The unknown has always fascinated man and he is continually trying to journey into it to find out what lies beyond. Science is one of the techniques where human energy is directed at expanding the boundaries of the known as far as possible into the unknown. Science shines beacons of light into the all enveloping darkness as we grope about with the aid of our senses, tools and minds to try and address existential puzzles like who we are, where we are and so on. Science is not the only method that man uses to push his knowledge and experience’s boundaries. Every single human being is using different and often novel techniques to get a better understanding of everything around him or her from the first moment of consciousness. The factory employee with a steady job and a family to support, the banker making his millions, the corporate CEO setting and driving new revenue targets each quarter for the shareholder, the farmer toiling in the fields, the artist depicting his reality, the alcoholic and narcotic pushing his physical and mental boundaries, the yogi using his body and mind as an instrument, the housewife nourishing and sustaining her family, the criminal acting without scruples, the soldier ready to die for his cause, the politician playing his power games, the shaman, psychologist and medicine man – all of them are constantly pushing the boundaries of what they know into the unknown.
There are possibly three divisions that we can make of the human race on the basis of spirituality – those who believe in the existence of god, those who believe in the non-existence of god and those who don’t care. There is really only one thing that is definite in this life and that is death of the physical body as we know it so you could say that belief one way or the other has no proven relevance. However for many people, a belief that there is a god gives them direction in life and a benchmark or goal to work towards. If you believe there is a god, you then believe yourself accountable to this higher entity for your actions and live accordingly. If you believe there is no god, you then believe yourself to have the ability to control life itself and to be responsible for everything around you given the superior nature of your intelligence. If you don’t care either way then you are likely having a whole lot of fun or don’t probably care whether you are alive or dead.
The definition of god according to some is that god is the sum of all that which is known and unknown, physical and non physical, knowledge and experience. God is higher energy, all energy, god contains everything, god is everything, god is nothing, god is infinite, manifest, unmanifest. There can be no entity that has existed, exists or will exist separate from god. To others god is a definite deity, a certain being or form. Most religions in the world follow this definition of god where the founder of their religion is the god who chose to grace the earth in human form and provide direction before he elevated himself to a realm beyond our senses.
People like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and so on seem to have picked up on the definition of god as propounded by most religious institutions i.e god as a definite entity with a human form. He has chosen to use this definition to attack and try and disprove the concept of god. What he uses as his method of argument is to highlight the complexity of life, the time scales of the universe and so on to prove that existence of a god with such a narrow definition is not possible. But what he seems to be so blind about is that it is exactly these complexities, time scales and vastness of existence that to many are the obvious indication of a higher power than man at work and it is this higher power that they called god. I am sure that every single non believer will acknowledge that there are energies at work on this planet that are higher than himself or herself and some of these energies are inexplicable in terms of their origin and purpose.
To use Mr Dawkins method of argument for a change to justify the existence of god let us ask ourselves some questions.
Is it possible for us to say that the knowledge and experience possessed by any one human being today equates to or surpasses the knowledge and experience possessed by this entity called god? Is it possible for us to say that all knowledge and experience possessed by all human beings that constitute the world today equates to God? Shall we further expand this to the knowledge and experience possessed by all life today? Can we definitely exclude the knowledge and experiences of non living physical forms in and outside our planet? Can we ever say that there is any one field of human knowledge that is now so wide ranging that it encompasses the knowledge and experience of all the other areas?
The psychologist and philosopher will say that if there is a god he is the universal mind, the biologist will say that he is the source, the process and end of all life forms, the geologist that he is the source, the process and end of all physical forms, the physicist that he is the source and end of all energy, the historian that he is the past, the futurist that he is the future, the shaman that he is the master of the spirit world. Would all this put together constitute god?
Aren’t we all like the proverbial blind men trying to visualize an elephant by feeling different parts of it? Can anything that we will ever discover refute the concept of god if our definition of god keeps expanding as our minds expand? On the other hand if we refuse to see god in anything that there is will we ever find god in anything that we are going to further discover?
Mr Dawkins, your definition of god seems to be as narrow as that of the religious leaders of the world. You could be described as a bigoted scientific leader, in the field of science the equivalent of our narrow minded religious leaders. You need to possibly expand your ideas of god till such a point that it contains all you have ever known and will ever know and much much more. Then you may be able to understand the place of science better and add positive value to all around you. Can you understand this??
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