bursts of curiosity

My interest and curiosity is most often engaged outside of studies. I'll read the required chapters for biology and physics and digest the information best I can, but there is rarely ever that spark of curiosity -  the kind that fuels your mind to keep seeking. I always find that reading books outside of required texts inspire me the most. So here is an afterthought (and after having read only 2 chapters!) 

Our professor recommended that we read Life Ascending by Nick Lane. It's somewhat overwhelming. Given my limited knowledge in chemistry, it's hard to grasp the concepts and processes that Lane speaks so fervently about. But it has sparked a curiosity in me. This subject of the origin of life, whether it be here on this planet we call home, or the universe at large, has uncovered one universally acknowledged fact: there is no easy answer. All these theories that have been formed on the beginning of life or of creation almost always (to my limited knowledge) seem to build on one underlying supposition: that spontaneity was what lead to the structures that brought life. 

What can I add to this discussion/debate? Almost close to nothing. Nothing. There is so much for me to learn, so much to wrap my head around. It calls for a dedication to this seeking of answers, but what of the answers that I have believed to be true my entire life? Progression in the sciences has led to the abandoning of what humans have for the longest depended on as the answer to the origin of life: God.  I am a believer and it is a given that on the stage of science, I would need proof for this "claim". So here we are at odd ends, one group bent on the question: "where is your proof that there is God?", their energy invested into the tracing of how it all began and how we came to be. The other bent on this truth that raised them, their question: "where is your proof that there is not?". 

My question: can it not be that religion and science are unanimous in explaining this miracle that we call life? 

Evolution may explain the diversity that we observe in our world, and spontanious chemical reactions may explain how it all kickstarted, but what can explain how an atom came to be in the first place? How does a human mind grapple with the idea of all this complexity originating from nothing, or the idea that it might have existed always?   

 

It's hard for me to keep up with the countless thoughts and musings that are jumbled in my head; my mouth falls short. My heart is somewhat constant- so much has happened in my life that has made firm my standing: I believe in a Creator. Sure, all of these top-notch biochemists and physicists know a great deal more than me (understatement). But I believe that there is, beyond these mindless molecules and structures, meaning and purpose that has set us humans apart from all other organisms. Before there were machines, there were words, emotions, fears and hopes. My mind can reach back to a point somewhere near my own beginning; my 2 year-old self watching from the window as my mother chased my brother furiously to save him from himself. Beyond that, it is dark. Here I stand now, at 22, looking down the line and it scares and baffles me that some believe that the same darkness awaits me at the end. But what of all that existed in between these two points? What of the details that filled my life from start to end? The vast light that existed between these two small points? And what of the many dots that populate this massive grid- souls that were, are, will be? How does one come to accept that it is all for nothing? And how, having accepted it, does one drive himself through the days, from darkness to darkness, knowing all that he strived for, lived for, will come to a meaningless end? 

What is left is a suffocating nothingness. How do we humans, filled to the brim with existence and breath, come to grapple with this idea? 

I believe.