The Extended Theory of Evolution

God, The Earth & The Universe

Calculated logic, scientific evidence and common sense make up the foundations upon which the theory is built, however the theory itself factors in complex deconstructions of agnostic philosophies and abstract and absurdist thought. To achieve a thorough understanding of the unique spiritual intellect needed before one can fully engage and disseminate any agreeance with the theory, we must first discuss the notion of God, whose name will be written in inverted commas from here on.

Theories such as those raised in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species are known to be true because there is sufficient scientific evidence proving their legitimacy. The same cannot be said about ‘God’, however if we live by the principle that if something can be proven to be true then it must be true, then we must adhere to the same principle in reverse, wherein we can only state that something is untrue if it is proven to be untrue. When we begin to challenge the possible existence of ‘God’, we look to what we have already been told about the notion and then unravel the inconsistencies. We have been told that ‘God’ is our creator, so we ask questions like ‘Why has my God created disease, war and disaster?’ We have been told that ‘God’ is all-powerful, so we ask ‘Why does my God not intervene and protect me from disease, war and disaster?’ The paradox of sin in particular is a cause of great confusion, ‘If I am created in Gods image, why am I not perfect and divine like God? If I am able to be a sinner, and I am a reflection of God, then surely God too is made of sin.’ Such inquiries begin to dissect what we have been told about ‘God’ and lead us to believe that what we have been told may be a lie, but they do not provide any evidence dismissing the existence of ‘God’. Instead what they do is reject existing ideas regarding the role ‘God’ plays in our lives and what form he takes.

Most commonly ‘God’ is perceived to take the form of a man who looks down upon us from heaven, but how can this be possible? If he exists in the sky and watches over the entire world all at once, then he must surely take the form of a spherical force looking inward upon the globe that he surrounds. So perhaps he is our planets atmosphere, indicating that the atmosphere of each of the other planets acts as its ‘God’.

To counter this, let us consider that ‘God’ may exist within the planet itself. After all, we often overlook the fact that the earth is constantly moving and capable of extremely powerful change, yet we deem it to be inanimate. The truth is that the self-motivating movements of the earth are always responsible for changes in the evolutionary process, take for example the monumental effects of the ice age which devastated generations of existing life, making way for new species to evolve and adapt to the new environment.

In its religious context, Buddhism considers ‘God’ simply to be a mortal man whose philosophy is so righteous and judgement so clear that he becomes deserving of worship. Whether this was the Buddha’s goal is unlikely, as the idea of worship seems to contradict his ideas of enlightenment, nonetheless it is the meaning millions of people have found in life.

In truth, the extended theory of evolution is not greatly concerned with providing any clear definition of ‘God’, however it is a vital discussion to be had n order to achieve an initial understanding of the elements of absurdism contained in the text.

The Planets as Life Forms

Let us look back to the second dissection of ‘God’ under the previous heading regarding his existence within planet earth, and instead let’s consider the planet itself to be ‘God’. It is, after all, where all creation and evolution occurs, and is the only place to our knowledge that contains life. But again we must challenge our preconceptions of ‘God’, and in order to do so for this particular example we shall draw a comparison between ‘God’/earth in relation to ourselves, and ourselves in relation to the bacteria that culminate independently on our skin and inside our bodies. Similarly to how environmental changes affect life and evolution on the planet, changes to the environment in which the bacteria exist also affect their life. These changes include hygiene, sickness, food intake etc. all of which are factors that will either allow the bacteria to thrive and flourish or die. The question is, do the bacteria understand that their human hosts are living biological entities similar to themselves or are we merely environments in which they operate? A better question, do they perceive each individual to be their ‘God’?

So perhaps we should consider the planet to be a life form itself, one with a completely different genetic composition, with different forces applicable to it that exists in a much larger system of life within the universe.

Let’s think about the bacteria that culminate independently on our skin and inside our bodies. Do they have their own questions of existentialism? Do they understand that their human hosts are living entities like them or do they consider us to be merely environments in which they live? Do they perceive each individual to be their ‘God’? Regardless of the answers we do not find any importance in the bacteria’s existentialism, as we simply perceive them to be small components in a larger system within ourselves. Similarly, we are only a small component within a much bigger system on our planet, which in turn is part of an even bigger system in the galaxy, and so on. The enormous amounts of information we have discovered about that system in relation to our size in it is astonishing, but we still don’t know for certain how big it is. Even if we discover the actual size and shape of the universe, we will never know that there aren’t more universes acting together in an even larger system altogether.