The God, The Science and Me

Hello there,

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything, so please allow me to ask for your tolerance through my disorganized write up.

DISCLAIMER: The references and entities mentioned in the article must not be questioned or competed in a court of law under any circumstances. And by continuing to read this article, you accept the terms stated above.

Some time ago a junior of mine was talking about spirituality in my room. He was totally impressed by the talks organized by ‘Voice’ an organization creating spiritual awareness among the youth. will come back to that soon enough. Due to my usual tendency to have an argument on any topic, I started asking him uncomfortable questions and also loopholes in the talk he had heard. I must say it led to a whole set of arguments, discussions and ultimately this article.

I’d never thought about spiritual side of the world, I mean I never explored it in my mind and with this new development I got a chance to do that, Thanks to my junior, for his patient and everlasting zeal to somehow get me convinced about his part.

His argument was that “nobody knows what was before big bang, the Singularity is just not defined, as well as the time before that” We all know (I presume) that in our scientific world, the time starts from the moment when the big bang happened, No details, even the farfetched imaginations about the time before that is like non-existent before the Time Zero. His argument suggested the God being the Cause for big bang.

I came up with a something polemical, I asked “agreed, so if God Caused big bang, then where did god come from?” that was enuf for the night, we had a long long long argument over our points, which was to continue the next day. That night I asked myself “What the hell do ya believe in? are you sure yourself” and the answer was “hmmmmm” Well, I kept thinking for a long time until I had come to a point where I was satisfied!

Next day when the argument began, I had things to tell which were equivocal, I contradicted neither science nor god nor did I support either of them. There exists a concept in Hindu mythology, The gods, who are supposed to be immortal, aren’t! 

It tells, the Vishnu himself has a lifetime, after which everything including himself will become pure energy. From which Vishnu is formed again and from him Brahma, The creator of rest of the world. The pure energy, I do not know what it means, but it could be the energy which existed just at the time of big bang, the mythology calls it, Achintya Shakti – inconceivable energy. The big bang might just be another cycle for the entire world, and since we did not exist before that, we do not know about it and if ya ask me, neither did the gods! But still we do not have answers for where it all came from. After all, there exists something which we haven’t been able to comprehend, and neither science nor religion can claim their superiority until these are answered. Let us not get into arguments for which either party cannot provide any proof.

NOTE: lot of details has been omitted to make it short and the references come from granny’s bedtime stories and from whatever I have been able to read so far. I do not tell I could be wrong! But if a better authority over the subject has contradictions to my lines, I’m more than happy to hear them out.

Then What is GOD? Please make a note, I’m not referring to mythological gods of any religion, I’m referring to the one thing that people put their absolute trust in, without questions or asking for proof of existence!  I have come up with some alternative theories, might not be new, but they are original.

1.       Let us consider, GOD does not exist! I prefer calling this, the concept of god, I’ll tell you a story, I made it up of course, to make it easier to explain [I don’t want to keep typing ‘considering’ ‘assuming that’…for every sentence there is]

A man, with amazing imaginations, strong sense of justice, driven by his values to make the world a better place lived in the ancient world. He found himself in a young civilization which was finished with organizing itself and had started to destroy itself by its own flaws. Crime, corruption, jealousy.. and what not. This man, thought of the distant future of his men, he knew if this continued the human race will be just another species which vanished in the after a brief presence. 

He thought his wits out and came up with the concept of God. An entity defined by its absence, out of our senses’ reach, very powerful, omniscient, omnipresent. 

The animalistic character which we inherit from our ancestors, which was the key to survival in their world, creates the fear in the human mind. Fear about uncertainty, helplessness and a sense of being watched. The concept of god did something similar. A child being watched over by his mom will not do something 'bad' + 'tempting'. Well, what if I told the child that his mom could see everything he did? What if I told that his mom was so powerful that he couldn’t help but surrender? What if I told him that he cannot see his mom everywhere but she can see him?

A simple concept, sheer brilliance! If this story were to be true then the man must be worshipped, the best ever social reformer in the history of mankind.

