Well I was feeling bored cramming up for the Strategic Management Exam and then out of the blue this thought strikes me. Is Atom God? All that we read and hear about God, have we already discovered Him and not able to recognize? Is He always there with us and we are taking Him for granted? By the way is God 'Him', 'Her' or 'It'? I decided to throw the books away for sometime and put my thought in a logical manner.
What is God?
Proceeding in a scientific manner, I thought of doing a little literature review about how God has been defined and what are His attributes. I crashed into number of attributes and some pretty unique ones. Many mentioned about the 16 attributes like "Sri Krsna" of ISKON. So to keep the discussion homogeneous and relevant across literature, I decided to take only common attributes. the following attributes on God has been found common and agreed to by all the authors:
1 - Omniscience - God knows all
2 - Omnipotence - God can do anything and everything
Proceeding in a scientific manner, I thought of doing a little literature review about how God has been defined and what are His attributes. I crashed into number of attributes and some pretty unique ones. Many mentioned about the 16 attributes like "Sri Krsna" of ISKON. So to keep the discussion homogeneous and relevant across literature, I decided to take only common attributes. the following attributes on God has been found common and agreed to by all the authors:
1 - Omniscience - God knows all
2 - Omnipotence - God can do anything and everything
3 - Omniprescence - God is everywhere
4 - Divine simplicity - God is simple and requires nothing for He is full by Himself, perfection personified
5 - Eternal and necessary existence - He is everywhere yet he can manifest at a particular place depending on the requirement
I also considered the definition given by Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba:
4 - Divine simplicity - God is simple and requires nothing for He is full by Himself, perfection personified
5 - Eternal and necessary existence - He is everywhere yet he can manifest at a particular place depending on the requirement
I also considered the definition given by Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba:
GOD means "Generation, Organization and Destruction"
What is Atom?
Having described God's attributes from literature and Baba's point of view, I decided to examine the modern atomic theory to have a basic conceptualization of what an atom is and what it consists of.
Having described God's attributes from literature and Baba's point of view, I decided to examine the modern atomic theory to have a basic conceptualization of what an atom is and what it consists of.
Well it was a fascinating journey to read up on the evolution of the concept of atom. As usual I fell in love with the most wonderful asset of human beings - mind. Anyway the only point worth mentioning here I feel is that the earliest known theory on atom was Indian in origin. It dates back to 6th century BC and was developed by Kanada, a Hindu philosopher. It left me wondering that what a great land we are and we were, yet all Nobel prizes go to the white-skinned people ! The Indian mind, when will it get its due?
Anyways the other thing that I think worth mentioning here is the universal concept that atom consists of proton, neutron and electrons, a pretty simple structure compared to the complexities we deal with daily. And the recent development of quantum mechanics that says that atom is somewhat in between a wave and a particle. Its both...sounds weird I know, but then it has theoritcal and experimental support. For the layman its enough to know that atom can behave both as a wave and particle depending on conditions.
Is Atom God?
What I intended to do is to compare atom and see whether it explains the attributes that are used to define God. So I take it up atrribute by attribute.
What I intended to do is to compare atom and see whether it explains the attributes that are used to define God. So I take it up atrribute by attribute.
God is omniscience i.e. He knows all. It logically implies that He has a database and a programming system that stores the past data and depending on the situtaions he manipulates the data and plans the reaction which we term "future" and this is again stored. Well atom too is omniscience. Remember DNA? Well all of the DNA consists primarily of carbon and hydrogen atoms. The nucliec acids too gives it a nitrogen. But then overall it is same. Yet, a person can be uniquely identified by his DNA. All our fingerprinting, sex test depend on DNA. Even a DNA bank is going to be opened up in Lucknow shortly. This logically means that DNA has all the information about the person. This also means that this unique information should be reflected in the way the molecule is formed by the atoms. So this means that all these carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen atoms have been programmed to combine in a unique way to give that uniqueness to the molecule and hence to the person. So just by studying the DNA we can predict a person's behavior and tendencies more or less. For that matter any substance can be explained by knowing its atomic structure. That is the purpose of the periodic table ! It has segregated the atoms and grouped them into Alkali metals, Alkaline earth metals, Transition compounds etc. for predicting the properties. Well atom is omniscience
God is omnipotent i.e. He can do anything and everything. When I say anything and everything three types of activities of God comes to my mind, given by Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba - Generation, Organization and Destruction. Can atoms generate? Well yes ! That is the entire physical and biological science about. Atoms combine and form molecules and aggregation of molecules gives us visible matter. Have you seen earthworms reproduce asexually? Or by the way a lizard growing its tail when it gets cut off? Well such things are not possible if atoms cannot multiply and generate their own clones. Can they organize? Well yes again ! That is the entire funda of isomers ! They have the same atoms and they are the same molecules, well the only difference is that arrangement of atoms in two isomers are different, resulting in many different type of properties. Glucose - D is different from Glucose -L. All these colours we see in the external world are due to specific organization of atoms at the micro level. And lastly atoms can destroy too ! That is the entire concept of Einstein's theory of relativity. Matter can transform to energy. All the radioactive decay that we see around is basically atoms destrying themselves.
