The Question of Creation

I fail to see why people should argue over some perceived conflict between Creationism and Darwinism. As I understand it, Darwin simply proposed that life evolved, and is continuing to evolve, through a process of natural selection. Accepting that proposal as correct does not, in itself, preclude the idea that there was some sort of intelligence behind the design of the system. Admittedly, it does rather knock a literal reading of Genesis, but only a relatively small number of die-hard fundamentalists at the extreme end of the Judaic tradition believe that anyway. Other traditions give a far more profound account of the Creation, and even a good many Christians, Jews and Muslims accept Genesis for what I believe it was always meant to be - an allegory, greatly simplified for the sake of the lowest common denominator.

But, of course, the real argument isn’t between Creationism and Darwinism, but between Creationism and the Big Bang; and it’s here that I find myself, yet again, rolling my eyes at the sheer lack of logic in the mainstream scientific position. They indulge in yet another example of the blatant non sequitur. ‘We know how the Big Bang happened,’ they say, ‘so that proves it happened by chance.’ Of course it doesn’t. If they’re right about the Big Bang, it might prove that the physical universe wasn’t created in six periods of twenty four hours by some Being sitting in a place called Heaven, but that’s all.

Let’s ask the obvious question: what was there before the Big Bang? ‘Nothing,’ say some of the scientists. How are we supposed to take this answer, when it denies the most fundamental basis of what we’ve always been taught about the mechanics of material reality – that every effect is the product of a cause? Are we now to believe that something came out of literally nothing? Maybe we are; The Hindu version of Creation teaches that very thing, but it also teaches that there was intelligent intent behind it. And this is the nub of the problem. Is the human mind capable of understanding the concept of non-existence? I suggest that it probably isn’t, since it operates in a context in which only existence makes sense. So let’s go with the other scientists who answer ‘we simply don’t know.’ Fine, but if you ‘simply don’t know,’ please stop foisting upon us the ‘certainty’ that there was no intelligent intent behind the creation of the universe.

I have to take this to another level, though. I have to come back to an earlier post on the nature of reality. I am largely persuaded of the view inherent in all Vedic and associated philosophies: that the only true reality is something incomprehensible to the limited human mind – let’s call it Universal Consciousness for the sake of simplicity – and that all material reality is, in relative terms, a form of illusion. This is only what I choose to believe since I have no proof, but it does lead me to view the argument between the Creationists and their opponents as being not only fallacious, but irrelevant.