Evidence for the existence of God has always been lacking. But, there was a time when it was hard to conceive of anything else but God. Some of the greatest minds the Earth has carried upon herself lived in this time. Take Isaac Newton for instance. The brilliant man that he was revealed to us the laws of gravity whose predictions were only ever so slightly outmatched by those of Albert Einstein’s theory of Relativity, centuries later. Yet he was a very religious man. This was the 18th century. Does it still make sense to be a very religious person today, in light of what we know?
We have come so far since that time, does it still make sense to believe in a God in our day and age? Would Newton still have been religious in a time where evolution has been shown to be the means by which all life arises and grows to reach more complex forms by totally natural means? Surely, he would have been forced to concede that human beings are in no way separate from the animal kingdom, that what separates us so neatly from other species today is merely the fact that all the other vaguely human forms that make the chain from Man to any other species have long gone extinct. If one understands evolution correctly, one can clearly see that there is no definite moment when an individual can be called the first Man rather than anything else in the same way that you could never be exactly sure at what exact point a few grains of salt became a pile of salt. But then, if there is no definite first Man who would be the first soul bearer? If there was a soul bearer, why would his immediate parent not be endowed with a soul himself? after all, parent and child would be so similar, the differences between them would be literally indiscernible.
Does it still make sense to believe in a God in our day and age, with the knowledge that astronomers such as Edwin Hubble, Fred Hoyle or George Gamow have provided us with? We now know how insignificantly small our planet is when compared to the vastness of our own galaxy which contains billions of star systems. But this is only in our galaxy. There are more galaxies to be found in the cosmos, separated by vast expanses of void. We’re not talking about hundreds, neither are we counting in millions or restricting ourselves to a mere few billion, the astounding number of galaxies we do not have the privilege to call our own is well beyond the hundreds of billions figure. Carl Sagan’s famous billions & billions. Most, very probably devoid of life, but because of the sheer number of galaxies, some indubitably endowed with a life promising to be so different from our own. One just has to listen to the Carl Sagan’s exquisite monologue on The Pale Blue Dot that our planet appears to be from Saturn’s vantage point, to fully appreciate how very little of the cosmos cares for our existence. How we stand alone in the vast cold space. In Carl Sagan’s words: “on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam”. And to think that the Universe has fared pretty well without us for 13 billion years is yet more humbling.
Does it still make sense to believe in a God in our day and age when information is so readily available? when the geographical barriers between cultures that led us to keep other religions but our own, out of the mind, do not exist anymore? This is a time when, unless in denial, we must concede that most religions are in fact, as convincing as each other. Undoubtedly, back in the days before airplanes and the Internet, it would have been so easy for one to revel in his own religion and wave off all other religions as small insignificant cults. In the light of recent events, such as the radical Islam September 11 attacks and our own; partially driven by Christian fervour, retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq (why Iraq?) and with globalisation in mind, it is clear that our planet is too interconnected for religions to ignore each other any longer. Christianity may have the most adherents, reaching up to 2 billion, but can it still, in our time, will itself to ignore the 4.5 billion people who don’t share that belief in the holiness of the Christ? Not to mention that these 2 billions are further divided into smaller sects such as Catholics, Protestants, Latter Day Saints, Jehova witnesses, Westboro Baptist Church…the list goes on. As we look back at the vast history and prehistory that precedes us, with the knowledge we have of past religions, prospering for a time and then fading away, becoming mythology in some cases, is it so hard to see this happening to the beliefs many hold as true today? Did the Romans and Greeks and Norse not hold on to their beliefs as strongly as modern man does cling to his Christianity, his Islam, his Hinduism? Do we learn nothing from the sudden emergence of Scientology? Are we too blind to see in the burgeoning cult, a mirror held to the monotheistic religions, as if to say: “Look at this, this very improbable fantasy tale that many people so readily dismiss today. Give it a few thousand years, and it will be treated as fact, and people will know in their heart that it is true and that everyone else is misguided. They will say to you that they don’t believe that it’s true, they KNOW that it’s true”.
So why believe in a God? is it to fulfil a need for wonder and awe? The Universe supplies enough wonder without branching into the supernatural. Just think of the awesome fact that almost every single element that constitutes your body was forged in the heart of a star so tantalizingly bigger than our own Star. Think of the dizzying fact that in order for you to exist, every single one of your ancestors, all the way down to LUCA, a few billion years ago, had to successfully survive and reproduce. The sensation that one feels when they believe they are in communion with God can easily be recreated by the sheer wonder that one feels when staring at the magnificent captures of nebulaes that Hubble has to offer. To think that these giant clouds of gas span over distances of a few hundred million years is truly a powerful idea capable of eliciting powerful emotions.
Truly, I wonder, how is it possible to believe any sort of God or Gods exists? Just think about it. If God existed but somehow disappeared tomorrow, what would actually change in the world? There would still be many good and evil deeds, lives of comfort and lives of suffering.Would anybody really notice? Probably not, nobody questioned whether God had disappeared in dire times such as the 2nd World War and its Holocaust. However bad things get, people believe, which says a lot about the irrationality of such beliefs. Would people continue praying, convinced their prayers don’t go unnoticed, even when life has treated them badly? Would anybody truly feel his disappearance? Of course they wouldn’t, because no one truly is in contact with God. Not even the Pope in Rome who clearly serves his own ridiculous Conservative views, in contradiction with the scientific knowledge which exists in our culture. So how would that “tomorrow” be perceptually different then the day before? It wouldn’t. Simply because it is “tomorrow”, always was, always will be.
