man the idea – the need being met?
Communism arose as a reaction to the evils of the
Tsarist regime, or of the Chinese warlords. Marxist themes of equality and
fraternity were not inspired by any need for evil. Once again man set out to
create a “heaven”, and once again evil means were employed to achieve the
greater end – and the process got high-jacked (as it did in the case of the
Nazis) by the usual psychopaths whose need for self-esteem was pathological. When
the majority realised that communism was not working, not only not providing
its promised utopia but, in fact, producing more evil than the Tsarist regime
and the feudal systems it was replacing, it was largely abandoned – even though
it involved massive loss of face to quite a few very proud countries and
individuals.
KHRUSHCHEV’S REVELATION OF ITS EVIL KILLED COMMUNISM
Communism’s cause started to collapse when the
Russian leader, Khrushchev, revealed the evils of Stalin’s reign. Many left
communist party membership throughout the world and communism slowly lost its
power over the hearts and minds of humanity. If humanity’s nature was evil,
then communism, when its true evil nature was revealed by Khrushchev, should
have attracted humans, not repelled them – it should have been even more
tightly held to the human bosom because it involved doing evil – rather than being
rejected. And it must be remembered that, like fascism, communism was rejected and
defeated by humanity at great cost and bravery – not by some outside agency,
some troops from outer space which had to come and intervene against our evil
natures.
THE NEED FOR PROPAGANDA
Why do we need propaganda to make us do evil? Rather
than appealing to man’s supposed evil nature when urging men to kill in war
(which should be easy if we’re evil), leaders have to create hate for the enemy
through propaganda. Why? To overcome man’s more natural state of love –
fellowship for a fellow human. Hate is the main tool used by cunning leaders to
enable the withdrawal of love, to enable separation from our fellow humans –
unity is our more normal state. We have to feel the “enemy” threatens our
physical survival and/or our self-respect – preferably both – to generate
enough hate to go out and kill them. Announcing that a proposed war will be an
opportunity to do evil to your fellow man will not work – it has never been
used as a method to drum up an army. The enemy has to be made out to be somehow
alien, evil, separate to us.
It is very hard for a human to kill another human
face to face. When soldiers become too close to each other and realise their unity
and similarities rather than their separation, problems occur for their
leaders. Opposing troops in WW1 who climbed out of their trenches and joined together
in a celebration of Christmas in no-man’s land on a battleground in
SEPTEMBER 11TH ?
How about Young’s example of Sept 11 – surely this
was pure evil – an example of man being “wolf to man”? What’s driving Arab
terrorism – the supposed 72 virgins in
TAKING AWAY SELF-RESPECT GENERATES HATE
If you really want a man to hate you – take away his
ability to respect himself – it is restoring perceived lost prestige and
respect (through membership of a successful religion) that is driving
terrorists, not satisfying any human need for evil. The necessary separateness
between men is here supplied by religious propaganda – as it so often has been
in human history. Does Young feel that Arabs or Moslems are perhaps by nature
evil? Does a study of Arab history at the hands of the West not explain some of
their feelings of subjugation, inferiority, taken self-respect, maybe even
threatened physical survival?
MEMBERSHIP OF A RELIGION ALLOWS SELF RESPECT
For many Arabs, their religion is their greatest
source of self-respect, often their only personal successes coming from their
membership of a successful religion – their country as having been taken away
(by Israel) or dominated (by America – or by other countries like Syria). This from Lebanese journalist and author
Samir Kassir:
“The
Arab people are haunted by a sense of powerlessness … powerlessness to suppress
the feeling that you are no more than a lowly pawn on the global chessboard
even as the game is being played in your backyard…It’s not pleasant being an
Arab these days. Feelings of persecution for some, self-hatred for others; a
deep disquiet pervades the Arab world.”
Samir Kassir (quoted from “The Arabs – a
history”, Eugene Rogan Pp. 5 & 3)
Membership of the Arab race is no longer a source of
the self-love humans need to be happy.
SELF RESPECT FROM TEAM MEMBERSHIP
It is much the same driver that propels the violence
associated with other groups whose only source of self respect is the victories
of their larger group or team. Soccer football hooligans come from economically
depressed groups whose only glimpse of fame and glory is through their team –
whose colours they wear to identify with them and their victories.
VIOLENCE IS ACTUALLY DIMINISHING
Although we can react violently when our animal survival
and/or self esteem is threatened, humanity is not by nature a wolf to fellow
humanity. And, contrary to the pessimist Schopenhauer, we do show many signs of
spiritual evolution. Consider this from Professor Steven Pinker:
“In
the decade of Darfur and
“A History of Violence” – Steven Pinker
(Delivered at TED Conference,
I think it is fair to say that Pinker is a resident
of the House of Disbelief (one of his famous quotes being: “man is just a lucky
meat puppet”). While he does not exactly jump to the conclusion that we are
spiritually evolving he is puzzled by our improving behaviour towards each
other and other animals.
“Instead
of asking “Why is there war?” we might ask “Why is there peace?” From the
likelihood that states will commit genocide to the way people treat animals, we
must have been doing something right. And it would be nice to know what,
exactly, it is.” (ibid)
It is my observation that we are in fact evolving
spiritually – although not fast as we are evolving technologically.
Dangerously, we have atomic weapons but only a primitive notion of God – and
what “He” might want from us. I will examine further the evidence for my
assertion that we are spiritually evolving in the next essay – and how we might
go about accelerating that evolution.
Many lose faith in the existence of God and/or
special meaning because of the evils of religion. Countless millions of people
have been, and many are still being, killed in conflicts caused, or
intensified, by religion. The September 11th terrorists had the name
of a god on their lips as they killed themselves and thousands of innocent
people. Does this disprove the existence of God or prove that God is evil?
No. Bad things done in the name of God are not done
by God. Religion is man’s invention. You can tell plenty about a person by the
religion they practice, but very little about God from that person’s god. The
fallibility or evilness of their “t” truths says nothing about the existence,
or nature of, the “T” Truth.
Religion is of man, not God. It is an attempt by
humans to take the power of God unto themselves. Once religions hold power,
they protect this power brutally. Nothing makes better evidence for this
assertion than the fate of William Tyndale. Tyndale was the first man to print
the Bible in English. He suffered a brutal and Godless death at the stake for
doing so. The main issue that lead to his brutal death was that by making the
Bible accessible to the English masses to read for themselves, he took away
from the Church its previously considerable power as sole reader and interpreter
of the “word of God”. A Bible people could read for themselves opened the
Bible, and the House built upon it, to criticism. The power of the House of God
is founded on the uncritical faith of the masses – this is the reason why it
places faith first – even declaring the seeking of knowledge about the “T”
Truth of God a sin – our “Original Sin” (eating from the tree of Knowledge in
the Garden of Eden).
The fallibility of Church doctrine based on the Bible
was a problem the House of God had been aware of for some time. Previous to
Tyndale – in the age of Henry VIII:
“Thomas
More and John Fisher … reserved for themselves and men like them the luxury of
debating niceties of scripture, but in the prospect of ‘each one man to be
a church alone’ they saw the collapse of
all theological authority; a time when every man or woman, no matter how
ignorant, would be presumptuous enough to judge doctrine for themselves.
- Simon Schama, A History of Britain,
p.285
Galileo also ran afoul of the House of God for proving
the Bible’s cosmology wrong – how could the “word of god” be wrong – and if
here, where else? Among the many heinous crimes of religion was also the
Inquisition – with its Godless tortures and murders perpetrated in the name of
defending the House of God’s biblically-based doctrines. The point here, for
the examination of this pillar of the House of Disbelief based on the
depressing litany of crimes committed by religions in the name of their “g”
gods – is that they were not committed by “G” God – and proof therefore of
God’s evilness and/or non-existence.
Anyone threatening the (entirely venal) power of
religion is at risk. Jesus died for this reason – his revolutionary new
understandings threatened the power of the religion of his day – it was
religion that handed him over to the Romans, and then insisted on his
crucifixion against the Roman governor’s inclinations. Neither “the Jews”, nor
the Romans were responsible for Jesus’ judicial murder – it was the chief
priests trying to maintain their power over the hearts and minds of men.
Religion is not peculiar in its methods. Power based on secular doctrines and ideologies
(like Nazism and communism) have killed as many people as religion.
Is then humanity’s “will to power” proof of the
existence of evil, and evidence against meaning? No – I examine this idea and
give reasoning and evidence for my negative assertion in other places.
EVIL THINGS DONE BY RELIGION’S OFFICERS
Many lose their belief in a Divine and any special
meaning of life when the officers of the House of God, supposedly the soldiers
of God and the guardians of meaning, do bad things. Among the priests of the
House of God we have seen paedophiles, rapists, murderers, adulterers, and behaviours
too weird to have names. All of these people are mad, bad and dishonest – and are
either really atheists – or extremely stupid. There are also, of course, many
good religious people. The bottom line is this: good and bad religious people
prove nothing about God one way or the other – they just prove that there are
good and bad people.
