The Cosmos Is All That Is, or Ever Was, or Ever Will Be.

“The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.
” the world is selfcontained,

self-sufficient, self-explanatory, self-ordering.
Naturalism
Neither the premises nor the conclusions of any scientific theory mention the existence of
God If science is to champion atheism, the requisite demonstration must appeal to something
in the sciences that is not quite a matter of what they say, what they imply, or what they
reveal.
Carl Sagan’s buoyant affirmation that “the universe is everything that is, or was, or will be”
is widely understood to have captured the spirit of naturalism.
It is commended
as an attitude, a general metaphysical position, a universal doctrine—and often all three.
“the view that natural phenomena can be
explained without reference to supernatural beings or events,
is the foundation of the natural sciences.”
Now a view said to be foundational can hardly be said to
be methodological, and if naturalism is the foundation of the
natural sciences, then it must be counted a remarkable oddity
of thought that neither the word nor the idea that it expresses
can be found in any of the great physical theories. Quite the
contrary. Isaac Newton in writing the Principia Mathematica
seemed curiously concerned to place rational mechanics on a
foundation that has nothing to do with methodological naturalism.
“The most beautiful system of the sun, planet and
comets,” he wrote, “could only proceed from the counsel and
domination of an intelligent and powerful Being.” There is finally the claim that the universe is a closed causal
system, the triplet of its three vaguely technical terms suggesting
something more substantial by way of a definition. But to
say that the universe is a causal system is hardly an improvement
on the thesis that effects have causes, and if the universe is everything that there is, then to say that it is closed is only
to
observe that there is nothing beyond everything.
The universe is a physical object. It is nothing less, and there is nothing more. The
emergence of life on earth may be explained by synthetic chemistry; it has already been
entirely explained
by synthetic chemistry. Religions are among the delusions of mankind and are responsible
for its
misfortunes. The mind is the brain in action. There is, on the largest scales, nothing
distinctive about the
earth or the abundant life it nourishes. Human beings and all of man’s passions are
inadvertent and
accidental. Beyond the laws of nature, there are no laws. The universe is large, remote,
indifferent, and
strange. Human life may be enjoyed; it must, in any case, be endured.
Peter Atkins writes:
‘Humanity should accept that science has eliminated the justification for
believing in cosmic purpose, and that any survival of purpose is inspired
only by sentiment."
“We are more insignificant than we ever could have imagined,” the physicist Lawrence
Krauss has written. to a man believe (or say) that human life is insignificant because the
earth is not the center of the universe. This is an argument as persuasive as the comparable
claim that London played no significant role in the British Empire because it wasn’t the
Empire’s geographical center. Discoveries in astronomy showing the privileged position of
earth within our solar system (and of our solar system within our galaxy). (i) the
relationship between essential human properties, if they exist, and human significance on a
cosmic level;
(ii) the relationship between human uniqueness, if human beings are unique, and human
significance on a
cosmic level; A simple modal argument is sometimes of use in this argument; and if not of
use, then carelessly
neglected. If human beings are largely insignificant in the cosmos, then surely they are not
necessary
either. Krauss says as much explicitly. “You could get rid of us and all the galaxies and
everything we see
in the universe and it will be largely the same.”
Are human beings the only examples of conscious or highly intelligent life in the cosmos?
This is a
question that for the past fifty years (or slightly more) has been held in suspension between
Fermi’s
paradox and the Drake equation. Considering the existence of aliens, Enrico Fermi asked a
table of
physicists where they might be if, in fact, they really existed; and considering the
probability of their
existence, Francis Drake argued that since that probability of intelligent life elsewhere in
the universe
converged rapidly to 1 the further the universe was scanned, there must be some very
good reason for the
fact that they have not yet appeared. Opinion among astronomers and physicists is strongly
in favor of the
conclusion that there is nothing so terribly unique about human beings that something
similar should not
be widely available throughout the cosmos. That all searches for something similar have
been fruitless has
not in the least diminished their enthusiasm—or, one might add, their need for additional
funding.
The belief that human beings are alone in the universe because they are an accident in the
universe is
widely thought an acceptable, although disappointing, possibility.
The belief that human beings are alone in the universe because they are unique in the
universe is now
among the forbidden thoughts.
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an
understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side
of science
in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many
of its
extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community
for
unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to
materialism. It
is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material
explanation
of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori
adherence to material
causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material
explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.
Moreover,
that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent
Kant scholar
Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To
appeal to an
omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be
ruptured, that
miracles may happen.4
“Darwin,” Richard
Dawkins noted amiably, “had made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
HARARI’S VIEW OF WHAT is coming, or to come, is much influenced by what he calls “the
new human agenda.”
Modern culture, he writes, “rejects [the] belief in a great cosmic plan. Life has no script, no
playwright, no
director, no producer—and no meaning.”
Harari writes,
life scientists have demonstrated that emotions are not some mysterious spiritual
phenomenon that is
useful just for writing poetry and composing symphonies. Rather emotions are biochemical
algorithms
that are vital for the survival and reproduction of all animals.1
Harari belongs to the ages. “To the best of our understanding,” he writes,
“determinism and randomness have divided the entire cake between them…”20
If human actions are determined, they are not free, and if random, not interesting.
Freedom of the will
must be an illusion.21 Perhaps this is so. If freedom of the will is an illusion, then the
illusion is both
universal and inexpugnable. Every man is persuaded that something is within his power,
and none that
everything is beyond it. What explains the illusion? No less than in the paradoxes of
perception, in which a
wine glass reveals the sleek contours of a woman’s silhouette, some account is needed.
The illusion goes too deep to be an accident. It is not random. On the contrary. Free will
enters into
every deliberation; it is the foundation on which every legal system is constructed; it
controls every
human exchange; it is the assumption that makes daily life coherent; and if Google,
Facebook, Apple, and
Microsoft are busy undermining consumer choice, they are busy only because, like the rest
of us, they
share in the illusion of free will, and are concerned to make the most of it. To do without
the illusion is to
live like the animals. Considerate la vostra semenza fatti no foste a viver come bruti.22 An
appeal to
randomness is pointless. No deterministic account is remotely plausible. We are as little
able to explain
the illusion of free will as free will itself. If the illusion is not a part of the cake, the cake is
not all that
there is; and if it is a part of the cake, determinism and randomness do not divide it.23
a growing number of self-proclaimed experts are telling us that “sin” is an old-
fashioned idea held over from the Middle Ages, that we are not really responsible for
our “bad” behavior, and that we need to rethink our entire moral code in light of
modern scientific discoveries.
a philosophy called materialism or naturalism. Its central claim is a

