Melody Road
Science reveals its laws gradually. Or, humans only gradually come to see natural laws. We learn in stages. When we discover a phenomenon, it becomes a scientific truth. Physicists, engineers, physiologists, mathematicians, archaeologists, geologists, astronomers, botanists, lepidopterists and all manner of scientists come to understand their truths across national boundaries and cultures. What is so in one place is also true in any other. The natural laws are universal. Insofar as we know now, even the laws of interplanetary motion are understood by all inhabitants of the Earth equipped to grasp them. All such laws change. Some of these truths are expanded—we learn more in addition to a particular phenomenon or mathematical operation. Some laws are supplanted by better information. All scientists recognize the previous error (entire or partial) and a new law is put in place. And new laws are discovered regularly. Whatever they are, these laws are not hidden from the view of some because their superstitions or politics disallow their acceptance or understanding. God, or the notion of a high all-powerful controlling force, may reveal itself gradually, too.
It seems only logical and fair, then, that as revelations of this force occur, they be recognizable and comprehendible by all peoples, as laws of science are. Laws of nature are not the exclusive property of certain tribes or nations. Nature prevails over all. God must certainly operate in the same way.
One nation tells you that there are certain laws of behavior dictated by god. Another nation will tell you that its set of laws is the correct set of laws, dictated by god. Can they both be correct? If five or eight nations tell you that its set of rules dictated by god are the correct ones—with which to achieve one’s happiness and eventually one’s reward in the next life, and each set of laws has in them rules that contradict laws in the others—which laws can be proved to be correct? Can it be that god promotes this confusion? Can it be that god will not reveal once and for all the absolutely correct single set of rules of behavior? Or is man foolish to follow orders that can at best be merely relative notions of right and wrong, not applicable to all people in all places now and since the beginning of time? Can each tribe, nation or cult really believe that it alone of all peoples has found the secret? Can it believe that god would keep secret in the first place, laws of correct behavior? What would that secrecy accomplish? Confusion and fear, hatred and conflict. Could that be this god’s intention? If the sets of rules are numerous, mankind must be mistaken. If mankind had several sets of laws of electricity and light, none of which could be proved, every set logically would be mistaken. So, are all religions therefore wrong? Of course.
Then where on earth are the rules, the laws of this god? They must be clear—if there are any. This power, god, is by definition clear. Clear is unconfused. Nature is clear. It is observable. It is before us, all around us. It has been functioning since before our time. It does not require our understanding, or even our comprehension and acknowledgement, to exist or go on functioning. We are in it. We are of it. We have some small ability to interfere with its operations. We try to alter specific functions. We harm and destroy. We never improve, as we claim. We don’t have that power. But we vainly insist that we do. We arrogantly tamper and thwart. Always, in the end, we fail. And we pay a price. Of pain, confusion and death. Nature, its laws and relentless force, continues.
The power we call god does, too. There do not seem to be varying laws for scattered ant colonies around the earth. There do not seem to be varying laws of thermo-dynamics or gravity or light among the continents. Seasons operate according to varied climates, but always in clear patterns. Alterations occur through the millennia, but always in discernable patterns traceable through mathematics and physics. The power we call god must have been operating always and openly for all peoples in all places since the beginning. If there are laws for the human creature, they can only be laws that have always been discernible. From the beginning. Compile a set that can be seen clearly to have operated since our beginning, and you may have found the rules of the behavior all religions have searched for in vain.
To accomplish this, we must go back and observe the earth and its inhabitants, not the heavens. Not the fanciful heavens, that is, of the imagination. Astronomers know the heavens as they are; a book of mathematics, said Galileo.
If there were multiple books of mathematics that contradicted one another, and none of them could be proved to be correct, all of those books would be invalid. Because there is a book of laws of mathematics that can be proved. If there are multiple books of the laws of god, and none can be proved to be a true or correct collection of rules or laws, then none of those books can be the correct one. Since no book has yet appeared to outline rules and laws that must have been operating since the beginning of time, there cannot be a book of the rules and laws of the god all religions of the world identity as the higher power.
The three most widely followed religions are all based on living humans who declare—according to their own and the accounts of later followers—that to enter into the good graces of the omnipotent god, one must believe in that human and his declarations. Each man asserts that the god we all seek spoke through him. That this god does not speak directly to all people. That the laws each of these men delineates are inerrant. That only people who learn these laws can gain the love and rewards this god offers. So, anyone born before these men existed can’t have this god’s good offerings, not in this life or the next. In other words, this force, god, revealed itself for the first time, starting only about thirty-two hundred years ago; through Moses. Then again through Jesus, and through Mohammed. Before their time, people had no valid understanding of this god, and none of this god’s promised benefits. And ever since, each (along with his followers) declares that only by following his set of rules can humans have these benefits.
