Religion, like science, is man's attempt to understand the universe around him. But, is religion merely science? Is the purpose of life merely the acquisition of knowledge?
Does man exist merely to serve science or does science exist merely to serve man? |
Does man exist merely to serve science or does science exist merely to serve man? If science is, in the final analysis only a tool; only an elaborate hammer created by man, how can we make man the servant of that hammer? How can science be preeminent over man any more than a plow or a hammer can? From the point of view of evolutionary ethics, even the most brilliant physics in the world is ultimately of no more value than a stone tied to a stick compared to the sacred divinity of the race of man that created it.
Our prime directive and the purpose of life must be to maintain and improve the consciousness of the universe. Scientific knowledge will be ever increasing as a direct result of that.
Science is a tool created by man and is less than man. How can a tool, regardless of how elaborate, possibly be greater than the life that created it?
It would be the height of folly for a man to become so fascinated and enamored of a tool which he himself had created as to be prompted to sacrifice his own life or dignity to it. There can be no greater error and no greater evil than that of placing man beneath science. Man is the most sacred divine creature in all the universe and all the things are to serve him. Science is not God; life is.
To place knowledge or science above life is to deify science. The deification of science is atheism. Some atheists would deny this, but if they did not believe in anything beyond pragmatic worldly convenience, why would they bother to be atheists? By denying God, they demonstrate greater allegiance to the incorporeal and other worldly values of science than to the worldly comfort, which they could better acquire by acquiescing to believe whatever the crowd believes.
However, atheism does not fulfill the purpose of religion by describing man's relationship to the universe. Even if there were no God, how does it help us to have that information? They do not tell us what the human condition is, but rather what it is not. It does not matter what is false. It only matters what is true. Can knowing what is not true provide our children with food or prevent wars?
Atheism does not provide us with the mathematics of survival, (knowledge of good and evil) any more than superstition did. In fact, it is the antithesis of this religious ethics because it denies that absolute moral responsibilities exist. To accept science as synonymous with religion is to make atheism essentially our religion. Then we have the paradoxical situation in which he who denies that man has any absolute responsibility to the universe is the very man defining and explaining what that responsibility is. The atheist assertions that there is no absolute morality is just as dangerous as the fundamentalist assertion of false morality.
It is clear that morality is a biological law and that the acceptance of moral responsibility is necessary for human existence. By denying that man has an absolute moral responsibility to the universe, atheists are denying that man has an absolute moral responsibility to maintain his own existence.
Superstition and atheism both reduce the probability of human survival by denying or confusing ethical priorities and moral responsibilities. They both demean the human race by saying that man is merely a humble insignificant little creature; just a meaningless, mechanistic automaton; or an ignorant sinful worm. Perhaps this is the inevitable result of placing either science or superstition above life.
Atheism would leave us with the idea that all of life is merely a tyranny of the caprice of time and chance in which we are tossed helplessly about in the meaningless maelstrom of our animal passions.
Does man behave as if he was guided purely by selfish personal caprice or does he behave as if there were some all transcending meaning beyond his own personal existence? Perhaps the purpose of man's existence is to continue his existence. Or as Aristotle said it, 'Man's purpose is his nature.' Man becomes what he does, and man's purpose is what he acts it out to be.
Is man really a depraved sinner as the fundamentalist religionists say or a selfish biologically compulsive automaton as the nihilists would have it? Look at the real world and you see that real human behavior can not be explained in these terms.
If men are selfish mechanistic robots, what motivated scientists like Bruno and Galileo to suffer and even to give their lives for us? If they were selfish biological automaton, why were they willing to give their lives in their efforts to increase human knowledge and to better the human condition? With their ability, they could have lived rich comfortable lives if they had kept quiet; although our lives today would be much harder if they had. It was not selfishness or avarice that caused parents to care for their children or scientists to give their lives for mankind. On the contrary, they had everything to lose and nothing to gain by so doing.
It was the will to do good. It was patriotism for the human race which actually motivated them. They knew that it might cost them their lives, as it often did to give us food or to give us knowledge to live better. But, they loved us, the children of the future, so much that they were willing to even die for us. And today, our lives are infinitely better because of it.
And it was not just a few heroes whose names we know who gave their lives because of their live for mankind. Indeed, it was all men who ever lived: it was every mother who ever gave birth and every father who ever risked his life as he trudged across the glacier in search of food.
