Agnostic Apoplectics - the Ant, Mr. Smith and a Bikini.

Yes, a silly title to grab attention. But the Ant, as far as I am concerned, provides analogies useful throughout my arguments. Why Apoplectics? I am equally pissed at the parochial blinkered arrogance of both science and religion. Things are not all they seem in this inherently subjective world. The Bikini? All will be revealed.

Why am I bothering? Whether or not a god exists to pick up the pieces, we are going to need charity. Charity needs resources which the thinking guys are good at generating and so we need to bring them over. Charity needs the reasonable whereas the Believer cannot be reasoned with; Faith often attracts the fearful and the fearful tend to bully others: indeed Faith is often the murderer of Charity. Probably we need some kind of philosophy to focus on Charity so it is better that it is reason-based rather than Faith-based. Charity must be the product and we should not agonize so much about the designer label. If we are to survive, we must evolve from Yahoos into Googles.

My qualifications? None other than I was a resident political cartoonist on a Fleet St. newspaper way back. Satirical humor and philosophy sort of go together. Topical cartooning makes great demands on lateral thinking. The cartoonist has to be that lone voice, like the child in the fable, that says the emperor is naked. Any emperor. Of course, a cartoonist is going to write in a cartoony way and can never resist a gag. The po-faced academic will regard this apparent levity as superficiality: after all Schopenhauer didn’t get where he was by being a bundle of laughs. But pictures paint a thousand words – if they did not, no newspaper would employ a topical cartoonist - and I will try to draw mental pictures. And humour is a good teacher. But it doesn’t mean I do not care: if one didn’t laugh one would cry.

I don’t know how many people will read my stuff - I could be wasting my time. So I will post a bit at a time starting at the Beginning with the Prime Mover. I don’t mind heated debate – I usually am able to hit back as hard as I am hit. But I hope that, while writing it, no huge foot is going to come down from the Heavens and a great voice sayeth unto me “Stop this! Very silly!”

Part 1: The Prime Mover.
This is what those in the philosophical trade call the First Thing That Existed. We live in a causal world and think in a causal way so one must assume the concepts of First and Only.
The Prime Mover either always existed or created itself for no other reason other than it felt like it. Its true nature is beyond human comprehension, scientific investigation and proof.
However chaotic and purposeless the Universe science say it is, it generated intelligence (or what we fondly call intelligence) within it with us. If it can do so now, it could have done so earlier. So at the start of the thesis, I think it is a honorable draw between the Wise Hen and the Dumb Egg.
What is the mechanism of the Prime Mover?
If it always existed then one reasonably assumes it was not subject to time. Assuming Einstein, that seems to make sense. But then it gets silly. In order to detonate into the Big Bang it would required an enormous store of energy. But where does energy come from? According to school physics, it comes from any mechanism doing Work. But to work requires interaction and reaction with secondary entities such as internal components or other nearby entities. But the Prime Mover, by definition, was a singularity, unique and alone.
It could not Move otherwise energy would flow and space would be created and time would start running. And it would begin to die. Nor, without any components, it would have anything to trigger the Big Bang. It would be like a grenade with no fuse or explosive. So, to sum up, an immortal Mover cannot create and a creating Mover cannot be immortal.
This argument assumes Einstein’s theories. But if there was no energy, space, mass or light, where does the E=mc2 come from?

Part 2 – What is Truth?
So thinking about it is going to give you’re the mother of all headaches. No wonder some fall back on Faith – at least it stops them overdosing on aspirin. And the scientists are going to pooh-pooh the idea of a Wise Hen as that smacks too much of Magic; Divinity and all that stuff. But who says that magic is really magic other than the religious? Everything we experience is an interpretation of an effect rather than Intrinsic Cause. What is truth? Take a look at your hand. Is it a hand or just a cloud of particles buzzing around with as much knowledge of each other as drunken dancers at a disco? It is a hand not because it is intrinsically a hand but because it functions as a hand for our benefit. Not quite the same thing. It works just as well up Ms. Piggy’s butt. Our existence may be more subjective and existentialist than we care to admit. It all may just be a cheap trick by something brighter than we but if it fools us, who is going to know? This marvelous Lego set we call the Universe can probably provide all the props a half-decent conjuror needs. A god need not be an infinite God with a capital G, as long as it is sufficiently willing and able to come up with the goods that Religion demands and that the table service is manifest. I will deal with the Manifestation problem in a later article.

Part 3 – The Ranchers and the Farmers
Religion should have a little more faith in the physical and not desperately seek refuge in Magic. Scientists should come to terms with the fact that they are animals just like the ant and, like the ant, their powers of perception and reason are limited to that which Evolution deemed appropriate to their species. The only way the scientist can be sure of occupying the high ground of perception and reason in existence is to possess a soul and he doesn’t have one, does he? The ant has no concept of Mr. Fred Smith of 23 Acacia Avenue but Mr. Smith assuredly exists. I think religion underestimates the Universe and science overestimates it. Let’s have a little less arrogance and more horse-sense. The more people have preconceptions, the more they keep their eyes on the Hat and can be fooled by sleight of hand. And, as science is finding more and more, Nature is a master illusionist. So we must approach the subject afresh like little children if we are to spot the Rabbit. Take off the blinkers and stop squabbling, Religion and Science, and let’s think together. Charity needs you. We need Charity.