Two questions in life that seem impossible to answer are:
“Where did we come from?” Let’s call this the First Question; and,
“Where are we going?” Let’s call this the Second Question.
Let’s call these, the Two Questions.
Let’s take a closer look at the First Question: “Where did we come from?”
That is, where did human life originally come from?
And what was the sequences of life forms (i.e. plants and animals) through which our genes have transitioned from the “start” to the present? And what does the “start” even mean?
Did life originate on earth, or did life originate in another place and arrive here in the form of genetic material (i.e. DNA) and emerge from that genetic material?
Now, let’s delve deeper into the Second Question, “Where are we going?”
Our genes have come to exist within our bodies today by way of evolution—starting from tiny micro-organisms and evolving into more sophisticated mammals like ourselves. Extrapolating this trend, we might guess that our genes will eventually be carried through countless different, non-human life forms again. These could either be more sophisticated or less sophisticated than us, depending on various factors like the climate of earth and possibly the emergence of new diseases.
We know the sun will expire in a few more billions years. If our genes survive that long, where will we (our genes) end up? Will we be carried—eventually—to another life-sustaining place? Carried pro-actively through our actions? Or carried by nature? Or will our genes and everything that we’ve accomplished be forgotten? That is, will everything that we’ve become and will ever become, be erased, as if we had not existed?
Certainly there is a possibility that we may be able to understand, “Where we came from?” but there’s almost no chance to understand “Where we are going?”
Our Two Questions are plagued by yet another question: “How do we define life? What counts as the first life? And where did the components of that first life come from? And if after millions of years our genes evolve to such a great extent, to be carried in bodies that no longer resemble “us” (i.e. humans or even mammals), what does that mean? Will we have gone extinct?”
So, you might agree that the Two Questions, “Where did we come from?” and “Where are we going?" are impossible to answer.
I suggest that the idea of god emerges from questions like these—questions that we cannot answer—and probably never will answer.
This naturally brings up more questions. If science can’t answer these questions, then shall we turn to religion?
Let’s consider the history of religion and the history of the idea of god—briefly, from an astronomical and cosmological perspective.
With knowledge gained through powerful telescopes—capable of sensing light and other electromagnetic radiation from deep within the universe—humans have developed a theory that the universe was once confined to a single point. Through a “Big Bang,” the universe “emerged,” and has been expanding ever since.
Some may point to this as evidence that god doesn’t exist—that our reality can be explained through physics—but with a simple question god comes back into the conversation: “What came before the Big Bang?”
Similarly, some may point to the expanding universe as evidence that our biblical stories are wrong and that god doesn’t exist. True, the origin stories in the Bible are either wrong, or they are metaphorical. But with a simple question, god comes back into the conversation: “What is the universe expanding into?”
Of course this is not the only view on this topic, or even necessarily the correct view. I claim no expertise on these topics. In fact, I’m an amateur on these topics. I tend to think amateurism gives me advantages over professionals. And not having expertise doesn’t mean I can’t learn and gain expertise. Further, “the best way to learn anything is to try to teach what you know.”
Still I don’t want to develop crackpot theories, so let’s crack a book. The authors of The Universe (21st Century Science) write
People often ask what existed before the Big Bang and what the Universe expanded into. Yet the concept "before the Big Bang" has little meaning, because time did not exist until it was created in the Big Bang. And if space was also created, and if space itself is expanding, then it need not be expanding into anything.
This doesn’t make any sense to me. What caused the Big Bang? How does the universe emerge from nothing? How can there be a time when there was no “time”? Hasn’t “time” always existed? How can “time” not exist?
I don’t know about you, but this sound a bit like religion to me.
Let’s turn back a few pages; to the very start of this book, The Universe (21st Century Science). Here’s the first page.
The science of astronomy has developed at an astonishing speed in recent years. It is hard to believe that the first attempts to explain the beauty of the night sky took the form of stories about gods and goddesses, heroes, and mythical creatures. Many ancient cultures used the stars as a focus for their mythological and religious tales. The planets, moving regularly across this background pattern of fixed stars, gave rise to the early "science" of astrology, which sought to link the fate of humanity with the cyclical motions of the Universe. Assuming that Earth was at the center of the Universe, astrologers observed and recorded these cycles with great care, until discoveries were made that could not be explained within the Earth-centered system.
With the assistance of the first telescopes, astronomy was born as a true science. With ever-increasing precision, astronomers observed, plotted, and cataloged what they saw. As larger and better telescopes were developed, and other instruments— such as photometers to measure the intensity of light, spectrometers to break it down into its various wavelengths, and cameras to record the night sky precisely—were invented, the Universe could be studied in exceptional detail. Invisible radiation from the stars, as well as visible light, gave wholly new information, and computers were used to analyze results and provide startling pictures of stars and galaxies. Our knowledge of what the Universe contains grew hugely in the late 20th century and continues to do so, at an ever-increasing rate, in the early 21st century.
To make sense of all the new data, astronomers turned for assistance to the physicists, and theoretical physicists have now proposed a model of the forces that define the basic rules of the Universe.
Okay, I get that. Next page.
The Universe contains everything that exists, from the book in front of you to the faintest galaxies that our most powerful telescopes can detect. Through history, our ideas about the size of the Universe have grown. At first, humans saw it as little more than the Solar System. But as telescopes got more powerful, the Universe expanded to the size of our galaxy, the Milky Way. In the 20th century astronomers first realized there were other galaxies beyond our own, and clusters of galaxies beyond that.
