The Shape of Things that are Trying to Come . . .

Let's do another philosophical thought experiment—a thought experiment, by the way, is basically a hypothetical situation. Now a hypothetical situation is valuable to the extent that it stays grounded in reality—to the extent that the reader can allow that such and such a situation is indeed possible. By comparison, the problem with thought experiments is that they are quite capable of losing any connection with reality—and very often do. But still there are situations where they are useful, such as here, at this moment.

Let us take a car. For arguments sake, an Audi L Turbo A4, whose pistons fire in the sequence 1,3,4,2. Now let us imagine that, purely fortuitously, some sort of intelligent life-form, capable of analysis and thought, comes into existence within the engine, aided no doubt by the presence of carbon and heat. As this being—let's call it Audi Murphy—examines its situation, it comes to the conclusion that ultimately the meaning of everything in its world resolves down to the sequence 1,3,4,2. It is this sequence that explains and lies at the root of everything that happens in the engine. And, from the viewpoint of Audi Murphy, this is of course a true description.

Yet the fact is that Audi Murphy has no way of knowing that anything exists beyond his engine. In his moments of leisure, he may ponder if anything lies beyond the pistons and the sequence of their firing. But how is he to know? He can have no knowledge of the car, or the purpose of the car, much less of the driver of the car. There is no way he could possibly envisage what it is like to get up on a sunny morning and suddenly decide to drive to the beach. All such things are totally outside the range of his experience or knowledge. His 'science', his theory of reality, is bounded by, is true, and works, only within the closed system of his engine.

At this point we leave Audi Murphy and the thought experiment behind (and it is only a rough experiment, open no doubt to the nitpicking of anyone determined to bring it down.)

Yet there is an analogy between it and the real world as we know it, except that among the general run of modern scientists the explanatory theory of all that exists is not 1, 3, 4, 2 but rather an all-encompassing Darwinism. Especially among the Neo-Darwinists—scientists and philosophers etc. who are attempting to take the techniques and tenets of biological evolution and apply them to explaining everything that is—from our most refined thoughts to the very bases of our natures. Indeed, there is a branch of physics currently engaged in trying to come up with a Darwinian explanation for the emergence of the stars and planets etc. of the cosmos.

Now let me say here that I am not in the business of propounding any alternative fundamentalist mythos. There seems little doubt that evolutionary theory can be used to account for much of what we see about us, and that the general run of the phenomena of nature are ultimately explicable in term of the laws of material physics.

The Darwinian theory of biological evolution is capable of supplying a rational explanation of life on this planet and its development—and yet there has always been to me something deeply and instinctively unsatisfactory about it. In its operation it bears more than a passing resemblance to the notion (mentioned in one of the earlier mailings) of a million monkeys with a million typewriters, who if left long enough must ultimately come up with the works of Shakespeare. The question about the classical Darwinian theory of evolution is not is it rational, but is it true?

The other problem is that even if it was possible to explain the genesis of the universe in Darwinian terms, ultimately one still comes up against the blank wall of matter. It is the point beyond which neo-Darwinian and materialist scientists are incapable of going. What is matter? How did it arise? How is it to be explained? One philosopher of a neo-Darwinist bent recognises that 'There are problems in understanding how matter could have arisen from nothing, but not obviously more serious than those involved in explaining how God could have arisen from nothing. Indeed, given the simplicity of matter, its existence might seem to present fewer problems' (Human Nature after Darwin: Janet Radcliffe Richards, OU, 1999).

There are certain presumptions involved here, not least that if God exists then he needs to explain himself, and specifically in terms of physicalist science. But basically what is also being said is go with what you are comfortable with—so long as it doesn't involve any belief in ultimate creation or the supernatural!

Ultimately, for the purely secular scientist, the existence of matter provides the point beyond which—like Audi Murphy and his 1,3,4,2—he cannot progress, the point beyond which his explanations falter off into silence.

And yet there are others for whom such a barrier is easily surmounted—those who choose to believe in a divine revelation—such as the Jews, the Christians, the Muslims and the Hindus, to mention just a few of the great historical revealed religions of mankind.

Of course, for the atheistic scientist or philosopher the whole idea of revelation is very easy to shoot down. It doesn't even need thinking about. There can be no revelation because there is nobody or nothing to do the revealing. That is the bedrock of atheism: there is only material nature with nothing beyond it. If, for example, Moses claimed to have received the Ten Commandments as a result of divine revelation, only two options can present themselves to the convinced materialist: either Moses himself consciously made up the whole thing, or else he was mad.

Now atheism, or materialism, is a legitimate philosophical standpoint. It is a position that people in all good conscience can hold. And one can understand how people might soberly—and perhaps even regretfully—arrive at the ultimate conclusion that there is no God, no spiritual dimension, no world other than this one.

Yet when you go to the texts and the public pronouncements, rather than the cold facts of dispassionate science, one arrives instead at, for want of a better term, hysteria. Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor for the Understanding of Science at Oxford University, Fellow of the Royal Society, and member of what has been described as the New Atheism Movement, in an interview in 2001 with Emily Hourican in The Dubliner magazine, said: ‘I am delighted that one of the leading Roman Catholic seminaries for the training of young priests in Ireland is closing down because it can’t get any recruits. When I read that in the newspaper, it left me smiling for the rest of the day. However, if the Catholic Church does die in Ireland—and I devoutly hope it will—I hope it will not be replaced by some other idiotic superstition like New-Ageism or some other kind of religion . . . The Roman Catholic Church is one of the forces for evil in the world . . .’ Nor has Dawkins's tone mellowed over the intervening years.

Note that Dawkins's spleen is aimed not solely against Catholicism, but against any form of religious manifestation, although it is generally Catholicism that draws the greatest amount of his ire. The same tone of hysteria, not to mention paranoia, is available in his fellow New Atheists—see, for example, http://johnseilerblogs.com/?p=340 in relation to Christopher Hitchens—and in the comments of his adherents in the various chatrooms. Such is the venom of the general attack, that one is tempted to ask is it the science that underlies the atheism or the atheism that underlies the science?

This series of blogs to date has concentrated mainly on the dangers posed by modern left-liberalism and Marxism, not just to religion, but to the very nature of life as we live it. But really liberalism and Marxism are only staging posts along the road—tactical developments, as it were, in the struggle to create an absolutely godless society. But the reality is that such a society, the humanitarian bleatings of its propagandists to the contrary, would ultimately be a cold, sterile, dehumanised place in which to to exist. Imagine a North Korea on a more generalised scale—except perhaps with food, or at least some food, probably muesli.

The other thing to note about North Korea is that all the old trappings of human history and instinct in the religious field remain—except that it is not any longer the God of creation that is adored. Rather it is a short little bod with glasses and a paunch, who turns up every May Day to wave to the faithful and remind them, chewing on grass and afraid to think otherwise, that they've never had it so good!