EVIL RELIGIONS
How about evil
religions? Isn’t Islam evil because Muslims were shown celebrating the murders
committed on 9/11? Some would say all religions are evil – consider the
Christian Crusades; the brutal Jewish invasion of “the promised land” (circa
Moses, and in the present); and other evils perpetrated in the name of just
about every religion. Don’t our religions prove the existence of evil, disprove
the existence of God and any special meaning to life?
No, religions
are about the usual human needs – animal survival and personal pride/respect.
9/11 was about the threat to Arab survival as represented by Israel invading
Palestine, and about an attempt to restore Arab self-respect which had been
lost through American armed forces perceived to be invading Muslim holy lands
(by setting up military bases in them). It was an evil act, but it was an act
generated by these factors, it was not about evil for evil’s sake – nor an evil
act by God, or approved by God.
RELIGION IS
DARWINIAN, NOT SPIRITUAL
Religions’ gods
are the worst thing that ever happened to God. As are their crude models for
the meaning the worst thing that ever happened to the idea of special meaning.
Religion is Darwinian, not spiritual – about our animal survival needs – indeed
the House of God sells eternal bodily survival (nothing more Darwinian than
that). The House of God is a home for comforting animal truths rather than a
search for any spiritual Truths, but it is not enough to demolish these “t”
truths to prove the non-existence of “T” Truths – not enough to demolish its
god to demolish God, its meaning of life to demolish special meaning. The
rubble from the demolition of one unsound House does not make a sound pillar
for another.
God’s death and funeral have been widely reported in
academic philosophy. Most secular
academic institutions are atheistic to the bone, and quasi-academic
organisations like the Skeptics Society have God as an important, although
supposedly secondary, target (they see intellectual integrity as their main
aim). So, has God been killed by the combined intellectual weight of shot directed
at “Him”? Should God be given a decent, but definitive, burial – intellectual authority
being the undertaker?
What definitely has been killed and interred by the
academic literature (A.N. Wilson’s “God’s Funeral”; Richard Dawkins’ “The God
Delusion”; Hitchens’ “God is Not Great”; Dennet’s “Breaking the Spell” being
good examples) is religions’ gods – any and all. All of the above neo-Darwinian
polemics successfully slaughter the slow-moving sacred cows of religion, their
“g” gods, but none hunt for the big game – “G” God. To claim the death of God
after killing the gods of various religions is to mistakenly equate God and
religions’ god. There are no disproofs of any rational, credible “G” God in the
academic literature – in fact, no attempt to search for such at all – how can
you kill God without first hunting God out? Surely, by now, philosophy knows
that religions’ gods never existed, surely they know that to kill, inter, and
dance on the grave of such a gods is a specious act? They must know that the
divine grave they dance on is filled with straw? But they dance on, in
publication after publication, rather than search for the Truth – for any “G”
God in life’s spiritual mysteries.
There might not be a God, but how can you claim to
have proved that unless you examine the numinous, spiritual aspects of life
thoroughly and non-ideologically – how can you say “G” God is dead, if all you
do is continually demolish religions’ “g” gods?
ATHEISTIC PROSELYTISING
Ideology as rabid as any religion is evident in the academic
publications, and lashings of atheistic proselytising. Most appear more
interested in gaining converts for their side, just like any religion – as if
the search for Truth was a team sport which could be won for the greater glory of
the winning side – rather than a process of enlightenment for humanity. Most
academics seem to be more interested in generating heat, than light.
Too strong? In the preface to “Blind Watchmaker”
Dawkins states openly :
“You
have to become an advocate and use the tricks of the advocate’s trade…Certainly
it [the book] seeks to inform, but it
also seeks to persuade.” (p.xiv).
ACADEMIA IS NOT SOLELY ABOUT SEARCHING FOR TRUTH
Nobody should presume that academia is solely about
the search for golden Truths. “T” Truths can be uncomfortable if they disagree
with your truths, and can destroy power and comfortable tenures that are often based
on agreeing with the ideology de jour of your academic Department. However, one
can understand the anger that is often evident in academic atheist
publications – childish, uneducated, dogmatic, fundamentalist, quasi-scientific
beliefs (on creation, for example) are bound to engender fear and loathing
within the breasts of people who have spent a lifetime gaining rigorous
scientific knowledge – like Dawkins (biology). But to make presumptuous claims
about solving all life’s mysteries, as Dawkins manages : “it is a mystery no longer, because it is solved.” (“The Blind
Watchmaker”) shows a desperation and a desire to goad, which only hampers any
search for Truths.
A RATIONAL GOD WOULD BE THE BEST WEAPON AGAINST
RELIGION
Many, if not most, of the academic atheistic works
claim to be addressed at the evils of religion. More strength to their arm – no
one could deny that our iron age religions have been, and still are, the
greatest perpetrators of murder and torture in human history – and the greatest
force for human separation and the biggest stumbling block in our spiritual
evolution. But if Dawkins and Hitchens and their neo-Darwinian comrades really
want to defeat the present, dangerous religions as they claim, maybe the best
way to do it would be to find an authentic “G” God? A rational, credible God –
evidence is more likely to destroy religions’ straw “g” gods than their invective
– however entertaining it is.
But I suspect that the grim fun they get from
slaughtering the slow-moving sacred cows of their dim-witted and/or fearful opponents
is their real aim – along with, of course, the installation of personal comfort
by the removal of fear of judgement by an awful god. Most people are basically
good, but few are angels, and most carry guilt for various actions
SCEPTICS DO PLAY A VALUABLE ROLE IN SOCIETY
But Sceptics Inc. do have their role – they have some
useful truths and do a vital job for the community by attacking dangerous sects
and pseudo-historians (like the Holocaust-deniers for example) – and less
dangerous people, like spoon-benders. But capital “S” Scepticism tends to be as
full of fear and loathing as Fundamentalism. Scepticism and residence in the
House of Disbelief are often in reaction to a background of religion in family
of birth and/or from religious schooling. Loathing generated by oppressive
religious dogma has created many of our leading sceptics. Scepticism is a
reaction, an attempt to destroy non-Truths – it settles for this, rarely moving
on to become a search for Truth.
Suffice it to say that nothing has been proven by academia
or secular “S” Sceptics in their battle to dispose of God – and their secondary
target of special meaning and ultimate purpose in life – except that
intellectual power is no guarantee against the pull of the psychology of
ideology. Their only lasting monument is not a divine headstone but an
increasingly large number of people floundering between the often annoyingly,
smugly ignorant, House of God, and the equally annoying, often smugly superior,
House of Disbelief – people not only floundering but all too frequently drowning
in a sea of meaninglessness.
Our sciences have revealed much about our material
world and our animal body. Astronomy and cosmology have established not only
the huge size of the universe but determined the conditions existing from a
nanosecond after the moment of creation, and the subsequent mechanistic processes
that formed the physical universe to this point. Geology has established the
physical history, composition and age of our home planet; Biology has shown us
the intricacies of animal and plant life and how it has evolved; Physics has
revealed our great natural laws and forces and is delving into the sub-atomic;
Chemistry has explained the elements, molecules and the power of their
combinations; Mathematics – “the language the universe was written in” – has
been the handmaiden to all this. Many scientists feel that some of the sciences
have been unified (like physics and chemistry for example), and also feel that
all the sciences are on the verge of unification into a Grand Unification
Theory – a Theory of Everything.
CLOSE ONE GAP AND A LARGER ONE OPENS
But even as we are closing the book on many of the questions
of the physical universe, we are at the same time discovering many more amazing
things. Quantum physics is a good example – with its talk of parallel universes,
more dimensions than our four apparent ones, and its recognition that
consciousness may be able to directly influence the behaviour of matter (with
its implication that matter may be primary to consciousness). So, even as we
close down religion’s god into a smaller and smaller “god of the gaps” by
closing down the gaps in our knowledge of the physical universe, we are opening
new mysteries and a grander idea of what a “G” God might be. To accompany
grander ideas about God, we need grander ideas about the meaning and purpose of
life – ideas well beyond religions’
model for the meaning of life (a test for heaven or hell).
A GRANDER VISION OF LIFE IS NOW POSSIBLE?
We now have a vision of the universe (and humanity’s place
and possible role in it?) that was not visible to our pre-scientific ancestors
who constructed our present “g” gods in their own image. If you were able to
wipe their ancient god from the minds of some of our more intelligent religious
leaders and ask them to devise God armed with our current scientific,
philosophical, and historical knowledge, they would never come up with the god
of the Hebrew campfires. Jesus, I venture, would remain an inspiration but the
Old Testament-based doctrines woven around him (e.g. he was sacrificed to wash
away our innate sinfulness) would be no more.