Unlike the rules of mathematics and the laws of gravity, these three sets of rules oppose one another on many counts. In fact, the accounts of the Christian Bible contradict one another repeatedly on very many important details. The accounts of the older Hebrew Bible were written by anonymous figures and contradict many points of the later Christian texts. The declarations of the Koran are a new set of orders widely different from the other two. Yet all are the “word” of this god. Each set of beliefs is the one and only correct set. Each of these “messengers” of this god is correct. Only he, in fact. Any other person’s declarations are incorrect. All three texts warn that anyone who fails to adhere to its rules will be punished. Here on earth in some cases. And in the next life, for certain. What happens to someone who follows none of these books?
Anyone who doesn’t understand the laws of mathematics, gravity, thermo-dynamics and interplanetary motion will always be subject to laws nevertheless. He need not even acknowledge the laws to benefit from them. He certainly is not required by this god to understand them, in order to be subject to them. He is entitled, by mere virtue of existing. I think the same must be so for the so-called laws of this god.
The first human and the last human, in every place, of all time, benefits from the forces of nature and god. Nothing else is required of humankind. If a human chooses to kill and destroy, or nurture and create, he is entitled to the benefits of this god.
No religion has ever been devised or declared, with its rituals and requirements for salvation, and rules of living, that is universal. No concept of a single god has ever been stated that could be understandable by all people in all times, everywhere. Perhaps this is because humans have ignored the most obvious signs of a god’s presence.
Nature, with its complex connections and orderly laws, is surely the best evidence of a creative force and overruling power. Grand enough, powerful enough and rather easily understood, or at least observed, by all people everywhere from the beginning of human existence. Nature does not keep its secrets. It functions the same for all people. It requires only the simplest understanding, to live in it and cope with its demands and dangers. It supplies everything a human could possibly need. It does not require tribute, only understanding, acceptance and prudence in the face of its ultimate power to give life and take it. It does not even require understanding beyond a minimum awareness. Education, apart from experience passed from one generation to the next, in its complexities, is not a necessity. Nature does not punish. Nature merely operates. Nature does not reward. It merely functions. If one takes its abundance, one feels rewarded. If one is caught in an avalanche or a tidal wave, one is harmed. These functions are what we call “natural.” They are not the exception. Nature operates unfailingly by rules. Only humans, in fact, of all creatures, seem to break natural rules or laws. The result sometimes is God, or the originating and controlling force, like all operations of nature, must have been operating always. From the beginning of time. Gradually, humans come to see these operations. If the workings of nature are seen one way in one place on the planet and in another in another place, comparisons are made between them. Scientists do not argue much about what can be proved. Electricity, wind, seas, light, heat, planets, forests, mountains, genes. All always have been. All always are. All always operate in one discernible way. Discernible by all in one way. If there is god, it must be so for that force, too. Nature is not a mystery. It operates whether we understand it or not. It does not need our permission. And it operates according to its own laws even when we interfere. It operates upon all always in the same ways. Nature does not select. It hums along, causing and affecting.
God must operate in like manner. From the beginning of time. Upon the entire planet. Upon all people. Without our understanding. With our understanding, should we ever have any.
The trouble with religions is that they are all incorrect. If any religion were correct, it would be clear and comprehensible to all. It could not be relative. It would be absolute, like nature. Religions are all relative. Believers say that the word of god is written in Arabic, Aramaic, Chinese, English, Latin, Greek. God does not operate in words. Words would limit god, and god is limitless, like nature. Religions say that their set of laws are absolute. There can be only one set of laws, like the laws of nature. If the scientists of five different nations proposed five varying sets of laws of planetary motion and declared each set of laws incontrovertible, the world would laugh. Only one set of laws could be the correct one, or it could be that none of those nations has observed the correct set. But there is one. And it is obtainable. By all.
If the people or churches of ten different nations proposed ten varying sets of laws of god and declared each set of laws incontrovertible, the world ought to laugh. Instead, the nations condemn and threaten one another, in the name of each nation’s god.
If one asks for proof of the truth of any one of these sets of beliefs, the believers say that the ways of god are mysterious. Which means, of course, that there are no proofs. Sometimes, they will offer a prophet or prophets as proof. If a scientist cannot prove a premise, he might try offering a prophet as proof. People would laugh if the scientist say that Aripope said it was so. Where is the proof? Never mind, Aripope is our proof. In fact, for centuries the Western world took Aristotle as their proof. Universities taught “received wisdom” of Aristotle as all the truth one need know. Until the scientific revolution proved that Aristotle could not have known many things that only science could prove. And that, in fact, Aristotle was wrong. The Pope said the sun revolves around the Earth, which was the true center of the cosmos. He had Galileo jailed because he said the opposite.
Only humans punish. And viciously, sometimes. Humans guard virtuous behavior jealously. So jealously that if someone is seen to be unvirtuous, that person is sometimes punished unto death. This is the “I am better than thou” syndrome. Some people are so frightened of life that they need an advantage. Cloak yourself in “belief” and you are superior. And unassailable. Anyone who doesn’t understand is inferior. Anyone who contradicts is a heretic. That person is doomed. But we who “believe” are saved. Nyah, nyah!
But do devout people doubt?
Why do they need to “convert” others? To feel less lonely? If they fail to convert others, then they condemn those they have failed to bring “into the light.” Or do they just pity those? No, those who remain outside are a threat. To the convictions of those who seek to convert others.