To me, it appears that it is human nature to come to terms with the creation of our reality as evident by Wikipedia’s article, “List of Creation myths”. Additionally, I surmise that there exists an imperative to do so because our advancement along the evolutionary path demands a developed and expanding consciousness which I believe has a requisite need to be curious. Another immediate reason is to avoid, or lessen, the aspects of the required accountability rendered by a creation generated from a condition of being in agápē.
Since the defining element of agápē love is to nurture the other to achieve the highest level of humanity humanly possible and that such a nurturing is augmented by a required, consistently applied accountability with appropriate outcomes related to the incorrect, enacted choices; the pain and suffering in the world is, for the most part, not an act of revenge, but the natural consequences of the choices enacted. Natural consequences, as most proficient teachers know, are the best consequences for instructing offenders to change their decision making paradigm. Natural consequences, consistently applied, inform behavior; arbitrary consequences, especially those that seek revenge, suppress behavior. True learning never occurs with suppression. True learning involves the modification of the character to embrace what is correct because the individual who undergoes such a change embraces the value of correctness as somehow more beneficial than the incorrect behavior that initiates the required, natural consequence. At the very least, the consciousness of the individual must be significantly informed. (I am recalling Dr. Louis Sheets first lecture to my English class many years ago.)
Let me demonstrate with an application in the world of tangible matter. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins. Is greed inherently incorrect or is greed dictated to be bad because greedy individuals will not get a heavenly reward? Is climate change a result of random acts? If these two questions are related, then how are they related and what do they have to do with natural consequences?
Evidence has been put forth that the oil industry knew that burning fossil fuels contributed to carbon dioxide and greenhouse emissions that in turn heated up the atmosphere of Earth that contributed significantly to climate change which we modern humans are currently witnessing. Documents have been put forth that indicate that the oil industry researched and knew of this outcome many years ago but publicly suppressed such information and argued against other research that provided similar results because they wanted to keep the money flowing in spite of the looming consequences that we are currently experiencing. I am reminded of the tobacco industry that for years fought against the truth that their tobacco products contained carcinogens that caused cancer in those who partook of their products. Eventually the truth of the matter became public. Greenhouse gases are now strongly believed to be contributing to the Earth’s heating up which in turn is effecting climate change and polar ice melting at a rapid rate. Is the pain and suffering from drought, extreme hurricanes, lost homes and land to rising seal levels, and other natural outcomes yet to be experience, due to god’s revenge on humankind like the Genesis flood for which Noah had to build the Ark?
The pain and suffering humans will have to endure regarding climate related issues is not divine wrath but the natural consequences of decisions made by humans who were so greedy that they ignored the destructive consequences of the their choices.
The United States is currently struggling with the global Coronavirus pandemic. While most of the world is likewise struggling with the effects of this pandemic, some countries have done much better than others in their response to this lethal, virulent, new virus. As of May 31, 2020, last updated by The Guardian at 8:25 am EST, The United States leads all other countries with 103,776 deaths. According to current counts the United States is the only country with more than 100,000 deaths due to the Covid-19.
The Coronavirus pandemic is not divine revenge. It is the consequence of choices made by humans. One current speculation of how humans were infected with Covid-19 was through buying illegal wildlife that are sold in a fish market in China and which are kept in close quarters with other wildlife such that viruses can jump form one species to another which are then purchased and eaten by humans. Another speculation, which has been refuted by intelligence agencies, is that Covid-19 was a weaponized virus that leaked from a country’s biological lab which manufactures biological weapons. It will take time to fully research scientifically and authoritatively the origins of Covid-19, but that process is also dependent upon humans deciding on a full, independent and transparent investigation, or, to politically block or coverup such truth from ever seeing the light of day. These are critical human choices because I do not think that this will be the last lethal, virulent global pandemic.
Regarding the amount of death suffered by the citizens of the United States, commentary by health officials and scientists has placed blame for the lack of governmental response in preparedness and early, substantial intervening actions to mitigate the effects of the disease at the start of the pandemic. Additionally, the fact that the disease and the response to the disease became politicalized contributed to a larger number of deaths than would have occurred otherwise if government officials had acted better. The politicalization of a disease or health issues is counterproductive to ensure that scientifically based and medically critical decisions are rapidly made to offset the potential devastation of illness and ensuing death.
Coming to terms with creation is required because creation is a significant part of our evolutionary history. Understanding the path of evolution is critical to the survival of the human species because this knowledge and understanding assists in the potential for humans to adapt to an evolving reality. If you believe in the randomness of human evolutionary history but also believe in human free will, consider what Jacob Bronowski wrote in The Ascent of Man about his understanding of stratified stability on page 348-349:
The stable units that compose one level or stratum are the raw material for random encounters which produce higher configurations, some of which will chance to be stable. So long as there remains a potential of stability which has not become actual, there is no other way for chance to go. Evolution is the climbing of a ladder from simple to complex by steps, each of which is stable in itself.
Stability is a marker for evolutionary development. Whether or not the path of evolution has a purpose or not, “So long as there remains a potential of stability which has not become actual, there is no other way for chance to go.” Stability appears to be at least a goal to be achieved along the evolutionary path. While conventional, scientific opinion holds that there is no purpose to evolution, that evolution is a product of randomness, stability appears to be a criteria for the formation of entities that build one upon the other in the cause-effect chain that has led to intelligent life on Earth via Bronowski’s stratified stability. Additionally, there must be rules or criteria that define that stability because not every event is deemed stable. Stability must have components that contribute stability in one instance and not in others. Hence there is some law (or laws) that govern stability. Knowing and understanding the laws or criteria governing stability would go a long way to improving the chances of humans to assist the evolutionary process. This level of understanding gives greater impetus to phrases such as: sustainable energy policies, stable economic policies, stable population growth or any other human activity where stability would be critical like stable relationships between divergent groups of individuals. If humans discovered these rules or criteria that governs stability in various scenarios, then it would be a matter of humans exercising their free will to comply with such an understanding or experience the natural consequences when such knowledge and understanding is ignored.
