Does God Meddle?
Sep. 18th, 2008 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueSo this morning on the way into work, I caught thought for the day on Radio 4. I like doing that. Mostly because it means I'll be on time. But also because it makes me think, even if I disagree with them.
Now, this morning the speaker (Who's name I shall insert here with the R4 website updates) was talking about evolution. And how the essentially blind process of evolution, is hard to mesh with the story of genesis, and God creating the world.
Now, this line of thinking bothers me. It's typical human arrogance, that assumes that because we meddle with everything, everywhere, every day, then God must be too. He's not. We've documents indicating that he 'meddled' significantly 2000 years (or so) ago, and the ripples and consequences of doing so ... well, they're still felt around the world today. And in the mean time, we've had some really quite horrendous behaviour - the Crusades were not a bright point in human history - as a result.
So, just to change tangent a little. Are you aware of what a Fractal is? One like the Mandelbrot Set. It's a pretty picture with, at least as far as we can tell, infinite depths of complexity.
The picture defined by the M set is actually one simple equation. And yet you can zoom in on elements of the set, and see not just infinite complexity, but the original pattern repeating itself.
We have the LHC built in CERN to try and help us discover this equation of the Universe. The Universe might well be a pretty awesome fractal.
Which brings us around to the central point - Why is it that so many religions assume that God is a meddler? That he's flipping a coin or something, to choose - this one lives, that one dies. Ducks with feet good, Pigs with wings bad. Rain to day, sun tomorrow.
It's mankind's peculiar conceit that something needs to be fiddled with, in order to show that they care about it, when all too often things will grow according to their nature anyway.
Does it not make more sense then, to think in terms of the big picture - God has the long view. He lit the blue touch paper, and enscribed the grand unified theory, and watched what unfolded.
Brought order of the chaos, and said 'let there be light'. The real miracle is that in doing so, his complex equation has unfolded for timescales almost unimaginable, and still there's enough detail in the pattern to bring out emergent behaviour - life.
Now, this morning the speaker (Who's name I shall insert here with the R4 website updates) was talking about evolution. And how the essentially blind process of evolution, is hard to mesh with the story of genesis, and God creating the world.
Now, this line of thinking bothers me. It's typical human arrogance, that assumes that because we meddle with everything, everywhere, every day, then God must be too. He's not. We've documents indicating that he 'meddled' significantly 2000 years (or so) ago, and the ripples and consequences of doing so ... well, they're still felt around the world today. And in the mean time, we've had some really quite horrendous behaviour - the Crusades were not a bright point in human history - as a result.
So, just to change tangent a little. Are you aware of what a Fractal is? One like the Mandelbrot Set. It's a pretty picture with, at least as far as we can tell, infinite depths of complexity.
The picture defined by the M set is actually one simple equation. And yet you can zoom in on elements of the set, and see not just infinite complexity, but the original pattern repeating itself.
We have the LHC built in CERN to try and help us discover this equation of the Universe. The Universe might well be a pretty awesome fractal.
Which brings us around to the central point - Why is it that so many religions assume that God is a meddler? That he's flipping a coin or something, to choose - this one lives, that one dies. Ducks with feet good, Pigs with wings bad. Rain to day, sun tomorrow.
It's mankind's peculiar conceit that something needs to be fiddled with, in order to show that they care about it, when all too often things will grow according to their nature anyway.
Does it not make more sense then, to think in terms of the big picture - God has the long view. He lit the blue touch paper, and enscribed the grand unified theory, and watched what unfolded.
Brought order of the chaos, and said 'let there be light'. The real miracle is that in doing so, his complex equation has unfolded for timescales almost unimaginable, and still there's enough detail in the pattern to bring out emergent behaviour - life.
