Evolution as Religion (pp 159-160):
“It does seem to me that the project of entirely depersonalizing this view (of the cosmos) may not be a possible one. Possibly, for human beings, the only alternative to thinking of the universe as, in some vast and remote way, purposive and benign, is to think of it as purposive and radically malignant. It may simply not be within our capacity - except of course by just avoiding thought - to think of it as having no sort of purpose or direction whatever. And since the notion that it is radically malignant is a crazy one, benignity seems to be the only usable option.”
I’m not sure why thinking the universe is malignant is crazier than thinking it is benign, except the people who would have the best reasons for thinking it is malignant probably died from the reason, from famine, airplane crash, tornado…and once you’re dead, you can’t testify.
I don’t think the universe is purposive in the sense that it has intentional purpose, but I have to admit that once I came to that conclusion, I also stopped thinking about it because it is rather unnerving to think of all things that could wipe out humanity … super-volcanos, solar flares, asteroids, and instead of getting off this rock and spreading out with tossing billions and billions into military defense programs. If we’d spent our nuclear warfare budget on space programs the American flag would be on Mars right now. This is one of the reasons why I think we (probably) haven’t been contacted by aliens. They might have blown themselves up or become Buddhists and are meditating away in monasteries. Or evolved in the seas so never developed fire based technology…or they did a cost-benefit analysis and decided to stay home.
I’m not sure why thinking the universe is malignant is crazier than thinking it is benign, except the people who would have the best reasons for thinking it is malignant probably died from the reason, from famine, airplane crash, tornado…and once you’re dead, you can’t testify.
I don’t think the universe is purposive in the sense that it has intentional purpose, but I have to admit that once I came to that conclusion, I also stopped thinking about it because it is rather unnerving to think of all things that could wipe out humanity … super-volcanos, solar flares, asteroids, and instead of getting off this rock and spreading out with tossing billions and billions into military defense programs. If we’d spent our nuclear warfare budget on space programs the American flag would be on Mars right now. This is one of the reasons why I think we (probably) haven’t been contacted by aliens. They might have blown themselves up or become Buddhists and are meditating away in monasteries. Or evolved in the seas so never developed fire based technology…or they did a cost-benefit analysis and decided to stay home.