Some will say that it is merely instinct that motivates man to care for his children. That is empty semantics. By this reasoning, a mountain is not magnificent because it is merely gravity and the specific gravity of the rocks that makes it high. It is part of the definition of man and other mammals to protect their children. Calling it a biological instinct in no way detracts from the glory that is man. It is also a biological process which causes a homo-sapien's brain to grow and develop, but that in no way detracts from man's power or significance.
Man exists and has power over the universe because of characteristics that are implicit within his nature. The fact that man exists and has power indicates that these characteristics have value. It is impossible to describe real human characteristics without using words like altruism and unselfishness.
Put aside anarchistic, nihilist nonsense that man is evil as the superstitious pagans say or meaningless or selfish as the atheists would have it. If man were more evil than good, or if he were merely a mechanistic, selfish, biologically compulsive robot, he would have destroyed himself centuries ago as most other life forms did. The dinosaurs and 90% of the species which have ever existed are currently extinct. Perhaps the reason they are extinct is because they were selfish biologically compulsive robots that did not care for their offspring. Their instincts were not sufficient to insure their survival. Man's were. Man's ancestors did care for our survival and we exist today because of it. Without our ancestors efforts and sacrifices, the human race would not exist. It is man's moral sense to cooperate with fellow men and to work together for the best interest of the children of tomorrow that keeps us alive today. The suggestion by nihilist atheists that life is meaningless or that man is a selfish automaton is insupportable. We exist today solely because of the heroic actions of our ancestors centuries ago.
The examples of Bruno, Galileo and thousands of others demonstrate that man is not a selfish, biologically compulsive robot. These men sacrificed their own best interests and even their lives for the best interests of the children of tomorrow. Where is the selfish biologically compulsive robot?
Atheists say that there is no purpose or meaning or morality; no reason or justification for human suffering; no implicitly good ethic in the universe. But there is in man because he creates that ethic and that purpose. And the maintenance of man's existence justifies that ethic because he is the source of it. According to evolutionary ethics, the purpose of the universe is the creation of consciousness and man is that consciousness. Then man is at once the ethic of the universe and the means through which that ethic is fulfilled. Perhaps God is the one who can ask the question, 'what is God."
Although the nihilist atheists and fundamental religionists do not believe man is divine, the central purpose of the universe or the fulcrum of creation, they do place a great deal of importance on something. Fundamental religionists and atheists would raise science or religion above man. But it is not science that created man, but man that created science. Science and religion are no more than a collection of books and ideas produced by man. If science is important, then man is that much more important because man is the source of science. If it is important to maintain science or religion, then it is a thousand times more important to maintain life. The things that atheists and fundamental religionists think are so important are actually human characteristics and human creations. All of science and religion is just a book written by man. The most brilliant physics in the world is ultimately of no more value than a stone tied to a stick compared to sacred divinity of the race of man that created it. The most important thing and the source of all things is not science or religion, but life.
Men are smeared as evil sinners by superstitious people and belittled as mechanistic automaton by atheists. And books and ideas are deified above man as if man hadn't written them. Science and the Bible are merely books and ideas created by man. Are not Darwin and Matthew men? Books are not greater than man. They are only a part of man. Books are not sacred. A book is an empty icon; a hollow imitation; a picture of life. The truth is not in a book: it is in your heart. Ultimately, human instinct is the source of all human conduct and of all human creations. The human being, the human mind, the human spirit is the driving force of all things.
Man is the real miracle, the real God and he has proven it for a thousand generations. All that is science or religion comes from him and is less than him. Books, sciences and religions are only a part of and an attempt to trace the greatness and the glory that is man. All the religions, all the sciences and all the books ever written are only a small part of the glory that is man.
Still there re foolish people, both fundamental religionists and nihilist atheist who say that these Bibles and Manifestoes are the epitome of human wisdom and that man would be hopelessly lost without them. What nonsense, what atheism, what blasphemy against the human spirit. How did we live all these thousands of years before the Bible or the Koran or the manifesto were written. Fundamental religionists have tried to take the credit for man's moral behavior. Mad did not behave in an ethical way because of fear of some ghosts in the sky, but because of love for mankind. A thousand thousand generations ago, man had not even heard of Jesus Christ, Karl Marx or Adam Smith. For countless generations, our ancestors knew enough to feed their children and to cooperate and to avoid killing one another. There were no priests, psychologists or scientists to tell them why, but they knew none the less. This sense of moral balance came from within the soul of man, not from some foolish book. Religions and sciences are merely an imperfect reflection of this human moral and scientific instinct.
