Life is a matter of material chance, not divine dispensation

The truth can be disturbing. Yet truth is immensely valuable. These two truths about truth present a dilemma to religious believers. They don't want to be disturbed, so they choose to accept falsehoods about reality.

By contrast, people like me who don't believe in religious fantasies are able to accept both truths about truth. We embrace disturbing facts such as the non-existence of God, no life after death, and the contingency of life on Earth.

That last fact is discussed by Buddhist skeptic Stephen Batchelor in an appealing little book that consists of talks he and his wife, Martine, gave at a 2016 retreat in England based on the Korean Buddhist tradition. 

I'm enjoying "What is this? Ancient questions for modern minds." Here's some excerpts from a talk Stephen Batchelor gave. His theme is how amazing existence is, even though no God designed the cosmos or is overseeing how it operates.

Yet today when I read popular books, listen to a radio programme or watch documentaries about the discoveries of the natural sciences, it often evokes in me feelings that might best be described as religious. I find the sheer scale and vastness of space and time overwhelming.

And I become acutely aware of the poignancy, the utter contingency of existence. 

Contingency means that, on the one hand, something arises contingent on other conditions, which, in turn, are contingent on yet other conditions, ad infinitum.

And, on the other hand, we make 'contingency plans' because we realize that what we prepare ourselves for might suddenly get thrown off course by circumstances we hadn't foreseen coming into play.

Such notions of contingency are very close, I feel, to what the Buddha meant by paticcasamuppada, usually translated as 'dependent origination' or 'conditioned arising'. Remember, in the early sutras the Buddha says that the person who sees such conditioned arising sees the dharma, and the person who sees the dharma sees conditioned arising.

So there's something very much at the core of the Buddha's teaching which has to do with waking up to what I would call the utterly contingent nature of experience.

...In terms of the cosmic timeframe, we are latecomers on the scene. The first human beings anatomically identical to us -- who, when naked, would have been indistinguishable from us -- first appeared somewhere between a hundred and fifty and two hundred thousand years ago. 

Which is really just the blink of an eye. And how long we will manage to remain here is anyone's guess.

The fact that all of this has happened seems entirely accidental and arbitrary. This is difficult for human beings to accept. We like to tell ourselves stories that explain how special we are. We invent concepts like 'God' to show how the story of life on earth was designed in such a way that would culminate in humankind, made 'in the image' of God.

The idea that humans could actually be a purely contingent and haphazard event we find deeply uncomfortable. We have an instinctive sense that we're so much more than just a pure accident, that there must be some reason for our being here.

Buddhists may not speak of God, but they nonetheless have developed theories of karma, which attempts to explain how over countless lifetimes we have been reaping the results of our previous actions that lead us to getting born in one place rather than another, and as one kind of creature rather than another.

This too explains why we exist; it provides reasons that we can get our heads around. It makes us feel that we are meant to be here.

According to classical Buddhist theory, this has been going on forever -- since 'beginningless time'. But the natural sciences simply don't back that up. We have emerged, it appears, out of purely physical conditions by random mutations and chance.

In principle, I see no reason why Buddhists should have an issue with this explanation of how life evolved; it accords well with the principle of conditioned arising. But I suspect many of them, like their theistic brothers and sisters, find this account rather chilling. It makes them uncomfortable.

If everything is the product of chance, rather than the moral consequences of our karma, it cannot account for the dignity and special opportunities of being human. 

But given what we now know from evolutionary biology, we have little choice, I feel, but to swallow the fact that these pre-modern explanations might simply be wrong. The fact is that we're here and, as far as we know, these material conditions alone are what gave rise to us being here.

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

"The idea that humans could actually be a purely contingent and haphazard event we find deeply uncomfortable."

There is nothing haphazard in all creation. All events have a cause. It is natural for the human mind, as a symbol making organ, to project causes that folloe some logic.

But human logic is a prostitute who will assume any position for a fee.

Because we limited humans must make assumptions. All logic depends upon it.

What the Batchelors call haphazard is that human label people use because the events around us don't fit our man - made and self - serving economies of belief about this creation.

That all nature, all creation proceeds upon physical laws is evident. That our existence is filled with mystery is a source of wonder. That all of us are part of this same creation, that we humans are genetically nearly identical, and that whether we like it or not we are all connected in many ways, some of which we are just discovering, is all the justification anyone needs to see the wisdom and duty of brotherhood, equality, and freedom.