God is omnipotent i.e. He can do anything and everything. When I say anything and everything three types of activities of God comes to my mind, given by Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba - Generation, Organization and Destruction. Can atoms generate? Well yes ! That is the entire physical and biological science about. Atoms combine and form molecules and aggregation of molecules gives us visible matter. Have you seen earthworms reproduce asexually? Or by the way a lizard growing its tail when it gets cut off? Well such things are not possible if atoms cannot multiply and generate their own clones. Can they organize? Well yes again ! That is the entire funda of isomers ! They have the same atoms and they are the same molecules, well the only difference is that arrangement of atoms in two isomers are different, resulting in many different type of properties. Glucose - D is different from Glucose -L. All these colours we see in the external world are due to specific organization of atoms at the micro level. And lastly atoms can destroy too ! That is the entire concept of Einstein's theory of relativity. Matter can transform to energy. All the radioactive decay that we see around is basically atoms destrying themselves.
God is omnipresent that is He is everywhere. Atoms too are. All matter visible and invisible are made up funadamental particles called atoms. It is found even in the boiling sun and at the coldness of Pluto. So atoms are spread everywhere.
God is divinely simple i.e. He is full by himself. Atoms too are for all of them consists of same proton, neutron and electron. Only the number of electron differs and this is necessary to give it various unique attributes. This can again be compared with the numerous powers God is said to manifest.
Last but not the least, like God, atom is eternal but can manifest itself depending on the need and time. This is verily explained by quantum physics; which says that atom can both be a wave and particle. Numerous experiments have proved it.
So is Atom God? I think so after all these reasonings.
Possible Flaws
Like all good scientists, I calmed down after the initial euphoria and began to think the possible flaws of my reasoning. We basically do to save our skin from any arguments. To my dismay I found too many flaws in my reasoning. I have noted down here a few important and not so obvious once.
Like all good scientists, I calmed down after the initial euphoria and began to think the possible flaws of my reasoning. We basically do to save our skin from any arguments. To my dismay I found too many flaws in my reasoning. I have noted down here a few important and not so obvious once.
1- Throughout my reasoning I used "molecules" to defend my arguments and not 'atoms' per se. It is more of an implicit assumption that the differences in the molecular level will be reflected in the atomic level. Well sometimes it is true, sometimes it is false. Even the molecular theory says that the properties of the molecules may be fundamentally unique from that of the atoms it is made of.
2 - There are so many atoms. The periodic table has 118 elements. But God is one right ? So are there are 118 Gods? well the only way I thought of countering this is that we have so many Gods like Krishna, Rama, Vinayaka and so on, each representing a different functionality of the same power. So all these atoms are representative of different functionality. But here again numerous questions come. They are representating "whose" functionality? So is there still a common source? From where do the electrons and protons come? What makes them join a nucleus in a particular number and is there a common sink for the electrons, protons and neutrons?
3 - Regarding the omnipresence of atoms, well how can we be sure of that we are encountering the same atom and not the similar one. Logically speaking the probabilty is very low.
4 - Particles smaller than the atom has been found. Quarks are supposed to be building blocks of atoms. but then this counters that God is creato and not the created ! So is quark God? Then this entire reasoning is flawed.
5 - I said that atoms are found wherever we have visible and invisible matter. But then what about space? There no matter is present? So is that place "godless"? Is God's omniprescence challenged there?
Social Implications
Flawed or not, my theory has lot of social implications. For the first time I can prove God is one ! Through electron microscope one can observe atoms and find that basically they are same types having the three basic components. There is nothing like a Ram atom or Rahim atom. So nothing will be left to imagination and debate whether they are same. People can see and feel God as something tangible. Its work and beauty can be appreciated. And respect for it too develops. with respect, a sense of fear comes and hence the powers of the atom can be utilised and not misused. So laws become simpler with CTBT, and NPT coming to an end. And most importantly religion becomes practical giving no scope for hooligans to play with innocent emotions in name of God ! Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man will become the order of the day and not something to be delivered from a podium. And in reality we can start the day with god, spend the day with god and end the day with god.
Flawed or not, my theory has lot of social implications. For the first time I can prove God is one ! Through electron microscope one can observe atoms and find that basically they are same types having the three basic components. There is nothing like a Ram atom or Rahim atom. So nothing will be left to imagination and debate whether they are same. People can see and feel God as something tangible. Its work and beauty can be appreciated. And respect for it too develops. with respect, a sense of fear comes and hence the powers of the atom can be utilised and not misused. So laws become simpler with CTBT, and NPT coming to an end. And most importantly religion becomes practical giving no scope for hooligans to play with innocent emotions in name of God ! Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man will become the order of the day and not something to be delivered from a podium. And in reality we can start the day with god, spend the day with god and end the day with god.
So what say, is atom God?
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