I was recently reading a book (Δημήτρης Νανόπουλος, Στον τρίτο βράχο από τον Ήλιο) for Nanopoulos, the famous physicist.

At a point within this book, the great scientist was contemplating on the human existence. His philosophy? Astonishingly shallow.

For Nanopoulos, we just happened to exist in a random universe. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just happened. This is a typical atheistic way of thinking, which is mostly covered under the cloak of scientism in today’s era. Not surprisingly, such way of thinking is famous among people with little or no relation to philosophy and theology per se.

For is they had such a relationship, it would be self-evident to them that there is no way to find meaning in a random world. Especially if you are a creature which just ‘happened’ to exist in such a random world.

Nanopoulos does praise the skills of the human brain to discover the ‘truth’ and how the ‘creation’ of the universe happened. And yet, he does not tell us why and how such a thing could happen in a random universe where our brain just happened to exist. Why is it important to have science in a random cosmos where thing just ‘happen’? Why should we care for anything in such a random cosmos? What is so astonishing in formulating a new quantum mechanics theory in a random cosmos? Does our random brain work properly? Or does it work randomly? Should we trust such a random brain which just happened to work as it does?

It is really sad that scientists of the magnitude of Nanopoulos fall into the trap of modern atheistic dogmatism in such a way. In such cases, the story of Pliny reminds us of the importance to stay within the boundaries of our trade when speaking publicly.

So the next time an atheist says to you that we are just “creatures which happened to be in a random universe” ask him “What does anything matter in such a universe?”

Oh, and if you happen to come across Nanopoulos.

Just tell him…

Sutor, ne ultra crepidam!