simple one: physical matter is all that matters, is all there is, ever was or
ever will be.
For the materialist, nature has to be able to create everything on its own.
Some totally natural process, not a personal God, must be the creator
because matter is the ultimate reality
According to materialism, humans aren’t made in the image of God.
At bottom, humans are just a collection of atoms, a messy bundle of
instincts and urges without higher purpose or significance. Ideas like free
will, personal responsibility and even the intrinsic value of human life have
no place in a materialistic worldview.
Harvard evolutionist Edward O. Wilson explains, the human mind is

just a byproduct of the brain, and the brain is just “the product of genetic
evolution by natural selection.” He adds, “The social scientists and
humanistic scholars, not omitting theologians, will eventually have to
concede that” materialism will reshape everything they study. In other
words, they’ll have to admit that the immortal human soul doesn’t exist.
In Origin of Species he celebrates the law that says “Let the

strongest live and the weakest die,” assuring the reader that “from the war
of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are
capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals,
directly follows.”[ In the 1920s and 1930s, Adolf Hitler seduced
Germany with the idea that they were the master race, and that they had a
mandate from nature to weed out the inferior races and rule the world. He
believed that one could make the world a better place by the strong weeding
out the weak. He took the idea from Charles Darwin “Without Darwinism, especially
in its social Darwinist and eugenics
permutations,” Weikart concludes, “neither Hitler nor his Nazi followers
would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince
themselves and their collaborators that one of the world’s greatest atrocities
was really morally praiseworthy.”[

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“The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.

” the world is selfcontained,

a philosophy called materialism or naturalism. Its central claim is a

Harvard evolutionist Edward O. Wilson explains, the human mind is

In Origin of Species he celebrates the law that says “Let the

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