A Theory of God: Discovering the nature of God by examining the evidence of Life

By J E Murphy

What is Life? Where did it come from? Where is it going? What are the characteristics of advanced lifeforms? What will life be like as it continues to evolve? What does this have to do with God?

Centuries ago, people conceptualized the existence of gods based on conjecture and observable phenomena. These early theories of the driving forces behind nature became codified in such a way that it became impossible for them to change with the times. Now new facts apparently assault these old theories. Is it possible, however, that new scientific facts can reveal the true nature of these unseen forces? Can we learn something of God by examining life--by seeing where it has been, where it is going, where we fit, and how we can help?

• Language: English
• Publisher: J E Murphy
• Release date: Mar 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311265555

J E Murphy

J E Murphy, author, poet, philosopher, credologist, student of natural history, anthropology, sociology, genetics, and politics. Novels include A VIEW FROM A HEIGHT, THE GOD VIRUS, and THE NEXT BUDDHA.A credologist is a person who studies belief systems. I cannot say I have studied all belief systems, because I am sure there are some I have never heard of, but I have studied most of them. What I can say I have learned from this is that the world is a mystery and nobody knows enough about it to even head off in the direction of an answer. Yet still we demand that everyone else stop and look at our own broken compass.I have been around the world and have seen how people live and worship in many different countries. I have been to Tibet, China, Nepal, India, half of the countries in Europe, a few in Africa, the Solomon Islands, the Galapagos Islands and parts of South and Central America. What I have learned from these travels is that, at heart, we are all the same; we are all cousins; we all want the same things out of life. As children, our souls are as free as angels, but we grow into the molds that our cultures have shaped for us.I have always enjoyed most the books that expanded my horizons and showed me new ways to look at the world, a way to discard a broken compass, a way to break the mold of culture and belief. I hope that someday, people will say my books did that for them.

Book preview

A Theory of God

Discovering the nature of God

by examining the evidence of Life

J. E. Murphy

A Theory of God

Copyright 2015 by J. E. Murphy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

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Special Thanks

I would like to thank everyone who helped me with this book, especially Teresa Tidwell for proofreading.

J. E. Murphy

March, 2015

Preface

Can we learn something of the nature of God by examining the evidence of Life?

Some readers of my fiction have asked me what I really believe. My answer is nothing. I don't believe anything. When it comes to writing fiction, I just begin by wondering what it would be like if things were a certain way. These stories are usually based on other people's beliefs, not my own. But for myself, I prefer theories over beliefs.

The reason I try not to have beliefs is because they are usually based on blind reliance on authority rather than on facts. An authority may tell you that the world is flat, and that God makes the sun sink into the ocean every evening, where it is extinguished for the night.

A scientist, on the other hand, might wonder if there are alternate explanations. He knows that a ball turned in front of a candle is lit only on the candle side. How would the candle flame appear to a tiny person standing on that ball. Could it be the earth is a ball, spinning in the light of the sun? This scientist and other scientists test this theory, which is eventually proven correct. If the mistaken original authority feels this new evidence is an attack on his faith, he may never change his beliefs to accommodate the new facts. He may instead continue to insist that a spinning earth is just a theory, as if a theory is a guess or a hunch, rather than a cohesive scientific explanation.

Theories are better than beliefs because they change when new facts are discovered. There once was a theory that the earth was flat. This was based on the observable fact that the waters in the ocean did not drain away to someplace else. Later, it was found that the earth was round, but the theory of the earth also included the mistake that the continents were stable, and that the matching coastlines of Africa and South America were just coincidences. A newer theory now includes shifting continents on tectonic plates. At one time, we thought the earth was only a few thousand years old. New facts have come to light that the earth is really more than four-billion years old. The theory that explains our planet has changed with every new discovery, but the theory has always been based on facts that were known at the time. This is science in action.

In contrast, some people still believe the earth is flat. Some believe it is approximately six-thousand years old. Some believe the sun circles the earth and can be stopped in its tracks by divine intervention. These are beliefs. They have nothing to do with facts. When new facts are found, the believers choose to ignore them. But what gets you closer to the truth, beliefs or theories?

Theories can be wrong, but they are cohesive explanations of reality based on known facts, not wild guesses. They may change with new empirical evidence, but they are repeatedly tested and verified to make sure they include all known pertinent facts. A theory can be used to predict events, such as the rising of the sun in the morning. I predict the sun will rise, not because of a belief, but because of a theory of the rotation of the earth.

Beliefs about the causation of life and the existence of our reality abound. Some of these beliefs may have originally been theories based on observations, but they became practically unassailable because they carried within them codified threats to those people who would question them. Other beliefs