A bit offtopic, but nice article.
Does God Exist?
There are things that we know exist even though we can never see them, because we see their traces. For example, we can know whether a star has a planet rotating around it even though our telescopes do not allow us to see that planet. What we see is a small wobble in the star and we deduce that this wobble is the result of the gravitational pull of a planet. We can even calculate the size and the distance of the planet to the star by measuring the wobble.
In the subatomic world there are particles that we can’t see. But we know for a fact that they exist because of the footprint that they leave behind. For example, the size of string, the smallest particle of matter, in relation to an atom is believed to be the same of an atom in relation to the universe. However, mathematical calculations lead us to believe that they exist and they provide the basis of the Theory of Everything, the theory that unites the quantum world with the Newtonian universe – the minute and the large.
So, although it is futile to search for God, we can search whether there is a footprint that we can attribute to him. In the past people wondered who makes the rain, the wind, and forces the sun to go round. Since they could not figure these out they thought a powerful deity must be behind each one of them. That was the origin of polytheism.
Out of polytheism monotheism evolved.
Although the origin of monotheism cannot be traced accurately, The Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, Marduk from tutelary of Babylon and Zoroaster (usually placed in the early Iron Age) were the earliest monotheists recorded in history.
Today, we know what causes rain, wind and makes the sun go round and we don’t attribute them to God or gods anymore. However, we have discovered more questions such as what caused the Big Bang. Why it went off? When we find no answer we say it must have been God.
Recently, physicists have come up with a new theory – the M theory and the parallel universes, or the multiverse theory that if proven right it will explain what caused the Big Bang. We may actually be very close to know the answer. The Large Hedron Collider may provide the answer in the coming years. This theory says that the universe is a two dimensional membrane like a sheet of paper. (M stands for membrane.) To us it looks three dimensional, because we live in the thickness of the membrane. Some physicists believe the universe is a bubble. It is still a membrane but it forms a bubble, like a balloon. If you travel in one direction and keep going you will end up to where you started your journey. Inside and outside the balloon, there is nothing – no space. It just does not exist in our dimensions. There are infinite universes that float like bubbles – many of them just like ours. In fact there could be duplicates of you in many of them who live different lives. At one point they were joined with you and then they split and entered in another dimension. You can no longer contact yourself in other universes, even though they are right where you are. (For the record, I don’t believe in that. It is too weird even for the science) Universes are constantly born and burst out of existence. When they collide, they sometimes merge and sometimes cause a Big Bang, giving birth to a new universe. You thought fiction is crazy? Reality seems to be a lot stranger. Or is it that our scientists have gone mad?
If this weird theory is proven right, the Big Bang would not have needed a creator. The Big Bang can be explained in the same way that the movement of the sun in the sky is explained. And this will force the God theorists to find another puzzle to justify God.
God provides an answer to our ignorance. It is a theory. The difference between this theory and scientific theories is that it allows no scrutiny. It is based on faith. While the proponents of scientific theories are constantly challenging their own theories and shifting its borders, the advocated of God theory will not move an inch until they are overrun by science. Then they drag their battered theory a bit further and find another employment for God.
However, can we dismiss God altogether? Is he superfluous? Quantum theory posits that matter behaves either as particle or as wave, depending on whether it is observed or not. If it is observed it acts like particle and matter is formed and if it is not observed it acts as wave and things do not materialize. Therefore, it follows that everything you see and the world around you comes to being because someone, say you, observe it. But as Descartes pointed out, you must exist to observe and hence someone must be observing you. This leaves room for an ultimate observer that is not a thing and who observes everything. It is a non being that creates the being by observing it. Could this ultimate observer be God? Someone must be observing the universe for it to come to existence. Does this mean that science has made God indispensable?
It is interesting to note that Hindu philosophers believed that the universe is the dream of gods. In his book Cosmos, Carl Sagan explains, “There is the deep and appealing notion that the universe is but a dream of the god who, after a hundred Brahma years, dissolves himself into a dreamless sleep. The universe dissolves with him – until, after another Brahma century, he stirs, recomposes himself and begins again to dream the cosmic dream. Meanwhile, elsewhere, there are an infinite number of universes, each with its own god dreaming the cosmic dream.”
Sagan then says, “These great ideas are tempered by another, perhaps greater. It is said that men may not be the dreams of gods, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men.”
He may be right and he may not be. He may be right because the gods that people envision are figments of their imagination. At the same time, if the universe can exist only when it is observed, then there can be a kernel of truth in what Hindu philosophers had thought.
Could we one day find out that God exists after all? Even if God exists, it would be a non being reality. If God is pure consciousness, it is a non-being. Non beings realities cannot be measured, therefore they can not be demonstrated and proven. But they can be perceived. The question, “show me consciousness,” is moot. Consciousness cannot be shown or proven.