[Meditator]

Pondering and repondering and...
Deep contemplation and much more...
Looking within with eyes closed land us nowhere.

The whole life passes. Quite intelligent philosopher, scholars, etc go the same way finally as rest. And the real He/ She vanishes in a moment.Never know when.

Actually its answer does not lie in logics as mysteries have no beginnings nor ends. These just exist or happen.

Saints are just the same as we are but have taken lead to evolve as not only God realised but also self realised. Thats a resonable assumption given the testimonies of earlier mystics.

This is the reason that it is rather difficult for Believers to believe a Trusted Saint to be fake as He is believed to know the mystery of real us - all behind veils of the body.

[balvinder]

Brian
you are right.You got a chance.you became divine.you started preaching divine and writing on divine.
Now you got a chance to criticizing all that.
Just a matter of chance.
No principle.no ethics.

[Jesse]

"you became divine.you started preaching divine and writing on divine.
Now you got a chance to criticizing all that.
Just a matter of chance.
No principle.no ethics. "

I guess divinity is pretty much crap according to you. If someone can "become" "divine" and subsequently not be divine anymore simply because they questioned a rich thief, then divinity comes and goes like the seasons.

[slave_of_GSD]

Life is a matter of material chance, not divine dispensation

Just like the universe is a matter of material chance even though laws governing our Universe, appear to be completely symmetric between matter and antimatter.

[SP]

Just like the universe is a matter of material chance even though laws governing our Universe, appear to be completely symmetric between matter and antimatter.

Posted by: slave_of_GSD | November 05, 2019 at 03:39 AM

What's your point here? Is it just a factual statement? A view held by you? Or some play of words?

Like

iI's because of some random 'material' chance that matter survived to make up the stellar bodies as the laws suggest nothingness (matter must equal antimatter)?

Or how could a 'material' chance exist before matter formed after big bang.

Or

It was some 'material chance' that lead to conditions becoming just right (in the first maybe trillionth oft second) to give rise to the building blocks of matter

Or it was by some chance that the universe was 'born' with a big bang as an incredibly hot dense point (all of the observable universe currently estimated to be 93billion in diameter in just a point - only by chance jthis happens) and when it was just 10^(-34) seconds or so old it experienced what is known as 'inflation'

Maybe the major in physics Spence can answer these.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi SP
Nothing happens by chance. Everything follows physical laws. We just don't understand all of them yet. But part of natural law is variation. It can be likened to the three body problem. With only even a small number of variables we still can't predict with precision where each ball will go. With more variables, degrees of freedom and time, the interplay of forces leads to an astonishing variety of results. Hence, a substantial number of different outcomes, some better suited to sustainability or adaptability than others.

In modern subatomic physics scientists predict ranges of likelihood, sets of results, not specific discrete numeric outcomes.

Did the creation begin as a big bang? And what happened before that?

The process changes so that the events that took place before can't take place now. But every event in time is the result of precident events. However, in subatomic physics time is not linear. Changes in particle pathways appear in recordings to have taken place before the change!

This is all to say it remains a mystery. What could have existed before the big bang if time only exists where there is space and matter?

Our models about distant events tend to get simplified and linear and only when we get enough data do we discover our model was hopelessly simplistic and inaccurate. It's happening now with the hubble constant and the expanding speed of the universe. New data is disrupting the current theories, and new theories are needed.

The word 'chance' is just a mathematical shorthand for variables we haven't measured yet, but whose overall effect we can somewhat predict imperfectly through probability. As we lean more, the equations become better fleshed out and more deterministic rather than probablistic.

Random chance doesn't actually exist. The more we learn, the more deterministic our models become.

[Mike England]

Spence
I took the liberty of correcting your spelling errors.
What were the chances of that?
UnZero.
As we lean more, the equatons become better fleshed out and more demonistic rather than pro-babel.

[Whodunit]

Some say life is a matter of fact, others say it's a matter of faith.

Then others say matter is life, or life is matter.

Some say matter is as matter does.

We breathe that we may be able to love.

Or we live that we may learn to love
Or we love that we may learn to live

So this life must be a pretty precious thing, as is the life of love that we are learning to live.

There surely must be some underlying reason for all of this.

The haphazard random accident that you are breathing and living and loving for has been set up only for your convenience to learn to know yourself.

