Finding a Religion Amidst the Sciences

Back in high school, my philosophy was based more or less entirely on Loesser's song, Brotherhood of Man:

"Your lifelong membership is free.
Keep agivin' each brother all you can.
Oh aren't you proud to be
In that fraternity,
The great big Brotherhood of Man? "

As rough around the edges (and especially the details) as it was, it guided my entry into politics, which led me eventually to school at GW. There, I took a few social science courses and started to frame my beliefs in terms of the community-- how it's given us everything we have (or don't have) and needs to be paid in kind if we're to leave the world any better than we found it. As I learned more about history and international development, I started to acquire the long view of progress. Utopia as Star Trek: how good health allows for good education, and how that allows for scientific, technological, and cultural advancement.

And then I came here and started my postbac. Somewhere between thermodynamics and biology, I got that critical third piece of the puzzle: the small view. The law of entropy dictates that, like a ball rolling down a hill, all energy tends towards chaos. The only reason there's any organization on this planet is because our sun throws off so much spare heat that we're able to take some of those leftovers and create small piles of order: Cells, plants, worms, krill, fish, bugs, birds, mice, monkeys, humans.

Not only that, but humans got so good at living off this spare change energy that we were able to sit down and start thinking. Then we became cultivars and before long we had highly-ordered societies-- all thanks to the sun breaking a little solar wind in our direction. All the gifts of the community: our families, friends, educations, and cultures, they're all here for the same reason.

Well, here's the rub-- it's all tending towards chaos. Right down to the cellular level, everything desires to be nothing but disordered heat. The best anyone can do, then, is to try and push against it-- roll that ball a little ways back up the hill and try to be efficient enough to leave the planet more ordered than when he found it. That's why I have to give back to the community, at least if I ever want to see space ships buzzing around.