God Vs. Nature
// April 6th, 2008 // Thoughts
This has been written so much more eloquently elsewhere, but I just want to get this out.
This world, this existence, indeed the entire thing we call reality is beautiful. On every scale wonderful things are happening. Fascinating things that boggle the mind. We exist on the lower end of this scale of scales, experiencing the world in meters, and here we see beautifully intricate and emergent patterns everywhere. From fairly simple rules we get to see shapes of tremendous apparent complexity, such as the arrangement of leaves on a fern or the golden ratio expressed in the spiral of a seashell, or the self-organizational properties of animal cultures. We see the swarming nature of flocks of birds, the ultimate efficiency of a trail of ants, even the selfish nature of a world of humans has led to so many examples of this wondrous self-organization, a la The Wealth of Networks and Six Degrees and the like.
From here we can go up or down the scale and see similarly amazing things. The point here is that at every scale, there is a vast diversity of structures and interactions, and they all follow certain rules that themselves are vast yet connected. They are consistent, understandable. It is obvious that this universe of ours hangs on these rules, exists necessarily because of these rules. It hurts my brain to try to imagine the magnitude of this universe. These rules that have allowed the path from quarks to atoms to cells exist everywhere! Not just here, on this planet at this point in time. It’s not terribly difficult to extract this out to the rest of the solar system, but imagining the true distance of things beyond that is actually pretty tough. The scale between the size of an atom and the size of a human body, that’s the sort of scale between the distance between that human body and the sun, and the sun and other heavenly bodies.
So here we have all these things, all these beautiful rules and patterns that have allowed growth, that have introduced what we almost arbitrarily call life, that have led to what we almost arbitrarily call intelligence. These things, too, follow rules. We have genes that replicate, and replication being an imperfect process (in that it doesn’t copy 100% accurately 100% of the time), we get mutations. It is through these mutations that animals change gradually over the course of millennia. (There’s also a social aspect that influences this as well, which harks back to my comments on the beauty of self-organization, but that’s another tangent from which I’ll try to refrain for now.) Naturally from these mutations, from these changing animals, we get this thing called evolution. And at this snapshot in time, somewhere between primordial ooze and who-knows-what’s-to-come, there lies a species better able to communicate itself than any species before it. Here we are, with big heavy brains, those brains doing what brains do: accepting raw sensory input and fleshing out patterns, plugging it into a constant simulation of the world, modifying that simulation as needed, and allowing us to interact. Somewhere in that simulation is a representation of Self, and a realization that there are others with the same representation of Self inside them. It’s through this self referencing that we become what’s called “conscious,” all thanks to these relatively simple rules of nature itself.
Considering all this, considering everything that the laws of nature inevitably allow and lead to, it’s strange to think that this historically new thing called “consciousness” can come up with ideas that totally undermine the wonder of nature. It seems an insult to Nature itself to wash it all away with the idea of God, a concept that came into existence at a time when the rules of nature were completely inaccessible to an ancient, lesser people. With God, man is able to completely ignore the vastness of this universe and place himself squarely in the center, where this god has for some reason decided to focus all his love and attention, and is apparently able to completely ignore the laws of this universe to just plop down spankin’ new animals that mysteriously share so many similarities with other unrelated animals. This, of course, is the meaning of faith, as it completely violates all common sense from a scientific standpoint. Instead of rules of nature that apply everywhere, God gives us an arbitrary being, a fickle experimenter. While I’m the center of my own little universe, I am capable of understanding full well that I mean just as much to this incomprehensibly vast universe as a chunk of rock hurtling from one galaxy to another. What doesn’t fit into the tidy laws of nature is the idea that I’m special in any natural or supernatural sense. That is the sole domain of a self-obsessed mind that allows delusions of God to control it.
I’ll craft this later. But for now, the wondrous laws of this thing called reality that ultimately have led to the existence of me, have also led to the constant mining of chemical resources, allocated all of them to necessary part of my body, and supplies are running low. I’m hungry and shall now go eat.
