theartofthetangent

So for some reason I’ve been thinking about how this whole glorious mess of a universe got here.  The two biggest ideas on how it got here are (as the name of this entry implies) Creationism and the Big Bang.  Every single time I have to wax it philosophical on this, I want to pound my head off the wall.  Not because the topic is overly thought provoking, but because I know that if I try to have a rational conversation about outside of the my own head, I have to deal with the die-hard science worshipers or the god-fearing deity types.

Let’s review, shall we?  Some time before time, all of this was nothing.  Then one day before there were days, something happened and POOF! there was something.  And that, humble readers, is how the universe arrived where it is currently taking up space.  Those are the facts as we see them.  The problem comes along when ANYONE tries to add a bit more detail to the story.

If you ask the sciency people to fill in the gaps of my aforementioned explanation with some nice adjectives, adverbs, and nouns, they will tell you (without getting too jargony) that some sort of random chain reaction went off in the vast nothingness of space.  This giant and apparently invisible thermonuclear bomb sets off in a… wait for it… big bang that reverberates throughout said nothingness, and now the nothingness is full of stuff.  Quite a while later said stuff forms into new stuff, things crash together, break apart, catch on fire, and freeze to a crisp.  All this goes on and on until a bunch of people on some blue planet start asking, “How did all this get here?”

Now let’s go ask the deity types.  These folks will say, once everything is boiled down to the basics, that in that great nothingness sat not some kind of random energy burst, but some all powerful guy who got sick of sitting around being lonely in all that nothingness so it goes “SHAZAM!” and the universe begins.  Said guy takes sometime to throw some stuff together, turn on a few lights, crash some stuff together, set some things on fire, and the next thing he knows, a bunch of people on some small blue planet are walking around asking, “How did all this get here?”

In short, IT IS THE SAME FREAKING STORY!  There was nothing, something happens, and BAM! Hello, universe.  But you say, “Ree, one is science.  One is religion.  They’re completely different!”  And I would reply, that yes, science and religion are two very different things.  But they share the same purpose.  They both strive to explain the unknown of the universe.  They are two sides of the same coin.  The sooner we all understand this, the happier we will all be.

I really am so sick of hearing the arguments of both sides on this one.  They are arguing the same things using the speech patterns and philosophies of their own groups.  Once you take both examples and boil them down, you get the same basic idea: There was nothing (or at least nothing we would be capable of recognizing), some monumental energy is released (call it kinetic or God), some predetermined pattern is followed (call it natural law or God’s will) and BOOM!  Hello, universe.  It is the same story, following the same plot, the names have simply been changed.

Can’t we find some common ground here?  Can’t we all just accept that when it comes down to it, we just don’t know.  Right now neither side can prove that their jargon is the correct jargon to descibe something that no one can prove even happened.  We just don’t know.  That’s why we have science and religion… to help us explain the mysteries of the universe.  But they’re still mysteries.  We just don’t know.

So if you’re one of those science types who belittle the faithful for clinging to their mythos of choice, remember that you can’t prove how the universe got here.  If you’re one of those faithful types damning the scientist for not believing, remember that you can’t prove how the universe got here either.  You believe you know or think that you know, but you can’t prove it.

So in conclusion, we should take solace in knowing that we don’t know.  If we did know, we would have no need for science or religion.  There would be no more mysteries to explain, so we would no longer need the vehicles of explaining.  Know that science and religion are conjoined twins, both sharing a heart of the unknown.  Take that heart away and both will die.  They may not need each other, and in fact may be much happier without the other, but they both need that heart.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS