Prometheus

Prometheus was a godlike being (Titan) who stole the gift of fire from the Greek Gods and gave it to humanity so they could progress. In a way, we are gifted with that “fire” in the form of knowledge and a rare few people are able to use that fire to invent extraordinary things. In a way, we have become the Gods of old and new in that we have found the components to fabricate Reality (in the form of Quarks and leptons), we wield weapons that can level entire cities like the Nuclear bomb, we are trying to harness the power of the Sun on a macro level in the form of Fusion reactors and we can cure most diseases which were at one time incurable and fatal. These are but a few examples of what the “fire” of knowledge imbues us with. One day we may become more than humans, transcending our limits, becoming part-machine, part-human, a new renaissance in the form of the Post-Human. Even as I speak, we are progressing to that point where the Creator (human) and the Created (machines) are becoming one in the form of mechanical hearts, synthetic limbs, artificial nanoparticle “blue blood”, stem cells being used to replace tissues and organs which we normally wouldn’t be able to regenerate like the heart, eyes, arms etc. In the old times, whenever we came to a phenomena we had limited knowledge of, we would tend to say it was “God’s will” or the “Gods were punishing us with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions etc because we have sinned”. As time went on and our knowledge expanded, we would no longer turn to Supernatural causes and turn more to Science. The God or the Gods became “God/ Gods of the Gaps” because we would always push that idea to phenomena which Science couldn’t explain.

Why should we be restricted to an idea of Gods or a God creating us and seeming to not care at all about our affairs? Surely the point of the Singularity or “the Big Bang” ,which is the starting point of creation, is sufficient enough and that is how thing are, no metaphysical creator or creators needed. I am open to the idea of there being no Gods or God but it is not something I completely follow blindly. Gods or God could interpreted to be just ideas in our Minds which represent something like how the old Greek Gods represented a facet about human affairs/ emotions.

Perhaps the idea of God/ Gods is really not for explaining phenomena but a need which humans have to sate. As the French philosopher Voltaire put it, “if God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”