The news of a $30 million, 3D movie of the creation account based on the Book of Genesis is a reminder that throughout history people have been awed and thrilled by retellings of their culture’s creation story.
Aztecs would tell of the Lady of the Skirt of Snakes, Phoenicians about the Zophashamin, and Jews and Christians about the one true God—Jehovah. But there is one unfortunate group—the children of materialists—that has no creation myth to call its own. When an inquisitive tyke asks who created the sun, the animals, and mankind, their materialist parents can only tell them to read a book by Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins.
No child, though, should have to go without an answer, which is why I’ve decided to take the elements of materialism and shape them into an accurate, though mythic, narrative. This is what our culture has been missing for far too long—a creation story for young materialists.
******
In the beginning was Nothing and Nothing created Everything. When Nothing decided to create Everything, she filled a tiny dot with Time, Chance, and Everything and had it explode. The explosion spread Everything into Everywhere carrying Time and Chance with it to keep it company. The three stretched out together leaving bits of themselves wherever they went. One of those places was the planet Earth.
For no particular Reason—for Reason is rarely particular—Time and Chance took a liking to this wet little blue rock and so decided to stick around and see what adventures they might have. The pair thought the Earth was intriguing and pretty, but also rather dull and static. They fixed upon an idea to change Everything (just a little) by creating a special Something. Time and Chance roamed the planet, splashing through the oceans and scampering through the mud, in search of materials. But though they looked Everywhere there was a Missing Ingredient that they needed in order to make a Something that could create more of the same Somethings.
They called to their friend Everything to help. Since Everything had been Everywhere she would no doubt be able to find the Missing Ingredient. And indeed she did, hidden away in a small alcove called Somewhere, Everything found what Time and Chance had needed all along: Information. Everything put the Information on a piece of ice and rock that happened to be passing by the former planet Pluto and sent it back to her friends on Earth.
Now that they had Information, Time and Chance were finally able to create a self-replicating Something which they called Life. Once they created the Life they found that it not only became more Somethings it began to become Otherthings too! The Somethings and the Otherthings began to fill all the Earth— from the bottom of the oceans to the top of the sky. Their creation, which began as a single Something eventually became millions of Otherthings.
Time and Chance, though, where the bickering sort and were constantly feuding over which of them was the most powerful. One day they began to argue over who had been most responsible for creating Life. Everything (who was constantly eavesdropping) overheard the spat and suggested that they settle the debate by putting their creative skills to work on a new creature called Man. They all thought is was a splendid plan—for Man was a dull, hairy beast who would indeed provide a suitable challenge—and began to boast about who could create an ability, which they called Consciousness, that would allow Man to be aware of Chance, Time, Everything, and Nothing.
Chance, who had always been a bit of a dawdler, got off to a slow start so it was Time, who never rested, that was able to complete the task first. Time rushed around, filling the gooey matter inside each Man’s head with Consciousness. But as he was gloating over his victory he noticed a strange reaction. When Man could see that Everything had been created by Time, Chance, and Nothing, his Consciousness would fill with Despair.
Chance immediately saw a solution to the problem and used the remaining materials she was using to make Consciousness to create Beliefs. When Chance mixed Beliefs into the gray goo, Man stopped filling with Despair and started creating Illusions. These Illusions took various forms—God, Purpose, Meaning—but they were almost always effective in preventing Man from filling up with Despair.
Nothing, who tended to be rather forgetful, remembered her creation and decided to take a look around Everything. When she saw what Time and Chance had done on planet Earth she was mildly amused but forbid them to fill any more creatures with Consciousness or Beliefs (which is why Man is the only Something that has both). But Nothing took a fancy to Man and told Time and Chance that when each one’s Life ran out that she would take him or her and make them into Nothing too.
And that is why, my young friends, when Man loses his Life he goes from being a Something created by Time and Chance into becoming like his creator—Nothing.
The End
March 17th, 2010 | 4:04 pm
Interesting… I assume that this story is designed to make some point. Please do articulate it explicitly.
March 17th, 2010 | 4:43 pm
“Seinfeld” has already done this. You’ll recall it was a “show about nothing.” Better be careful about violating intellectual property rights.
March 17th, 2010 | 6:47 pm
Nice story. I recommend a book by Milton Munitz called “The Mystery of Existence”. As far as I know, no one has ever been able to explain why there is something rather than nothing – a mystery indeed! Maybe St. Paul has the answer in Romans 1:19-20.
March 17th, 2010 | 8:52 pm
Alex,
I think the point is that it takes more faith (in Nothing) to be an atheist than it does to be monotheist.
