Dr. Richard Dawkins, the famous British evolutionary biologist, has been a lifelong atheist and vocal about the inexistence of God. He is so sure of his beliefs that in 2006 he wrote the book ‘The God Delusion’ describing God as a “vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic racist, an infanticidal, genocidal, phillicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Like many other atheists around the world, Richard Dawkins has been aggressive in his approach to proving his point. But have the atheists really understood the meaning of what many would define as God?
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Most of us have created God in our own image. This is why when you look at religious paintings or go to a holy place of worship, all the depictions of God are in human form. But this may not be accurate. Think about it: Animals do not have a God but if they did they would create a God in their own image; and so, for a lion, their God would be a lion, cats would worship cats and for a dog, God would look like a dog! This would go on endlessly. Each species would try to define God in their image because it’s easy. This is what humans have done. They have created God in their image. This is a psychological projection. Many atheists have also used this in an attempt to disprove the existence of God. If they understand the concept from a different vantage point, then perhaps it would be clear.
If God isn’t a human form, then it begs the question: what is God? And why are there so many Gods being worshipped around the world? The answer is quite simple. God is the source energy that ticks the Universe. It breathes life into things. It is inside every species that has ever existed and everything that will ever exist. It is in you and me. There are various manifestations of this energy. One source in different forms. Whether it is Krishna or Jesus or Allah or Buddha, the source of this primordial energy is the same but the appearance on Earth is in various forms.
The popular Sci-Fi franchise Star Wars has managed to beautifully describe it as “The Force.” In The Empire Strikes Back, Jedi Master Yoda says, “You must feel the Force around you. Here. Between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.” Now if you replace the words “The Force” with the word “God”, the meaning remains the same. That is God and to deny that as an atheist is to deny the life force of the Universe.
This can be further understood by exploring the ‘Ship of Theseus’. Ship of Theseus or Theseus’s paradox is a thought experiment given to us by Greek philosophers. Although some credit similar thought experiments to Heraclitus and Plato, it was widely discussed and written about by Plutarch. Plutarch raised the question when he wrote that if all the parts of an object were to be replaced over a period of time, will it fundamentally still be the same object? To explain this, he took the example of the Ship of the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, Theseus. Plutarch said that if a single plank of wood was to be replaced in Theseus’s ship, you may agree that it is fundamentally still the same ship. But if each plank is replaced one by one over a period of time, in the end, would it still remain the same Ship of Theseus when all its parts have been replaced? At what point in time does it cease to be the same ship? More recently, philosopher Thomas Hobbes took this thought experiment a step further by pondering what would happen if all the old planks were gathered after the replacement and these old planks were used to make a new ship. Hobbes asked which ship would then be considered the real Ship of Theseus.
There is no definitive answer to this thought experiment and most scholars are divided on their opinions on these questions. But if you think about the human body as the Ship of Theseus, you might get an answer to the existence of God. Our body is the most complicated and mysterious machine in this world. We have just now begun to fully understand it. Scientists now say that each cell in our body gets replaced every 7 to 10 years. In other words, the old dead cells are gradually replaced by new ones and within a decade you have a completely new body. You may not see the process happening in real-time, but it goes on. So this begs another question: are you the same person you were 10 years ago? Your answer will certainly be affirmative. This is you. It has been you all along. But how do we know that it’s you? That’s because you possess a consciousness. Even though you may have a new body each decade, your sense of self and your consciousness are still the same. This consciousness is intangible, yet is considered vital in defining you.
If the atheists of the world could detach themselves from this human image of God created by man and understand God as this ever-present primordial source energy, then they would begin to see God in everything. There is no denying it. To deny God is to deny consciousness itself. By denying God, atheists imply that this world is simply crude matter and nothing beyond matter exists. In that case, criminals could argue in court that they are not the same person who committed a crime 10 years ago since their bodies are different. This is why we have to go beyond matter.
Consciousness is what separates us from the material world and the body. The very existence of something as intangible as consciousness cannot manifest without the existence of a creator and to put it down as merely electrical signals in the brain presents a weak case.
Science is now acknowledging the mystical nature of the universe. Things our brains see as magical are now being uncovered every day. Quantum physics suggests that when we observe a particle, it changes. Quantum entanglement shows that two particles separate by light-years can still be connected to each other on a quantum level. We have discovered the power to heal our bodies and manifest our desired lives with just our minds. We see Fibonacci spirals in everything in the Universe including our galaxy and nobody knows why. We have discovered that water has a memory, sound can heal, and Epigenetics has shown us that thoughts and the environment affect how our genes work. After witnessing such magic, it becomes plausible that there seems to be a divine fingerprint left everywhere for us to find.
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In his book ‘The God Delusion’, Richard Dawkins defines a philosopher as “someone who won’t take common sense for an answer.” But in his quest to valiantly prove the inexistence of something, he may have forgotten that the whole beauty of philosophy lies in the art of exploring and understanding difficult questions. It is not merely to assign a robotic soulless logic to everything. Aristotle wrote, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” This discourse is not to convert atheists into believers but merely to make them entertain the thought of God for a little while. When an attempt is made to open your mind and explore the existence of God through these eyes, you will see God manifest in everything around you.