Okay.
It is not just our perception of the Universe that has grown over time. The Universe literally is expanding, as the American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered in the 1920s. When studying the spectral lines characteristic of particular elements in the light emitted by distant galaxies, Hubble found that every line had moved toward the red, longer wavelength, end of the spectrum, implying that the light waves had been stretched. This suggested that the galaxies are all moving away from us. In fact, however, the galaxies do not move—the spacetime continuum itself is expanding. Space does not expand on the Earth, within the Solar System, or even within a galaxy, but between groups of galaxies space does expand. The galaxies are driven apart just as currants in a cake mixture are moved apart as the dough rises.
As the Universe expands, the light waves from these galaxies are stretched, shifting them toward the red end of the spectrum. The farthest ones shift the most.
This phenomenon is called red shift.
Getting more difficult. I have questions about the red shift, but let’s set that aside and keep moving forward.
If the Universe is expanding, in the past it must have been smaller, and may once have been infinitely small.
This logic led to the theory of the Big Bang, the initial event in which the Universe and everything in it—space, time, matter, energy, even the laws of physics and the fundamental forces of nature—were created.
Yep—I don’t get it. Let’s try another approach. Let’s assume this book is wrong, and let’s go back to my questions about infinite time and space. What happened before the universe was created? What is the universe expanding into? These seem like valid questions.
What is the philosopher’s response? One hypothesis is that our universe is actually a multi-verse. Made up of multiple universes. We live in the Universe; one of many; maybe one of infinite universes.
But this doesn’t really help. This is just another way of defining god. God is: the stuff outside our universe. God is: the time and the thing before the Big Bang. I can define god to be these things. My god.
Our minds—at least my mind and most minds—can not comprehend an infinite universe; neither an infinite temporal reality, nor and infinite spatial reality. The human naturally wonders, “What came before the Big Bang?” Or “How can there be nothing before the Big Bang?” And, “If there is an edge to the universe, what is beyond the edge?” If I drive in a spacecraft to the edge of the universe what will I see or experience?
When it comes to these two questions: “Where did we come from?” and “Where are we going?” our curiosity is not satisfied.
So the idea of god lives on.
Let’s get deep, by asking, “What is god made of?”
The best answer I’ve ever heard for this, is that god is made of mathematics. Isn’t everything made of mathematics? Mathematics describes the infinite. Mathematics is infinite in the sense that it existed before humans became conscious and will exist after we go extinct, if that ever happens. Mathematics is perfect, everywhere, and “all knowing.”
We don’t understand the reality of the university, but if we did, we would likely understand it through mathematics.
If there is a god, there’s no way to know what god is made of, but I like this view of god because it gives me common ground with the Christians in my community, and I think that’s valuable. I think it’s honest.
Where does the idea of a supernatural human-like god come from? From us; from our imaginations; from our consciences; from our dialogues.
I would suggest that we have two definitions of god. One, is our conscience, and the other, is mathematics.
Are these two different gods? Yeah. One is a part of our imagination. The other is the laws of physics and mathematics. Can we combine them? Maybe.
To me this is a satisfactory place to end the discussion about god. I put myself in the agnostic camp.
But this isn’t the end of the story. One reason has to do with our genes. Michael Chrichton believes—and I would agree with him—that we cannot escape our religious nature.
I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people---the best people, the most enlightened people---do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
If this is true, then how do we incorporate religion into our lives and why would we want to?
Where am I going with all this? Here’s a hint. In his Stanford commence speech Steve Jobs tells us about the importance of death.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.
Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
Let’s ask, “Does religion have any practical value?” Sure it does. That value is motivated by our inevitable death. Death offers guidance in how to live.
More on this next time.
Good essay. I came across you essays because of a very thoughtful post you made on Glen Loury's Substack. It's highly salient. On the Left, Israel is often presented as a White Settler Colonial project. This ignores basic demography and ethnic composition. In addition to the minority Israeli Arab population, you are quite correct that over 50% of the Jewish population is Mizrachim/Sephardic- non-white. In addition, of those who 'identify' or believe themselves to be Ashkenazi/European Jews, over 50% are at least 50% genetically Mizrachim/Sephardic- effectively biracial. This is important, because it exposes the concept of Israel as a White Settler Colonial project is either complete ignorance or a wilful lie.
I found your essay fascinating and have had similar thoughts. Although a mild Christian, I'm perfectly willing to accept that agnosticism is the only rationally defensible position. Atheism as a belief system often, but not always, makes far too much of narrow Strawman arguments to prove its position. Have you read much about cosmic inflation, quantum fluctuations or how the peaks and troughs of quantum fluctuation might explain the creation of matter?
https://bigthink.com/13-8/universe-quantum-fluctuation/
Anyway, although not sufficiently well-read on the subject of theoretical physics to reach a conclusion, I've always had the sneaking suspicion that multiple quantum voids might somehow act like a distributed network. In essence, I posit that an innumerable number of voids in a low gravity space/time, null entropy vacuum may spontaneously generate God, a giant non-localised neural network. If the large (larger than an atom) is inherently subject to entropy, isn't it also true that through the quantum generating matter, the reverse is true, with the inconceivably miniscule inherently possessing anti-entropic properties. Anyway, a non-supernatural speculation on the spontaneous apotheosis of nothingness itself.
Anywhere, here's a source which argues that the quantum may be the root of consciousness, and its basic properties may be found in the world around us, not just animals. It references Sir Roger Penrose.
https://www.space.com/is-the-universe-conscious