THOUGHTS ON BELIEF, FAITH AND SCIENCE AND DESTINY

THOUGHTS ON BELIEF, FAITH AND SCIENCE AND DESTINY

Man has always been curious by nature. He poses questions and seeks answers. He creates delusions such as “everything and every occurrence have a purpose” or “that everything has a beginning”.  A beginning implies that there was “nothing” before the beginning but he does not question what was there before the beginning as this leads to a spiral of uncertainty and a circular argument.

Before the advance of Science, Man had no idea of either the nature or the extent of the Universe. Most existing religions were equally in the dark. Humans were thought of as very special and Earth was more or less regarded as the Centre of the Universe (whatever it was!). This earth-centric, human-centric concept was championed by Theistic religions. Anybody who questioned that was regarded with suspicion and disdain as for example Galileo.

Humankind found out that the best way to get answers was by asking questions, forming a hypothesis and then seeking evidence to justify it. The evidence in its highest form as verifiable data but “evidence” at a lower level also satisfied many people.  What was needed was an explanation that appealed. For example, God created the universe and everything in it and in order to believe that, God had to be something with unlimited powers. This was perfectly sufficient for some. It is the “let it be X” in algebra. All of us form beliefs ultimately on the basis of some form of faith. Scientific evidence is not tested by all who read them. Quite often we accept the evidence on the basis of faith in the source of the evidence. It would not be feasible for all of us to check all the experimental results published and it is perfectly reasonable and practical to trust “trusted sources”. This does not devalue it or equate it with blind faith without a basis.

Humans also discovered that they had emotions and both pleasant and unpleasant subjective mental experiences. They also discovered that some were “luckier” than others in the sum total of their experiences. The inevitable next question was “why is this so?” Some were satisfied that it was entirely random but others saw a pattern. This gave rise to concepts of “good” and “bad”. Good actions resulted in good results and vice versa. This appeared reasonable as it provided an explanation and also a method by which future unhappiness could be reduced by appropriate action in the present time. However, a problem arose. How does such a “law” operate? Two explanations appeared to provide a solution. One was that God sits in judgement and the other is that the present life is part of a continuum of lives before the current birth, and lives after death (rebirth). This appeared to provide a neat explanation for what at first appeared as an injustice, e.g., a good man suffering from a bad experience which he didn’t deserve. The bad experience is because of something “bad” that he did in a previous life. But how do you square this up with belief in a God who is all-merciful? It depends on how you look at God. Is “He” all-powerful like some kind of force or has he got human characteristics such as experiencing love, empathy, pain, sadness etc.? In order to do this, God has to be more than an immense power capable of creating a Universe. He had to be humanised. The humanisation appealed to many as most human beings at some times in their lives have bad experiences which seem uncontrollable.  The experiences that qualify for this have shrunk with the advance of knowledge (for example, the best way to cure an infection and the discomfort it causes is to get rid of the infection- not by praying or lighting a candle or lamp as people long ago did in their ignorance). But there remain situations where one feels helpless and unhappy and in this situation, prayer can be of immense help psychologically. But this again poses a problem. Not all prayers are answered and you are entitled to ask why. If He is all-powerful and loving, why doesn’t he listen to you? Two possible answers come to mind. Firstly, God, in fact, does not exist or if he does, he is not all-powerful. Secondly, he does exist and as our existence goes beyond death (a belief in an after-life), what was seemingly a failure to respond to a prayer was, in fact, a failure  to see “the bigger picture” that God has for you; it looks bad but in fact, it is not. Some cultures overcame this problem by inventing an equally powerful Devil and there was a tussle between the Devil and God and sometimes the Devil won; the implication which some fail to see is that the Devil was more powerful than God.

Coming back to our quest for explanations, those trained in the Scientific method, sought answers by observation, experimentation, formulating hypotheses and testing them and either accepting them as true in the current state of knowledge or rejecting them because the evidence did not justify the hypothesis. This approach led to what we know of our Universe and how it operates. Science also has the humility to accept that in the face of fresh and emerging evidence, it may need to adapt or reject current hypotheses. But working hypotheses enabled us to discover electricity, explain many diseases that affect us and indeed shed light on how we Humans are constructed. It also enabled the most phenomenal control of Nature and innovations for the benefit of Man. The most notable advances in human history such as eradication of diseases, improvements in hygiene and general standards of living, reducing mortality, improvements in production and distribution of goods and services were due to Science. If humans went on Religion alone, they would still be cave dwellers!

A group of “thinkers” took another approach and studied human behaviour and tried to explain phenomena by introspection and reflection. They would not be able to explain most of the physical phenomena (such as thunder and lightning, hurricanes and eclipses), but they could form models of human behaviour and human interaction. These are the philosophers and preachers. Some did this without invoking supernatural beings such as gods but most did. Polytheism was common and monotheism was unusual till much later times.

