Against All Odds
In his later years, Albert Einstein was a much sought after guest lecturer at colleges all over the country, and he often obliged. He said that the question he was most often asked was, do you believe in God? He always answered the same: I believe in the God of Spinoza.
When I ran across this little nugget I immediately consulted the internet oracle to find out about this God, and Spinoza himself. I’d heard of him, and remembered that he was a philosopher or scientist or maybe both from either the renaissance or age of enlightenment? So really, I knew nothing.
Baruch Spinoza was born in 1632, from a practicing Jewish family who lived in Amsterdam. He would become an influential philosopher and eventually get excommunicated from the Jewish faith for his published teachings and views about religion, God, the Universe, etc. A year after his death the government of Holland banned all of his works, even owning one of his books was a crime. In other words, he was probably a pretty interesting guy. After several readings, summations of his metaphysical beliefs are still difficult and obtuse. God did not create the world, but the world is part of God. The universe, including God, is all one substance… and so on and so forth. Dense, dreary stuff.
However, while satisfying my curiosity I ran across a couple of noteworthy things. First is Einstein’s explanation of what he meant. Here is a quote from the great man himself; “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a god who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.“
Once again, Albert nailed it. Straight forward and easy to understand, with profound implications. I suspect a large part of the adult population might agree with this assessment.
The other item is listed as a poem, but it isn’t, really. I couldn’t locate the author, but it is someone's modern interpretation of what they think Spinoza thinks God would say. It’s a beauty, and I’m going to string it out in this little story. It’s called Spinoza, the Substance of God.
I’m thinking about all of these complicated things as I walk along a rugged mountain range near Death Valley. It’s a fine winter day in the desert; blue sky, 60 degrees, no wind, unlimited visibility. Behind me to the east is the Spring Range in Nevada, including 11,000 ft. Mount Charleston, with a faint dusting of snow. Dead ahead about 40 miles away is the Panamint range in Death Valley, with Telescope Peak at just under 11,000 ft. The air is so clear I can see the details on the mountains, even at this distance.
I’m alone, not another human in sight nor sound range. Today I am walking down the western slope of the Nopah Range, and then out into the basin below. The Nopahs are almost exclusively sedimentary rocks, ancient ocean bottoms, shorelines, and river flood plains laid down between about 700 million and 300 million years ago.
Most all of the major mountain ranges in this region are similar, large crustal blocks of ancient, deep time marine sediments that were buried for hundreds of millions of years, but through geologic processes have surfaced once again in this part of the current North American continent.
Imagine that you are carrying 7 or 8 text books and you put them down on a table one at a time. So, the first book you put down would be the oldest book at that location. This represents the geologic basement rock, the oldest rocks found at any given location. The second book, on top of the first, would be younger, since it was laid down after the first one. The third book is even younger, and so on, up to the top of the pile, where the youngest book, the one that was last deposited, rests on top of all the older books.
Now, take the whole stack and tilt it to the right, until gravity gets ahold of it and the books slide off, separating and moving away from each other a bit until the stack reaches an equilibrium and friction stops the movement. You now have a tilted stack of books, with the youngest book on the right, and the books getting progressively older as you go down the stack and to the left.
This is a pretty good analogy of the Nopah Range, with each layer, or book, being a geologic era that went on for tens or hundreds of million years. Nearly all of it is marine, or ocean sediments of various kinds, with occasional freshwater sediments feeding into these seas. Today I am starting at the top right corner of the stack of books and walking diagonally towards the bottom left corner and into the valley below, maybe 3 to 4 miles total.
As I proceed, I’ll be walking back in time, from the youngest rocks at the top down through distinct, successive rock layers, time, and history. And considering God and Spinoza and Einstein along the way.
Spinoza, The Substance of God
God would say;
Stop praying and giving yourselves blows on your chest, what I want you to do, is go out into the world and enjoy your life.
I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I’ve made for you.
Stop going into those gloomy, dark and cold temples that you built yourself, and that you call my home. My house is in the mountains, the forests, the rivers, the lakes, the beaches. That’s where I live and express my love for you.
Well! Hell yes! Now here is a God most anyone could get behind. I’m standing at the top of the Nopah Range, in the Nopah formation, which was laid down beneath ancient seas around 500 million years ago. Multicellular life forms are thriving, and marine invertebrates are the dominant life forms. Lots of wormy things in the oceans: wormius thingyii.
I wonder if God was around back then? Was there a need for one?