No other lesson is required to learn.

[Georgy Porgy]

But Whodunit why is it so complex - why don’t the head honcho up over simply tell you what you are - all over - no pain and suffering ?

[cocky me]

Georgy

Is it really complex? Which bit is complex? Or We make it complex for ourselves???

Who you are - hasn't this been repeatedly clarified that you are no different from the Head Honcho. You just don't realise that in your current state and nor do you work towards that realisation.

No pain or suffering - again clarified. Consequence of your own doings. Also clarified how you can put an end to it.

[cocky me]

"Nothing happens by chance. Everything follows physical laws. We just don't understand all of them yet"

Hi Spence,

Do scientists /science know all the physical laws (entire set possible) already? Understanding is the next step.

Cheers

[Georgy Porgy]

cocky me

Yep I can accept that
But what is a bit strange is why create a world of pain and suffering in the first place? Sure there is also joy and good, but why the bad. Is there not a better way to convey the lesson?

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Cocky
You asked
"Hi Spence,

" Do scientists /science know all the physical laws (entire set possible) already? "

They are the only ones to admit it.

[Spence Tepper]

Oope.. The only ones to admit they don't know all.

[cocky me]

Hi Spence,

Thanks for confirming. So then if all 'physical laws' aren't known yet, how much sense does it make stating everything follows only physical laws i.e. excluding yet unknown spiritual laws that might be at play.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Cocky
You asked
"Thanks for confirming. So then if all 'physical laws' aren't known yet, how much sense does it make stating everything follows only physical laws i.e. excluding yet unknown spiritual laws that might be at play."

If they are unknown how do you know they exist?

You see that's the problem with "unknown ". It isn't known!

(but only scientists are honest enough to admit it)

[Whodunit]

So if you know nothing what's the point of spouting on as if you know something?

[cocky me]

Yep I can accept that
But what is a bit strange is why create a world of pain and suffering in the first place? Sure there is also joy and good, but why the bad. Is there not a better way to convey the lesson?

Posted by: Georgy Porgy | November 07, 2019 at 12:34 AM

Hi Georgy,

What HE created is probably beautiful and perfect. I think the only evil design (purposely) being "life isn't all aware".

What better way apart from law of karma??

Below reproduced is one quote which i like.

"Karma is a beneficent law wholly merciful, relentlessly just, for true mercy is not favor but impartial justice... With reincarnation the doctrine of karma explains the misery and suffering of the world, and no room is left to accuse Nature of injustice." ~William Quan Judge

Convey the lesson - my view is that HE doesn't mete out any lessons/punishment. Instead HE conveys the escape route from the Law of Karma and ensures it's available to all humans. But then how many learn and act even in this human life of theirs?

@777 should add or post his views. Am sure his spiel on this would be far more interesting.

[Michael]

The law of karma explains all pain and suffering?
What a cop out.
To view the creator as loving and benevolent does not chime with the cruelty and evil deeds witnessed on a daily basis.
There is no guiding hand from above.
We are on our own.

[Lost Soul]

Why the bad?
Because it’s a law of nature that everything has an opposite.
You cannot have hot without cold.

Suffering is not a thing. It is an attitude.
If you get what you seek you are happy
If you don’t get it, you suffer.

The suffer is in your mind only

[cocky me]

If they are unknown how do you know they exist?

You see that's the problem with "unknown ". It isn't known!

(but only scientists are honest enough to admit it)

Posted by: Spence Tepper | November 07, 2019 at 09:19 PM

Hi Spence,

Lack of evidence doesn't mean 'non-existence'. Would you agree with this ?

The spiritual laws across worlds (material, astral, casual etc) haven't these been spelt out pretty well in various literature - and by those who have personally experienced them at work.

Posted by: cocky me | November 08, 2019 at 12:48 AM

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Whodunit
You wrote
"So if you know nothing what's the point of spouting on as if you know something?"

Ask the man in the mirror.

Then please share his answer.

[Georgy Porgy]

Some know everything about nothing, others know nothing about everything, a few who know a little about some things and then a few further ego know how little they probably know (yet know more then most others). Spence falls into the first 2 groups. Just my opinion. It’s the last group who are the wise ones who you might turn to for counsel - but mostly no one knows anything really.

Jen is rightly mostly wannabe gurus on here who fail to recognize the real McCoy and want to hang’m high when he appears.