Thursday, 15 September 2016

Worship without Faith and the Nature of Pantheism



Here is the thing about science. Besides allowing people to think for themselves, it doesn’t require a shed of belief in anything. It only requires the power of observation and a curiosity for learning. No need to believe in ancient tales of metaphysical forces performing miracles two thousand years ago and then mysteriously disappearing forever. If you want proof that gravity exists, jump up in the air. If you fall down, that’s gravity pulling you down towards the earth. If I want proof of evolution I go look at animals. Best to start with our close relatives if you need convincing. When I lock eyes with an orangutan, I see familiarity. I see kinship. I see evolution. Why do you think so many animals have eyes, nose, ears, mouth and teeth? Because we all evolved from the same original cell. We are all related which is why we all look like each other and have similar instincts. That’s evolution. Whenever you are feeling the light of the sun burning your skin, you are being bombarded with light energy and radiation emanating from a colossal gas giant fusing atoms in its core creating energy that in turn causes plants to create oxygen that you then inhale every time you take a breath, feeding your body and brain with that very same oxygen. It is a chemical process that keeps your body functioning. Not some divine design, it’s all just a result of the ticking of the universal clockwork. Nature is my church, being alive is my worship.

We have evolved on this planet, thus our bodies are perfected to live here. That’s why we (ideally) sleep for eight hours, because the earth takes 24 hours to revolve around itself. Our calendar, our very concept of time is based on exactly these movements. One year is a full revolution around the sun, the biggest object in the solar system and thus what everything spins around. But if we didn’t have Jupiter two planets out, then we would slowly circle into the sun and be devoured. Instead we are being pulled just enough in either direction to have the perfect conditions for life. So when people talk of intelligent design I shake my head. If there was a God that created the entire universe just for our sake, don’t you think he overdid it a little bit? I mean what was the exact need to create an infinite amount of other galaxies and stars if it was all just a plan to create Earth and humans. No, the reason why we’re here is because our planet has the exact right conditions to create life in the form that it has taken on this planet. If any other factor was different then we wouldn’t be here. This is called the anthropic principle. We are only here because out of billions and billions of solar system with billions and billions of planets and moons, our planet has the exact right conditions to sustain life as we know it, and that is why we are here. No design, no divine intervention just pure statistical chance driven forward by the universal clockwork. Of course, in accordance with the humility of science this paradigm might completely change in the future pending new discoveries, but based on what we know right now, it is a perfectly sound theory, unlike the story of a divine creator of which there is NO empirical evidence whatsoever.

As mentioned previously, I am no atheist in the purest definition of the word. Thanks to Dawkins I now know to label myself as a pantheist. So although I don’t believe in any type of deity, I observe the world and all the workings of the universal clockwork as God. These forces are what created and continuously governs everything and one day they will destroy our planet, perhaps sooner than we expect. But they are still forces greater than ourselves and easily fulfill any gap that the absence of God would create. Only, the universal clockwork does not require you to live in any particular manner, it gives you absolute freedom and rather welcomes you into its midst, it wants you to learn more about it and seek to help others do the same. It is continuously encouraging growth and wants you to progress. After all, if we don’t, we will for a fact perish along with our planet. Judgment day IS coming, and instead of just piously waiting for it, we should rather evolve further to a point where it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of our species but rather an impetus to seek even new horizons in other galaxies and/or in other forms.  


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