Why is the world the way it is? (Why not?)

A lot of things we don’t understand work even though we don’t know why they work including (as an example) software. We write code. It’s just a set of instructions which, for unknown reasons, computers obey. Why? Why do those silly written instructions work? Why aren’t they just a bunch of lines written to nothing? Why do computers obey them?

Then there are the things we don’t understand at all, like weather. If we understood weather, other than explaining what we think — or hope — will (probably) happen, there would be no droughts, or floods. We could repair the earth by typing out instructions and earth would obey. But weather doesn’t care what we want or, if it does, it’s nothing in the realm of human understanding.

Humans understand remarkably little yet we think we are the masters of everything. We work with what we know and think we’re geniuses — but what we know isn’t a drop in an ocean of knowledge. And it doesn’t always work or doesn’t work as we expect.

This is why our science is all “theories.” There is no Einstein’s “Proof of Relativity.” It’s his “Theory of Relativity.” We don’t even know for 100% that planets revolve around the sun because no one can stand still in space (not even Elon Musk) and see if that’s what’s happening. We make our best guesses based on our current knowledge and this century’s version of “science.”

Maybe our science is wrong. Maybe what we know is a mere tidbit of something huge, something we can’t see, are unable to visualize. A lot of previous absolute truths have turned out to be untrue. Many of our truths could be wrong too. Discovering that what you think you know is wrong is the beginning of future knowledge. We turn truth on its head and replace it with something else. Something new.

Do I believe in a big bearded god sitting on a cloud knowing everything about everyone and tallying up the points? Of course not. That doesn’t mean I am without faith. I even trust, despite all evidence to the contrary, that humans will wake up and save this version of earth for future generations.

I believe my dying flowers will bloom again and I have found prayer works. It’s not a substitute for work or talent, but inexplicably, it works. There have been many studies done on why. Results show it works at least as well as many other “remedies,” and occasionally — for no known reason — better.

Does belief or faith alter something invisible? Is it possible some people see or “know” things the rest of us don’t? Some people have an intuition different than the rest of us. Do I know this for sure? Maybe, but that’s not the point. If you refuse to count other people’s personal experience as meaningful, but you have no equivalent personal experience with which to compare it? Then what? Do you dispose of everyone else’s experience as meaningless because it wasn’t yours? That’s what phenomenology is about — human experience as an approach to understanding that concentrates on consciousness and direct experience, or to put it another way, it is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view.

Either there is a god-presence or there isn’t, but there’s no proof one way or the other. Does it make more sense to believe that everything was created by nothing or by something? Given an absence of proof, what’s more logical to you? You can’t prove anything so whatever you think you know, it’s your best guess. My guess is as good as yours and yours is as good as mine. I guess we’ll just have to be tolerant and understanding of each other.

Each one of us is free to believe as we choose. No one has the right to judge our beliefs or lack thereof. We did not create the earth. It created us.

Categories: #Flowers, #gallery, #Photography, Anecdote, Earth, faith

Tags: #Photography, humor, Life, Marilyn Armstrong