Our frequently enunciated concerns regarding the societally negative impact of the cell phone on human interaction, by some Joycean stream of consciousness, led us to the thoughts of the man who revolutionized the Nation by his invention of wireless communication; most particularly to his apocryphal statement: “What has God wrought?”
The latter exclamation is bizarrely representative of the traditional dark cloak historically thrown over the bright light of Man’s capacity for empirical reason, and which has eternally led to atavistic strife. It would seem that, without such pretentious expression of religious modesty, a genius like Samuel Morse, successful after an arduously long course of frustrating failure, would be aware that “he”, not his culturally created deity, is to be empirically credited as the inventor.
As we have often declared, Man’s deistic attribution of natural phenomena constituted the early etiology of religious belief. The “Sun God” who seemed to die in the Fall, was, by virtue of ritualistic observances concerning the “magically green” evergreen trees, resurrected in the Spring months, together with the deciduous trees and the bunny rabbits.
It would appear that for the greater portion of the world, in one fashion or another, the “sapient” product of Evolution, adamantly clings to one form or another of “faith” in the existence of a determinant “Higher Being.” Such an empirically non-enlightened mindset has been eternal, predating the commercial days of the “Silk Road” and enduring to the contemporary genius of “Silicon Valley.”
We will readily concede certain social and individual benefits of religious belief: the spiritual salve for the fear of inevitable death, the social identification and interactive cohesion of members of society, the inspiration, and the courage often needed in trying times; however, these, admittedly salubrious benefits of societal faith in the existence of a “higher being” have historically been a proximate cause of eternaL social, disparity, prejudice, injustice and ultimately, warfare. History has eternally revealed the nuanced inclination of religious believers to aggressively seek to impose their beliefs on others; the latter, empirically, an eternal source of human suffering and tragedy.
Moreover, the historic advancement and improvement of humanity have been inarguably hobbled by the urgent need for a dogmatic answer to empirical questions; the latter best accomplished by the process of rational trial and error and human expertise, in contrast to the divination of superstitious belief. Empathic treatment of human suffering is vitally important, humanistic, and societally appropriate, but not relevantly a proper or ethical source of information.
The Earth does, indeed, travel about the Sun, despite pre-Copernicus ( pre-heliocentric) religious edict that “Man is the center of the Universe.”.
Nor are questions which are beyond the ken of the evolved human brain, those concerning outer space and planetary origin, useful or proper vehicles of construed fictional belief; Man must modestly confess to the natural limitations of his cognition and the pragmatic realization that there are no available answers to every conceivable metaphysical question.
.p-
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