As I walk down the rough, jagged carbonate rocks I realize I had better stay focused. If I fall here I’m going to need some divine intervention indeed, or at least an ambulance . Looking off to my right about 100 yards I can see the trace of the Old Spanish Trail snaking down the face of these hard rock formations. This trail was the route across the Mojave Desert from the Spanish capital of Santa Fe to a poor little mud-hole mission settlement named Los Angeles.
Between the 1820’s and 1850’s so many thousands of mules plodded both ways on this trail, so much so, that they wore a plainly visible trail in the hard rock, easily identified. It was a dangerous, arduous journey, with opportunities to get killed all along the way. Sometimes when possible the traders returning to Santa Fe would kidnap local Paiute women and children and sell them as slaves in Santa Fe. Did they cry out to their God for help? Probably.
Stop blaming me for your miserable life. I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner.
Wait. What? What about original sin? The blood of Christ? His sacrifice for us, all of that stuff? The subject of endless sermons and the favorite cudgel of televangelists everywhere is a nothing burger?
Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can’t read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your sons eyes.. you will find me in no book!
Perfect! I’m never sitting through another high mass, ever. Quite a relief, if this is true. Lots to think about as I traverse down this mountain, which is either yet another proof of God’s wondrous creation, or simply the results of natural processes and the laws of physics over unfathomable stretches of time…
I walk out of the Nopah formation and onto the Bonanza King formation, about 520 million years old. Boring stuff, about 20 million years worth of slow accumulation of sediment and chemicals at the bottom of ancient seas. Primitive life forms are figuring out a way forward, particularly in shallow, warm water settings. Organisms like trilobites and crinoids are thriving. If the hand of a deity was there, it was slow and patient. Incredibly slow and patient.
Off to my right, the clear track of the Old Spanish Trail has disappeared beneath the erosion and rubble of the last 200 years. What could it have been like walking that journey 200 years ago? Very much like what I am doing today. The landscape was the same, and there were even fewer people than there are today. Living in a terrain dominated by the geology is a constant reminder of the comical pittance that is the human time scale. 200 years? Are you kidding me?
Stop being so scared. I do not judge you, nor criticize you. Nor, am I ever angry with you—nothing bothers me. Neither, do I devise punishment. I am pure love.
Hmm, this is inviting and yet bothersome at the same time. So there is no consequence for truly horrendous behavior? No accountability? What about Hitler, the Caesars, Genghis Khan, or Stalin? Those who slaughtered millions and caused unspeakable horror and pain get a pass? There has to be some rules, it would seem. How can you love Charles Manson as much as you love me? The most debauched life is equal to that of Mother Theresa? I’m starting to have some doubts about this god of Spinoza.
Stop asking for forgiveness, there is nothing to forgive. If I made you, I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies of free will. How can I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being as you are, if I am the one who made you?
I’m beginning to understand how Spinoza got into hot water with both the Jewish and Christian faiths. So it’s all up to us? No help or righteous punishment from the divine sector? Prayer is a waste of time? What about the whole concept of god’s grace? Considering those times, I’m surprised Spinoza did not end up tied to a pole on the receiving end of a large pile of firewood. During his lifetime he was chastised and disciplined for his writings, but he was allowed to make a living as a lens grinder, making precise and accurate magnifying lenses for some of the top scientists of his day.
Back in time I go again, as I walk onto the Carrera formation. Here, it is mostly a green shale, full of trilobite fossils from 530 million years ago. This is only one member of the Carrera formation; 90 miles further north it shows up on the surface as something quite different. Old ocean bottom and coral reefs, dolomite and limestone that has been heated and pressurized at great depths in the crust until it metamorphosed into a gleaming white marble, which was then brought back up to the surface by tectonic processes.
Around 1900 hopeful mining speculators named it the Carrera formation, after the famous marble in Italy that Michelangelo and others used to create their stunning masterpieces, and from which some of the Vatican is made. A small town was actually constructed there, investors were bilked, and grand plans were made. But as pretty as this new marble was, it was also badly shattered by the geologic forces that had exposed it on the planet’s surface. It is hard to find a piece bigger than a loaf of bread that isn’t shot full of cracks and weaknesses. Fortunes were lost, and dreams were shattered. More of God’s handiwork?
Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who misbehave for an eternity? What kind of god can do that? Respect your peers and don’t do to others what you don’t want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that your alert status is your guide.
Ok god, you’re back on track here. The classic notion of hell has always seemed both childish and terrifying. Indeed, what kind of a god would do that? And, of course, the golden rule; universally recognized and recommended by every culture on earth.
