Playing God

Know ye not that ye are gods?

Medicine, electronic communication, space travel, genetic manipulation - these are the miracles about which we now tell children. These are the miracles we herald as proof that it is not God that has the answers. Ancient stories of immaculate conception, burning bushes, and parting seas are no longer relevant.

God has become obsolete.

There were days when a baby's sex was a surprise, a natural disaster was just that - natural, and death followed you. No longer. Sure, a lot of people believe in God, but a lot of people believed the world was flat, too. Wide acceptance of an idea is not proof of its validity.

If God is eulogised for being a Creator, what now can he claim? Is there really anything still shrouded in mystery, or that scientists are not on their way to proving?

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, as has been the case for years. The shadows of this history whisper in the dark, but yet again, have been outsmarted. There is little we cannot do: Prolong life? Easy. Grow embryos? No problem. Cure disease? Consider it done. Sometimes, divine revelation simply means adjusting your heart to hear what your brain already knows.

Our once complex universe, in all its glory, has newfound logical explanations. We murder to dissect. Sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies, DNA been decoded, and the Earth excavated for our purposes. In this context, how is it strange to believe in mathematical impossibility rather than a power greater than us?

We ARE the creators, yet we naively play the part of the created. In a play of dramatic irony, it is our very own faculty of knowledge and curiosity, generously bestowed upon us by this 'God', that has elevated us amongst the divine. It has given us the wisdom and freedom to prove our upper hand in this difficulty worth living for.

Granted, we may have reached a straining point - one where the quest for smaller chips and larger profits have compelled us to sacrifice the very things that give us our distinctive characteristic of humanness: ethics, morals, and values. But there is no God in this.

Are we, on this occasion, pushing the limits? Is science the infamous Tower of Babel - will our own creation become our downfall? If there is a God, perhaps we are merely a prototype, for what God offers his people power, but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? For surely, a God cannot be both omnipotent and benevolent.

Is this an indication that there is no God - that He is metaphorical? An image conjured for the weak, the poor, the lonely - those who are just searching for a truth that ideally happens to be greater than ourselves? Maybe people believe in God because they don't have any other explanation for things that happen. The time for paradigm shift is bearing down upon us. Science is bringing home the answers.

And then, perhaps, the only difference between God and us is that we have forgotten we are divine.