For centuries, if not longer, there has been a war going on. Like most wars it is an utterly pointless war, however, it rages on nonetheless. This war is between two philosophical schools of thought, two religions- those who believe in a God and those who believe in a Science. As we have noted before, since the Reformation, according to the pioneering psychologist Carl Jung, the only reality is that which can be measured (meaning, I guess, that emotions aren’t real). These two warring factions often fall upon two notions to support their argument- ‘How’ and ‘Why’. These are positioned as opposites so that any truth can be made or refuted from these points. For example, one will say that there is no God and that life just came into being. One would then refute this by asking, why do we exist? Another would say that we exist because a God made us. This would then be refuted by the question, how did God do it? Yet, if you look at these arguments, then the refutations are not linked to the original statement. ‘How’ and ‘Why’ do not answer each other as they are completely different. In two parts we will look at each question in turn in relation to existence. How we exist? and why we exist?
How we exist. Creationism is the belief that what is written in the book of Genesis (for example) in the Christian Bible is literal. In the book, God creates the heavens and the earth. Then he creates day and night, then he creates land and sea, then he creates animals (the types that we know- sorry extinct species such as dinosaurs and dodos) then he creates man, i.e. the male. He looks at man and sees that man is an idiot and, in the words of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, makes his second mistake and creates women. (Note: many Have accused Nietzsche of misogyny for saying this ignoring that Nietzsche is saying that man is the first mistake and women just compound the folly). Having created the universe and all the beautiful animals, God realises that with humans the law of diminishing returns has kicked in and retires.
Creationism is a nice story and one can see how it is tempting to believe it, yet, one thing does not add up. We have evidence of how evolution took place. Charles Darwin, to name but one, collated compelling evidence that humans as we are today evolved from single cell amoebas, through rodents, through monkeys, to us the latest stage of evolution. Yet, how can this fit with the notion that we were created by a God? Quite simply the Theory of Evolution offers the answer to the question, how did God create us? We can happily say that God stuck us all in a garden after creating the universe and we can also say that the way that he did this was through trial and error. Evolution can be seen as God having created something which wasn’t quite right and through adaption it started to take the shape that he wanted it to. And so we have an answer to the question and answer chain: God created us: how?: through evolution. Yes, there will be people who hear/read this and run screaming for the hills as they think their faith has been attacked, but remember what we, dear reader, noted the other day- faith is the evidence upon which people build belief.
The Big Bang Theory is the latest in a series of theories to explain how we exist. The theory states that at some point a few billion years ago, some stuff, for reasons no one knows, went BANG and this matter (what matter? Atoms make us all matter) was hurled into something? Nothing? And then after a few billion years monkeys decided that iPads are cool. Yes, I probably played up the uncertainty in this theory for comedic purposes, however, beneath the tortured humour, there is a serious question. If The Big Bang Theory happened as scientists theorize then this begs a question. Often people fill this void with the question, why did it happen?, however, as we have said before, this question is irrelevant in response to this theory. The question which should be asked, is how did it happen? Where did all of this stuff which created the computer I’m sat in front of come from? How did it all go bang? How did evolution take place? Suddenly, theology can be seen as God having created something out of nothing which started a process for what was created wasn’t quite right and through adaption it started to take the shape that needed to, to survive. And so we have an answer to the question and answer chain: The universe was created: how?: through the Will of God. Yes, there will be people who hear/read this and run screaming for the hills as they think their faith has been attacked, but remember what we, dear reader, noted the other day- faith is the evidence upon which people build belief.
You will note that I have not answered the question, how do we exist? And, to be blunt, I don’t think this question can be answered, especially not by one as limited as me. Yet we have shown that the question: refutation of How/Why is not the correct question/answer chain, and, if we are to consider these questions seriously, we have to counter the question of How? with How? and Why? with Why?
‘till next time
thegreaterfool2016 