8 Responses to “God Vs. Nature”
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It is interesting that your take on God is that if someone believes He created the universe then that same person does not appreciate its vastness. I am confused as to why you, as a nature worshiper, can’t see the hand of God in the creation of nature. Who told you God plunked animals down like you would do in a game of Zoo Tycoon? As a logical person I can see that there are gaping holes in the scientific evidence proving that life came to exist from a big bang or a chemical reaction that spontanteously created a living cell which, over time and over enough iterations of evolution, developed into a man that could out think any other creature on Earth with ease. It isn’t likely that evolution would have created such a large gap between man and the rest of the living creatures.
Your argument is based on your inability to comprehend faith and instead rely on man’s minimal understanding of the universe based on thousands of years of star gazing and philosophizing. There are a lot of people that can only accept what they can comprehend as tangible and plausible, people that see the limitations of man are capable of considering the existence of God.
To wrap up my comment I will respond to this “I am capable of understanding full well that I mean just as much to this incomprehensibly vast universe as a chunk of rock hurtling from one galaxy to another. What doesn’t fit into the tidy laws of nature is the idea that I’m special in any natural or supernatural sense. That is the sole domain of a self-obsessed mind that allows delusions of God to control it.”
I would hope that people that believe in God understand that they are nothing more than a speck of dust in the universe. I think nature worshippers feel somehow that we are more than that. That we are capable of controlling the wind, the rain, and the temperature. The time we have been given on Earth is no more than a blink in our existence. Hopefully you will be able to open your mind at some point to the possibility that this universe is bigger and better than you could ever imagine. And that its vast miraculous design was architected by God, not by iterations of chance.
Jayson, any credibility you might have had was lost when you capitalized a pronoun. Nobody faults those for seeing the limitations of man–I hope you don’t fault me for pointing out your grammatical inadequacies. What ultimately obscures your argument, of course, is that faith, by definition, isn’t logical. It’s maddening that faithers like yourself start arguments because you have no means of being proven wrong as your points AREN’T BASED ON LOGICAL OBSERVATION. Intelligent discourse takes at least 2 people playing the same game, and you’ve brought a bowl of spaghetti to a water-gun fight.
I’m just going to respond point for point. Not inspired, perhaps, but I am attempting to be thorough.
“It is interesting that your take on God is that if someone believes He created the universe then that same person does not appreciate its vastness.”
I did not say the two are mutually exclusive. I said that with the idea of a caring, loving, invested god, a man is able to ignore the vastness of the universe, and more importantly place himself in the center as a special being. He is not, at least not outside of the scope of himself.
“I am confused as to why you, as a nature worshiper, can’t see the hand of God in the creation of nature.”
First, I’m going to admit that I don’t care for your term “nature worshipper.” This is probably for personal reasons, as when I see the word “worship” I attribute a religious devotion, a faith-based adoration of something supernatural. I do not worship nature (and more appropriately, reality), I merely respect it. Second, your confusion confuses me. My entire post explains in very rough blogger-y detail the reasons I respect nature–its laws and trends and consequences–and not an unknowable, unrealistic thing called God. Observable reality lends itself to understanding, because we have found consistency in nature. This is how science is able to work. The concept of “god” tells us that we don’t have to bother with understanding in any responsible, rigorous way.
“Who told you God plunked animals down like you would do in a game of Zoo Tycoon?”
The Bible. Any creation story, though you don’t care about the others; the many other stories that do exactly what your genesis myth does. Your faith, no doubt, is selective.
“As a logical person I can see that there are gaping holes in the scientific evidence…”
There are gaps in the scientific story of reality. That, too, is all part of science. Science doesn’t tell us “Here’s all the answers, nice and convenient and easy.” If you want a tidy explanation with all the answers, you will never find it. That requires faith to help you gloss over the inconsistencies. That said, we have amassed enough scientific knowledge to have a broad understanding of how the universe has evolved and how life has picked up on this little planet and continued to proliferate. We have a lot of the details filled in, too. We clearly have a long way to go to have a completely accurate map, but we have enough to be reasonably certain that nothing in nature has required the supernatural hand of god to help it along. Nature is a very, very capable beast.