It just dazzles me to just think about it, I secretly hope this story is true too… don blame me I’m like that!

2.       The second theory is somewhat childish; nevertheless it holds an acceptable argument. Ok I’m going to put it in the form of story again.

One of the areas in science where a lot of research is being done is ‘creating’ a machine which is as good as we are. I do not understand  why ‘creating’ is such a passion to the human race. Well, today’s most advanced robots, like the Asimo, is being developed with an objective to make it an equal to the human. Neural networks, algorithms, artificial intelligence, parallel processing, co-ordination among millions of subsystems etc. all these are the framework of our body, it is self sustaining, it can reproduce and evolve and it can think. We want to create a system like that.

Say a civilization existed [presently unknown and unsure of] far ahead of us in everything, a superior race and older than us, which had the same passion for ‘creating’. They started creating new robots, started with smaller ones, then went on to more complex things [first a multiple node earthworm and eventually a huge brain with millions of nodes, a complete and complex neural network]. They eventually created humans. And they shifted all their creations to one place, Earth. They designed a sustainable system, reproducing, with artificial intelligence of extra ordinary brilliance, but not as much as theirs. They left us here, maybe to just see what happens or we might as well be a part of ongoing experiment.

Well, I can tell a couple of points which can support this,

The Darwinian evolution theory is still in doubt, an alternative explanation is the non-linear advancement of technology among our creators. [eg: our scientific world had dark era for a thousand years and in the next 3 centuries they make unimaginable progress in research] which resulted in gaps in the evolution theory.

All the experiments conducted tells that universe is infinite, which is hard to digest! Well, maybe we are enclosed in such a container, you get only what they feed you!]

Big bang for example, might be nonexistent.

And say, you create a robot which is as good as you are then what is the first thing you’d teach him?

1.Not to hurt you

2.Respect you – Its human tendency to crave for recognition for the work

Now to achieve that with an intelligent system, you’d hardwire some facts which would make it think in that way, you tell it that you cannot be touched nor felt, you are powerful than he can ever be, you can always watch over him etc. Obviously, He would fear you, respect you and will never think of harming you!

This might as well be the case with us, I can go on and on about this theory, I guess this is more than enough to get an Idea.

But it still doesn’t answer the question “where did our creators come from?” but we can explain our GODs at least!

Well, now if you ask me, What do you believe in? my answer is “hmmm” followed by a long talk. I cannot tell what is right or wrong, what exists and what is a myth, because I just do not know. But I chose to believe in god, in my own ways, I do not agree with everything that has to do with religions, I have my own definitions and ideas about god, I chose not accept without thinking what another human tells me about god. I do not trust humans, If god himself comes and dictates me the rules, I’ll probably accept it! But, if the concept of god is keeping the world in peace, makes it a better place then yes, I accept god without questions. But if we fight in the name of religion, like Taliban, like crusades, like Mumbai riots… what use is the god? All I’m concerned with is the health of the society, well being of my fellow men and all the creatures around me. If god can do it, I’m more than happy to listen to his will. If he cannot, then I will not see the world burning while I’m waiting for the god to do something about it! God, Is what you make out of it, not what he is! In the end, it’s you, who matters.

Mythology supports my argument at this stage, do your duty, listen to the conscience, do the things which are right! If you do something good, god will reward you! And if that can make a common man not to do something bad I do not have a problem with it. Our aim is the same, I concluded, every minute we spent thinking what is god, is the time reduced from our lives to do something good for the world, If you believe in god, then it is the time reduced from your life to get closer to god. Do not listen to people, listen to your heart and brain, that is where ‘you’ exist. Make the world a better place.

Note: The organization ‘voice’ is a branch of ISKCON, which educates individuals about spirituality, I’ll keep my views with me this time, but if the outcome of such organizations is a better human being then it is an amazing undertaking. I offer my gratitude to all such organizations, known and unknown to me. Only one thing concerns me about this all, can the summit always justify the path?