Science has provided us with a view of the World which no Religion or Philosophy has provided. The vastness of the Universe, the minuscule nature of our planet (let alone ourselves!) in the scheme of things, the beautiful validated explanation for the diversity that exists in Nature by the theory of evolution, were total mysteries before Science. Before the theory of evolution championed by Darwin and  Wallace (and sadly even now), many people refused to accept that Humans are animals.No religion or philosophy told us that we humans have a history going back millions of years. Only science will make us pause in wonderment at how we as we are now, were not there thousands of years ago. We could trace back but the further back we go, the less we look like what we are now. If we project into the future, it would be a big mistake to form in our mind’s eye the image of populations of humans as we are. It is not difficult for us to visualise material changes such as in buildings, transport, communication methods but very few realise that if humans survived (without triggering of self-extinction), we will evolve either into unimaginable forms within the same species or more likely, give rise to a totally new species more adapted to changing conditions. Those future generations will have our skeletal remains to form images of what we looked like, just as we do now to visualise our fellow primates of thousands of years ago (unless digital storage methods evolve to persist for thousands of years). Science also teaches us that life on our planet will cease to exist with the death of our Sun. We don’t need to worry about it at the moment however as it is about 5 billion years on from now!

As stated earlier, religion has no concept of the vastness of our Universe and the high probability that there are other planets inhabited by living beings. Some devotees of Eastern religions will no doubt contest this and state that their religions speak of other beings in different planes of existence, whatever that means. They also claim that lives can move between these so-called planes of existence. In terms of spatial orientation, it is unclear whether they are referring to other planets or planes within this planet as one of the planes of existence is the animal world. It is clear to me that this itself demonstrates the fallibility of this concept as its originator did not regard human beings as animals, which clearly they are.

In light of this and our knowledge of Evolution, it can only be a matter of faith to believe that a human being can be reborn as a lower-order animal. Apart from the mere scientific impossibility, if being born as an animal is the result of some “bad action”, it implies that the condemned animal will remain condemned as how can an animal do good or bad and ascend up the ladder again? Some get over this by stating that the “store of results of bad action” is time-limited and after a variable number of births in the lower animal kingdom, a triumphant return is made as a Human!

No Theistic religion is compatible with established scientific facts. According to the Bible, our planet is only six to seven thousand years old. We know from archaeological and palaeontological evidence that Man probably originated in the continent of Africa (and possibly Western Asia) and migrated outwards about 100,000 years ago. Furthermore, according to the Bible, Man was created by God in his own image. And before that he created all living beings. There is absolutely no statement referring to the differentiation and evolution of complex organisms from simple ones and the process of selection. The only way a real believer in God can be comfortable with this is to bury his head in the sand and not think about it. This does have merits! If the reason for seeking shelter in God is to be comfortable with a state of mind which gives them solace, it will succeed. Such needs are universal and one reason why Religions have survived. Scientists who accept God appear to have different concepts of God and not the simple lay imagination of a benign and rather imposing but gentle Old man with a long white beard image.   Some just accept this dichotomy and live their lives in the way they are most comfortable, treating religion and science as co-existing truths.

But it seems to be clearer with time, that religion and philosophy can be a way for human beings to find a way to exist in his world till the inevitable demise, with the maximum amount of happiness and satisfaction and a minimum amount of pain and sadness without being diverted to answer questions to which science has far more elegant answers than religion or philosophy can provide. One can argue that in the end, it does not really matter whether the Universe had a beginning or whether Man was created or evolved and what matters is how content we will be for the duration of time X-Y= Z, where X is the current age, Y is the unknown age of death and Z is the time till then.

But Religions have and still do, pose dangers to human society and cannot be labelled as an innocent and harmless pursuit by sections of humanity. More of that in the next instalment!

Lastly, I reflect on the concept of destiny. The Oxford dictionary defines destiny as “The events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future” (my italics). The problem is the use of the word “necessarily happen”, which implies that life is programmed in some way, if not completely, at least partially. I say partially because the definition does not state all events. It implies a lack of control and inevitability. There are some things which are inevitable, for example, if I forcibly keep a person’s head submerged for 30 minutes without access to air or Oxygen, he will die. But supporters of destiny believe that all their life events will necessarily happen in the future the way it was “destined”. To me, this is not supportable by any kind of evidence. This may appeal to those who believe in God. They could believe that there is a Master plan for all human beings and that we are merely acting it out. On the other hand, if we remove the word “necessarily” from the definition and refer to the probability of future events, we are on safer grounds. For example, if you are a heavy smoker, the probability of developing lung cancer and/or ischaemic heart disease is very high. If you grew up with caring parents in a supportive environment, the probability of developing into a well-adjusted and successful adult is high. But in both these examples, the outcome given is probable and not inevitable. A belief in destiny (it can only be a belief) is helpful for some in that if life is deterministic, it removes personal responsibility to some extent. It could also give solace when unpleasant things happen to you. It could also relieve you of responsibility in that it was after all your destiny and not your fault. To me, destiny is something which only operates with hindsight because it has happened and the fact that it happened is a fact, but before it actually happened, it could be something which came out of the blue (and impossible to predict) or something which had a high probability such that it was predicted to happen. The fact that it happened is of course not proof of the existence of destiny. Belief in destiny could also have an adverse effect by leading to a life of passivity with no real drive for achieving any form of success in life.