by Steven Sills
Chapter 26
Fait Accompli: Traces of Values in Lieu of Morality in Abstentia
And of that witnessed in the state of nature, and that outside of it, society, sublimating most selfish impulses while exacerbating others (the instinct to attack, for example, superseded to some degree under most circumstances by the practical consideration of exploiting others in the division of labor, a restraint imposed for the comforts to be had by the majority in enhanced products and services and only to be achieved in some level of civil harmony, even though subjecting those without commercial skills to perish miserably in the streets and perceived vaguely in the minds of other higher animals able to do so as hedonists sabotaging the ecosystem with their one-specied pleasure dome), this, and only this, is vacuously referred to as morality as an average Frenchman considers his culinary creation to be Picasso on a plate. We shall reject both. There is kindness which is not exclusively a human attribute. There is empathy—that ability to step out of one’s own skin by seeing what the eyes see and caring as one knows that this creature is equal to himself, one more being here for a short time struggling to exist for a while while he can, and all else including intellect itself120 is not in the realm of the good. And that which forestalls predilections contrary to natural or societal tendencies as it is viewed as unnatural or antisocial by society at large is seen as an offense to the offenders.
And of those selfish predilections from minority groups deemed as repugnant to society at large, the lesser group remonstrates, lobbies, euphemizes, converts, and blends unrelentingly until, if it is at all possible, the behavior is at last accepted by society. And in general, if it is demonstrated in the course of time that a predilection poses no real harm to the larger group, its ideals will eventually be accepted by it as a broadening of the assortment of delicacies in the storehouse of potential experiences and tastes, but anything that curtails freedom endorsed by society at large will be condemned even when there is unequivocal proof by a reputable minority group of it being detrimental to society or even to all species. The domestication of animals as chattel for the slaughterhouse to be sold as comestibles would be considered as anything but vile to the masses who are always led by tastes rather than decency, and any adverse opinion, let alone an attempt to govern the sanctioned predilection would be considered a moral offense to them. The same is true of curtailing traffic and industry to curb carbon emissions and global warming as it is with denying the right to bear arms to stop a nation from spiraling further into random violence (unequivocal, categorical eradication of all weaponry by American citizens) as bullets become the tangible expression for caprices that cannot materialize in society as constructive challenges to its—the masses of men vehement, frenetic even beyond common sense, to not allow government to curtail their freedoms. One might as well censor consumerism and material expression; for sensing that they do not have spiritual presences and that they are anything but solid, it is no wonder people are materialistic, even avaricious, instead of charitable. Like weathering statues they resurface themselves with monetary rubble frenetically; like melting snowmen they desperately bolster existence with their slush.
Thus with morality a man’s concoction, the values that he has, that which can be stated unequivocally as his beliefs, is murky at best. But for me to find what I really believe and know for certain, or the amount of certainty one is allowed, the only worthy task of any man, meretricious morality must be superseded by traces of inviolable values, as scarce as they are.
Cosmology in Line with the Ancient philosophers121
The issue of the universe emerging from a black hole of an abutting, parallel universe notwithstanding (a simplistic cause and effect notion of human intellect that takes us to another cause that would have to have a cause, and human intellect finding it difficult to fathom being, unintelligent essence far from a god, that ruptured and realigned in a chain reaction for no reason and from no agent), an explosion with shrapnel of black matter sub-subatomic particles indubitably occurred. Then there began a cooling and deceleration enough to engender subatomic particles, too innumerable, too unfathomable, to ever be classified, materializing and vanishing as intermediates between energy and matter. So in billions of years of cooling and coalescing in a forward expansion of lesser and more stable celerity longer lived protons and neutrons were able to smelt together and their combined gravitational forces were then able to capture electrons as satellites. Thus, atoms came into being, a quirky, unstable solid that in great numbers became the nuclear fusion of stars or burning cinders of space dust which failed to merge into stars but eventually coalesced into galaxies and planetary bodies, and then living beings on these terrestrial planes. What electrical force and heat to water was the catalyst for dual atoms, molecules, to become self-replicating carbon life forms in a marine environment is unknown or why Siam or Thailand was the first dry formation of land in which the first amphibians and kinnari (or kinnaree) dwelled; but as Thomas Paine says, as life exists in even the harshest environments on Earth, so in one form or another, it exists in other harsh environments on planets throughout the universe. It is rife, whether we are aware of it or not122 and water is not absolutely necessary as an ingredient. No water is needed.