March 18th, 2010 | 12:00 am
I’m going to be deliberately obtuse and pretend I don’t know this is a smug, self-satisfied way of attempting to make a point, and I’m going to wonder aloud whether it occurred to the author that you can’t reduce actual theories based in, you know, physics and maths and chemistry and biology and all that actually quite complicated sciencey stuff to simple mythological narrativising devoid of any actual factual, you know, sciencey stuff.
Or, to put it another way, I don’t suppose it occurred to the author that you can’t reduce something intended to be pragmatically instrumental to a non-pragmatically non-instrumental form without actually factually destroying what you set out to reduce.
Yes, those young materialists must live lives of such dull drudgery, slogging their way through calculus, statistics, biochemistry, comparative anatomy, geology, and theoretical physics for what? The best available functioning (though incomplete) understanding of the world they inhabit for all pragmatic, instrumental purposes? What they really need is a mythology – not to explain, obviously, in any sort of pragmatic, instrumental way, but to give them, you know, social, ethical, personal, and communal life guidance.
You could say that what they need is to be inducted into a community of like-minded individuals who define themselves as against others who do not like-mindedly share their mythological narratives and therefore don’t share their, you know, social, ethical, personal, and communal life. In fact, you might almost say they don’t necessarily need to have a functioning (though incomplete) understanding of the world they inhabit for all pragmatic, instrumental purposes after all!
Too bad our crazy namby-pamby faggy postmodernist pseudoculture keeps confusing them on this, because while they’re struggling through introductory courses in, say, atomic physics, evolutionary biology, or cultural anthropology so that they can understand where the sun, the animals, and mankind (or, as those godless Lefty butcaneers might say, “humanity”[sic]) come from, they’re not receiving their proper moral instruction; and this is because, as we can all see here thanks to the author, their mythological narratives just suck!
March 18th, 2010 | 7:34 am
Just last week I expressed annoyance at a commenter who made a caricature of Christian faith just so he could mock it — and now you do basically the same thing the other way ’round? Great. Just great.
March 18th, 2010 | 9:08 am
I guess materialists have their heads down so much, they don’t realize they are not the only ones “slogging their way through calculus, statistics, biochemistry, comparative anatomy, geology, and theoretical physics”.
Satire is necessarily obtuse, else it becomes syrupy sarcasm. I much prefer the former. Thanks, Joe!
March 18th, 2010 | 10:12 am
JM Inc., Putting aside for the moment the value of Joes’ story I have a story that sorta populates Joes’.
My story is the search for the scientific corporatists’ that will create the new story of the world. It starts as a kind of whitteling down to those with the appropriate knowledge and talents to get the job done . There are about 6,ooo,ooo,ooo people on the earth as we speak.As a rough guess I think we could eliminate about 98% that do not possess the requisite knowedge of science and therefore could not speak authoritatively as to the real nature of the world. 2% is still a lot of people, 120,000,000 if my math is correct. This number represents those with some familiarity with basic science.From here the numbers drop precipitously in trying to get to those with a wide ranging and deep understanding of science at its’ elemental level. My guess is that the world contains perhaps 100,000 people with world class credentials that may span several disciplines. One thing implied by this last number is that even their knowledge is limited. This leaves us with the last group, that is those with the broadest and deepest understanding of just what the world is and is not. I’m thinking, none, however to keep my story going I’ll say 100. These will be the high priest of science. They will cull from all of their knowledge and the knowledge that they have access to in order to speak of what this knowledge says
The other 5,900,000,000 will await for the story they will tell. In their authentic language there will be a lot of math, which we won’t understand, and there will be many technical words and phrases that we won’t understand. In their great wisdom they will need to dumb it down for us while remaining true to their calling and unless they claim that there are scientifically verifiable moral and ethical laws in their findings,with all the drama that implies, the story they tell will be a materialistic, utilitarian cake recipe with footnotes of course.
March 18th, 2010 | 10:15 am
Chesswiz Just last week I expressed annoyance at a commenter who made a caricature of Christian faith just so he could mock it — and now you do basically the same thing the other way ’round? Great. Just great.
Aside from the anthromorphization, what about the story does not accurately represent the implications of the materialist worldview?
Personally, I’m rather tired of not only having to treat such a ridiculous belief as if it were respectable (which it isn’t) but also as if it were the only acceptable option for educated Westerners.
The ridiculous just-so story I posted about why men are bad drivers is a prime example of where this type of thinking leads. Evolutionary psychology is as superstitious as any backwoods pagan belief, yet we’re supposed to act as if it is an position that should be held by intelligent people.
