Does God exist or not? Let me, with my own limited understanding of the universe, try and answer this question. Doesnt the answer to above question depends on how do you define God? The most prevalent definition of God agreed upon both by theists and atheists is that of an entity which is believed to have caused Universes Creation and is responsible for governing it right to the quantum level or beyond. It is common to describe such an entity as omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. Another characteristic of such an entity is that it is eternal, it was there when there was no universe and will be there when or if the universe ceases to exist. The entity is also believed to have source of our morals and the ability to differentiate between right and wrong. Now any entity that fits that definition and characterization is worthy of being called God I suppose, both by theists and atheists, and if such an entity is shown to be present in a way such that human can perceive it, it can be said to be in existence. I believe there is one entity that completely fits all characterizations of the above definition. That entity is The Collection/Consortium/Assembly/Matrix of all Natural/Fundamental Laws or Nature as we call it. Before I get bashed by the scientific community, let me make one thing clear, I am not a scientist by any means although I am a student of science. I do understand the nature has its laws that govern everything in the universe, right from tiny atoms and their transformations to the large heavenly bodies-large enough to engulf 1 million planets like earth. Everything that we study in science whether in physics, chemistry, biology or thousands of its sub-branches is nothing but an attempt to understand and describe the underlying laws in more and more depth. It is my personal belief that all the laws or theories whether it is evolution or laws of quantum mechanics, converge to the same source I am calling God. All the theories that we know today, theories that we know to be true are but extrapolation or derivatives of these fundamental laws. Consider evolution for example. Evolution that seems such a grand phenomenon on the surface has its source in DNA mutation and DNA mutation can be further broken down to Interaction of molecules and atoms, all of which follow the natural laws with consistency and without fail. So why such Assembly of all Natural Laws can be called God? For one, from what we know about universe, nothing in the universe happens against these fundamental laws. Even what we presumed to be miracle has been shown, as human understanding progressed, to be in consistent with natural laws. We have but a very limited understanding of these laws but from what understanding we have, we can tell such laws are existent everywhere (omnipresent). Can natural laws lead to the creation of universe? You bet. Universe was created from big bang and everything we know about big bang are in consistent with the natural laws we have observed about universe. Even if it werent, it would only be because our understanding of these laws are very very limited. So what is more likely to have caused big bang thus leading to creation of universe? Is it the consortium of natural laws or an invisible creature that demands worshiping? That brings us to the second part of the definition, Is The Assembly of Natural Laws responsible for governing the universe? Highly likely. From the evolution of life to the formation of galaxies, all follow the natural laws. In other words, everything that happens happens because the nature (or the natural laws) allows it to happen. Nothing ever happens that violates the nature (or its laws) and if it does,it has more to do with our understanding of nature than nature itself. Can natural laws be source of our moral? We know as humans, we evolved to be expert in pattern recognition : the basic criteria for intelligence. It is because of this ability to recognize patterns that we evolved to be the most intelligent species and thus multiplying the chances of our survival by manifold. And if morality is anything, it is but a natural evolutionary instinct in our mind to recognize a pattern of actions (or thoughts) that brings about a instinctively desired outcome. What is this instinctively desired outcome? Rooted in us (as in all the other species on the planet) is a basic desire/instinct to 1. survive and 2. to ensure the survival of the human species as a whole. So how it has anything to do with morality? Just think about it, morality tells you to be honest. Religious people like to argue science can never tell us what is right or wrong? Well, I am not sure if science can tell that, but natural laws certainly can. So why honesty is a right thing? Because our instinct for pattern recognition has told us that if we be honest, we are more likely to be deemed as trustworthy by another member(s) of our species. This trustworthiness will in turn ensure that we are part of the group or society and that in turn ensures our survival (humans as all other species have recognized being in group ensures their survival by a much higher rate than being solo). This idea that how honesty isright because it is something necessary for our survival has been rooted in the depth of our minds over the generations of human species via our generational message carrier known as DNA which as I have talked earlier follows natural laws. So natural laws can indeed be the source of our morality. I can go even further, but I believe it is already a very large post, but I hope it will incite a fruitful and constructive discussion and debate from both atheists and theists. So what are your views? Is The collection of natural laws worthy of being called God? Why? Or Why Not?
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 07:07:00 +0000