SCIENCE IS OF THE “HOWS”, NOT THE WHYS”
Science, by definition, has nothing to say about the
ever-increasing philosophical “whys” flowing from their solutions of the “hows”
of our physical universe. Some scientists develop a greater belief in God and
special meaning the more they learn – like the respected scientists John Polkinghorne
(who took up the priesthood after being a particle physicist) and Rodney
Holder (who did the same after being an astro-physicist). For many, however, it
is the reverse, and we must ask why do so many intelligent people lose a belief
in God with greater scientific understanding? Did they really believe that
religion’s six-day-creating, man-god of the ancients was the one and only
possible God, and that “his” death at the hands of their sciences must
necessarily lead to the death of any belief in any Divine – and special meaning
as well? Here we pass into the murky waters of the psychology of disbelief,
covered in the discussion of it as another pillar of disbelief.
A COMPLETE THEORY OF EVERYTHING NEEDS AN
UNDERSTANDING OF OUR SELVES
Science may yet be short of its all-unifying Theory
for the physical universe, but it is close to it. There is a unity in the physical
universe (hence the very word “universe) and a scientific Grand Unified
Theory must be possible. But if humanity cannot be defined solely in terms of
our animal bodies, any true Theory of Everything must include an understanding
of our selves.
Are we solely an animal body, or is the human
condition more truly a spiritual being with an animal body? I will explore for evidence
on this matter in Essay 3, for here, suffice it to note that Albert Einstein (perhaps
the greatest scientist of all?) when contemplating “Everything” said: “Science without religion is lame; religion
without science is blind.” We will allow his juxtaposition of religion with
the spiritual here (I argue in other places that religion is venal and Darwinian
rather than spiritual). Einstein’s point is that the quest for Everything is
best tackled body and soul – because that is what we are – not body or
soul. We will never approach “T” Truth – Everything – close enough to read it, until
we go in search of it wearing our bi-focals – an understanding of both factors
of the human equation – the animal body, and the spiritual being.
Our physical sciences can never have an understanding
of the non-physical by definition – and can never offer disproofs of God and/or
special meaning.
And now another popular pillar for many Disbelievers.
·
If God made the World, who made God?
I was advised by (leading Australian Skeptic and
atheist) Phillip Adams that he ceased to believe in God when his mother
couldn’t answer a question he posed as a six-year-old: “if God made the world, then
who made God?” This, of course was not a question of
IS THE HEBREW CREATOR/GOD THE ONLY POSSIBLE GOD?
To lose belief in the possibility of the existence of
any God because of the ”Who made God?” question is the equivalent of saying
that the Christian god is the only possible God and to demolish Christianity’s
ancient Hebrew god is the same as demolishing any possible God. We have already
discussed the nature of religions’ gods, but what must be the nature of any
real “G” God – is it necessary that He/She/It/Them/Us “made” the universe –
must God necessarily be a creator God? We need to think more about God.
CAN CREATURES OF THE RELATIVE APPROACH THE ABSOLUTE?
Some say the absolute must remain ineffable to beings
born and solely experienced of the relative, physical world. But are we
experienced solely of the relative, physical world? In this life, everybody who
lives an average span will experience the numinous – have spiritual experiences
– sometime(s). But because we are creatures of the relative, on encountering
the numinous and contemplating the absolute source, the gods we tend to construct
have to be the puny imaginings of this relative world – usually gods made in
our own image.
Does this mean that we should not bother trying to
approach God?
OUR FEEBLE IMAGININGS ABOUT GOD ARE CAUSING OUR PROBLEMS
No. It is our present feeble imaginings of God – and
what “He” wants of us – that is causing many of our problems. We surely can do
better at approaching the Divine than our pre-scientific ancestors managed –
their primitive state of evolution resulting in their primitive, brutal,
sexist, parochial gods.
The resent combatant religions are primitive.
“Primitive” because based on primitive “B” Books. Books that are fixed for all
time, immutable, inerrant because written by a god. Relativity allows evolution
– if we defy evolution in our spiritual affairs we will remain primitive in
these areas. This is dangerous. “Dangerous” because our technological evolution
has advanced way beyond our spiritual evolution – we have atom bombs in the
hands of civilisations with primitive gods of primitive religions. Religions,
all of which harbour some form of end of times holocaust scenario in their Books.
PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS ON THE NATURE OF GOD
David Hume (1711-1776) was one of the foremost
philosophers of the Enlightenment. He professed no final answers about God but had
some disturbing questions (“Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion”). After
Hume’s empirical scepticism many philosophers felt that the God question was
disposed of.
Hume asked whether God may be a plurality because of
some evidence of the plurality of the universe, suggesting pluralities of
intention and designs :
“behold
then the theogony of ancient times brought back upon us”
(“Dialogues”, p.168).
And that God might not even be the Creator –
pre-dating quantum mechanics Hume observed:
“For
ought we know, a priori, matter may contain the source, or spring, of order
originally, within itself”
(ibid. p.146)..
Philosopher A.N.Wilson feels that, after Hume,
speculating on the nature of God it is pretty much a waste of time.
“devastating
…… the disturbing question to which there could not possibly be any answer.”
(“God’s Funeral” P. 24).
But, once again, these are questions are only
devastating for the ancient Hebrew god – they are not an attempt to approach a
rational Divine suitable to explain life’s numinous experiences and mysteries.
MAYBE GOD BECAME THE UNIVERSE?
If we ignore the implications science holds for the
ancient Abrahamic god and think instead about what modern scientific
discoveries imply about any real God, Hume’s speculations can be met with other
speculations – God may not have created the universe – God may actually be the
universe? The big bang was a singularity of energy becoming matter. After
Einstein and his beautiful equation E=mc2 we know that matter does
contain Hume’s “source, or spring” – energy – and vice versa. And the original energy
must be absolute because energy cannot be destroyed – nor created – not in need
of creation as Bertrand Russell supposed. Maybe God did not “make” the
universe, but became it?
THERE IS SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING BECAUSE ENERGY
EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE
The other big question of posed by existence: “Why is
there something rather than nothing?” is also approached. There is something
because energy existed – that absolute of energy is what we try to approach
when we use the word “God”.
But these are speculations – flowing from our,
as yet, unsettled physical sciences. “Unsettled” because a singularity at the
start of our universe, although “proved” by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose
mathematically, following Einstein’s general theory of relativity, was
retracted in 1988 by Hawking in his famous book A Brief History of Time:
“I
am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no
singularity at the beginning of the universe – as we shall see later, it can
disappear once quantum effects are taken into account.” (P. 50).
RELIGION’S FUNERAL IS NOT GOD’S FUNERAL
The point I am making here is that Hume’s questions
did not “devastate” God, as
Hume and other thinkers of the Enlightenment paved
the way for a bombshell that was soon to hit the ancient Judeo/Christian god – Evolutionary
Theory.
Evolutionary Theory forms the foundation for the next
few pillars of the House of Disbelief.
·
Evolutionary Theory – Has disproved God
and special meaning
.
Evolutionary theory is a description of
how our animal bodies have evolved to their present form. Over time it has
become a religion – a theory of everything – which many feel has removed all
the mysteries of our existence. But is to understand how our animal bodies
evolved, to understand everything?
Can the human experience be totally
described as a purely animal experience in an accidental, mechanistic universe?
Is all human behaviour causal and meaningless – our existence purposeless –
totally driven by animal survival needs and genetic imperatives? Important
questions, because if so, God, special meaning, and ultimate purpose are
necessarily removed.
Many neo-Darwinian evolutionary theorists feel
that this is so. Richard Dawkins writes in “Blind Watchmaker” :
“This
book is written in the conviction that our own experience once presented the
greatest of all mysteries, but that it is a mystery no longer because it is
solved.” (p. xiii).
and:
“cumulative
natural selection is the ultimate explanation for our existence”? (P. 392 ibid.)
Grand claims! But there is a vast difference between
understanding the mechanics of how random mutations are naturally selected
according to their adaptive benefits in a relative (good, better, best) world
and understanding how the whole immaculately creative process began in the
first place out of the seeming chaos of the initial conditions.
In a weak moment
Dawkins admits that a teeny bit of mystery remains – even for him :
“we
still don’t know exactly how natural selection began on Earth”.
(P. 205 ibid)
HOW DID THE INORGANIC BECOME ORGANIC?
Not only do we not know how natural selection began,
we don’t know how life began – to be naturally selected – the little question of
how the inorganic became organic? Even if we brush that mystery aside by
accepting as a likelihood that the beginning of life will be solved one day by
science, we are still left with an even greater problem – how does anything
come to exist at all? How did even the inorganic come to exist in the first
place to become organic in the second?
