The Atheist, The Jew, & The Agnostic

I had a three way discussion between me, an agnostic, my friend Eric a converted Jew, and my friend Chris a strict Atheist. All of us are very intelligent, and were close enough friends to be very frank with our beliefs. One thing that drove the Atheist crazy was how both the Jew and the Agnostic claimed to have valid philosophies. What drove him even more crazy was that we were calling his view of reality a philosophy.

Unification Theory
I tried for the next hour to break down the fundamentals of our reality; big bang, evolution, and the like, and how there is a paradox. Such as the notion of a particle and a wave existing at the same time. The Jew and I agreed that there is a larger purpose in our existence, and that there are common fundamentals among all religions. In this essay, I want to show how come all three philosophies are valid. I don't think I will ever change the minds of my friends and their beliefs, and they will be great buddies of mine.


The Atheist has a big problem with organised religion, less with the type of spirituality that I have fostered. I agree with the Atheist that the fundamental of organised religions have been manipulated where they are used to fight wars and suppress groups of people. The Jew agrees somewhat but believes there is holy ground that rightfully belongs to them, and has no problem with expelling other people from this land. This interweaving of what is right but limited to the other's philosophy is a beautiful piece of woven fabric. It is the thread of our beliefs that binds our world.


What came across was the common theme between our views, they are all coherent explanations for the world around us. The Atheist would scream "facts!", all existence should be based solely on verifiable physical truth. It is a beautiful appreciation of math and physics, and how it all makes sense and has no ambiguity. Indeed, we need this box of 3 dimensional laws to create an efficient world allow it's inhabitants to live safely and easily. Neither the Jew or I disagree in general that we have a physical universe that acts and behaves in way scientists have calculated. We had some disagreement whether other life exists in the universe, with me noting that some scientists calculate using simple probability that there must be other life.

Behind the Curtain
The point where I disagree with strict atheism is what happens when you try to look beyond the corners of our reality. If our 3D universe existed with no other than the established laws of physics, then we live in a finite world that has a boundary, and nothing exists beyond that boundary. Unfortunately, every time we think we will reach that boundary, the mystery grows deeper. If we look at the progression of science, we pursue the Macro and the Micro.

Macro
We start with how our solar system behaves, then expand to deeper space, and look ultimately toward the beginning of our universe, the big bang. Yet we cannot get all the way to the beginning of time. No laws and no physical evidence can tell us what happened before the big bang, or better yet, how come the big bang happened at all.

Micro
We start by looking at the building blocks of our physical world, molecules, particles, atoms, electrons, quarks, strings, etc., etc. Each new subatomic particle smasher intends to brings us closer to smallest piece of the physical fabric, only to discover that it is even yet smaller. No scientist can seem to be able to find that boundary.

The Religion of Knowledge
The Atheist has a valid argument that since there is no evidence of any exterior guiding hand outside the physical world, that no one can conclude it exists. But in the face of how scientists have yet to find the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, we are still just graduating from Kindergarten in our knowledge of the known universe. I am not doubting some new answers will be found in the decades to come that may bring us closer, but I look at the trend that has developed, where each step we take forward only reveals another step. The Atheist won't allow the physical to be tainted by the theoretical. However, Philosophy is a vital column in the pillars of knowledge. Just as much as it is important to be firmly grounded in facts derived from measurements and repeated experiments, we need to develop theories to make these collection of facts make sense.

Why are the polar caps melting? The Earth as a larger ecosystem cannot be predicted easily even with advanced measurements and calculations. We need theories to help us look into the effects that this global event is capable of producing. One recent theory that tries to help explain such a large interaction of different physical influences is the Chaos theory. Such as watching a stick float down a stream and trying to determine what section of the river it will float, it is nearly impossible to calculate the dynamics of the chaotic water. However, we can still guide a surfboard along an ocean wave using a general understanding of the greater behaviour of natural forces. Chaos Theory is useful when trying to predict behaviour by observing trends, and using knowledge of the Macro to help explain the Micro, or vice versa. It has been found that nature seems to have a design, and is not purely chaotic. This bell curve of probabilities helps gather the intertwined physical systems into a coherent behaviour. The bell curve causes a certain number of gusts of wind to turn into a hurricane.

Random Philosophy
Philosophy has a structure that acknowledges the Physical world. In this case, it is the physical boundaries of knowledge itself. How come we think? What happens when we ask this question is that we end up with very little evidence about why we are able to imagine in the first place. This goes back to to the way the ape was able to rise above the animal kingdom. If we never ask why then we may never learn about our existence as a whole. One explanation is divine guidance. The basis of all religions is a philosophy about a greater intelligence. Because Philosophy cannot determine the origin of intellectual thought, the divine guidance explanation is a valid one. However, we obviously can't prove it because we don't possess instruments to measure anything outside our 3 dimensional reality. Does that mean it doesn't exist? We also cannot build a time machine to go back to the first millionths of a second of the big bang to observe what happened, but that doesn't mean the big bang did not exist.

So back to trends and probabilities. Chaos theory indicates that there is not a truly random universe. Humans are born with physical variations, however there is a bell curve of people with normal health and average intelligence at the majority, with less and less numbers as health and intelligence is more and more abnormal. On one end of the curve are relatively smaller numbers of handicapped people while the other end produces a smaller number of geniuses and super-athletes. If nature's order operated strictly by mathematics and had a truly random origin, then we should have an equal number of abnormal people as well as normal people. In a truly random universe, the probabilities for all the conditions to be perfect for humans to exist on this planet seem to next to impossible. Humans may have developed a perfect biological form from random chaotic cell growth over millions of years, but the fact such a structure exists that can produce variants can also be seen as an idea of a purposeful design.

