In the last post I talked about the irrelevance of life in the grand scheme of things. I cannot deny that it is a simplistic and a very nihilistic view of things. What are the consequences of undermining the importance of life? It takes a certain level of awareness of one's surroundings to able to appreciate the implications of this understanding. Not only was the origin of life an accident, but by extrapolation each and every life is just the continuation of a chain of events that started with that very first accident. We are all carrying the burden of our accidental origins. If our origin is an accident, so would be our demise. Our lives are as ephemeral as the lighting up of a bulb. There was nothing before that and there will be none after the bulb is switched off.
Life starts when a pair of replicating live cells fuse with each other and form a full complement of genetics for that particular species, continuing to replicate and aggregate as per the genetic mandate of that species, which in turn has evolved under three and a half billion years of evolutionary pressure. So, we are all the products of that initial spark which ignited the proto-molecules in the primordial Earth soup. It is easy to deduce from these observations that we need not accord any special sanctity to the beginning of a life.
The idea of a soul that is captured within an embryo developing in a womb is pure humbug to me. The foolhardy idea that souls exist in human beings and not in animals is preposterous and exposes the lie further.
That consciousness is a mere biological consequence of growth and development of a brain is not very difficult to understand if we follow the train of logic detailed above. It should therefore be not surprising that the human level of sentience is directly proportional to the brain body ratio. Our ability to feel and reason is what sets us apart from other lower forms of life and that is a direct consequence of our bigger brains. This organic explanation of our sentience and our conscience should be proof enough against any invocation of magic and fantasm to explain our evolution accorded abilities.
Are there social implications of this understanding? I am afraid that the high and mighty ruling over us think so. These simple logical truths have been buried under centuries of half-truths, scare-mongering and rote-religious dogmas. These dogmas have been viciously guarded throughout the centuries by hounding and persecuting those who have tried dispelling the shrouds of these untruths.
What is the most effective way of obfuscating these simple truths?
Invent the idea of a soul, invent the idea of heaven and hell and of judgement and consequence.
How to make people fall in line and make them acquiescing of these dogmas zealously?
Invent the idea of a supreme authority, of religion and of an all powerful omniscient God. Make this God the guardian of human virtues and make him the arbiter of right and wrong. Let edicts set forth from this God which would cloud human judgement and blinker his judgement for centuries to come.
There would be people who would resist and desist following these dogmas. Such would be dealt with by meting exemplary punishments to them. Rhazes was blinded, Galileo was put under house arrest, Copernicus made to renounce his science as heretical, Bruno burnt at the stake - the list goes on and on.
What were these zealots afraid of? Was it a fear of losing influence or of being rendered irrelevant? Or was it for a perceived good of the society? What are the dangers of realization? Could it lead to a collapse of order and civilization?
Perhaps therein lies the greatest danger of atheism. The realization of being quick and dead in death is unnerving and depressing. The eighty or so years of life is all there is to it. There is no before and there is no after. Eons that have gone and eons to come are irrelevant because I won't be there. None who are here would be there. It doesn't mean anything at all. It is a depressing scenario. It robs us of the incentive to be fair and good. We will be good because we fear the law, not because there are compelling consequences like a cauldron of boiling oil in hell after our death. All life loses its sanctity.
LIFE loses its sanctity - that is a recipe for anarchy, depredation and hegemony in society. It would be jungle raj where might is right and there are kings and slaves (though there were that for most of human civilization and there are those who go by different names now). There would not be any sense of belonging and there would be no respect for other's belongings. This lack of fraternal respect would bring all humanity to a grind.
Maybe it is good that someone had a stroke of genius to invent God.
Maybe it is good that a majority of humans abide by a set of morals; morals that are ingrained in their minds by a fear of consequences in the afterlife, a fear of failing oneself on the judgement day, an overwhelming dread of sullying their pristine souls.
Is there no other way out?
I think there was a way out... (to be continued)
Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons, Flickr (labeled for reuse).
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