A.N. Wilson, who feels he has attended God’s funeral,
gets around to admitting this, the greatest mystery :
“the
one question which Darwinism so dismally refuses to address: namely, how (let
alone why!) anything happens to exist at all. It is existence itself
which is surely the greatest of all mysteries”
(”God’s Funeral”, P. 224 –
author’s italics underlined).
Quite a few huge gaps for God to stick his Divine
nose in there!? A gap that does not look likely to be closed any time soon –
bit early to be calling for a funeral.
MYSTERIES BEYOND THE PHYSICAL BODY
There are other mysteries for neo-Darwinian
materialists (who believe we are just the sum of our atoms, electro-chemical
impulses, animal drives, and genetic imperatives) to explain away. Mysteries
like human compassion; our appreciation of non-Darwinian beauty; our
understanding of the language the universe was written in (mathematics); how we
– just the dust of stars came to observe the stars; the existence of humour;
music; human shame and dignity – to name a few (I will explore the mystery of the
existence of these non-physical phenomena in a purely physical universe more
closely in Essay 3).
No, evolution through natural selection is hardly the
“explanation for our existence” as Dawkins claims. There remain way too many
mysteries in the path of securely establishing Dawkins’ desperate assertion! There
appears to be another factor in the human equation.
THE TELEOLOGICAL (DESIGN) ARGUMENT
Dawkins attacks William Paley’s (already discredited)
watchmaker “design” proof of God (proof of the existence of a creator God
through the evident design of the universe – just as the existence of an
evidently designed watch implies a watchmaker). But the design argument can be
maintained by a better analogy for Divine design than a watch. Consider the
child’s toy made by Lego. The clever part of Lego and the proof of it having a
designer (and I’ll wager the key to its patent) is not the objects (however
elaborate) made by the pieces, but the idea behind the piece itself – the Lego
block. Our Lego blocks – protons, neutrons and electrons (and smaller
sub-atomic particles) are the true miracle of design – let alone the natural
forces which act upon them – not the animal bodies that they form. This is the
level at which the miracle of design has to be explained away by the likes of
Dawkins – an understanding of how evolution works is very small beer compared
to these truly gigantic mysteries. The human body (and other animals’ bodies) may
be a causal result of all these initial miracles, but miracles they remain. To
call miracles “accidents” is the House of Disbelief’s get out of jail free card
– equivalent to the House of God’s “God works in mysterious ways” catch-all.
I’m not tendering an argument for Intelligent Design
then tendering that as proof of the ancient god of the desert tribes – as fundamentalists
do – I am just examining a popular Evolutionary Theory pillar of the House of
Disbelief by tendering some facts which don’t sit well with the usual
neo-Darwinian attempted proof of life’s meaninglessness based solely on our
understanding of the evolution of our animal bodies.
LAWS IMPRESSED ON MATTER BY THE CREATOR?
Darwin, himself, originally felt that in his theory
of evolution he had discovered God’s method, the :
“laws impressed on matter by the Creator”
(p. 458 The Origin of Species).
But when his daughter, Anne, took sick and died
tragically he fell to supporting the “Problem of Evil“ (early deaths) pillar of
Disbelief. However, reviewing life towards the end of his own,
“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.” (p.94).
I will examine in Essay 3 why love and “approbation
of his fellow men” could be the “highest pleasure on this earth” (for a
mechanistic, accidental meat puppet?) – such a dominant need that we spend much
of our earthly time in pursuit of it. Parental love can be shown to have
natural selection advantages (as can romantic love – or lust) but
Let’s look more closely at those “selfish genes”.
.
·
Evolutionary Theory – We are just a
survival mechanism for our genes.
This sociobiological pillar of the House of Disbelief
is well stated by Robert Wright in his book “The Moral Animal”. Of humans, he
says we are:
“a
species with conscience and sympathy and even love, all grounded ultimately in
genetic self-interest.” (p.378).
And even more bleakly by atheist Dick Gross in
“godless GOSPEL” (sic) :
“we’re
just bags of genetic material on an Earth overburdened by them”
(p. 238)
Is humanity well, and completely, described as “bags
of genetic material” whose ultimate purpose is “genetic self-interest”?
CAN A HUMAN BE COMPLETELY DESCRIBED IN BODILY TERMS?
We know that genetic survival is integral to our
animal bodies – who has not felt the pull of our genetic imperatives – but to
describe human existence solely in terms of our bodies is like trying to
describe a book by only referring to its paper. We have bodies, but that is far
from the entirety of the human condition. Humans are better described as spiritual
beings with an animal body. “We” are our selves, not our bodies.
What is the evidence for this assertion?
WHY DO WE RISK OUR PRECIOUS GENES FOR NO REWARD?
If the meaning of the human condition is to be no
more than a survival mechanism for a bag of genes, our purpose purely to strive
for the promotion of our genes over others’, why do we often risk our
all-important genetic cargo to protect other people in mortal danger (and their
competing genes)?
The House of Disbelief has worked out neo-Darwinian
protocols to answer this question – kin altruism, group altruism, payback
altruism – which basically state that we sometimes risk in the present our
personal genes for the greater future good of those genes – by rescuing kin in
trouble (our genes); social group members in trouble (grouping tends to protect
our genes); and non-kin in trouble (expecting a future payback which will help
our genes). Fine, I’m sure all those motives have generated “heroic” behaviour
– but what about risking our genetic cargo to rescue strangers and foreigners
in mortal danger – people outside of kin and social group who can’t payback?
Humans have even rescued enemies in warfare – at double jeopardy to their genes
– rescuing someone who is not only competing with your selfish genes, but trying
to kill you and your genes? Further, we also risk, and sometimes lose, our
lives trying to save animals (pet, stock, or wild) that do not belong to us –
therefore not involved in our own survival. Why does that strange, unnatural,
human trait for compassion often override our natural animal survival
instincts? How can it exist at all in this later stage of our evolution as a
species – given that the possession of such a characteristic is inimical to
genetic survival?
AND WHY DO WE RISK OUR PRECIOUS GENES FOR FUN?
And why do we also risk our precious genetic cargo
constantly in the pursuit of “fun”? We do this when we play sport (often
dangerous, contact ones like football) – a genetically counter-intuitive activity
involving mortal risk. We even enjoy extreme sports. What is the delicious thrill in dangerous sports like mountain climbing,
skiing, motorbike and car racing, scuba diving, surfing, flying, hang-gliding? Most
of us indulge in some form of sport – less extreme but still dangerous, and
useless to our genes – or other activities which stir our souls at the risk of
our genes – like bushwalking, driving, or foreign travel? Why aren’t we just
cosseting our genes? Why is it just us – the only animal with the knowledge of
its mortality – that risks its genes for no survival end?
WHAT ELSE COULD BE DRIVING THESE BEHAVIOURS?
Is there anything else we get out of these activities?
When we succeed at rescuing people, animals, and/or
at playing sports we get self-esteem. And we get another strange thing – sporting
activities (e.g. mountain climbing, skiing, scuba diving, surfing, bushwalking,
travelling) often involve experiencing our world’s natural beauties – which experience
stirs the soul. So, is what we think about our self, and the nourishment of our
soul, just as important to us – sometimes more – as our bodily/genetic survival?
What makes an activity in life, or even a life, truly
satisfying to us? It certainly takes more than just meeting our bodily, genetic
imperatives. Why?
IS THE SELF/SOUL AS IMPORTANT TO US AS OUR GENES?
And so we have come to the spiritual factor of the
human equation. Contemplating the spiritual makes the disciples of mechanistic materialism
break out in hives – how can a thing which is not made of matter and does not
proceed mechanistically – exist?. Surely such a thing as the spiritual cannot
exist except in human imagination – if all is animal, the “spiritual” should be
better described in purely bodily terms such as “psychological” and “emotional”.
To resolve this, what are examples of spiritual
experiences?
SPIRITUAL SATISFACTIONS
Contrast the animal satisfaction of feeding compared
to the spiritual satisfaction we get from dining (eating a great meal created
with skill, art, and yes – even love). Compare the physical satisfaction of the
services of a prostitute compared to the spiritual satisfaction of making love with
someone you love. Consider how we are spiritually moved by beautiful scenery (a
snow-capped mountain is just a bundle of meaningless atoms – and a dangerous
place inimical to our animal survival. Darwin, himself, reports in his
Autobiography that he was spiritually moved by the (dangerous) Brazilian jungle.
Consider why we are spiritually moved by music (Beethoven’s 9th after
all, is just the vibration of air molecules)? How can we see beauty in danger –
a leopard, a lion, a shark, or even an approaching storm? What a strange and
unnatural thing is this uniquely-human experience of being “spiritually uplifted”
– especially if the spiritual does not exist and we are just a bag of genes
which are totally motivated only for their survival?
