THE SKY GOD
The sky god is the imaginary god of atheists. The god is very impersonal so we cannot call this god a he or a she, so we must call it an “it.” The sky god goes by other names such, Evolution, Chance and is even known by some as the Universe. The sky god cannot be seen or experienced and it does not communicate with anything or anyone but apparently can be discovered by careful study. The sky god is very intelligent and creative but, since it is not personal, there is not much we can know about it. It does not reveal itself to people, it has been constructed from “evidence”collected and organized by the followers of the sky god. So, as you might suspect, it is very subjective. In this religion all evidence must fit into a particular paradigm of thinking.
The sky god is responsible for everything there is. It created the universe out of nothing. First there was nothing but then there was a point of singularity. All the mass and energy in the universe were contained in this one singularity. One might ask where did this point of singularity come from since there was nothing there or apparently there. But in reality, the laws of gravity preexisted. It may be that gravity is another form of the sky god or perhaps another god all together. This god of gravity, the preexistent one, causes the singularity to form and thus the god called the universe came into existence. It is a bit confusing, I know. Which came first, Evolution, Chance, the Universe or the law of Gravity? It is hard to know but the sky god encompasses all of these entities and gives them direction.
Everyone has read the creation account. The law of Gravity caused the singularity and then exploded into the universe. It was an exquisite perfection when it comes to explosions. In just milliseconds, all that energy formed particles and energies and laws in such a way that eventually organic life would be possible. It was by the very wisdom of the sky god that all of these things took place 13.5 billion years ago (give or take a few billion years) and happened in such a precise way that life would form on one little green-blue planet that we have fondly called earth. It is an amazing feat when you consider that the one who controlled all of this was Chance, one of the many faces of the sky god. Chance caused the singularity to explode. Chance formed electrons and protons and all sorts of subatomic particles. It produced all kinds of forces such as the strong force and the weak force that caused the particles to clump together into atoms in a variety of ways that created the elements, which are the building blocks of much of the universe. It is a marvel and much of it can be seen with the naked eye or a telescope. But, the sky god hid most of this creation from us in what is called dark matter and dark energy.
The sky god caused this explosion to spread the universe in all directions into infinity. And it produced stars and planets and moons. While this is a beautiful and exotic universe, it is hard to know just how the sky god caused it all to take place. However the priests and priestess of the sky god think that there are other universes, maybe even an infinite number of universes and that one of them may have formed a bubble or leaked a little and that caused this one universe that we know about, to come into existence.
But the sky god was not finished. The sky god expressed itself as Chance and as Evolution. These two went to work on this one little rock floating around in the universe we call earth. First they created an atmosphere. And, of course, that provided weather and lightening, all of manner of events. Next, Chance caused some elements to get close together and, well, those elements like each other and formed molecules. Then those molecules got together and formed complex compounds which some call organic matter. If Chance and Evolution had any feeling or personality, they would have been excited. And you need to remember that these things took place over millions, even billions of years. So, maybe the passing of time was a little boring, even for an impersonal sky god.
But Chance and Evolution were not finished. They caused those organic compounds to get together, maybe cooked up by lightening or even delivered by space aliens from another world. These compounds form the first cell. Life, began and there was no stopping life. Chance and Evolution caused life, over millions of years, to go in a linear line from that one cell to us humans! It is so exciting. Chance working with Evolution caused multi cell organicism and they formed into worms and bugs and then into fish and dinosaurs and then into amphibians and mammals. Apparently Evolution did not like most of what it created because about 90% of all things created are extinct, gone forever.
Somehow, Chance and Evolution did a most unexpected thing. It violated its own rules. Each new thing was more complex than the thing before it. It seems to violate some of the Laws that the sky god created in the first place, like the second law of thermodynamic. But the followers of the sky god have ways of explaining it, but it makes you wonder.
The thing that most non believers do not understand is how humans were made. Humans are made backwards if you look at how Evolution and Chance created other creatures. It was by Chance that all of this exists but Chance is very smart. Working with Evolution, Chance created sophisticated creatures who could feed themselves and protect themselves and especially protect their young. By comparison, humans are stupid creatures. We are not fast or strong. Our children are born helpless and stay that way for years. We don’t have fur. It took millions of years for humans to learn how to raise food, make friends with dogs, and to learn how to defend ourselves. How in the name of the sky god did humans survive all those millions of years? And why did humans become self aware and conscious?
Some of the priests of the sky god say that when needs arose, Evolution gave man just the right equipment. We had a small brain but Evolution kept adding sub modules to help us survive. One subsystem of our brain, they say, made us religious so that we would know how to deal with the bodies of the dead. So we now know how we got such big brains. Evolution is so smart. In fact for an impersonal god, it seems to give a lot of direction to the development of creatures. Just the right environment, just the right body parts, and brain subsystems. And it was all carried out by Chance.
I am not a follower of the sky god, so this is just an outsiders observation. The priests and priestess have a hermetic language that they use to describe their beliefs. They use a lot of higher math to describe the reality of it all. But they have very little observational evidence. In other words, much of what they believe is taken on the basis of authority and blind faith. But it is obvious to all that some of the things they believe are quite true. But so much of it, is not only strange, but harmful if taken seriously.
It is a shame that the sky god is so impersonal. It does not give us a reason for our creation. It does not tell us why we should continue to exist. We have no rules for morals and values, though some like to pretend there is. It the world created by the sky god, life is meaningless created by Chance. We live and it does not really matter how we live. So, the sky god over achieved when it made humans. It made us in such a way that we can think and ask questions about our own existence. This is an unfortunate trait. We think for long periods of time and scratch our heads wondering who we are. The sky god says we are just another kind of animal and that we do not have a purpose. We are created by Chance after all. All we can do is have fun, follow our curiosities and hopefully die quietly when the time comes. And when we die, we cease to exist. We have nowhere to go. All of our achievements, loves, feelings, emotions and commitments, well, they meant nothing. It is one of the saddest beliefs of those who follow the sky god. They are very sad people.
