Evolution, as I have already stated sometime back on this blog, is a fascination these days. Fundamentally, I see it as a gigantic A/B testing mechanism operating over large swathes of time, with only one seeming agenda – moving on. A lot of things make immense sense when I accept that as the only framework. Including the idea of God, which has several key roles. e.g. to provide the impetus to move on even when things are not going well (faith), explain the things that science cannot (yet) and so on. If it helps someone, it is a great idea, though as a species we have been consistently been stupid enough to let the practitioners of organised faith take advantage of us for their own needs.
But that’s not what this post is about. One of the offshoots of faith (God/Cosmos/insert whatever works for you) is the related idea of cosmic/divine justice. I used to believe in that until very recently, and it was one of the attributes of being what I called myself – a spiritual person. But at this point, I don’t think it exists. There are at least two perspectives that brought me to it.
One is that when I really thought about it, the reasons for my belief in cosmic justice were quite selfish. I wanted it to do what I was ‘powerless’ to do. A solace that justice would be served without my intervention for crimes against me/others. I also wanted some kind of repayment happening to me if I did the ‘right’ things. It is something my consciousness created for its own reasons. Just like the idea of God, it is a belief system that affects the way I view events.
Speaking of consciousness, the second point. As I wrote in an earlier post, it is only because of consciousness and the development of our brain that we are able to see a pattern in the events of the past and and attribute it to predestination, and connect it to our here and now. Many a time I have experienced things that I would attribute to cosmic justice, but there are many, many more instances when that concept has failed. (or not been proven yet) It was just my confirmation bias that attributed things to cosmic justice.
So what does exist? Random chance. And if everything is indeed chance and/or the machinations of man/nature, justice can only exist if another consciousness sees an injustice and decides to act on it. Or if a person continues to behave in a certain ‘unjust’ way, logic dictates that at some point, a reaction will happen from another person who will take it upon himself/herself to dispense justice. Of course, since we haven’t really fathomed the brain and consciousness, there is a possibility that some sort of latent collective consciousness does exist and does play a role in ‘conspiring to make it happen.’ But until we figure that out, I think cosmic justice is just another narrative fallacy and we’re on our own.