And, this might be a good time to explain very briefly part of what I think makes science as a discipline so powerful. It is entirely, 100% based on doubt and skepticism. Science begs to be disproved. And so often, it is to varying degrees. The accumulation of scientific knowledge is, and always will be, an uphill battle, a process of evolution itself in which the less capable ideas are killed and replaced by the more fit. It’s no wonder, in fact, that our process for understanding the world is so nearly identical to the processes nature itself employs.
“…which, over time and over enough iterations of evolution, developed into a man that could out think any other creature on Earth with ease. It isn’t likely that evolution would have created such a large gap between man and the rest of the living creatures.”
Check your science. First, there really isn’t a very large gap between human beings and the rest of the living creatures. The last five hundred years or so have been a fascinating march, a steady, unerring shift from mystical interpretations of the world to scientific understanding. This shift includes the increasingly unreasonable assumption that humans are special. Evolution has been the greatest help here because it tore away the idea that we are of a truly unique lineage. We are absolutely, positively of the same stuff as every other creature on the planet. We have common ancestors, and the evidence is piling up more certainly than virtually any other theory out there. Beyond that, humans have been struggling so desperately to hold on to anything that makes us special, like the way we nurture our young, care for our communities, the way our brains develop and perceive the world, our ability to act cooperatively, our ability to plan long-term, or to think critically or analytically, or to understand language. All these things have been demonstrated in other animals, and are being demonstrated as occurring in smaller and smaller brains. The pattern recognition capabilities of the brain (any brain, not just a human brain) is truly impressive, and something we’re realizing more and more exists in all brains, from humans straight down to the most basic insects. This said, we do still possess traits, or at the very least artifacts, that don’t exist elsewhere in nature. This is mostly a matter of degrees, and I challenge you to prove otherwise. We have the internet! Sure, the culmination of centuries of technological enhancement all designed to help us communicate and store knowledge past our biology. A matter of degrees; a step up from communication that other animals have been shown to express. This list could go on forever, but I believe the burden of proof lies on the person claiming that we are in any way special in a way that can not be achieved by any other creature, ever. It’s all just steps. Logarithmic steps, and it’s fascinating to imagine what the next step “forward” might mean for humanity. And you can rest assured that humans have not stopped evolving; we change over time, too.
“Your argument is based on your inability to comprehend faith and instead rely on man’s minimal understanding of the universe based on thousands of years of star gazing and philosophizing.”
I am perfectly capable of comprehending faith. Faith is the act of placing trust in something that is by definition supernatural and thus unknowable. Yes, I rely on man’s minimal understanding, but it’s based on quite a bit more than thousands of years of star gazing and philosophizing. We know so little. The difference between you and I is that I recognize that a scientist has the integrity to admit this and revel in it. What we don’t know, is a chance to learn, to contribute. A scientist can’t believe based on a whim. He can’t make a claim and will it to be true. He must exercise rigor demanded of the scientific process. Belief in the supernatural bypasses that, and in so doing, it can get away with anything. It just feels lazy.
“There are a lot of people that can only accept what they can comprehend as tangible and plausible, people that see the limitations of man are capable of considering the existence of God.”
I can’t even figure this out. I think you’re trying to say that a scientific-minded person can only accept what he can see as plausible. Is that right? If so, I couldn’t disagree more. Science has had its moments in which is demanded that reality works in a way that is very, very counter-intuitive. Relativity is hard enough, but quantum mechanics flies in the face of how we’d rather see the world. It’s incredibly tough to imagine the implications of such theories, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. Observable. Reliable. It answers questions more completely than any theories before it. I am fully capable of recognizing the limits of man. Our brains are tiny compared to what’s possible. Our reasoning is still a product of the system it is trying to understand. We’re the tiniest cogs in the great arena of nature, and even if our math eventually is able to explain everything, our brains won’t be able to comprehend it fully. So yes, I understand the limitations. But I don’t need those limitations puffed up by some imaginary overseer. The fact that I can’t comprehend the entire universe does not necessitate that something has to. God is still not necessary. Nor is it likely.
“I would hope that people that believe in God understand that they are nothing more than a speck of dust in the universe.”