Life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, not a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing there is, here and now and the only thing you need.
After a lifetime of living in these rocks, in this fantastical junkyard of millennia, of hundreds of millions of years of biological and planetary disasters and recoveries, I have come to the same conclusion. The deity has had plenty of opportunities to show itself, to save its creation and its children. So far it seems to be a no show. Enjoy your ride folks, because when it’s over, it’s over.
I have made you absolutely free, there are no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record. You are absolutely free in your life to create a Heaven or hell.
Lots to think about as I walk out of the Carrera formation and onto the Zabriskie quartzite. We’re now back about 540 million years, and yes, hundreds of feet of yet more ancient sea bottom. Except that here, the ancient sea was buried to such a great depth in the crust that the heat and pressure caused the actual molecules to come apart. The heat almost melts it, and the chemicals and molecules begin to separate out into different layers, and to consider the possibilities of new chemical bonds and molecular arrangements. The whole stew is on its’ way to becoming quartz, one of the basic mineral building blocks of the planet. Except that it isn’t quite hot enough or under enough pressure to finish the process. The former ocean bottom instead becomes quartzite, in this case alternating bands of light and dark purple rocks, absolutely lovely stuff. It is crystalline and hard, hard. Hard as a preacher's pecker, as an old miner once told me. Not much new was going on biologically, trilobites still rule the roost.
But back to Spinoza. This last passage flies in the face of some core beliefs of the Judeo-Christian tradition. There is no need for a deity, even if it created all of this. We are simply here, responsible for our own lives, no ultimate consequences for our behavior, and … nothing afterwards? It seems truly remarkable that Spinoza wasn’t pulled apart in the most gruesome way possible by one faith or the other.
I couldn’t tell you if there’s anything after this life but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist.
So, if there’s nothing after, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured I won’t ask if you behaved well or not. I’ll ask, did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?
Out of the Carrera now and into the Wood canyon formation. This is yet more marine sediments, but with more sandstones and shale in them. These are made up of grains of previous formations, which by 540 million years ago had already been eroded down into sand and mud, and then would be compressed into today’s sandstones and shale. How long does it take to build a mountain range or continent, then wear it down into sand, then bury it miles deep, heat and compress it into stone again, and then lift it to the surface so I can walk along it today? The answer is a probably about a billion years or more in this case. A billion years; all provable by modern science, without the use of a deity. How are we supposed to even grasp the concept of a billon years? Think about our own lives; if we are unusually lucky a few of us reach 100 years. Ten of those is a mere 1000 years. A thousand of those is a million years, and a 1000 of those is a billion years. Unfathomable to my mind. My brain is full.
Stop believing in me. To believe is to assume, guess, imagine. I don’t want you to believe in me, I want you to feel me when you kiss your beloved, when you play with your little girl, when you love your dog, when you bathe in the sea.
I don’t really understand the first part of this, but the rest is lovely. A balm for the troubled soul.
Stop praising me, what kind of egotistical God do you think I am? I’m bored being praised. I’m tired of being thanked.
I’ve always wondered about this. Why the incessant need for praising god by Christianity? It’s god, for chrissakes, why does it need praising from little worms like us? The same goes for all the thanking. Seems like another ruse to keep the peasants in line.
As I walk downhill, the terrain becomes noticeably less steep, and from here on down the geologic units are buried beneath the rubble of an alluvial fan that stretches for a mile or more out in front of me.
Do you feel grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world around you. Do you feel overwhelmed? Express your joy! That’s the way to praise me.
Ok god, we’re back on track here. Life is tough indeed, and this is good, solid advice. We are all overwhelmed. We all need to enjoy the moment and be grateful for whatever pleasures our individual journeys have brought us. And if this counts as praise, so much the better. I think Spinoza and Einstein both had this realization, as have millions of other wise people. Way to go, Baruch and Albert.
As I walk down the alluvial fan the grade becomes even less steep, a pleasant, slightly downhill walk. Miles of the medicinal creosote bush spread out in front of me, dark green and resilient, it is the dominant shrub throughout the Mojave desert. 2-3 miles in the distance I can see the big trees and greenery of Resting Spring, one of the most important stops on the Spanish Trail across the desert. Travelers going in both directions had to make it to this strategic stop to let their horses and livestock rest and graze for a few days, thus the name. The spring is big enough to support several acres of farming, and wood from the trees could be used to fashion new wagon wheel spokes to replace any broken ones. The 1840’s version of a flat tire, essentially. It was sometimes occupied by the local Paiutes, and the travelers could bargain and trade for a bit of fresh produce or game.
