Now, let’s step forward and try to pull away the curtain. What do we find?

Is it really an onion, which only consists of layers, all the way down until you reach nothing?

Or, is it like the element of carbon that is brittle (such as coal) and resides in the upper layers of our earth’s strata but, when you dig in certain places you find the same basic carbon element in its highly compressed form and you realize you’ve found a diamond, the hardest of all minerals. You can’t scratch it. It’s the lowest common denominator.

It needs to be said that all of us have our biases and those biases act as a kind of filter or control mechanism by which we examine the things that are important to us. I’ll be the first to raise my hand and admit that I’m biased.

(Before I get charged with being close-minded, to be biased doesn’t at all mean being closed-minded. Bias is not synonymous with prejudice. Not at all. In fact, bias is the normal and reasonable result of thinking about things rationally and arriving at a conclusion. Prejudice is to “pre-judge” a thing before encountering appropriate evidence.)

For instance, I have a well-developed bias against people who chronically bully others because I think bullying is against one of my principles (respect of others) that comes from a fundamental value (all people are inherently of tremendous value) and another fundamental value (freedom of the individual). Prejudice is judging a class of people unworthy without taking any time to actually understand the individuals in that class. Etc…

I mention this because, after many decades of thinking about this problem of what lies behind the curtain, I’ve reached a conclusion based upon the evidence that I’ve been able to cull from hundreds of sources … across the full spectrum of beliefs, including both scientific and philosophical.

And, I can find no way to further reduce the two prevailing possible worldviews to lower common denominators than the ones I’ll be addressing. (Cautionary note: There are multiple ways of interpreting each of these two worldviews but the fact is, they still fall into one or the other of the two general categories.)

Recall that worldviews are ways of organizing our values and principles, therefor our thoughts and behaviors.

For any of you who have been with me for a time, this will come as no surprise.

Worldview #1

All that exists can be explained through the interaction of physical elements and forces.

In essence, everything is purely a combination of matter and energy, from the smallest known sub atomic particles like quarks and gluons to the vast universe of galaxies and stars. In this worldview, the thing we call life is a product of accidental combinations of chemical and physical processes that formed a third that we can call biology, ( which is the study of “living” organisms).

To continue with this worldview, all life exists as a product of what we we’ve been calling for the last 150 years Natural Selection, which is the survival of the fittest (passing along successful natural characteristics and abandoning unsuccessful ones) and Random Mutations (the accidental small changes that occur in otherwise healthy genetic codes). These two forces are said to account for all of the changes that occurred (the arrival of complex organisms and incredibly diverse species) once the inorganic chemical compounds (not alive) suddenly became organic (alive).

For some as yet determined reason, after about ten billion years of our universe’s existence, a chance radical change occurred on earth and life began. In a sense, this was a cosmic accident. From the moment of the Singularity to who we are alive today with all of our values, principles, thoughts and behaviors, it’s “just” a combination of physics, chemistry, biology and random chance.

As the famous and popular astronomer Carl Sagan put it: “The cosmos is all that is, ever was and ever will be.”

Another very popular scientist, the atheist and biologist Richard Dawkins says, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed by a purpose.” In other words, Dawkins says and believes that while the science looks like it has design and purpose behind it, in fact it doesn’t.

Ramifications of this include the belief (by both some evolutionary biologists and the philosophers who agree with them) that, in fact, there is no such thing as human free will … we are, as humans, merely (as one critic puts it) “meat with no purpose.”

This worldview can be described with many titles. One of the most common in scientific and philosophical circles is Scientific Materialism. Another is just Naturalism, or even Metaphysical Naturalism. In the history of modern philosophy, the closest schools are Nihilism and Existentialism. Presuming you have any interest in diving more deeply, these are decent places to start.

The bottom line is “what we see and empirically prove is what we get.”Everything that exists need fall within the framework of physics (the study of matter and energy), chemistry (the study of the substances that matter forms) and biology (the study of living things). That perspective then creates a “worldview” which is just another way of saying “philosophy,” which is the way we determine how to make sense of this stuff and apply it in reality.

In summary: Scientific Materialism is an all-encompassing worldview (a philosophy or overarching belief system) that says that we are “just” the sum of the gazillions of particles (from exploding stars) and that there is actually no objective meaning to who we are apart from that fact. We are not greater than that sum. There is nothing outside of physics, chemistry and biology that can define us and, as a consequence, define our fundamental value apart from that.

In contrast, there is

Worldview #2

In this framework, we are, in all actuality, greater than the sum of our physical properties as defined through physics, chemistry and biology. In essence, there is a supernatural quality to our existence. Super, here, means above, beyond or greater. I guess it can also mean outside.

One of the fundamental beliefs in this worldview is that there was a “cause” to the Singularity and that cause was outside of time and space, distinct from the realm of pure matter and energy, the stuff which eventually formed chemical properties and allows for the thing we can call life.

(The problem for both worldviews is that no one has been able to pull away the curtain behind the Singularity in order to “prove” how and why it happened. Both sides claim piles of evidence to support their conclusions which, because they can’t be empirically “proven,” must rely upon conjecture or probabilities, which is maybe a little like a thing we can call “Faith.”)

In this second worldview, the evidence actually points to things beyond scientific materialism. There is meaning and purpose outside of the purely natural. For instance, love is not just a product of miniscule neurons composed of particles and energy “firing” a certain way in order to give an illusion of meaning beyond helping us perpetuate and adapt the species.

This second worldview rests on the belief that there is a causal agent behind the curtain and that a fundamental characteristic of this causal agent is that it is rational. It is not random that 2+2=4. The equation works because the nature of numbers (which don’t actually exist but are the product of our thoughts!) makes it so.

In this line of thinking, something can never come from nothing.

I’ll say it again, in this line of thinking (worldview) something can never come from nothing.

There are all sorts of named concepts to define this second worldview but most come down to a framework that says there is actually a rational design to our reality. And, of course, design requires purpose and reason in order to exist. Another way to put this is design is a product of vision followed by related rational action.

Like Worldview #1, it goes by certain names; in this instance some names are Theism (belief in gods or a God, especially a Creator God), Deism (belief in a supreme being and creator who no longer pays any attention to that which was created) and, more recently, Intelligent Design (the belief that there is a creative force or person behind the curtain that has something akin to a Mind.)

Of course, I fall somewhere in this realm for the many reasons I’ve expressed through all of these essays but, for now, I’ll just go with the last one which is “Intelligent Design.”

The face-off, therefor, is between Scientific Materialism and Intelligent Design.

And, what a face-off it is! They are diametrically opposing overarching worldviews that, when we pull away all of the layers behind how and why we think anything or behave in any way, we can explain those thoughts and behaviors.

Pick one, for there are (when you really get down to it) no others. And, what do you find when you pull away the curtain and find either one?

Next time.