Self And The Phenomenon Of Life: A Biologist Examines Life From Molecules To Humanity

Self, Realities, and the Transcendents 323

“9x6” b2726 Self and the Phenomenon of Life: A Biologist Examines Life from Molecules to Humanity

persuasive as they were. (See, for example, Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am
Not a Christian.)^18 Hell as the deepest core of Earth where sinners live in
eternal flame, and Heaven as the uppermost stratum of sky full of eternal
bliss, and the unfortunate misstep of our first ancestors resulting in man-
kind’s original sin, have all but lost their metaphorical appeal. Since the
nineteenth century, existential philosophers discarded the notion of an
omnipotent, personal God as the underpinning of all beings. However,
stripping all external support and exposing each personal self to a cold
and bottomless void does not alleviate the existential predicament.
Nevertheless, there are alternative ways to seek man’s place in the
universe, ways to find solace to man’s existential woe, and that is to fuse
one’s self with the natural world — the universe. Here is an excerpt
from the book Laozi (Lao–Tzu) on the ultimate reality^19

“There is this Thing, undefined and pre-existing Heaven and Earth,

silent, solitary and unchanging. It goes on forever, endlessly. It is

the mother of the world. Not knowing its name, I dub it Dao (Way);

compelled to name it, I call it The Greatness...Man conforms to Earth;

Earth conforms to Heaven; Heaven conforms to Dao; Dao conforms

to Nature.”^20

Fig. 14.2. The existential crisis. [Permission Patrick Hardin.]