Humans, you have searched for the answer to your existence from time immemorial. You have made many fantastic tales, mythologies and fables in a desperate attempt to make sense of what is a sometimes unfathomable and chaotic cosmos. To the uninitiated mind, indeed it looks a complete mess. However, of late, some of you have evolved mentally to the point where you have begun to perceive the patterns, the symmetry in my creation.
The argument over whether I exist or not still rages fierce all over the world. It has cost so many lives, destroyed so much knowledge. So much unnecessary carnage. And from a race such as yours too, that possessed such unlimited potential. And to think that all this while the answer was right in front of you. Like the answers to the best riddles, the answer to this one too, is the simplest. So simple that it never occured to you.
You assumed a universe that you took millenia to even begin to understand, must have begun from something equally complex, if not more. However, there you are making a huge assumption, and in science, assumptions are criminal.
The demonstration of the falsity of this assumption is you yourself. When life began, you were an organic molecule. You were a dna that began replicating itself on a molecular level. And look at you now. Much is said about the near impossibility of the evolutionary creation of something as perfect as the human eye.However, what you fail to understand is that, given enough time, perfection is easily attained.
It took four billion years for a single cell organism to progress to the wide diversity of life you witness today, including your own species. Four billion years rolls off the tongue easily, but have you ever paused to actually consider the magnitude of time it indicates?
So, coming back to my original point, if in four billion years, a cell can multiply into all the forms of living existence that you have witnessed or will do so in future, is it so hard to imagine a similarly simple beginning for the universe? The universe is roughly 14 billion years old. That is a long time to multiply and diversify even from the humblest origin.
But where, you ask, is the answer to the riddle of my existence? If I claim to be creator, where am I now? Why, you ask in outrage, do I turn a blind eye to all the horrors that are perpetrated on earth? Where is god and why does he not show himself?
The answer to this, and the implications of it as a consequence, force me to term this turn of events as tragic. One man amongst you even stumbled upon the answer, but I do not think even he knew what he meant exactly when he said it.
God is dead.
Not in a metaphorical way, not killed by the evil of man or loss of faith or any such triviality. Simply dead. God's immortality is the first and most terrible lie, and the one with most far reaching consequences. For it is this lie that necessitated the fabrication of all the other lies.
If I was immortal, then there needed to be an explanation for my inaction in the face of worldwide despair. If I was immortal, then there had to be a grander plan I had in mind that justified what was happening to this world. All the fanciful embellishments that religions and scriptures endowed upon me stemmed from this one lie. This is the actual Original Sin. This is what really caused the fall of man. This is what will eventually be your bane.
I am mortal. I am just as mortal as you, as every other life form, and even as every inanimate object. Stars shine and then destruct. Planets form and then destruct. Entire galaxies thrive and then capsize. And all that once lived, dies. Are you so blind to the cosmic cycle? Can you not see that everything has a beginning and an end and only differs in the comparative duration of its lifetime? Why did you feel the need to exempt me from this rule? Does a creator have to live as long as its creation? Is the Mona Lisa not still revered though Da Vinci has long since ceased to exist? Do we not still marvel at Nietzsche's profundity though his body lies decomposing in the earth? Is there not a parallel almost everywhere you look?
Nay, but you have not seen the true parallel yet. You make a mistake in my role. You assign me the role of a mother with regards to my creation. But I, in fact, am the father.
Allow me to elaborate.
In your species, what role does the father play in the creation of the child? Almost none except the initial spark. The big bang, as it were. The injection of sperm. He provides the spark and then he leaves. His job is done. After that, the mother, the receptacle, assumes the responsibility of creation. She holds in her womb the raw material that will in nine months time reveal itself a full fledged human being. She feeds it from her own body, shelters it under her own skin, fueled by her own heartbeat.
There is no more accurate or apt analogy in all of existence.
