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ATHEIST
FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA INC
NATURE OF EXISTENCE
by David Nicholls
The
Universe et-al is nature at work. Immutable laws
govern every aspect of it, from sub quantum to
galactic events. Scientific observation consistently
and with growing precision, confirms these laws are
the same in the entire known Universe.
A
deviation from these laws has never been
scientifically recorded.
With
our capacity to imagine, our very existence in the
framework of natural laws unleashes feelings of fear
and loneliness as to what it all means, if anything.
Logically
applied reason concludes we are the end result of
incredible chance but many harbour a different
viewpoint. They rationalise the evidence to fit
their psyche and accept as true any clues that point
to an outside design. They consider these clues
as self-evident even though more valid explanations
have greater plausibility.
The
only reasoned conclusion able to be drawn, is that if
an outside force exists, it has never been recorded
as interacting with the Universe and we cannot make
assumptions for it or about it.
We
know that nature is indiscriminate and impersonal in
rewarding or punishing its own components.
Again
we can only conclude that if there is an outside
power, then it is devoid of concern for its suffering
creation, it is cruel on purpose or we are ignorant
of such purpose. These are not tenable
propositions, especially in a moral sense, and are
reasonably conclusive evidence against the existence
of such an outside power.
The
arguments for accepting an outside force were
somewhat stronger when explanations by science were
basic and unknown. It would be injudicious to
consider that we have not evolved with a propensity
to accept those arguments by retention of long
practised evolutionary traits and generational
education. A study of other cultures shows this to be
true very clearly and very unambiguously.
We
find ourselves as being a conscious part of a system
that has regard for only natural laws. Science
recognises four basic natural forces and finds no
evidence of a supernatural force. History supports
this without contention.
When
reason is used it can only be concluded that nature just
is and no other conclusion can be reached.
The
universe was once nothing and now it is everything.
Nothing has therefore a propensity to be something or
we would not be. Nothing does not, so it seems, mean
a state of inactivity or nothing as we understand the
word. This is a language difficulty of our own making
to explain a concept of absence of anything. It is a
concept and our understanding of that concept is
obviously incorrect beyond daily observation.
The
universe is comprised of matter separated
by distance, or space. Before the
big-bang, there was nothing or no space,
only a predisposition for space and something. Hard
to imagine as this is, that we exist is proof of it.
That we violently erupted from nothingness is a fait
accompli argument that the precursor of nothingness
allows for it.
Nothingness
is evidentially something-ness even though its
definition and explanation elude us.
As far
as it is known, the circumstances that brought us
into being as a species has not been repeated
anywhere else in the cosmos. Some un-contactable and
distant part of the Universe may tell a different
story, but this remains unknown. It therefore can be
concluded from this that we are reasonably unique or
most likely alone in the vastness of space.
The
universe began approximately 15 billion years ago.
Whether it will eventually implode or end in an ever
expanding state of entropy is still unknown. Time is
dependant on the existence of the Universe, but
nothingness is not. Nothing existed before the
big-bang and will exist after the
big-crunch or similar. This state of
nothingness is most likely the antecedent of a
continual number of universes existing in progression
or in a state of differing dimensions.
The
mystery of all this will most likely forever remain,
but it is not too much of a guess to suggest that
some kind of infinity is at work. It is a definite
possibility that an infinite number of universes
have, will or do exist even though that phrase in
itself is nonsensical using present knowledge. The
point is that an infinite number of universes are
very likely to be the nature of Nature.
Initial
life is the correct combination of chemicals and
energy in the appropriate environment. The chances of
this fortuitous occurrence happening and then
evolving into a conscious us are mind-bogglingly
huge. That we exist is only evidence that it can
happen and not how often it will. Given an infinite
number of universes, life is therefore not only a
possible result, it is an inevitable one. How many
universes have failed experiments in this regard is
open to imagination, but it may be billions of
billions. Seemingly in paradoxical fashion, life will
also be produced an infinite number of times.
Humanity
has limited itself by introducing a God
as the alpha initiator of this Universe. In doing so, it has also
restricted proper and ever expanding reasoning
processes. As a result, our true position in an
infinite nature has been stifled and misrepresented.
With
our incredible uniqueness at last recognised,
heralding the utilisation of reason as a replacement
for the gods a new era of peace and happiness
would begin.
Recognising
the true nature of existence
is therefore a vitally essential component of our
mental evolution in this our one and only
Universe.

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