March 18th, 2010 | 7:05 pm
A rather enjoyable story. Reminds me of one of the shortest debates I have ever had with an atheist. After reading multiple anti-Christian remarks on a popular atheist blog….the same old tired “Christianity is anti-science and anti-reason” rants, I merely asked what the scientific proof for atheism was. That was the start and end of the debate.
March 19th, 2010 | 12:55 am
What do you mean materialists don’t have a creation myth? Haven’t you ever heard of String Theory?
March 19th, 2010 | 7:32 am
“I’m rather tired of not only having to treat such a ridiculous belief as if it were respectable (which it isn’t) but also as if it were the only acceptable option for educated Westerners.”
I share your fatigue, Joe; as one who teaches religion to Canadian adolescents in Catholic schools (publicly funded, not parochial, and therefore only nominally Catholic), I deal with today’s trendy atheism in class all the time, and the refusal to recognize that it too is a faith-stance. In theory, your “reductio ad absurdum” story is effective; in practice, I find such things tend to harden people in their positions, for the simple reason that no one likes to have their beliefs ridiculed.
Then again, you weren’t writing for my students, so my reaction may be misplaced. My bad!
March 19th, 2010 | 3:34 pm
Time to read Meher Baba’s “The Nothing and The Everything…
March 20th, 2010 | 11:11 am
Since nobody seems to have had the slightest clue what point I was actually making, let me simplify a bit, and lose the sarcasm: Science makes bad mythology, and mythology makes bad science.
I laughed out loud when I read Joe Carter’s reply,
“Aside from the anthromorphization, what about the story does not accurately represent the implications of the materialist worldview?
“Personally, I’m rather tired of not only having to treat such a ridiculous belief as if it were respectable (which it isn’t)”.
You only think that because you don’t f****** understand the first goddamned thing about it. I’m not just saying that, either – you demonstrably don’t know the first thing about it. You think what you said bares even a passing resemblance or relevance to any aspect of what you think you’re mocking? What part of “you can’t reduce something intended to be pragmatically instrumental to a non-pragmatically non-instrumental form without [...] destroying what you set out to reduce” don’t you understand?
My point is that you’re making an error of category if you think that science is in any way the same sort of thing as mythology. You can’t take a scientific theory like the big bang theory and reduce it to some mythological narrative (anthropomorphic or not) without destroying it because myth is not motivated by instrumentality. Myths are community building narratives, they impart social, ethical, personal, and communal values in the form of stories. They are not accurate descriptions of the universe for practical purposes. If you want to understand the process of baryogenesis or form a hypothesis about spontaneous symmetry breaking in the early universe, you use science. If you want to understand the diversity of life forms and their biogeography, you use science.
What you don’t do, is pretend that your communal myths represent some sort of blueprint for an accurate, factual, useful understanding of the world. When you reduce either science to myth or myth to science, you get idiocy of the sort evident in your little story at the top, or in the brayings of creationists and other ignorati. If you want to form a little community with a set of beliefs and a moral code, go right ahead, we all do it, nothing wrong with it. Don’t, however, make the category error of thinking that your little community can be universalised or systematised if only your little communal myths were taken seriously by those infamous naysayers in white lab coats: they won’t be.
March 21st, 2010 | 10:18 am
JMinc, maybe it’s you that misses the point. Joe was not writing about science per se. If he was this would not be the story he would tell. My take is that his concern was not science as such but scientists who hint, state or hypothosize with confidence the materialist underpinnings of existence.My thought is that there is no necessary conflict between religion and science per se. I and I suspect Joe would not argue against the red shift, relativity,quantum mechanics or the notion of the unified field theories by referring to the Bible. Science plays a necessary and vital role in our understanding of the universe in which we live. It can’t and it shoudn’t speak to meaning and when it tries it steps outside of scientific evidence and edges into the mythology of scientism. In the world that most of us live vague references to Heisenbergs uncertainty principal, Godels incompleteness theorum, golden numbers, dark matter, the big bang etc.,all poorly understood, actually work opposite of how one would think. They transfer the mysterium from religion to science and create a religion of science. So myths are not for those like yourself who know, it is for the rest of us who don’t. Joe was just trying to help.
March 29th, 2010 | 10:44 am
[...] Carter has an amusing piece at First Things called “In the Beginning was Nothing: A Creation Story for Young Materialists.” Carter begins by sarcastically lamenting how the children of evolutionists are deprived of [...]
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