WE CAN’T GET NO SATISFACTION
Many of the activities in our lives that can be described
as truly, deeply satisfying address the spiritual. Perhaps the greatest pop
song of all time: “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” is an anthem to trying to get
lasting satisfaction solely through the animal body. Anybody who has lived a
life and can still deny the existence of the spiritual has not been paying
attention. In fact, if we do pay attention, life for humans seems to be as much
about spiritual evolution as it is about animal evolution.
SPIRITUAL AND ANIMAL EVOLUTION?
What was in the spirit of
Wright, in the above quoted work, steals an old
standby from religion – a miracle:
“Given
that self-interest was the overriding criterion of our design, we are a
reasonably considerate group of organisms. Indeed if you ponder the utter
ruthlessness of evolutionary logic long enough, you may start to find our
morality, such as it is, nearly miraculous.” (Op. Cit. p. 378)
“Nearly miraculous”? Inhabiting a physical body as we
do, we have all felt the primal pull of our animal genes and the drive to
survive. But why is life so much more for males with average spiritual
evolution than seeding our genes over the world willy-nilly with any likely
incubator – and so much more for the average female human than just being a
receptor of those genes? How do we explain the fact of our going to great
lengths and expense to encounter beauty in all its forms, natural and
human-made? How do we explain human spiritual hunger (witnessed so strongly at
the turn of the millennia) if the spiritual does not exist, why do we value the
spiritual satisfaction of self esteem over genetic dominance if there is no
spiritual side to human life and it is just about genetic promotion and the
continuance of the physical bits of us? These questions I will address more
fully in essay 3 which examines the spiritual more closely. Here it is enough
to show that, while genetic imperatives can explain many human behaviours, they
fall well short of a full explanation for all human behaviour.
The genetic imperatives of our animal body, while
they definitely exist, are only part of the human story – they do not necessarily
disprove special meaning or the existence of a Divine – they are not a sound
pillar for the House of Disbelief.
Neo-Darwinian
materialists tender Evolutionary Theory as a satisfactory “Theory of Everything”.
While it does explain how random mutations are selected by the environment as
advantageous for surviving and/or out-breeding, it falls well short of a
satisfactory “Theory of Everything” for the human condition.
It even falls
well short of explaining the present animal spectrum. For example, why in the
whole spectrum of animal species which have evolved from the original single
cell life form, is there only one disproportionately huge gap (in terms of
cognitive capabilities and in understanding the universe) between contiguous
species in the otherwise smooth continuum? I refer, of course, to the huge gap
between humans and chimps. Why did we move so far and so fast, in terms of our
capabilities, understanding and control of life, compared to our very near DNA
neighbour the chimpanzees (98.5%) in the same amount of time? Is it the natural
consequence of moving into the grasslands rather than staying in the trees, of
an upright posture and of an opposable thumb? It has been only a few million
years since we branched from our common ancestor (a mere blink of the eye in
terms of the time life has existed on Earth).
There is not
such a huge gap in understanding and cognitive capacities even between those
much further apart in DNA and/or physiognomy than us chumps and the chimps
(hyenas and hippopotamuses say?). They just walk about on four legs in
ignorance of life and death, right and wrong, beauty and ugly, music and
mathematics – just spend their time eating and breeding, blindly trying to
survive and dominate genetically much as Darwinian theory says they should. In
fact, if we exclude humans, the differences between all animals of their
understanding of mortality, ethics, beauty, music, or the numinous – is zero,
no matter where on the animal spectrum they come – baboon to bacteria.
Excluding humans, the development of all other animals in the spectrum is much
as you would expect it to be naturally – given the laws of natural selection.
The difference between humans and their nearest neighbour, or any other animal
for that matter, is unnatural.
I am not making
an argument about humans being “better” than, or somehow “superior” to, other
animals – we are just hugely, strangely – unnaturally – more capable in cognitive abilities
(sometimes for better and sometimes for worse) and conscious of existence, than
can be explained by environment alone. And that is strange. The difference is
so vast that it does not seem to be explicable by the natural selection of
random mutations in the time involved.
No,
neo-Darwinians have not proven their claims that the “everything” of existence
rests in Evolutionary Theory.
The
evolutionary theory explanation for the fact that there are different species
of animals is that the original, spontaneously-occurring, single-cell lifeforms
were changed gradually by randomly-occurring spontaneous mutations of DNA –
which mutations were then selected for, or rejected by, nature according to the
survival/breeding advantages or disadvantages they conferred – a process
called, appropriately enough, natural selection.
UNNATURAL
SELECTION
But along the
natural way something unnatural happened – one animal created in this natural
way came to understand the process to the point of becoming able to exert an
increasing amount of control over it – making the process no longer entirely
natural – and out of its own free-will. Humans developed sciences and became
evolution (on Earth’s) most potent force. With genetic engineering we can make
non-random changes – changes we have selected for before the event, changes
made instantly which would naturally take some great amount of time to occur
randomly, or maybe not occur at all – and do it consciously, purposefully,
designedly out of our free-will. We have become a creator of our environment
while, supposedly, purely still a creature of it – a natural being doing
unnatural things?
Most animals
are natural agents of evolution one way or another – doing its work by striving
to out-breed others of their own species, and/or by being predators and killing
off the weakest of other species. But humans go beyond this natural role. We consciously
make our mind up as to which animals should be advantaged – or disposed of – by
all sorts of strange, unnatural notions – like compassion, or aesthetics (cute,
cuddly animals are more likely to be adopted by the public in survival
programs). In our more natural past we killed off whole species of other
animals in a natural fashion (because they were easy prey – Moas by the Maoris
in New Zealand, for example); we drove some to extinction because they impinged
on our survival by being predators on our flocks (Tasmanian tigers for
example); and we drove some useful ones to the brink by over-exploitation
because they were useful to our rising technology (whales for their oil during
the Industrial Revolution). But, more recently as our spiritual evolution
advanced, we have called some animals good and protected them for non
natural-selection reasons – i.e. because of our compassion for them (whales,
for example) or because we find them “cute”, or “beautiful” (like koalas and pandas
for example). This latter is an entirely non-Darwinian beauty because they have
no food value – therefore no survival value. We have selected positively for
them on account of their aesthetic beauty – for how they move our souls – in
other words, for purely spiritual and/or subjective reasons. The universe is
supposed to be purely mechanistic, causal, and objective, but humans do not
proceed in a completely objective manner. Are we then not part of it – or is
the universe not a completely objective universe?
Weird, that at
some point the universe stopped being accidental and mechanistic.
As well as
ensuring the survival of some endangered species, humans have also collected
useless animals as pets just because we find them beautiful and/or sometimes
enjoy their company (like cats and dogs). “Useless” in an evolutionary sense,
conferring no survival or genetic advantages to us – only survival costs by
using up money we may need to survive ourselves. We have bred some of them to
do jobs for us (e.g. working dogs) but many more breeds just for their
aesthetics – their “beauty”, as we see it – and for the non-Darwinian comfort
they give us. “Non-Darwinian” because it has nothing to do with our bodily
survival or genetic domination.
We have also
evolved ethics – a spiritual understanding of the “moral” responsibilities of
our peak position in the animal kingdom. Some animals now owe their continued
existence to this unnatural sense of ethics – just as some, earlier in our less
spiritually evolved history, owed their extinction to our more natural physical
needs – for the fittest to survive. Some of our “ethical” conservation actions
do come from a selfish, Darwinian understanding that bio-diversity will be good
for our own survival, but some come equally or wholly from an understanding of
the moral responsibilities that the peak position in the animal world brings.
The Green Movement, the Save a Greyhound group, and the RSPCA for example, are
driven as much (or, in some cases, more) by moral, ethical, compassionate,
spiritual motives as by selfish, Darwinian survival motives.
So we, who are
meant to be explained entirely as just another animal, a natural product of our
environment created accidentally by it, have come (so quickly) to begin creating
our environment on purpose – to knowingly alter/evolve our own and other
species for both objective and subjective reasons. Evolution is entirely
accidental and random no longer – we, while still a creature, have become a
creator/designer.
UNNATURAL MOTIVES
We humans are
interfering with the natural selection process for all sorts of unnatural
motives. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the way we are altering our
own human evolution (consciously and unconsciously). The fittest human
individuals – those who have climbed by their natural abilities to the top of
the human food chain – are dropping their birthrate. And they have dropped
their birthrate for lots of unnatural reasons like: lifestyle – children can
cramp your “lifestyle” (lifestyle, now there’s an unnatural human concept in a
life we are told is only about making your genes dominant); self-esteem reasons
(a new car or a new kid – which will make me feel better about my self?);
economic reasons (divorce rates are high, which means many marriages between
high achievers are not producing offspring because both have excessive working
hours); philosophical reasons (“thinking” peoples’ fear of bringing a child
into what they may see as a meaningless, purposeless life); and so on.
