by John Shuck

Created on: January 20, 2009

If you are a thinking human being, requiring some sort of evidence before you believe, is there any other choice but agnosticism? Why, you may ask, hoping for that incontrovertible proof that will give you some sort of transient peace. That one shining moment that will help you at last accept what all humans cannot help but to hope for, an everlasting life. How selfish! How unthinking! To consider what has been discovered about our universe in the last century and think that we are at the center of it is so at odds with what we know that it absolutely must offend our sensiblilties. Are we, humans on the planet Earth the only being that deserves eternal life? If so, what kind of God have we created? The possibilities puzzle the mind, and subvert our will.

Darwin brought all of this into focus. He was very careful in recording what he saw. His observations were against all that was believed in his time. His own wife feared for his soul. Why? The eternal question must be asked. Why did she fear for his soul? Did what he saw to be true so offend the current God that his soul was damned? Perhaps, but surely there are other answers to this question. We are encumbered with a brain that engages in fantasy and names it reality for no good purpose other than to further us along this path we call life.

People are so willing to go along with the current belief system that it is hard to imagine an end to our existence. An end to us? Hell no! We would rather imagine hell and create it here on earth than actually accept the fact that, as Darwin opined, we are nothing more than just another animal. How very appalling! Do we have the courage to accept the fact that if we look carefully at what we are, that in the end there is a possibility that we, along with all the other myriad creatures of this planet, will rot? That is the infernal question. We have no answer. No matter how we contend with this issue, it remains. We have no answer. The greatest philosophers of all time, from every point of view you can imagine have tried to prove the existence of God without success. Our minds lack the ability to perform this function. Could it be that it is because there is nothing out there? What we know is that we do not know. It is as simple as that.

Perhaps we will be better for it if we can imagine a universe in which God may not exist. Our progeny will survive. Life will go on. If we are fortunate, it will go on without quite so many wars. That would be very helpful for the generations to follow. Don't you agree? If we are truly to be what we claim to be, we must admit that we do not know. We want what is best for our children, don't we? A Godless universe is a concept which is possible to imagine. We created Him in need. Now we must recognize that He is our creation, we are not His.

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