Question:

Is this all there is?

Is the daily hustle for the things we consume and build around us, that consume our time and energy, which ends in a hospital bed by being told we are terminal, is that all there is to life?

And is this material world we see, with its violence, hatred, storms, earthquakes and calamities, all there is to reality?

Is there more to reality than the visible “natural” world we see around us, that demands our attention each day?

Background:

We are told by atheists in the media and various thought leaders that this material world which we can see and touch is the only reality there is, that truth and beauty are imaginary feelings within us that have no reality outside our small brain. They argue that people and all life are collections of chemicals of this earth, that our “feelings” are just chemical reactions of a type classed as hormones.

Is that true?

And if we can ask, “Is that true?”, does that assume there is an absolute reality of truth, that truth is something above and beyond the rocks and dirt of this earth?

If the visible materialist view is correct, what are the implications for us as creatures? What point is there in pushing ourselves to do “great” things? Because on this basis “great” is purely imaginary, not real.

It means that the complexities of civilisation are not worth studying or preserving, that there is no difference between them and the dung of a cockroach.

Is there something more? With all of those values we hold dear, that guide our lives, do they have an absolute reality?

If we look upon the hatred and violence in this earth as being undesirable, what is the basis for that? Is it any different to love and kindness? And if so, why and how? Does that claim rely on an unseen reality beyond these earthly rocks?

Of course, even extreme atheists will base their lives on more than visible matter; the mobile phones they use, and the internet they work on, all rely the invisible reality of electromagnetic radiation. And until its properties were discovered in the 19th century, its effects must have appeared to be like witchcraft, or dismissed as the imaginings of people. Even now it is estimated that 95% of the universe is “dark matter”, about which we can never know anything, so only 5% of the universe will ever be knowable.

There is so much about this world which we cannot explain, it is unknown in that sense, and yet it is completely known as we rely on it and base our lives on it. The example which Professor John Lennox gives is of consciousness — science has no explanation for what it is, yet it is central to our sense of life.

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