In chaos theory, there is a phenomenon that has been established within just the last twenty or so years. It’s the idea of large scale failures of complex systems because of a single, smaller flaw. In other words, the old saying, “A castle is only as strong as its weakest point.”
Within nuclear missile silos, they deal with something fairly similar, called “resonant yaw”. If a missile is even just slightly off during launch, or if it’s tilted on the pad, as it travels along it’s trajectory the missile will fall further and further away from its target. The problem becomes larger and larger until there’s a noticeable gap between the destination hoped for, and the actual destination it actually comes to.
Don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this.
I’ve had a lot of people question me recently. They’ve been asking how I can write so much poetry about God and the like, when I don’t even believe in God. I can understand the confusion, but it surprises me that so few people consider that “God” is a shifting definition, depending on who you talk to.
While it’s true that I don’t believe in a galactic super nanny, I do believe in the inherent order in the universe. I believe that, even out of the chaos that exists through out the universe, there is a sense of order that keeps the huge machine running. Without it, you and I wouldn’t exist. In fact, without that sense of cohesion, nothing that we see could have ever existed.
That, to me, is God. It’s not intelligent design, it’s not some fabricated existance resting atop the shell of a turtle. The universe exists because it chose to, and will cease to exist for the exact same reasons.
If we consider creation, the existance of you and me, the Earth, and everything in it, it’s quite humbling. And it’s humbling without believing in an intelligent designer. If the universe had formed even slightly different from the way it did, if gravity was just fractionally stronger or weaker or if the expansion had proceeded just a little bit quicker or slower, there never would have existed stable elements in the universe.
Had gravity been even the slightest bit stronger, the universe would have simply collapsed back in on itself and nothing would have resulted. Had it been any weaker, and nothing would have come together to form other elements. There would be nothing but empty space and gas. But these forces work for us, they work for our universe and we don’t know why.
And if hydrogen converted any more than 0.007 of its mass in to energy, we wouldn’t exist. If you were to raise the value to 0.008, the bonding of elements would have occurred so quickly that the entire universe would have been exhausted of hydrogen billions of years ago. Lower the value, even to just 0.006, and no transformation would have ever taken place and there would be nothing but hydrogen throughout.
We live in a universe that seems to have been fashioned in such a way that we could exist. Everyone states that that is a miracle of huge improbability (which is true), and thus there must be an intelligent design at work.
The problem is, people who make this statement are not counting all the failed attempts that have previously occurred. Most scientists contend that there might have been trillions and trillions of different big bangs; an infinite number of universes and the reason we happen to exist, the reason life happen to spring up, is simply because it could. And that, my friends, is the order I’m speaking about.
We don’t know why cells of life carry on the way they do. We don’t know why the countless number of atoms (that are not even aware that they exist), form to create you and me. One day they will dispurse and become something else, but for now, they are under the command of your consciousness and of your body, and that is how you’re able to question the validity of the things I’m saying now.
You might find it interesting to know that, billions of years ago, heavier elements were created in stars. All the matter in the universe, in fact, has been created by stars. In turn, every atom in your body and every last thing you’ve ever seen, at one point started its existance as part of a star.
I take comfort in the fact that there is order in the universe. Order exists, however small and hard to find; but it does mean something. It means that the universe will continue on in exactly the way that it has for billions of years. It will continue on despite any belief to the contrary, and it will disregard the thoughts of some insignificantly small beings on a blue planet residing in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Or as Douglas Adams once wrote, “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
And of course, the answer is no. People can’t seem to suspend their irrational belief in the almighty, and the reason is simple: because then they’re not special. We all want to believe that we’re special and that we amount to something in this universe. We want to believe that there is some kind of cosmic significance to our being here.
I’m sorry to say, we’re here for one reason: Because we could. We are. We exist. And it’s that existence that allows a person to question the existence of God in the first place. Isn’t it amazing enough that we are alive? Isn’t it amazing that we simply chose to exist in an otherwise huge and sparse universe? Do people not see the cosmic significance in simply being alive in such a complex system that a single failure could have ended it all?
We are, as first Corinthians put it, “a poor reflection” (see what I did there?). We can’t seem to see beyond the fable that is life and death. We need comfort in that fabled midnight hour, as the moon drifts away and we are left in the dark and without hope. I wish that, someday, people will see beyond their fear, because that’s all belief is. Fear.
I will not fear my own lack of belief, and I will not fear death even as it comes closer. After all, our atoms will become a part of something, somewhere. In a way, it does serve some kind of cosmic significance.