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In pursuit of the case against God,
or talking to rocks makes more sense
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by Carl Baydala
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I do not believe the idea of God is a viable one. My rational being instructs me to think otherwise and to attack the notion of God wherever and however I can. Everywhere around me I see no evidence of God or his work. All I see is nature at work, conducting her business in the best way that she knows how. And, that is in the natural way. By natural I mean to say that she does her business according to her laws; her natural laws. For lack of a better word then, let us call what we see about us: the laws of nature at work. I do not think any thinking man is going to deny the existence of nature and how she manifests herself. The problem for man, I feel, is that some men believe that there is something greater than this thing that we call nature, and they have used the term God to describe this thing that they cannot see, but only imagine. What we are dealing then is with something that has become to be known as an idea.
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Man has the ability to create an idea. Some of the animals, I think you would agree have that ability as well. They simply do not convey these things to us at times, and if they do, some of us simply cannot intrepret their wills and their motivations. But, I believe that the animals, most notably our dogs and cats that we harbor as pets have many of the same abilities as man. These are thinking, feeling creatures just like man. And, so it is with many of the other life forms as well. I am thinking of the multitude of birds and all of the other land and sea animals. All of these creatures possess the ability to feel and to think and to act our their desires and their needs. They do these things in the interest of survival and of procreation.
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The origin of the idea and of thought occurs in the mind of man. We call this thing consciousness that enables us to interpret our environment. The religious people seem to think that God gave us this ability to think and provided us with emotions and the like. Here is where I would like to argue with those who believe in the idea of God. And, I would begin my argument at the beginning and with a novel idea. I am of the opinion that matter can think, or that if taken together certain formulations of matter, through the development of time and luck, have developed the idea to think. I thought that I was posssibly the first to think of this idea, but of course I was not. Even the philosopher John Locke maintained the idea that matter could think.
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But, here is my idea for what it is worth to you. All material thinkers such as myself believe in the primacy of matter over the idea. The idealist philosophers are the ones who would conjure up the idea of a God for you as an explanation for all things imaginable. Well, as you have pretty well guessed by now I am not a believer in idealism or its methods. I am quite convinced that all of the answers that we are seeking can be found in matter and the attributes and potential of matter and of its combinations.
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Think of a plant conducting its business on earth. It utilizes the nourishment of the soil for its existence and relies on the sun for growth. All of these things are material things. None of these processes required an idea or a foreign intervention to achieve their goals. God did not give plants the go ahead as it were to conduct their business. They found out how to do it on their own, by pure simple luck and the combination of circumstances. Now, the human being is doing the same thing as a plant more or less, but it has added a few things to its repertoire of being able to live and to procreate. It has also, because of its added senses such as the ability to hear and to taste and to feel and to see, the ability to attain more meaning out of its environment. Can you imagine what the pretty rose would do with the addition of an eyeball, for example? Or perhaps an ear on its leaf? Would it be able to utilize these features to its advantage do you think? Could it produce more easily and perhaps enjoy its life a bit more than its fellow plants? Does it even require these additions to its makeup? Most likely not, but look at the things that it can accomplish just by appearing beautiful.
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Man, and the other animals, as they developed, acquired numerous advantages over simple plant life. Plants and animals are different things I think you would agree. But, their commonality is that that they rely on the earth and sun for their existence. So, we can say that nature is truly at the heart of man's very survival. Without nature at work there would simply not be man or animal. The very notion of God is an afterthought to any thinking individual. We shall let the idealist struggle with this one for now.
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I want you to think long and hard about the the very idea of consciousness and thought and what this thing really is. I believe that once you come to know and understand just what this thing is then you will be well on your way to becoming a materialist believer and philosopher. It can be no other way, I believe. I have hinted above how the simple plant fits into our ideas here. They are not the same thing as man and I do not believe that any plant actually thinks or maintains a conscience or feels love and pain and all the rest, but there is something similar, I think you would agree. Well, what is that something? As humans we do not believe that plants can 'feel' reproduction or enjoy the sex act ( maybe they can ), but it is doing something similar to man - it is transforming nature into something else, that is what it is doing. It is turning the heat of the sun and the very minerals of the soil into something that it can use. We call this process growing; it is growing into something else. Why do some flowers and animals become such beautiful things that us humans admire so much? What gave a plant the ability to produce such wonderful colors and to attract other things to it? The answer of course is nature, nature in all of its wonderful splendour and of its laws - its natural laws.
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So, a plant may not have the mind that we have, but it is enjoying similar things to us; it is able to transform and make use of things that come naturally from its environment. Man does the same thing as the plant, but it also does much more than a plant. It has developed the ability to " think "about what it is doing. The human animal has even developed the ability to derive meaning from the whole business of nature as well. And, it does all of these things with its brain, which is its supplier of meaning. The complex piece of equipment that we call a brain is that thing which provides meaning for man. This thing is not an idea or a god, but something real. It is a piece of machinery if you will that can process all kinds of bits of information and turn those things into symbols that we can interpret and derive meaning from. Man can hear, see, smell, and touch. All of these abilities are involved in that complex process that translates things into intelligible pieces of information for man. Thought is essentially that thing that is telling man what he is feeling and thinking and why he is doing these things.
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Thought is not something magical as the believers in God would have you imagine. It is not given by God for your pleasure and survival. Nature produced these things, just like all of the rest of the things that occur in nature and the universe. Yes, thought is matter and originates in matter because it can be nothing else. If idea produced idea you would never know about it because you could not feel it or see it or touch it. That is why the materialists are right and the idealists are wrong. It is simple logic. Were John Locke and myself right in our analysis of things? Can simple matter do the thinking that we require it to do? Can a rock think? I personally do not know if a rock can think because I am not able to communicate with a rock. I cannot even talk to a plant. Well, I can talk to a plant, but it might not answer me back. Believers in God talk to Him, but He does not answer either. That is what I meant when I said an idea cannot talk to an idea. And, that is what talking to God is all about. It is an illogical form of behavior. But, talking to a rock or a plant, or even a low level animal has different possibilities I think you would agree. If I am going to communicate with something, or something that has the possiblity of returning comprehension, then that something is most likely going to be composed of matter, and not simply an idea like God that will never attain the ability to communicate in the way that I understand communication and meaning to occur.
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