I would hope the same. I have observed nothing close to this, though, and it’s a natural byproduct of the religious meme. Belief in a loving, caring god exists solely to stroke our egos. The details are just that: details. We want to believe that we are special. And that belief, dominant during a time in our ancient uneducated past, lead directly to the idea that if stuff is here, something must have put it here. Because that something loves us, and it put all this here for us. That is the religious viewpoint. A speck of dust is just that. A speck, meaningless amidst the countless other specks.
“I think nature worshippers feel somehow that we are more than that.”
I implore you to read my article again. Something didn’t get through to you. My entire argument is that we are no more than that. I cannot be any more clear.
“That we are capable of controlling the wind, the rain, and the temperature.”
Technically we can do things like this, and we’re getting better at it all the time. But beavers influence the flow of rivers, so again, we’re nothing special.
“The time we have been given on Earth is no more than a blink in our existence.”
It’s actually the entirety of our existence. But it is indeed no more than a blink in the universe’s existence.
“Hopefully you will be able to open your mind at some point to the possibility that this universe is bigger and better than you could ever imagine.”
Reread this post, please. I get this fact. Very, very thoroughly.
“And that its vast miraculous design was architected by God, not by iterations of chance.”
This hasn’t happened. And very likely will not. The structure of nature–observable and predictable–is too convincing all on its own.
@mathsive
I was not referencing God as one of many gods. My reference to God is referring to a distinct being. I don’t consider my use of the word as a pronoun.
Also, I disagree with your premise on God not being a relevant option. As far as proof goes I think God as an origin of the universe is more believable than the origin science has not discovered yet. If science has discovered an origin then please enlighten me, but without that, science has nothing more than a theory. Whichever you believe in, the same amount of faith is required.
@Daniel,
If you are right in your beliefs; I lost nothing by believing in God since our bodies will simply return to the Earth and our lives officially end. If I am right, I will be much more prepared for what comes after our short earthly existence.
I appreciate your rebuttal to my comment. You are a good blogger and obviously enjoy writing more than I do. I agree with a lot of what you said, but I see a huge problem with man’s theory of how the Earth became populated with such a diverse population of creatures all stemming from a single cell. How did the first cell get here? How did the Earth form? Was it a rock that got too close to the Sun and liquefied? How did the Earth develop an atmosphere? If nature is both observable and predictable, why is man so bad at observing and then predicting what will happen next?
When I listen the the theories we currently have in place as man tries to reverse engineer the mysteries of the universe they only come up with one side of the equation. I realize science is always improving and evolving, but how can you discount God based on such an incomplete equation?
I have tried to solve some complex Sudoku puzzles and everything was falling into place right up until the last few numbers when my solution fell apart.
I feel like that is similar to what you are basing your beliefs on, a puzzle with a lot of missing pieces.
In my mind God fits. Nature is his signature which is why everything is so well connected and structured.
I can’t fathom the series of events that would have taken place to create the Earth, much less the creatures that inhabit it.
I am not trying to persuade you that there is a god, that would be a waste of time, I am just explaining why I believe there is one.
Jayson,
Evolution is a fact.
Evolution by Natural Selection is a theory.
God is a hypothesis.
In this context, a fact is something that has been observed. A theory is an idea about how things work with some evidence to back it up. A hypothesis is a guess that may become a theory if there is some evidence to back it up. There is absolutely no evidence for god. I suspect you’re equivocating a little, but it takes far more faith to believe in any of the myriad of deities that have been proposed than to trust in the scientific method to find answers. It isn’t a matter of discounting god, it is a matter of finding a reason to think a god exists. Should a god exist, wouldn’t such a being be even more incomprehensible than the rest of the universe? If we can’t imagine how something works, that’s not nature’s fault, that’s ours.
Many people lose quite a lot by spending their lives believing in god.
There is a lot of information on how the earth formed, look it up.
There is a lot of information on evolution, look it up.
There is a lot of information on how the earth developed an atmosphere, look it up.
Even if we don’t have all the explanations any answers, data and information we have are available to everyone to test and double-check.
Sudoku puzzles are completely based in logic. If your solution fell apart at the end, it just means you didn’t notice your mistakes earlier. Now imagine a collaborative sudoku, where if one person makes a mistake, another may notice it, and vice versa. This seems more likely to succeed.
