I’ve tried to get insights from some of the brightest minds about the nature of God, human existence, and our ability to transcend what is commonly known as self-preservation: the “strongest” human instinct. Furthermore, I present the argument that debunks the myth that humans are mortal beings, they simply live and ultimately die.
If things were as simple as traditional biology tells us, then what does a spouse or parent willing to lay down their life for their beloved represent? Perhaps love and the divine human spirit provide us with the innate spiritual supremacy to rise above our “greatest human instinct” and propel a person to overcome our “captive”, that is, the primitive impulse to survive. Needless to say, we are back to where we started. The question that remains to be answered centers on whether human beings are eternal beings.
I did some research regarding the probability that a person is alive at this very moment, living on the planet we call earth. We will come back to this in a moment.
Keep in mind that our universe arose as a “singularity” about 13.7 billion years ago.
Although I have been flirting with the possibility of eternal life (in some form) and, something or Someone who was the great designer of the cosmos, I have not used the word “religion”, correct?
Comparing apples to apples, I will use the word “faith” when contrasting faith as a higher power vs. faith in the science underlying the Big Bang theory.
We know that our universe was born almost 14 billion years ago, yet ask a scientist ‘how the Big Bang happened’. You’ll likely get an answer that goes something like this: “14 billion years ago, the universe arose from an unknown cosmic trigger.” Hmm, an unknown cosmic trigger… what is an unknown cosmic trigger? it takes some faith to believe in one!
Logic tells me that faith comes in two competing forms, faith in the form of a scientific theory and faith in something or someone, that is, a higher power. I tend to look for convincing evidence to support a given faith.
The assumption that some unknown cosmic trigger caused me to sit down at my computer to write would require me to have faith in the existence of a cosmic trigger. So what is a reasonable alternative to an unknown cosmic trigger? Probability and statistics, of course! I will illustrate my point without delving too deeply into the mathematical discipline.
I noted earlier that I did some research regarding the probability that a person is alive today, living on the planet we call earth. First of all, no matter what faith you adopt, you are a miracle, at least in the eyes of probability and statistics.
Throughout the violent and turbulent first moments of the Big Bang until the formation of the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, you “survived” hundreds of millions of catastrophic events, such as the meteorite that hit the Earth and killed 80% of all life on Earth, including the dinosaurs. which occurred 66 million years ago.
From the Big Bang to the moment of your conception and birth, you are a miracle given that the statistical probability that you are here is around 1 in 400 billion. I suggest that a person is more likely to win the lottery thousands of times in a row than to be alive.
Is statistical science a fact or a faith? Perhaps the probability (1 in 400 trillion) that you are alive, living on earth, is complete nonsense given that statistical analysis can be quite a daunting endeavor when it comes to controlling for critical variables while analyzing and normalizing data.
Frankly, can it be too difficult to come to a valid conclusion? I don’t have a good answer, however, I think it’s more prudent to hitch a horse to a cart that is missing a wheel, i.e. an unknown cosmic trigger.
Einstein went on to hold a deistic concept of God. He was amazed at the beauty and complexity of the cosmos, but he could not accept the idea of a God meddling in human history.
Einstein’s concept of beauty is that it resonates with wonder at the beauty and complexity of the cosmos. Certainly, something or Someone must have intervened in the beautiful design of the cosmos.
Perhaps Einstein correctly saw that the beauty of the universe reflects the beauty of something or Someone beyond the universe. If God had remained silent, we could not say more than Einstein said: that “the vast darkness of the universe presents suggestions of transcendent beauty.”
Earnest Becker wrote: “Man breaks the boundaries of mere cultural heroism; he destroys the lies of character that made him act like a hero in the everyday social scheme of things; and in doing so, he opens himself to infinity, to the possibility of existence. cosmic”. heroism… It links his secret inner self, his authentic talent, his deepest feelings of uniqueness… to the very foundation of creation. Outside the ruins of the broken cultural self, there remains the mystery of the private, invisible, interior. I who yearned for an ultimate meaning.
This invisible mystery in the heart of [the] creature now achieves cosmic significance by affirming its connection to the unseen mystery at the heart of creation. “This,” she concludes, “is the meaning of faith.”
According to Becker, faith is the belief that, despite one’s “insignificance, weakness and death”, one’s existence has meaning in some ultimate sense because it exists within an eternal and infinite scheme of created things. and maintained according to the design of some creative force.
Becker’s ideas about cosmic design and a creative force are not as bold as Einstein’s cosmic view that includes a non-traditional God, or “something or Someone” beyond the universe…I take this to mean a higher power.
I will end with a quote from Albert Einstein, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”