While at the
same time that many of these “alpha” types are not breeding (or breeding less)
our unnatural “virtue” of compassion for unrelated genetic competitors is
leading us to help humans to survive who would naturally have been “selected
out” because of physical or mental weaknesses. These individuals (who often
have congenital problems) can now go on to breed. We then look after their congenitally
weak offspring. We are favouring “bad” breeding stock – bad as far as
relentless and amoral natural selection is concerned. These humans are being
unnaturally selected and are breeding much more strongly than they would have
in a natural state because of our unnatural, compassionate efforts. I’m not
saying that this is “good” or “bad”, or that we should encourage eugenics, just
stating it is so – just more unnatural human acts in an otherwise natural
world.
We are changing this through our understanding of
medical science. If we want, births could soon be of “perfect” offspring – DNA
vetted for deficiencies, weaknesses, sicknesses etc. This is providing our unnatural
ethics allow it, of course – there are many debates occurring now on the issues
involved – like medical abortions for example, or selected sperm donors (Nobel
prize-winners or sportsmen). Again I am making no statement as to whether it is
“right” or “wrong”, just that it is so.
WE ARE EMERGING FROM NATURAL SELECTION’S GRASP
Natural selection does not have humanity (and some
animals and plants chosen by us) entirely in its grip anymore (for better or
worse) and, again, the process is being governed sometimes only by our strange
aesthetics, ethical notions, and our spiritual nature.
Humans are also working on ways of breaking from the
universes’ natural, random, physical violence. For example, by detecting
asteroids which may hit the Earth (and make severe natural changes to
lifeforms, as it did to the dinosaurs) by destroying or diverting them. We are
no longer Carl Sagan’s “stardust observing the stars” – which was strange
enough – we have become stardust physically and knowingly altering the stars.
We have, uniquely among the animals, evolved beyond being a mere object of
natural selection into greater control of nature.
Weird stuff in a natural, mechanistic world?
·
The dubious psychological basis of belief.
Atheists state that beliefs in God and special
meaning in life, are a product of the wishful thinking of those who need
comfort. Belief, they insist, is just a psychological crutch, a comfort in a
tough world – for those who are weak and cannot cope with the thought of death,
and oblivion, or our personal insignificance and lack of control over life.
Leading sceptic Michael Shermer sees it this way :
“More
than any other, the reason people believe weird things is because they want to.
It feels good. It is comforting. It is consoling.”
(p. 273 “Why People Believe
Weird Things”).
Atheists like Shermer swarm the high moral ground
because they see themselves as having the intellectual integrity and courage to
face life and death without needing the comforting thought of God-the-Father
and life in the hereafter.
“We
[sceptics and scientists] seek
immortality through our cumulative efforts and lasting achievements; we too
wish that our hopes for eternity might be fulfilled.” (p. 6 ibid.)
Pllll-ease! Atheists’ self-judged superiority stands
out in their literature – hic sic.
Certainly, a lot of people seek immortality through a
belief in God, their belief being generated by need rather than Truths
unearthed after a penetrating search for Truth. Or because they cynically and calculatedly
see something like Pascal’s wager as a little bit of insurance that doesn’t
cost too much (the notion that its wiser to believe in religion’s god because
the consequences of being wrong as a “believer” is minor – but eternally bad
for a disbeliever if the Judeo/Christian god does exist). But many atheists disbelieve
on similarly specious grounds – because a God gets in the road of a good time
and/or they are already carrying enough guilt by the time they consider the
question to make the thought of a God an intolerable burden. It’s amazing how
many of the people I have mentioned as heroes of atheism have had multiple
marriages and/or are living the lives of a libertine – with all the guilt of
betrayed families and relationships such a lifestyle entails. These atheists still
manage the high moral ground because they see believers as weak because they
need the comfort of a god, without considering that eventual nothingness is
comforting for the guilt-ridden. Disbelievers prefer the notion of oblivion because
they are (as they accuse the religious) in fear of the alternative.
Residency in any “H House – of God, or of Disbelief –
has a psychological base. But it cannot be argued that the psychological basis
of belief in religion’s god disproves any real God and special meaning – any
more than it can be argued that the psychological basis of atheism proves God
and special meaning.
·
The scale of the universe is so huge that
we are meaningless.
Many have expressed the thought that because we are
individually insignificant in comparison to the universe, so is any meaning our
life may have. This particular argument against special meaning is being heard
more frequently as we discover the vast scale of our universe. Just when we get
our head around Carl Sagan’s analogy of the number of suns in the universe: “the total number of stars in the universe is
greater than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth”
(Cosmos P. 196), someone comes along
and tells us that there could be more than one universe! Indeed, it has even been
posited that there may be an infinite number of universes – a multiverse (I
will examine the multiverse idea as a separate pillar). So, we have not only
lost our rather comfortable, Old Testament place at the centre of everything,
we discover that we are insignificant – supposedly to the point of
meaninglessness?
DOES SIZE MATTER?
Who has not felt an existential flat spot when
contemplating the head-spinning vastness of the universe(s) and our small place
in it? But, does size matter? Studies reveal that minute events, like the beat
of a butterfly’s wing, can have consequences which go on for ever. So it is in the
realm of ideas – individual humans can exert massive change with just a single
thought. Some thoughts retain their power to change for endless generations –
will the repercussions of the thoughts of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle ever
end? Big, world-changing (or even universe-changing) ideas stand on the
shoulders of smaller thought(s). Individually we can, and have, made large
differences that we are not even aware of – significance is not contingent on
awareness. Ideas contained in Earth broadcasts which have penetrated into space
may even have made changes in the broader universe?
Some feel that its very largeness speaks of the
accidental nature of the universe, speaks against purpose, or against Divine efficiency?
Why so much space, why so much of it uninhabitable – therefore meaningless – why
so many failed worlds before one can be found suitable for us to exist on? This
from scientist Dr. Rodney Holder:
“Contrary
to our intuitions, it turns out that the universe needs to be the vast size it
is in order for man to exist. This is the size it inevitably reaches in the
14,000 million years which it takes to evolve human beings….A universe endowed with the mass of a single
galaxy has enough matter to make a hundred billion stars like the sun, but such
a universe would expand for only about a month. Thus the argument that the
vastness of the universe points to man’s insignificance is turned on its head –
only if it is so vast could we be here.”
“Think” (The Royal Institute of Philosophy
periodical) No. 12, p. 53
I’m not so sure that it takes 14 billion years to
evolve a species like humanity? I feel that there has to be many civilisations
out there? Time will tell on that one, but for this consideration of the vast
size of the universe and what it says about the possibility, or not, of special
meaning, suffice it to say that the size, complexity, and vast age of the
universe(s) as now revealed by astronomy and physics is no impediment to its
possible special purpose. The vast size of the universe (even if to just
produce humanity?) is not fatal to a belief in a “G” God – fatal only to the ancient
everything-created-in-6-days-6000-years-ago “g” god of the Bible written by our
pre-scientific ancestors. The Bible is a parochial document placing one group
of tribes at the centre of the world as God’s “chosen people”, and the world at
the centre of the universe. That the universe has been revealed to be of
immense size (and Earth revealed to be not in its centre – nor that the sun
orbits us) is not a secure pillar of the House of Disbelief, but a blow against
the Judeo/Christian House of God. Again, a sound pillar for a House cannot be
made solely out of the rubble of a failed opposing House.
In time we may even discover other life forms, even
life forms more evolved than ours. This, again, would not be a blow against God
and special meaning, it would not provide a sound pillar for the House of
Disbelief, but only a blow against the House of God’s god – and its stone-age Bible.
INDIVIDUALS ARE SIGNIFICANT
A human is larger – in proportion – to the human
species than a cell is to the human body (there are way more cells in a human
body than there are individuals on Earth) and we all know that an individual
cell can have a big effect, in time, on the human body. Humans, as a species,
are proportional to any other life in the universe – more or less so than the
above analogy, depending on the amount of life in the universe – but more so if
there is no other life. Individually we are significant to the human species,
and, in turn, as a species vital to the health and potential of life in our
universe. Every individual counts in the story of a species, and every species
in the story of our universe.
Some have attempted to explain away the unnatural
order of this universe (“unnatural” because all should naturally be chaos) and
the mystery of life occurring therein, by constructing a multiverse theory.
Multiple universes are inferred as possible from some observations in quantum
physics, and the logic flows that, if there are indeed an infinite number of
universes then this universe and the sort of life we find in it was bound to
exist given the infinite number of opportunities presented – a bit like the old
furphy that if an infinite number of monkeys were placed in a room with an
infinite number of typewriters one of them would eventually type Shakespeare’s
entire opus! [This was actually tried on a smaller scale by one researcher and
the chimps managed to defecate on most of the keyboards, one managing to begin
on what may have turned out to be an infinite number of “ssss’s” had he not got
bored].