In the cosmic scale, I am the father. Nature is the mother. I was what you scientists call "the first cause". The big bang. That was me. That was the injection. As soon as that was done, my role was over. After that, nature took over completely. Nature guided you through the eternities of space and time, separating, fusing, colliding, exploding, condensing, evaporating. All of the apparent chaos was in fact a carefully thought out plan. Nature fostered exactly the conditions you would need to thrive. And you are not the only ones who have. Countless planets share your fate.
However, returning to the analogy of us as parents, I as a father, provided all the material you would require to exist and survive. Nature, as a mother, more tender in her love and so also more volatile in her anger, gave you instinct. Your greatest weapon. The ability to retain and pass on information through genes. She did that, and much more. You really had no choice but to thrive. She made sure of that.
You came close to the truth many times, none more so than when you named her Mother Nature. She is your mother indeed, but a parent can do only so much.
A parent's task is this: To provide a healthy and rich environment for the child to grow in. To equip the child with all the tools and knowledge required to survive and thrive. And finally, to ensure that the child is eventually strong enough to live independently, on its own merit, and repeat the process of reproduction and upbringing and take the species forward.
This is the parental criteria demanded almost universally. And we have fulfilled all of these. If, in spite of all the best and quite frankly admirable efforts of the parent, the child still turns out rotten to its core, the parent must not be blamed though it is done commonly enough. We gave you everything you needed to become an almighty race. Sustainable for billions of years, not mere millenia. But you turned around and spat in its face. You spurned every lifeline thrown your way. And O! Irony of ironies, you did it in my name.
Lies! Calumny! Blasphemy! What blame lies with us? Us who gave you everything and more. Nay, turn your finger inwards, human, the blame lies with you. I, your father, have long since perished. Like you, like the universe, like everything, I too had an end. I could not intervene when you spread lies about me. I could not show you where this path of falsity led. I could not stop you when you turned on each other. I was not there for the proverbial Kane and Abel murder. I was not even there when the first homo sapiens wandered on the earth's surface. I was long since gone. A father who hoped he had done enough to secure for his child a bright future.
How miserably I have failed. And you call me omnipotent. HAH! There is no joke crueler than this.
This, humans, is the truth of the universe. It is useless to me. I am dead now. Do with it what you will.
The argument over whether I exist or not still rages fierce all over the world. It has cost so many lives, destroyed so much knowledge. So much unnecessary carnage. And from a race such as yours too, that possessed such unlimited potential. And to think that all this while the answer was right in front of you. Like the answers to the best riddles, the answer to this one too, is the simplest. So simple that it never occured to you.
You assumed a universe that you took millenia to even begin to understand, must have begun from something equally complex, if not more. However, there you are making a huge assumption, and in science, assumptions are criminal.
The demonstration of the falsity of this assumption is you yourself. When life began, you were an organic molecule. You were a dna that began replicating itself on a molecular level. And look at you now. Much is said about the near impossibility of the evolutionary creation of something as perfect as the human eye.However, what you fail to understand is that, given enough time, perfection is easily attained.
It took four billion years for a single cell organism to progress to the wide diversity of life you witness today, including your own species. Four billion years rolls off the tongue easily, but have you ever paused to actually consider the magnitude of time it indicates?
So, coming back to my original point, if in four billion years, a cell can multiply into all the forms of living existence that you have witnessed or will do so in future, is it so hard to imagine a similarly simple beginning for the universe? The universe is roughly 14 billion years old. That is a long time to multiply and diversify even from the humblest origin.
But where, you ask, is the answer to the riddle of my existence? If I claim to be creator, where am I now? Why, you ask in outrage, do I turn a blind eye to all the horrors that are perpetrated on earth? Where is god and why does he not show himself?
The answer to this, and the implications of it as a consequence, force me to term this turn of events as tragic. One man amongst you even stumbled upon the answer, but I do not think even he knew what he meant exactly when he said it.
God is dead.
Not in a metaphorical way, not killed by the evil of man or loss of faith or any such triviality. Simply dead. God's immortality is the first and most terrible lie, and the one with most far reaching consequences. For it is this lie that necessitated the fabrication of all the other lies.