Who Designed Evolution?
Philosophy asks the question, What is Life? Another head scratcher. What is the force behind the mechanism that causes creation of a baby. The cooperation of individual cellular functions (such as a liver or skin) to bind together to a cohesive larger organism with such perfection (nothing is wasted or underdeveloped) seems too complicated to happen, even or eons of time. A pile of rocks won't turn into the Brooklyn bridge no matter how many millions of years you give them. My philosophy of life believes that Earth is not random and hence a purpose exists for humans. All of this purpose behind the Chaos view of the world still is a far cry from what Religion is. Religion sees life as a gift from God, and that we honour that gift by living by his wishes.

I lose my friend the Atheist when it comes to Philosophy and Chaos Theory. Facts, solid physical foundations, don't care where they come from. My friend the Jew sees what we have in common. Yes, there is something driving creation, the intellect came from outside the physical world. The intellect first found itself in a dream. The dream caused confusion, everything nebulous, no way to grasp why he was an individual, alone and apart from the greater intelligence that allowed this free will to exist as a separate entity. The bible called this guy Adam. The dreamworld was lonely, and there was a fear of that separation from the big collective. The greater intellect produced a biological setting to make his dreamworld less nebulous. This biological design itself was a piece of art, along with the beautiful idea of giving part of it's own intellect a chance to separate from itself as a celebration of the existence of intellect itself. The biological design was a reflection of the perfection of the greater intellect. This bible called this biological creation The Garden of Eden. The intellect thus was divided from a single dreamer in his singular lonely dream world and split into male and female, based on the biological bipedal organism. Then the Earth, and presumably the Universe along with it, was made as a place to live, using fire and water as the basis of life.

Church of Life
These people used nature as their teacher. And is the sensible religion for me. If I never read the bible ( I haven't), and I wanted answers to the big questions of Life, I observe nature for clues. This is where the Atheist and I can shake hands, because he sees biology along with math as the answer to everything, and can get along just fine before the invention of modern Religion. But even so, there is an overwhelming amount of facts that show that a Jesus phenomena occurred. All sides conclude that this historical event in a particular moment in time was a spiritual awakening. Rocks didn't magically move around, the sun didn't stop rising, but a philosophy that stirred people up took hold and continues that grip for the majority of the population today.

My problem with the philosophy of the Jew is that it believes it's own slant on what happened back then, and makes them right and others wrong. I think a true religion doesn't make other people wrong, and all people need to find understanding with one another. One thing I reluctantly acknowledge is that this Utopian idea of universal love is too ideal for selfish minded people. Back to that Garden of Eden; when the intellect was no longer lonely, and appreciated the beauty of the biological world, he wanted it for himself. He wanted to control it. The bible explains this as Adam grabbing a piece of fruit off a particular tree even though it blemished the perfection of the tree. It was a selfish act that was kind of an insult to the creator. I see the idea of a transition from dream to reality as a birth of the physical world that was part of the experiment setup by the greater intelligence. The experiment's hypothesis is this:

"What would happen if I put a free thinking intellect in a biological world and let him exist on it's own?"

Would this petri dish called Earth be able to self exist or would the Free Will cause problems?

Here's my philosophy:

Earth is a experiment to see if Free Will can choose Peace over Destruction.

After a period time, as our ancestors started becoming more tribal and fearful, it was decided the rules would be broken, just once, by sending a message to a couple people around the Roman times. They gave them the message that a greater intelligence existed and they hoped that they would all coexist peacefully. This divine intervention was of course just a suggestion, since people still possessed Free Will and had the independence to decide for themselves.

My sad analysis is that we are failing the test. The problem with free will was that it allowed darker thoughts to grow into their own angry animals. Fear is a living entity to react to in order to survive. But the fear combined with imagination causes over-reaction and selfishness. Part of the problem is the denial of the nature. We don't see any other animals (save for rare instances) where they kill each other. Nature coexists peacefully (most of the time). Man and Nature is able to coexist without suffering, but the selfishness and greediness has disrupted an ecosystem that can only operate properly if everyone cooperates. Since Free Will means that it is our choice to cooperate or not, then we can't stop those that choose not to.

The Experimenter and The Subject
There are stories about this also. There is the idea that there will be a point where the greater intelligence will get fed up and kick over the chess board. There is another idea that there will be an event again like last time, perhaps it will seem like "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Here's where I side with the Atheist, I think it really is up to us alone. We have to become less selfish and realise we are quite literally going to kill ourselves. Time is becoming critical by all accounts; pollution and overpopulation is causing massive Earth changes, and nuclear annihilation amongst other manmade hazards are capable of killing millions.

Here is where the Agnostic, the Jew, and The Atheist come together. Who cares how the Earth got this way, we need to wizen up and start fixing things before it's too late. Solving the Israeli and Arab conflict is critical to getting things fixed. What is the ultimate answer to solving this ancient conflict? What does God want us to do? How will God Solve this? What side is God on? Who should concede, who should prevail?

And The Answer Is...
There is no answer, because this is an experiment, not a quiz where the right answer is A, B, or C. The only answer is that all sides give up their grievances and learn to cooperate. But selfishness and greediness has grown to the point that we are now unable to give up or allow ourselves to cooperate. I also agree with the Atheist that we are destined for self destruction as long as religions don't give up their holier than thou attitude and quit persecuting others. The Jew insists that this is God's Will, and they are the only true religion. Once again, none of us deny that best laid plans get spoiled very easily and that no side is without fault.