Epoch

[Xelios]

Anyone seen this movie? If you haven't I would suggest you not rent it, it's quite bad. But besides the horrible acting, terrible special effects and bad CGI the underlying story is a bit better. To get to my point I'll just briefly describe what happens in the film.

A meteor of something hits Earth 4 billion years BC (just after it formed). The thing then aids the evolutionary process on Earth (it has the ability to reconstitute DNA), causing a couple major extinctions along the way (presumably to clear the way for a new generation of life). It's now about to cause an extinction event to rid the Earth of humanity, when it changes it's mind and leaves. Turns out this is what we've been calling God all these years. Hey, I said it was only a little better. =P

Point is, if a God did exist, I take the word God to be metaphorical. I don't believe God exists as some kind of being waiting to judge humanity, but more as this movie describes. Something we couldn't understand, so we referred to it as "God". "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clark. And isn't magic exactly what we associate God with doing (miracles)? What do you think?

 

[ThatJerk]

Right on the button. Humans have the innate desire to understand the mechanisms around them, and they simply can't stand not knowing. When no explanation is forthecoming they invent one. To wit: it was thought for the longest time that flies were spontaneously generated by rotting meat. It wasn't until 1688 when Francesco Redi tested his hypothesis that flies only came from flies, not rotting meat, that people had reason to believe otherwise. Surprise surprise, the test meats that were sealed had no flies about them, while the meat that was left to the open air was buzzing with flies.

By the same standard are gods, goddesses, spirits, demons, witches, etc created. No explanations are forthcoming, so people create one. Why was the harvest bad? Fair Minerva must have been displeased with last years offering. Our warriors won the war in the face of superior numbers, the spirit of Aries must have been in them. And so on and so forth.

I find it amazing how people can be foolish enough to make the same mistakes our ancestors made in that regard; we would laugh at someone who ascribed lightning to Zeus rather than electrostatic discharge between the earth and the clouds. Why would we then ascribe the creation of everything to a God of any kind, simply because we merely don't know yet? It's exactly the same thing; only religious indoctrination prevents people from seeing the parallels.

 

[Xelios]

Exactly. And not only that, but human beings seem to have an inherent tendancy to make our race look much more important than it is. Humanity as a whole has an enormous ego. This has happened time and time again throughout history, and each time it has been proven we are not as important as we'd like to think. This idea has gone from believing we are the center of the universe, to believing a single almighty being created the entire universe just for us. Most people seem unwilling to admit we are simply a miniscule speck in the universe, one star among trillions. Because of this they cling to the belief that we are the very reason the universe exists, when in all probability it's the exact opposite. We are a byproduct of the universe, the universe is not a byproduct of us.