| | | Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
If something exists (such as, say, a universe) then observations may be made about it. Necessarily, patterns will be observed and/or co-created through concept formation. At one time all life was anaerobic, so there were no oxygen breathers. But life adapts to the environment. So now animals and people breathe oxygen. Also, our atmosphere now protects life to some degree from the sun’s rays. But still, millions of people get melanomas each year. Unless humans find a way to spread themselves and their knowledge out through the solar system and beyond, events of climate and environment will eventually take us to extinction--as it did the dinosaurs who lasted for millions of years, but died out 63 million years before humans even evolved.
We are not special to the universe. The universe starves us and gives us diseases. It kills us by the millions in tidal waves, earthquakes, wars, and fires.
It is a funny thing: People are taught science in school but they still try to hold on to the cultural creation myths they grow up steeped in by parents and communities. They believe in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, Jainism, Christianity, or 100,000 other sects for no other reason than peer indoctrination. They know that science belies whatever dogma they are being taught, but they shrug and look past it. They refuse to acknowledge it clearly and with finality. They know that 2 plus 2 = 4. But they give an unconscious shrug and say “maybe not…I hope”.
But Evolutionary Science is confirmed just as all our sciences are confirmed. Indeed it is the lynch pin that ties the biological sciences together and reveals the order and structure of these principles which inform how things work and how things are.
Science tells us WITHOUT DOUBT that humans evolved in exactly the same manner as every living thing. For most of the history of the universe and the earth we have been non-existent and/or irrelevant. We are of no importance to the universe whatsoever. Nobody thinks you are more worthy than any of those poor people who were murdered by the suicide pilot this year. There are no guardians or gods protecting you or me from terrorists, tidal waves, meteorites, lightning, or falling down our stairs. The universe is pitiless and pits all life against one another. If people were the only life form they would eat—guess what??
I don’t know why things are flat or round or spheroid or triangular or crooked. I don’t know why movement has so many speeds and motions. But if something exists it has to have attributes. If you think somebody “designed” the smallpox virus to kill humans, or designed sharks to make the oceans dangerous for us, or designed radiation to bombard us and cause us cancer…fine. I see no reason to postulate such a thing. But the fact that most of the bible is proven nonsensical and the fact that it transparently reveals tribal fiction and tribal ignorance, tells me it was NOT written by a being with very much intelligence nor someone with a whole lot of character. Rather the author generally reveals a severe dearth of morality!
I share your wonder and awe. I just do not need to fabricate an answer. I am content to delight in Science as it unravels the tapestry of our existence and untangles our ignorance on a daily basis.
Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” |
|