Multiverse theory creates thousands of millions of
billions of universes, each containing in turn thousands of millions of
billions of stars, planets and moons to explain away the mysteries of this one.
Rather untidy, and leaving aside the giant “if” (no observations of a
multiverse have ever been made), one suspects that Ockham’s razor [the
observation that all great scientific truths are simple and we should be
suspicious of theories that need unnecessary complexity to support them] would
deal with it somewhat harshly.
Even if we do allow a multiverse, for a moment – just
to consider its implications, the mysteries are not erased only multiplied – even
a designer-god still breathes. Other (or all) universes in a multiverse may in
turn each contain unnatural spiritual life just as ours does. The numinous
aspects of life prove that the spiritual can happen in a physical universe. We
know that what can happen, will happen – wherever it can.
Also consider that a creator-God could possibly just
instil suitable universes with the necessary ingredients for life – which
universes were initially accidental and self-occurring – just as this one may
have been. A multiverse only makes possible a much more amazing creator-God
than the one extrapolated from the primitive Bible. Until the existence of the
spiritual is explained away in this universe, a multiverse only has the
potential to compound the theory of meaninglessness’ problems.
Again, the only god demolished by multiverse theory
is the old, tribal, creating-everything-in-6-days one.
Post-modern Theory states that everything is relative
– there are no “T” Truths – only your, or my, “t” truths (i.e. there are no
Truths – except this).
We live in a relative world. In the beginning there
was an absolute – a singularity – of energy. The relative was born when this
absolute singularity of energy converted/transmuted into matter causing the Big
Bang. Energy is a unity, but matter is separate – allowing the relative. “This”
and “that” became a fact; “here” and “there”; “now” and “then” became possible
– individual matter meant separation which meant space which meant time. So far
pretty mechanistic, but then a miracle happened – somehow into this mechanical
process came life – the inert became organic – organic chemistry flowed from
inorganic chemistry. And then somehow life was reproducing life – and “you” and
“me” became possible.
And the miracles didn’t stop there, somehow life
became perceptive and sentient – and your perception or idea and my different perception
and idea became possible. Your and my different perceptions and ideas meant
your and my truths became possible – relative truths. Is this, necessarily, the
end of the possible existence of “T” Truth? Must all be relative in a relative
world?
THINGS THAT ARE TRUE FOR EVERYBODY ALL THE TIME
No – some things remain True for all of humanity, all
the time – these I refer to when I use the word “T” Truth. Some things in our
relative universe are true for everybody all the time. For example, we have
animal bodies – we have the evidence of our animal drives, needs, and genetic
imperatives. It is also a Truth that the relative universe is creative – we
have the evidence of the huge number of its creations that surround us daily.
There are some Truths which are slipperier, such as the
Truths about what really happened in History – always devilishly hard to pin
down – history, as the saying goes, is usually written by the victors. Certain
things were done by certain people to certain other people, and who the
people actually were and what they actually did – is the Truth. But
recorded history has agendas and motives (the Bible is a good example of this)
and while the Truth may not be known by us any more about certain events, it
does not mean that the Truth about these people and events does not exist.
WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF SEEKING THE “T” TRUTH?
The Truth has implications about the existence of any
special meaning in life – which in turn has implications about how we should go
about living to enjoy the experience/opportunity to the utmost.
For example?
One Truth we know is that humans seek to be happy –
rather than just merely seek to be. This has been established to be a “T” Truth
by observation. It is also a Truth that we go about it in different ways – and
than some ways work, some don’t work, and some are actually counter-productive.
Some of our ideas about what happiness is are wrong, some of our ideas about
how to achieve it are wrong – they are our relative “t” truths – but this does
not prevent the statement that humans seek happiness from being a Truth. We
will examine some of the Truths about human happiness more closely in Essay 3.
Here, let’s just observe again, that the undoubted existence of personal and
relative “t” truths, do not necessarily remove the existence of “T” Truth.
I say that it is also a Truth that the human
condition is to be a spiritual being – a spiritual being with a human body. I
hope that the weight of these three essays can provide enough evidence that
this is a Truth – and not just my truth?
Our existence in the relative is immaculately creative
of our self – of us – because it demands that we decide, make our own choices –
have our own truths – and our truths create our selves – we become our choices
about what we believe to be the Truth – even if it is that there are no Truths.
And that is, I maintain, a Truth. Some of our truths – our gods, our models for
the special meaning and ultimate purpose (or the lack of special meaning and/or
ultimate purpose) – are wrong, but that does not remove Truth, God, special
meaning or ultimate purpose.
CONCLUSIONS
This essay found that over the years healthy
scepticism – disbelief – became “D” Disbelief, an “H” House having many of the
hallmarks of a religion. The House of Disbelief started with initial “T” Truths
but turned them into doctrines – “t” truths. For example, the Truths that we
are animals and that evolution describes how our bodies evolved, became the
House of Disbelief’s doctrines that we are only animals and that evolution
explains all of life’s mysteries – establishing it to be necessarily meaningless.
These, and other doctrines, form the “t” truths of the House of Disbelief in a
process similar to way the Jesus movement became a House – where Jesus’ “T”
Truths (love, forgive, do unto others) were turned into the House of God’s doctrines
(Salvation, Trinity, Original Sin, etc.) – its truths.
SOME PILLARS ARE SOUND ARGUMENTS AGAINST OUR ANCIENT
GODS
This essay also found that, while some of the
philosophical pillars of the House of Disbelief are sound, they are only
sound disproofs of the “proofs”, the House of God thinks it has established about
the existence of its primitive “g” god – they are not proofs of the
non-existence of any real “G” God. They are disproofs of House of God’s
arguments such as: the ontological argument (it is agreed that God is perfect,
and if a being is perfect it must exist – because if it did not exist, it would
not be perfect); the cosmological argument (everything must have a cause, so
the universe too must have a cause – that cause is God); and the teleological argument
(the universe has order which must have come from an intelligent designer –
that designer is God).
THE RUBBLE OF AN UNSOUND HOUSE DOES NOT MAKE SOUND
FOUNDATIONS FOR ANOTHER
Science has revealed the real extent and greatness of
our world and universe – a universe more magnificent than our pre-scientific
ancestors were capable of imagining – and, potentially, a God more magnificent
than they were capable of imagining. The primitive “g” god residing within the
House of God is human and small, and the worst thing that ever happened to “G”
God. Similarly, the House of God’s model for the meaning of life (a test for
heaven or hell) is the worst thing that ever happened to the very idea of
special meaning. Science has been used by the House of Disbelief to demolish various
religions’ incredible gods and meanings, but science has nothing to say about
the existence of God and special meaning as such – let alone what they may be. The
rubble from the demolition of an unsound House is not ipso facto sound
foundations for another House just because that House opposes the first. Any
House needs its own stand-alone foundations to be sound.
WHY MUST THERE BE A GOD?
A question many ask. But there is no “must” about God
– there either is one, or there is not – and ditto for special meaning and
ultimate purpose. When we came to largely understand, through our physical sciences,
how our physical universe appears in its present state, and how our animal
bodies evolved to their present form, much of educated humanity came to think
that to invoke a God at all was now unnecessary. But there are several
elephants in the lounge room of the House of Disbelief. Most of them stem from
the fact that to understand the physical world is not to answer the mysteries
of the non-physical (we have only briefly examined the non-physical in this
essay but will explore it closely in Essay 3).
WHY BUILD A HOUSE OF DISBELIEF?
The purpose of anything is what it does. “H” Houses,
like “h” houses, do shelter and comfort – houses offer shelter from the
climate, Houses offer shelter from existential angsts. For example, the House
of God affords its inhabitants existential comfort through a belief in control
– over life and death – by giving God what “He” wants. The House of Disbelief also
offers its inhabitants existential comforts.
What existential comforts does the House of Disbelief
offer?
Disbelief disposes of suffering guilt; gives comfort
by disposing of an afterlife where all is known by an omniscient God; comfort
from the notion of an omnipotent God meting out punishment; comfort by
disposing of an eternal afterlife. The House of Disbelief teaches that there is
no right or wrong – therefore no guilt; no omniscient God – therefore all is
not known of the self’s little grubby secrets; no omnipotent God – therefore no
fear of punishment; no afterlife – therefore no eternity to worry about.
