The Cowherd

For many of us, what comes to our mind is Sri Krishna, Lord Siva, Jesus, or Allah when we hear the word God. If someone asks us whether there is God, we would ponder for a moment and say yes. Or no. But do really know what God is?

Who is God?

A simple definition says that God is Who created the Universe. But common sense urges us to ask back,” Who created the God then?” Worry not my dear, I have answers to all your questions! The main problem with the above question is that creation and destruction are not applicable to God. Again if you feel like asking,“Why?”, remember that only He Who is beyond creation and destruction is called God. God is immortal, unique and only one in number ( It may be noted that the Hindu polytheism doesn’t mean that there are too many a God). Muslims call Him Allah, and Hindus Brahman.

Is God Immortal?

How can God be immortal? Let me tell you an example. Try to visualize utter dark three dimensional space. And now, imagine a horizontal line. If there was a one dimensional creature walking over this line, it can walk only forward or backward. It cannot turn around. But, can this creature see this line wholly? No. It cannot. It can see either forward or backward. You would need another creature living in a minimum of two dimensions to measure the length of this line.

If you replace this creature with yourself and the line with the time axis, the second creature becomes your God. It is out of the time axis and so immortal with respect to the you. But you cannot definitely walk backward on the time axis!

What is time?

Actually time is like a conveyor belt. It is constantly in steady motion. People are like objects placed on it ( on DOB) and taken off ( on DOD). And God is the One standing outside, placing and taking things on and off the belt. Remember He is not on any conveyor belt! That is, time is not flowing for Him. Then how can we ever make an attempt to find out who created the God?

Existence of God

A few questions that we have recently started asking are, why do we need a God? What is the advantage of having a God ? As I am much lazy in writing, I would just say the disadvantages of having a God, which is nil. I can go on and on and on writing the advantages. These philosophies are worth learning. A little bit of scientific knowledge shall not propel you to disrespect these philosophies. Philosophy is at par with science, always.

Let me give you a rational example. Let there be an event A. It can even be a phenomenon. Every phenomenon has to have a cause for itself. If the cause of phenomenon A is unknown to man, he tries to find it. But in two entirely different ways: Philosophy and Science. A philosopher would say hypothetically that there exists some phenomenon Z which the ultimate cause for all the events ( events similar to A). But what a scientist does is obtain a Ph D by arbitrarily defining a phenomenon B ( with the help of generalized inference from common observations), such that B seems like the cause for A. Then another obtains another Ph D by defining a phenomenon C arbitrarily in such a way that it is a cause of B. This process of finding a cause of the result continues indefinitely. Every result is a cause and every cause is a result. And the ultimate cause, Z, will be never realized by science.

I shall elaborate on a small but solid proof. ‘An apple falls down from an apple tree.’ Why?

Yesterday:

Philosopher’s answer: Because it is so.

Scientist’s answer : There is a phenomenon called gravity. It is responsible for mutual attraction of massive bodies……and hence, an apple falls.

Today:

Philosopher’s answer : Because it is so.

Scientists answer : A mass less particle called graviton is recently discovered. The exchange of gravitons between two bodies causes the gravitational pull…… That is why an apple falls.

Tomorrow:

Philosopher’s answer : Because it is so.

Scientist’s answer: …………………………….., and that is cause of existence and exchange of gravitons. That causes gravity and that is why an apple falls.

As we know that there is no ultimate tomorrow, we can never expect science to bring out the actual reason. People who know a little bit of science (like us) assume that they know everything. We think that we have mastered the laws of nature. But, we actually don’t even know why an apple falls.

In the first case, the scientist shall keep mum if someone asks, “ Why is there a phenomenon called gravity?” Taking the existence of gravity for granted ( that is, from observations), the scientist explains the falling of an apple.

What he did is defining a phenomenon B ( gravity) to explain the event/phenomenon A ( the falling of the apple).

In the second case, he shall shut his mouth up and run away if someone asks him,” Why there is something called graviton?”

He puts forward a phenomenon C ( existence of gravitons and their exchange) to act as a cause to phenomenon B (gravity) in turn.

Science vs Religion

Science, as it gets advanced, goes on making newer theories. None of these is ultimate. All phenomena put forward by science are intermediate and will be outdated tomorrow.

Science loves answering us but philosophy stops us questioning things. Science has been successful in answering the question ”How?” but it simply fails before the question “Why?”.

Philosophy, wisely enough, wants you to stop asking “Why?”. That is far better in a way. If an apple fell down, let’s be glad that it didn’t go up. What bothers you? After all it is an apple that fell, not your head!

Did you forget? God is there to take care of things my dear!!!