Reflecting upon the nature of scientific laws, do scientific laws spontaneously come into being or were the parameters of those laws present before the igniting of the Big Bang? If they were not present in the universe before the Big Bang exploded, were they created at the instant of the ignition of the Big Bang? If they were not created in the instant of the Big Bang’s ignition, do these laws come into being as evolutionary processes continue to unfold? And then there is the consideration of chaos theory’s “sensitive dependence on initial conditions.” The sensitive dependence on initial conditions is, in this instance, the make up of the UCFC or the universe before the Big Bang exploded. The information that has been put forth by Steven Hawking is that the UCFC is infinitely hot with a space of zero and that “The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.” (A Brief History of Time, page 136.) This statement would imply that all scientific laws already exist and have always existed. I would note that believers of chaos theory could conclude that all nonlinear elements would also have the same characteristic of Being (that they just ARE).
I am still left with the quandary of purpose or function regarding the universe that just IS and always Was. My understanding of language sets comes rushing to mind. The language set of contemporary science has some weakness in describing reality. The totality of reality can be fully known and understood and ultimately transmitted only through merging the language sets used by the sciences and the arts.
The discipline of science, its scientific method, and scientific investigation, like the discipline of our laws, seeks to remove emotion from the experience. The language of mathematics appears to me to be the base language for the sciences while being augmented by the scientists’ native tongue when writing a scientific thesis. One of the ultimate characteristics of the language of mathematics is that it removes emotion. Mathematics is about quantification and position. Mathematics removes all emotions and judgements. The ultimate dehumanization of the individual is to take away the name and replace it with a number. Mathematics is ultimately the language of physics and research. Judgements and perhaps emotions occur in the interpretation of the results of the experiment.
From a scientific point of view, the question: “Does the Uncaused Cause of the First Cause experience empathy?” is nonsensical. For the UCFC before the Big Bang occurred, there was nothing to generate empathy because the was nothing but the UCFC. What about after the of initiation of the Big Bang? Once reality of the Big Bang was in play, was empathy a element within the UCFC? It is my understanding that empathy is not in the vocabulary of physics. My experience and understanding indicates that empathy is a critical aspect of literature especially regarding poetry. Empathy was not being reference by Neils Bohr’s response to Heisenberg, “When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.” Bohr’s response was about creating images. There was nothing poetically empathetic about Bohr’s atomic structure. Empathy, however, is a significant part of human reality and the reality of civilizations.
Compare the formula describing gravity juxtaposed to an abstract of The Science of Empathy** that I found posted on the internet in the Journal of Patient Experience:
Abstract
Empathy plays a critical interpersonal and societal role, enabling sharing of experiences, needs, and desires between individuals and providing an emotional bridge that promotes pro-social behavior. This capacity requires an exquisite interplay of neural networks and enables us to perceive the emotions of others, resonate with them emotionally and cognitively, to take in the perspective of others, and to distinguish between our own and others’ emotions. Studies show empathy declines during medical training. Without targeted interventions, uncompassionate care and treatment devoid of empathy, results in patients who are dissatisfied. They are then much less likely to follow through with treatment recommendations, resulting in poorer health outcomes and damaged trust in health providers. Cognitive empathy must play a role when a lack of emotional empathy exists because of racial, ethnic, religious, or physical differences. Healthcare settings are no exception to conscious and unconscious biases, and there is no place for discrimination or unequal care afforded to patients who differ from the majority culture or the majority culture of healthcare providers. Much work lies ahead to make healthcare equitable for givers and receivers of healthcare from all cultures. Self- and other-empathy leads to replenishment and renewal of a vital human capacity. If we are to move in the direction of a more empathic society and a more compassionate world, it is clear that working to enhance our native capacities to empathize is critical to strengthening individual, community, national, and international bonds.
**J Patient Exp. 2017 Jun; 4(2): 74-77. Monitoring Editor: Dr. Richard M. Frankel, PhD. The Science of Empathy. Helen Riess, MD.
versus
Fg = G (m1m2/r2)
The underlining is mine to highlight my focus. In treatment “devoid of empathy … patients … are … much less likely to follow through with treatment recommendations, resulting in poorer health outcomes and damaged trust in health providers.” Empathy is a critical element in a sustainable, stable healthcare system, but the above abstract is not the same form of communication in which gravity is explained.
The explanation of gravity is emotionless. Humans have a harder time relating to emotionless descriptions of reality. I think that the emotional emptiness of legalese which hallmarks our judicial system contributes significantly to the disconnect felt by many humans, especially for the more resource-challenged citizens. I have heard this sentiment conveyed with statements like: “What does the law care about me!” or “Washington doesn’t care about me.” “Who can afford a lawyer?” Such statements conveys to me that the function of the legal system in the United States is for the rich and powerful and not the poor. Just look at the language of our legal code and the bills that are passed every day, day-in; day-out, year after year. The language of justice is impartial, but that impartiality is felt to be without emotion (specifically: empathy) of the daily plight of the not-so-well-off majority of our citizens.
What we must learn about the creation, which is to say what we must learn about the reality that was created, is to develop a consciousness and language robust enough to express that consciousness that envelops all of the sciences and all of the arts because in the end we must have the capacity to express not just the parts of reality but also express the whole of that reality which is far, far greater than the sum of its parts.