| Oh no, Mr Toomy was right! |
When I was younger, I believed in a lawful and ordered cosmos. Didn´t we all? Either a scientific-materialist one, or a philosophical-teleological one. Ockham´s razor, simple hypotheses with wide explanatory power...or a meaningful evolutionary process towards higher and loftier goals. When I looked into religion, I was originally attracted by well-ordered systems. Say, some kind of quasi-Platonic Deism. Or all-knowing process theology. Or something along those lines.
Gradually, it dawned on me that this simply isn´t how the universe works. Take evolutionary theory. Evolution is a "bush", not a "tree". It´s difficult to discern any teleology. It wouldn´t surprise me if future science will find more randomness in evolution. Maybe lateral gene transfers or exotic hybrids play a larger role than we think.
Maybe in another 100 years or so, people will realize that evolution isn´t even a bush, but rather an underbrush, that the universe is electric and chaotic, and that all religions are just aspects of Shiva´s crazy dance. Of course, if this is the case, we must hope that it won´t become widely known! The future may become a battle ground between the proponents of law and order on the one hand, and the truth-tellers on the other. The former will persecute the latter, since their message that the cosmos is fundamentally chaotic is detrimental to societal survival. It doesn´t really matter whether the law-and-order proponents are scientists, philosophers or religious.
Of course, there could be an even higher god above and beyond the chaos of creation, but chances are He-She-It doesn´t stand for law and order in the human polity either. A mystical god of Love has nothing to do with our craving for control...
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