HIGH MORAL GROUND CLAMBERING
The denizens of the House of Disbelief, here, usually
clamber all over the high moral ground – proclaiming: they suffer no guilt; do
not fear death; are braver than those poor timorous souls in the House of God. They
don’t need life after death because their deeds will live after them; they
don’t need special meaning because they have strong personal meanings; they are
more intelligent than anyone who believes in a God (some of the leading
Disbelievers are proposing to call themselves “Brights”). Their House has no
need for incense, the smell of sanctimony already hangs heavily in the air. But
the denizens of the House of Disbelief are ordinary people, and as such they
suffer from guilt like everybody else. It is comforting to believe that all is
relative and that there is no absolute good or bad, right or wrong – no need
for the guilt we all accumulate in the course of a life – “if it feels good,
just do it!” An essentially meaningless, libertine life has its attractions,
and many of the saints and zealots of the House of Disbelief listed at the
start of this essay lived such a one – littered with more than their fair share
of infidelities, divorces, betrayal of offspring etc. etc. Humanity has always
found the notion of being under the unremitting gaze of an almighty “G“ God,
discomforting. We escape from our childhood into personal freedom and the last
thing we want is another all-knowing, all-seeing, judgemental – eternally
punishing “F” Father.
CONTROL
And, just as the House of God does, the House of
Disbelief offers supposed complete understanding – and through understanding,
supposed control – and the comfort that brings. Science, through its increasing
understanding, will soon be able to control sickness, even death. But, if achieved,
is control of the physical world the all and all – will it bring real comfort,
will eternal happiness come with eternal physical life? I doubt it and will
give my reasons for saying so in Essay 3 – there is more to the human equation
than just the physical factors.
BUT THE HOUSE OF DISBELIEF DOES HAVE SOME TRUTHS
All Houses have some Truths. Mainstream religions and
religio/philosophies like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Taoism, Confucianism – have some “T” Truths and wisdom – although a tendency to
obscure them under doctrinal truths. And the same applies to the House of
Disbelief.
What are they?
THE USEFUL TRUTHS AND ROLES OF DISBELIEF
Scepticism often can play a useful role in a healthy society
– counter-balancing dangerous religious sects and pseudo-historians like holocaust-deniers.
Disbelief puts religion under the microscope and clearly sees its evils and the
misuses people put it to. The following quotes are from saints of the House of
Disbelief, and are Truths:
“Religion
is the opiate of the masses” – Marx.
“Man’s
need to make his helplessness tolerable” – Freud.
Truths are always useful. But it is important to
understand that these are Truths about religion – not God. These statements are
about the credibility of religion – its “g” god, and models for meaning and
purpose – not about the possible existence of any rational God and special
meaning. These particular Truths enable us to see religion clearly for what it often
is – an adjunct to the power of government, and authority for the divine right
of kings and Tsars (and the power of religious clergy) – not a search for Truth.
They bark against our ancient religions, they do not speak against any
possibility of grander Truths.
THE DANGERS OF DISBELIEF
While scepticism can be useful ideological “D”
Disbelief can be dangerous – like all ideologies. For instance, the House of
Disbelief’s handmaiden – meaninglessness – tends to lead us into the sort of secular
amorality which, can and has, endangered our planet’s sustainability – consider
the vast environmental damage caused by the secular regimes of communist U.S.S.R.,
HURDLES TO OUR SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
We have already discussed the impediment the House of
God is to our spiritual evolution – installing an ancient, primitive god and
pre-Enlightenment doctrines rather than searching for spiritual Truths to
evolve our selves. Mainstream “D” Disbelief, on the other hand, retards our
spiritual evolution by denying it – preferring to see the spiritual aspects of
humanity as animal emotions and/or psychological needs. Any impedimenta to our
spiritual evolution is dangerous because, as discussed, our technological
evolution is outstripping our spiritual evolution. If we proceed as if we were
solely animals, just another species, we are headed for extinction – just like
any other species. We need to evolve that part of us that is different to all
other species – our spirituality – raise our consciousness of existence above
the animal for our own species’ sake, and for the sake of other species as well.
PHILOSOPHY – THE HANDMAIDEN TO SCIENCE?
Philosophy, for so long described as a footnote to
Plato, now seems to be well described as the handmaiden to science. The
scientific method has been proven to be sound, and our sound physical
sciences based upon that method have produced many useful discoveries for our
physical welfare – but does the present default materialist/relativist philosophy
of academe, based solely upon our physical sciences, have sufficient
ingredients for a satisfactory theory of everything? Are there only physical factors
in the human equation or are there truly spiritual factors also?
THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOD AND MEANING IS GOING NOWHERE
We will search out the answer to this question more
thoroughly in Essay 3, but it is true to say here that the philosophy of God and
meaning – surely one of the most important branches of philosophy – has not
evolved much since the rationalist Enlightenment in the 18th century.
The philosophy has been carried between two warring
and irreconcilable parties. The argument for a God and special meaning to life
has been carried by theologians reading from an ancient “B” Book – set in
cement as the word of God (it even ends with a curse on anyone who tries to
change it) – and the argument against God and special meaning being carried by
the clergy of our physical sciences. Both sides have vested interests of status
and employment at risk, and a vested interest in the Abrahamic, Judeo-Christian
god.
BOTH SIDES HAVE A VESTED INTEREST IN THE
JUDEO/CHRISTIAN GOD
Both sides of the “God vs. no-God” and/or “Meaning
vs. Meaninglessness” debate have had a vested interest in the ancient
Judeo/Christian god. The House of God because its power comes from control over
such a vain and jealous god who responds to the correct worship – and the House
of Disbelief because it is a god so easily demolished – “God is dead, and we
have killed him!”.
It is this joint vested interest in the incredible stone-age
Hebrew god which guarantees the philosophy of God and meaning goes nowhere.
PHILOSOPHY – THE LOVE OF KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM?
Philosophy is meant to translate as the love of
knowledge and wisdom, but the first two essays have discovered that neither
side in the “great debate” shows any desire for getting to any Truth in the God
and special meaning debate – no real knowledge or wisdom. No desire to find any
rational, credible “G” God or “T” Truth of any real special meaning and
ultimate purpose – just maintaining their own comfort by demolishing the “t”
truths of the opposition. Winning the argument, proselytising for your side – as
if life was like a huge game to be won for your side at all costs – seems to be
the object, not the gaining of wisdom or knowledge to live life better and more
sustainably.
It is time we sought the Truth regardless of whose
side it rests in – if either? New, real “T” Truths may well be discomforting to
both Houses? – as we discovered it was for the proponents and opponents
of water divining in the Introduction to these essays.
THE HOUSE OF DISBELIEF – THE HOME OF A NOBLE QUEST?
Some
Disbelievers feel they inhabit a Camelot, a castle from which they sally on a brave
and noble quest – to save the world by demolishing religion with its appalling
history, and its equally appalling future holocaust scenarios spelled out in
its Books.
Disbelievers before
the Enlightenment certainly were brave people, who risked life and limb in
defying the House of God – fully worthy occupants of the high moral ground that
present-day atheists claim. Atheist philosopher Schopenhauer (d. 1860) rightly said
that since the rise of Christianity over a thousand years earlier, the power of
the Church was such that no Western philosopher approached the question of the
overall character of the world as we know it with a genuinely open mind. But since
about the 19th century and the rise of science with its attendant
“isms”: Darwinism; existentialism; post-modernism; relativism; materialism;
naturalism – indeed, scientism – the tables are turned. Now to hold a belief in
God and/or special meaning risks credibility – and requires courage. Disbelief
dominates academia in particular, where it is the “default” setting – to hold
otherwise must be proven.
Disbelief now,
however, seems to have become inhabited by bullies – more like a sport than a
philosophy – the sport of slaughtering others’ slow-moving sacred cows. These
intellectual bullies most often have great minds capable of better (Dawkins
comes to mind), capable perhaps of shining a little light to illuminate the
journey that is life, rather than generating heat in the form of anger and
separation in a world already suffering from too much of both?
To be fair,
some residents of the House of God are so ignorant of science that they engender
anger in the breasts of scientists who have spent a lifetime gaining scientific
learning and adhering to the rigorous rules of scientific method. But perhaps the
best way to counter dangerously ignorant religions may be to find a more rational
Divine, meaning and purpose rather than getting some sport from killing and
re-killing their stone-age god? I am not calling for another religion, another
segregation of people into competing groups – rather an evolution in our understanding
of what any possible Divine would be like.
A CALL TO LEAVE
OUR HOUSES
The next essay calls for us to emerge from our Houses
to examine with our ideological spectacles the evidence life presents for any spiritual
factors in the human equation, and what they mean for the philosophy of God, meaning
and purpose. In essay 3 we will explore for rational special meaning and ultimate
purpose, even for a “D” Divine, along “The Road to Truth” – which is life.
Graeme
Meakin, 2003 – Revised 16th August, 2010.
(Link to home page and other essays : www.onthemeaningoflife.com )