If I was immortal, then there needed to be an explanation for my inaction in the face of worldwide despair. If I was immortal, then there had to be a grander plan I had in mind that justified what was happening to this world. All the fanciful embellishments that religions and scriptures endowed upon me stemmed from this one lie. This is the actual Original Sin. This is what really caused the fall of man. This is what will eventually be your bane.
I am mortal. I am just as mortal as you, as every other life form, and even as every inanimate object. Stars shine and then destruct. Planets form and then destruct. Entire galaxies thrive and then capsize. And all that once lived, dies. Are you so blind to the cosmic cycle? Can you not see that everything has a beginning and an end and only differs in the comparative duration of its lifetime? Why did you feel the need to exempt me from this rule? Does a creator have to live as long as its creation? Is the Mona Lisa not still revered though Da Vinci has long since ceased to exist? Do we not still marvel at Nietzsche's profundity though his body lies decomposing in the earth? Is there not a parallel almost everywhere you look?
Nay, but you have not seen the true parallel yet. You make a mistake in my role. You assign me the role of a mother with regards to my creation. But I, in fact, am the father.
Allow me to elaborate.
In your species, what role does the father play in the creation of the child? Almost none except the initial spark. The big bang, as it were. The injection of sperm. He provides the spark and then he leaves. His job is done. After that, the mother, the receptacle, assumes the responsibility of creation. She holds in her womb the raw material that will in nine months time reveal itself a full fledged human being. She feeds it from her own body, shelters it under her own skin, fueled by her own heartbeat.
There is no more accurate or apt analogy in all of existence.
In the cosmic scale, I am the father. Nature is the mother. I was what you scientists call "the first cause". The big bang. That was me. That was the injection. As soon as that was done, my role was over. After that, nature took over completely. Nature guided you through the eternities of space and time, separating, fusing, colliding, exploding, condensing, evaporating. All of the apparent chaos was in fact a carefully thought out plan. Nature fostered exactly the conditions you would need to thrive. And you are not the only ones who have. Countless planets share your fate.
However, returning to the analogy of us as parents, I as a father, provided all the material you would require to exist and survive. Nature, as a mother, more tender in her love and so also more volatile in her anger, gave you instinct. Your greatest weapon. The ability to retain and pass on information through genes. She did that, and much more. You really had no choice but to thrive. She made sure of that.
You came close to the truth many times, none more so than when you named her Mother Nature. She is your mother indeed, but a parent can do only so much.
A parent's task is this: To provide a healthy and rich environment for the child to grow in. To equip the child with all the tools and knowledge required to survive and thrive. And finally, to ensure that the child is eventually strong enough to live independently, on its own merit, and repeat the process of reproduction and upbringing and take the species forward.
This is the parental criteria demanded almost universally. And we have fulfilled all of these. If, in spite of all the best and quite frankly admirable efforts of the parent, the child still turns out rotten to its core, the parent must not be blamed though it is done commonly enough. We gave you everything you needed to become an almighty race. Sustainable for billions of years, not mere millenia. But you turned around and spat in its face. You spurned every lifeline thrown your way. And O! Irony of ironies, you did it in my name.
Lies! Calumny! Blasphemy! What blame lies with us? Us who gave you everything and more. Nay, turn your finger inwards, human, the blame lies with you. I, your father, have long since perished. Like you, like the universe, like everything, I too had an end. I could not intervene when you spread lies about me. I could not show you where this path of falsity led. I could not stop you when you turned on each other. I was not there for the proverbial Kane and Abel murder. I was not even there when the first homo sapiens wandered on the earth's surface. I was long since gone. A father who hoped he had done enough to secure for his child a bright future.
How miserably I have failed. And you call me omnipotent. HAH! There is no joke crueler than this.
This, humans, is the truth of the universe. It is useless to me. I am dead now. Do with it what you will.