On Distinguishing God's Aseity from a Hole in the Ground

A riddle: what is without a doubt the biggest gap in all of creation? It's an important question, because evidently even a modest sized gap provokes religiosity.

For example, according to the geniuses at (living on borrowed) Time Magazine, There Are No Atheists at the Grand Canyon. Thus, "all it takes is a little awe to make you feel religious."

Awwwww... isn't that nice?

I yield to no one in my awe at the canyonesque emptyheadedness of the MSM, but it doesn't make me feel especially religious. Rather, vice versa: the wisdom I derive from religious tradition renders me speechless in the face of such numinous cluelessness. Confronted with such a gap between words and reality, I can only remind myself that man is a fallen creature, especially when he doesn't realize it.

I'm almost afraid to read the article, because there is nothing to be gained by shooting down an idiot. Doing so can puff up one's pride, but it doesn't take a genius to run circles around a retard.

And I use the latter term advisedly, since there are spiritual retards, just as there are intellectual, moral, aesthetic, and social retards. Not to prejudge the case, but I'm guessing the author is catastrophically vertically challenged.

"Any fool can feel religious around the holidays."

Spoken like a true fool. Better start by defining "religious." Besides, it sounds like the point of this piece is that any fool can feel religious while looking at the Grand Canyon. Thus, it appears that Kluger literally doesn't know God's aseity from a hole in the ground.

Into which he only digs himself deeper, for "there’s nothing quite like nature -- with its ability to elicit feelings of jaw-dropping awe -- to make you contemplate the idea of a higher power."

Well. Yes and no. Nature has no such "ability."

Rather, it is human beings who are able to see beyond appearances to the underlying reality. Human intelligence is intrinsically (and quite literally) supernatural, in that it is conformed to a reality that is not only beyond nature, but the source of nature. Yes, the world is metaphysically transparent, but not to lower animals and MSM hacks (but I repeat myself).

We interrupt this article for a distracting link to another brainwave, this one on why It’s Social Ties -- Not Religion -- That Makes the Faithful Give to Charity. First of all that is grammatically incorrect: Social Ties make, not makes. Second of all, everyone knows it's the IRS that makes us give to "charity." Religion only encourages us, minus the threat of imprisonment.

"All awe contains a slight element of fear or at least vulnerability, and the sooner we have an explanation for what it is we’re seeing and how it came to be, the more reassured we are."

Hmm. I know all about what the IRS is and how it came to be, but I am not reassured. Rather, I'm still frightened of it.

Kluger's point also makes no sense vis-a-vis the Grand Canyon. I mean, everyone knows the Grand Canyon is a result of erosion. So, why does the awe persist?

And it seems to me that fear is quite distinct from awe. I'd probably be awfully afraid to ride one of those donkeys into the Canyon, but I can't imagine it would be a religious experience.

The author concludes by tossing out the same reductionist garbage he disingenuously inserted at the outset: "couldn’t the awe-inspiring also be explained by the random interplay of chemistry, physics and time -- nature in other words -- rather than a spiritual being?"

Hmm. Are we really in awe of randomness, which is another word for the high entropy absence of information? If so, then the most awe-inspiring thing would be the kind of absolute stupidity reflected in this article. Sometimes a gap is just a gap, i.e., a space full of nothing.

"And if so, couldn’t scenes of space or the Grand Canyon make you seek answers by becoming an astronomer or a geologist, rather than looking to religion?"

Yes, I suppose so, for it scarcely matters what sorts of stories frightened monkeys make up in order to sooth themselves and try to make the awful awe go away.

That was an unanticipated digression. Back to our riddle: what is the biggest gap, the grandest canyon, in all of creation?

Well yes, man obviously. But what accounts for man?

I think it has to do with what is hinted at on page 125 of the book, Nature's Greatest Invention: The Helpless Baby. Specifically, the "premature" birth of the human infant at a neurologically incomplete stage confers a kind of infinite plasticity on the human mind.

No, not literally infinite, in the sense that there are also nonlocal guardrails that guide development and give it form. But the brain itself is the closest thing to infinitude in all of existence. Some people put the number of possible brain connections at 100 trillion, but I think the real figure is incalculable.

So the human infant is without question the most awesome gap there can be, this side of the Creator. I haven't read Benedict's Infancy Narratives, but I'll bet there is some relevant information there, because there is no doubt that the Word could not become man without first becoming an infant, a fetus, an embryo, a blastocyst, all the way down. For the abyss between man and God must be filled at the very foundation in order for the gap to become a bridge.

How perfectly awe-ful!