By Allen Dexter Today, we hear a lot about intelligent design from people who dogmatically and passionately proclaim that creation and life is too complex and unique to have arisen by chance. To their way of thinking, such complexity proves the existence of a creator that planned and organized it all. Anyone can see that the universe and life is indeed complex. But, this assumption leaves unanswered an even greater question. If the universe and all it contains is too complex, etc. to have arisen without a creator, who is the even greater creator who created the creator? The creator of that creator? Etc. Etc. By their own reasoning, that creator would have to have been far more complex and wondrous than the creation he or it brought into being. Who or what gave rise to something or someone exponentially more complicated and wondrous than anything we see in the resulting universe? Just saying that first cause, or God, always existed is a non-answer that requires an incredulous amount of faith. To quote Mr. Spock, it is illogical. It just pushes the inevitability of something evolving farther back and hides it behind the convenient curtain of blind faith. It has been amply proven that advanced life as we know it today doesnt spontaneously arise. Yet, reason demands that at some point life either arose spontaneously or someone or something caused it to begin. I find it much easier to believe that organic molecules interacted to produce the first life forms than to believe that cosmic energy of some sort magically combined to form a being or force infinitely more massive and complex than any man or any computer devised by man could ever aspire to be. The concept that such a thing would be possible makes the old proposition that an ape could bang away on a typewriter and come up with the Encyclopedia Britannica by chance look like an exercise in simplicity. If I couldnt begin to produce anything remotely akin to myself, how did an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-everything creator somehow spring into existence? Thats much more unique and stupendous than organic evolution could ever aspire to be. If a god exists, that entity also had to somehow develop. Again, we come to something akin to evolution. Is it possible, if a spirit world actually exists, that it and physical life developed and evolved together in the universe we see? Dont tell me I have to take it all on faith and just believe. There are plenty of people with that mental approach who are determined to kill me and wipe out the civilization thinking men have produced so their superstitions can keep future generations enslaved and ignorant. It wasnt long ago that same attitude permeated the Christian world and produced the former Dark Ages. As far as I can see, nothing has changed. The same determination to enforce the ignorance of blind faith on the world is at work today every time zealots attempt to force creation science into the curriculum of another school. In the final analysis, there has to be a beginning to everything. That includes anything referred to as god. Somewhere, somehow, something came to be out of nothing. At least, science, quantum physics and mathematics continue to give answers that shed light on more and more of the mechanisms involved. Scientific understanding continues to grow. Whether science can ever shed total light on the ultimate origin of everything remains to be seen, provided one of the religions predicated on blind faith in some deity doesnt exterminate all of us before we have the chance to determine those answers. I would be more optimistic if we still lived in a polytheistic world where people tolerated and even honored the imaginary gods of their neighbors. Christianity and Islam have, in their zealous turn, through crusades and jihads, exterminated that tolerant attitude. Unbending, cocksure monotheism inevitably leads to violent conflict. I fear we may be looking at total extermination in the name of blind faith in some fanatically worshipped deity. Or, a worldwide bloodbath and another destruction of civilization to make way for a new Dark Age of superstitious ignorance that may never end before the human race goes extinct, either by its own hand or through some natural cataclysm true science might have been able to prevent. I dont dogmatically reject the existence of everything spiritual. There are too many well-documented phenomena that point to something beyond the physical. I am referring to such things as past life regressions that check out, uncannily accurate readings of departed loved ones and associates by mediums such as John Edward and Allison Dubois, the medical and other revelations of Edgar Cayce, etc. Just because I dont understand how such things can actually exist, Im not going to be headstrong about them. Exactly what is involved and how it all came to be is something else that needs to be scientifically investigated outside the realm of religious dogmatism. Too long, we have set on a pedestal of infallibility the teaching of past searchers whose writings have been granted a place of certainty and unquestionability because they are ancient and supposedly inspired. We look on those societies as primitive, yet assume they understood basic truths we have to accept on the basis of blind faith. Those prophets, teachers, etc. were playing with the deck they had and with their own superstitions, mental quirks and prejudices. They lived at times when knowledge was limited and tried to make sense of a universe that was awe inspiring and, often, frightening. When strong inspirations and insights came to them, it was easy to conclude that a god was speaking to them. Weve all had those soaring moments that made us feel especially enlightened. But, most of us are not deranged enough to believe we are special representatives of a deity. Often, conclusions of divine inspiration were written in later by followers who had put the possibly rather humble and unassuming subject on a pedestal, much as people like Elvis Presley are so placed today. Ecstatic, worshipful people were seeing Elvis everywhere long after he died, and maybe still are. In more primitive times, he would have joined the pantheon of gods. Devoted followers are absolutely certain that Jesus and Mohammad ascended into heaven because their sacred writings, which would be rejected in a court of law as hearsay, tell them so. Mormons never question Joseph Smiths revelations and the accuracy of the Book of Mormon. Ellen G. Whites automatic writing, some of it in total variance to what the Bible states, is revered to this day by Seventh Day Adventists. Stephen Flurry writes a book called Raising the Ruins and travels the nation holding passionate religious revivals to extol the long ago discredited teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong, leading another generation of gullible people into that travesty. The list goes on and on. Once a charismatic individual attracts a loyal following, the mythology begins. Like a stone rolling downhill, it gains momentum as time passes. People who know the real story disappear and anything they said or wrote is quietly ignored while the same old ignorance is hyped to a new generation of gullible searchers looking for something to hold onto. We simply dont know about a lot of things and need to have the humility and courage to admit it not demand that superstitious assumptions be enthroned as science because those assumptions appeal to us. The question still remains unanswered. If the creation is so complex as to require a creator, how did an even more complex and awesome creator somehow evolve? Where is the evidence that any of the statements recorded in a host of holy books came directly from that evolved being? Im waiting for a comprehensible, provable answer not passionate opinions. Allen C. Dexter, in his late teens, became caught up in semi-cultic religion and was a longtime member and employee of the Worldwide Church of God and a graduate of Ambassador college (1960). This made him a devout super fundamentalist Christian for more than twenty years. He has since evolved in his thinking into a practicing agnostic and has written a book entitled Believing the Unbelievable — Into and Out of Fanaticism, available from www.Xlibris.com or Amazon. his purpose in writing articles is to share the insight he has gained. He may be contacted by email at: alandphyl@cox.net. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Allen_Dexter http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Real-Question&id=441947 apo-lorazepam 1mg drug ambien dependence zolpidem 10 mg with overnight delivery dnipnet online online ambien zolpidem