I know that the trace of the trail is here somewhere, and so I start walking perpendicular to its route, a line between the visible mule track back up on the pass and Resting Spring in the distance. After about 15 minutes of wandering and searching it materializes in front of me. But here it looks different. It is two wagon ruts worn into the surface of the desert, clearly visible even though there are now waist- high creosote bushes, yuccas, and occasional chollas growing between the ruts. This is the remnant of what was called the Mormon Road. By 1850 the Mormons have established their own kingdom of Zion in modern day Utah, and they have a thriving colony in California in San Bernardino. The Mormon Road connected these two, and wherever it was possible for wagons to go they laid their new wagon road over the top of the existing Spanish Mule trail, which was generally headed in the same direction.
Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you’ve been taught about me. The only thing sure is that you are here, that you are alive, and that this world is full of wonders.
The Mormon pioneers were an interesting group. Religious zealots driven by a fierce belief in a new world version of Christianity, their new religion spread at a surprising rate, and continues to do so today. They were capable of heroic efforts of labor and organizational discipline. They were also capable of the same cruelty and bloodshed that has plagued most major religions. At Mountain Meadows in Utah they slaughtered an entire wagon train of wealthier pioneers headed for California, in what was the largest incident of domestic terrorism until the Oklahoma City bombing. Over 150 innocent men, women and children were murdered, their wealth taken and distributed, and the entire event was covered up and “disappeared." Never heard of it? That’s no accident. Did god choose sides on that one? Does it ever?
What do you need more miracles for? Why so many explanations?
I for one am not concerned about miracles, but the need for explanations seems fair enough. We are a curious lot. We have many big questions, some of which we cannot answer. A little help from the divine would be nice, occasionally. Something we can see. Something we can test. Something that can’t be disputed.
On beyond Resting Spring I can see the soft mud hills and vast expanse of the playa that is ancient Lake Tecopa. Remember that we left the coherent formations about 540 million years ago, they being buried beneath the current alluvium that we are walking on? The formations are down there, just waiting their turn to be exposed and eroded away again in the never ending geologic cycle.
Anyway, we take a giant leap forward in time when we look at the Tecopa Lake Playa. It’s a complicated story, perhaps too much geology, but essentially these Mojave desert basins like the one in front of me are filled with Pleistocene age sediments, very recent, less than 2 million years old. Reoccurring ice ages and melt- offs covered and uncovered the top half of North America half a dozen times or more during this period. The glaciers did not make it this far south, but when they melted the runoff filled these basins with water and sediment washed in from other regions of the continent as well as the regional mountains.
When the runoff stopped these lakes would eventually evaporate away, leaving concentrations of whatever chemicals and salts that had been washed in. A hundred thousand years later the process would repeat itself, washing in and piling up more mud and various chemical brines caused by the eventual evaporation. Remember, the last ice age glaciers receded, maybe temporarily, only about 10,000 years ago. All of human history and development has taken place in this brief interlude, maybe the glaciers just taking a breather until they return again. Maybe they will scrape the palette clean, and chase the survivors towards the equator once again. Kind of humbling, isn’t it?
In the late 1800’s people would begin to mine some of these evaporite salts. Gypsum, borax, potassium salts and others could be just scraped off of the crust of some of these ancient dry lakes. Borax in particular would be profitable in the Death Valley region. Here, Chinese workers were brought in from San Francisco to do the miserable work. They had to sign a contract to stay for a year, they worked 7 days a week, and were paid 1.50 a day. One of these workers would leave the near slavery of the borax works and begin a farm in a hidden canyon just a few miles away. It thrived, and was called 'the chinamans’ ranch,' and later just china ranch. My home.
Don’t look for me outside, you won’t find me. Find me inside…there I’m beating in you.
My hike is over, and I look back up at the 50+ million years of geologic history I have traversed this morning. It is just a fraction of what is exposed around Death Valley, both above and below this particular stack of books there are much bigger stacks, all with their stories to reveal, going back to about 1.7 billion years. Maybe I’ll consider Spinoza and Einstein again on the next walk, but probably something else. And what about a deity, did I learn anything? Become convinced one way or the other? Not really. But there are many more hikes, many more rocks to learn about, many more fine days to spend outside on this marvelous planet. Does it exist? Seems doubtful. Maybe. I don’t really think so. Possibly. Against all odds.