Just because you, or me, or anyone else can’t figure something out right away doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Though I strongly disagree with you I do appreciate the discussion and your attitude towards it.
Boat,
Yep, I agree there is a lot of information on how the Earth formed, and evolution, and the creation of the atmosphere, and what dinosaurs looked like and how they lived and hunted, and when the glaciers will melt and water will consume the Earth.
I could read from a dozen sources on how it happened and they will all have strong arguments that it happened a dozen different ways.
I personally agree with the idea of evolution and I don’t have a problem with the theory of natural selection. Daniel referred to the book of Genesis when I talked about Zoo Tycoon. The bible talks about the six days taken to create and populate the Earth and a seventh day of rest. The first six days were periods of time with no mention of how long they were, but I am confident it was not 144 hours. Natural selection could have been the method used to form the many unique species of plants and animals. And that process could have taken as long as science predicts. And with that being said, God is incomprehensible to me, but I believe we were created in His image (I know, my ego is showing). I also believe He hears our prayers. The thing that my tiny brain doesn’t comprehend is eternity. No beginning and no end. Believing in God requires faith. Choosing the right scientific philosophy or idea does too. You can assign whatever word you want to it: theory, hypothesis, fact, concept. If you buy into the concept before it is completely proven you are exercising faith. Once it has been proven faith can no longer be exercised. At that point it becomes knowledge.
Please explain how nature is collaborative? I think this is a bigger difference between our views on nature than God is. The way I view nature and the universe can be summed up as chaos. If I were to scale down the universe to a frictionless pool table and set all the balls in motion what would stop the chaos? Some of the balls would be lost to the pockets others would bounce around endlessly. An outside force is required to gather the particles. In this case, I would use the triangle and rack the balls. How did the elements lose their chaotic tendencies and join in harmony? The big bang? That sounds more chaotic than doing nothing and just hoping the molecules get tired and stop next to each other.
In the example of the Sudoku puzzle you are correct that I missed an early error, but that happens all the time in science too. That is why there are so many possible solutions to every mystery man philosophizes over. Then they write a paper about their hypothesis and if it passes peer review it is published as science. The problem is the review board is human too and prone to the same errors and susceptible to political pressure and greed. Just look at the recent discoveries in regard to man made global warming, or climate change. Evidence of missing data and an email trail of cover ups. That is a good reason to diversify and not fill your eternal portfolio with junk science stock options.
I enjoy scientific discoveries and the things scientists do to advance the human race and protect the Earth, but I could never consider their theories or promises as the final rule on creation or salvation. God is far from a backup plan for me, he is the plan.
I enjoy the discussion too, but I can also agree to disagree. We obviously don’t see eye to eye and I have to get busy writing a game before the looming deadline catches up with me. You guys have a great weekend!
@ Main article
I see it as culture (what created the word, god, in the first place) and that which creates itself, spontaneously, nature. The whole man wife, nature, nurture concept is a derivative. I found one flaw; “(Cursive;), What doesn’t fit into the tidy laws of nature is the idea that I’m special in any natural or supernatural sense. That is the sole domain of a self-obsessed mind that allows delusions of God to control it.” I know there is the law of originality, easy law. Can be called singularity.
Hey Theun, thanks for the reply!
What I find interesting is that really, culture creates itself as well. There is a distinction between nature and culture, sure, but it gets really intriguing when you start thinking of them in terms of their similarities.
I know of two definitions of singularity–one from physics and one from technology (from Ray Kurzweil, more precisely)–and neither of them address what you’re referring to. As far as a law of originality, I think here we’re probably just quibbling over insignificant points. In a universal sense, I’m a collection of the same particles that can be found anywhere. The arrangement of these particles might be unique in this particular region of the universe, but I’m not going to fool myself into thinking anything outside my very, very limited sphere of influence is going to be affected by what this sack of particles does in the next hundred years. So really it’s a matter of scope, as so many things are. Within the scope of my own geography, sure, I’m a snowflake; but it’s a pretty vast universe outside of that.