Evolution
The amount of evidence amassed to prove evolution unequivocally is phenomenal and falls into around a dozen categories from paleontology to genetics,123 and it is observed most saliently in experiments on short-lived e-coli bacteria and reassembly of fossilized bones of whales to their ancient hippopotami progenitors in a nearly perfect delineation of this transformation.124 As I stated before, the mechanism of evolution cannot merely be natural selection, and isolation of a given species from others of its kind, transferring genes in a limited group that become dominant expressions therein. Clearly, every organism is able to create a model if not a detailed blueprint of itself, its challenges to the environment, and the environment itself, thus allowing for camouflaging to occur as if God himself had intervened. It is interesting that He can make a specific caterpillar, and not all caterpillars, to look like the face of a snake to scare off predators and ensures such obscurity for stick insects, but He does not make a man invisible when on a battlefield confronting his enemy or facing a murderer, which is especially odd when man is supposedly the most favored of His creations. A deceased man, interred into the dirt as any decomposing waste in a landfill, however, has, I am told, a soul. But as each soul—or at least some-- wants to be reunited celestially with parents and other loved ones, human or gecko, that happen to be rattling around in their brains, as their parents with their parents, and so on, which would include animal and microorganism progenitors as well, I suppose, it would seem that the heavens are an overpopulated hell hole much worse than the Earth in which every organism, good or bad, is temporary; hence, my only care is to be the soulless reality that I am and upon my cessation let me be equal to a dead rat that a street sweeper scoops up with other components of the day’s trash.
God
There is little that I can say on this matter that hasn’t already been said by the ancients. Even when Marx called religion the opiate of the people,125 he was merely echoing the sentiments of Xenophanes who said that any dominant species like man with his comforting anthropomorphic portrayals of “God” the father would create a deity in the likeness of that particular species.126 It is absurd to think that which is composed of atoms (singular atoms being the successful link between energy and ephemeral conglomerations of atoms called matter), has “spirit” of the conglomeration itself. If there is any spirit or everlasting energy to be had, it could only exist in the singularity of the atoms themselves which, for what we know, which is saliently miniscule indeed, might also be finite. And, contrary to logic, if there is spirit or resonating energy from the conglomeration of atoms or matter that would indicate, and what scriptures suggest, that individual lives are of paramount importance to the creator, why then is that materi
al conglomeration which the spirit is supposed to represent not immortal as well, and furthermore, why with a little force, invasive parasites, or interior obstruction and breakdown is he subject to such a vast sundry of factors that might cause his death the way the moon is perennially subject to being besieged by meteor strikes. At any rate, His involvement is easily and falsely assumed by those who have managed to acquire or influence, to some degree, the means of production as they in their hubris believe that their material goods are proof that the creator favors them above all others, involving himself in their lives, the lives of the good people, and by those who are destitute and desperate as well for they cling onto any eternal salvation that they can. Regarding scripture, are these story books (to some degree plagiarized at that with the story of Noah evoking important similarities to the Epic of Gilgamesh,127 certain Psalms to the Great Hymn of Aten,128 and Moses parting the waters to Pharaoh Snefru’s court magician doing the same to retrieve a lost amulet belonging to a member of the royal harem,129 and scriptures of various belief systems in Asian countries no doubt the same conflation of fancy and plagiarisms) the best guidebooks that God can develop for the operation of the human mechanism?