Atheists, Christians and other superstitious bigots have become obsessed with papers, books and theories. As if some priest or some scientist pouring over mouldering books in the Vatican basement is going to tell us how to live. Why, one grandmother alone has more instinctive knowledge of life than is contained in all the books that we are taught to reverence so. Tell me one book that has the knowledge to raise a family. Tell me one thing that is more important than that to human progress, knowledge and advancement. Are not men necessary for books and are not mothers and fathers necessary for men?
Instinct is still the ultimate source of human conduct and human creativity. We can know things that we can not prove. We have always known that it was wrong to kill or steal. And it is only because we have known that that we exist today. If we had not known, we would be as dead as the dinosaurs. When we forget these instincts, we will follow them to extinction as we are about to in the nuclear age.
This instinctive knowledge and belief in his own value and faith in the meaning of life has stood man in good stead for a thousand generations. Long before there was so much as as wheel, a written language or a plow, man knew that he must live. When Christianity and atheism are as dead as Isis and Ammon Ra, this faith will still live on in the heart of man.
This instinctive faith in life is what has enabled man to exist these many centuries. Now this faith is being belittled and attacked.
This sense of meaninglessness and nihilism that is felt by all in the post Darwinian age seems best expressed by the atheist when he says, "As long as there is one mistake in the universe; as long as one wrong is permitted to exist; as long as there is hatred and antagonism among mankind, the existence of a God is a moral impossibility."*
But perhaps God is not something that was, but rather something that is to be. In that case, it is just as logical to say the exact opposite, "As long as there is one correct thing in the universe; as long as one right is permitted to exist; as long as there is 'love' and 'goodwill' among mankind, the nihilist hypothesis is a scientific impossibility."
It is these same nihilist and anarchistic ideas that caused Captain Fitzroy to kill himself when Charles Darwin's discoveries exposed fundamental religion as myth. Fitzroy is symbolically representative of the whole human race. Today the whole human race is in a state of moral ennui because of the collapse of fundamental religion and our erratic behavior is a kind of attempted suicide. We are engulfed by nihilism and anarchy because of a kind of forced withdrawal from the narcotic superstitions of the past.
In a sense, all of us in this nihilist society are in agreement with the atheist Ingersoll when he said, "Injustice upon earth renders justice of heaven impossible." But one who looked forward to evolution rather than backward to creation could say the exact opposite with equal logical justification. "Justice upon earth renders the nihilism of atheism impossible." Perhaps God did not exist at the beginning of the chain of creation, but he may come into existence at the end of the chain of creation. So far as infusing purpose and meaning into life and the universe, it doesn't matter when God exists, whether in the past or in the future. Everything that man does will have meaning and significance in so far as it effects this process.
Then there is purpose in the universe and we can understand the meaning of all the suffering that we see around us in relation to its ultimate accomplishment. Justice could be defined as survival of the fittest and the purpose of life as the evolution of man toward perfection. Perhaps the universe is not the result of creation, but the beginning of a creation?
The atheist says that the giraffe is proof of the lack of design in nature and the blindness of the forces of evolutionary life.* The Promethean answers that the human brain is proof of purpose and design in nature and the foresight of the forces of evolutionary life.
Perhaps Robert Ardrey was right when he said that man is not a fallen angel but a risen ape. Atheists look backward to myths that never were and lament their loss as if they had once been true. A Promethean looks forward to glories that are to be and rejoices in the prospect. Atheists lament that the universe and man are not perfect. A Promethean rejoices that the universe and man are becoming more perfect, more conscious and more in control of the destiny and fate of the future.
The atheist says, "If man and the other forms of life upon this planet are a mere by-product of an over all plan of a supreme intelligence, then I denounce such a scheme as tyrannical and barbaric. Why should we be made to suffer such excruciating pains and penalties of life to satisfy that from which we derive no benefit and where death negates all of our efforts and which makes the purpose of life, our hopes and our desires, our ambitions and aspirations a cruel mockery."* The Promethean answers. "Your child is physically from the sperm and the egg. It did not appear from thin air. He is as much a part of you as your right and left hand. Through the evolution of you in our child, you many attain immortality and perfection. If you see your child and the perfection of mankind as no benefit, then you deserve nothing but pains and penalties. Birth is also barbaric. Would you kill the fetus because of your vicarious cowardice? Our fathers endured starvation, glaciers, jungles, monsters through the struggles of eons of evolution so that we might be veritable Gods today. If you have not the courage to carry on the sacred flame of life, then die, but do not encourage others in your ignominious anti-life, anti-child cowardice."
*'An Atheist Manifesto', Joseph Lewis.