98. God. Part two

 

               After the creation of universe it is running on its own, by the laws of nature. Everything that happens, happens, because of the law of cause and effect. It is an everyday observation. No Divine force, tangibly, intervenes. If one wants to buy a loaf of bread, one has to go to a shop and buy it. No angel from heaven will do it for him. If one falls sick from malaria, he must have been bitten by an Anopheles mosquito carrying Plasmodium parasite. If one is hit by a car while walking on a footpath, it must be due to the carelessness of the driver or a faulty vehicle. An Olympic athlete succeeds where others don’t, because his body is better suited for that sport and he has worked very hard to develop that talent.

So, you see, there is no evidence, that there is no God. If nobody has seen God or talked to God, that does not mean He does not exist. He simply does not want to talk, and maybe He cannot be seen ; He is faceless.

               The second argument, that the world is full of injustice and miseries, does not mean there is no God, He simply chose not to interfere in human affairs. All the miseries are man- made

             The third argument, that everything that happens, happens, due to law of cause and effect, there is no Divine intervention at any point. Off course it is correct, because God made it so. May be it is some sort of experiment of His; He created the universe, He also formulated the fundamental laws of nature, and then left it on its own , to see how it develop             .

How to prove a negative? All we have is that because such and such thing(s) did not happen, which we think should have happened, were there a God, therefore, there is no God

               After dealing with the arguments against God, let us discuss the impact of Copernicus and Darwin on human thought. No other two individuals had as much impact on our perception of man’s place in the universe as these two.

               Copernicus published his work, in 1543, the year he died. Kepler, Galileo, and Newton further developed the Copernican theory. Kepler wrote the three laws of planetary motion, by which the planets move.  Newton discovered his three laws of motion which operate in the whole universe and explain the movement of all bodies. What is the importance of Copernican theory? To understand it one must study the human thought before and after Copernican theory

               For thousands of years, human beings saw a flat, stationary earth. Earth stayed in one place, whereas the sky revolved around it. Sun and moon rose in the East and set in the West. Stars filled the sky and even they moved during the night. Man was the most powerful of all the creatures.  Everything moved with clock-like precision, like a nicely crafted watch. Can a watch construct itself, without a watch maker? If a watch, a house, cannot develop by itself, there had to be a creator, which made this grand universe. Everything pointed towards the earth as the center of the universe, and a Creator of this universe, the God. Religions taught the same thing, with the added twist that the man was the center of the universe, created by the God in His image, and he was the designated ruler of the world and its creatures, as His assistant. Plants were for him, animals were for his use, sun was provided for light and heat, rain for his harvest. Earth was not very old, may be few thousand years old. This is called geocentric (earth is the center) theory. It was the accepted truth from the time of antiquity to 16^th century (with few dissenters, like Aristarchus of Samoa)

               Copernican theory gave a heliocentric (sun is the center) concept. Earth was not stationary but moved, on itself, and around sun. Other planets in the solar system did the same. If one could go far away, the earth would appear as a pinhead of light, hardly visible, amongst thousands of other stars. How could it be the center of the universe? All these millions (in fact, billions) of stars could not have been made for the sake of earth, and for the convenience of its inhabitants (most important was man)

               Whereas Copernican theory diminished the importance of earth and man, it did not diminish the importance of God. Universe could not have emerged by itself, somebody must have made it. Every creation, be it a plant, an animal, a human, or a heavenly body, had thousands upon thousands of components, each working in a precise and prescribed way, as if a higher force, laid down the laws of their governance. Everything, for a thinking man, was a source of joy and wonder. A far far wiser and powerful entity, alone, was capable of such achievement. Without God, universe could not have come into existence. There was an essential need for the presence of God to explain this puzzle.

              

To be continued