(Yes, I know that’s a picture of a galaxy… throw me a bone here!)
I first noticed it on How I Met Your Mother. Ted appeals to “the universe” quite often and talks quite often about how “the universe wants this to happen.”
I thought it was funny at first, but it’s gone way beyond that. It’s become a way of life. It’s become a philosophy and a religion. People honestly and earnestly use the phrase “I think the universe is saying…” I’m calling it the “Consciously Reacting Universe Doctrine” or “CRUD” for short.
I am so tired of this CRUD. I am so tired of people treating the universe like it’s alive.
Let’s clear this up right now: the universe can’t tell you anything.
The universe can’t want things. The universe can’t do anything to, for, or about anything! The universe is an inanimate, humongous, space, sparsely filled with gigantic planets. It’s cold, and dark, and fairly freaky. We don’t know everything about it, I’ll admit. It might have other living creatures. It might have an end. It might be cooling at a constant rate until it will ultimately run down and cease to expand outward as it currently does. One thing is sure though: IT will never cease to be an IT.
“It”s don’t think, “it”s don’t feel, and “it”s don’t speak.
“Who”s do.
This ridiculous trend of giving the universe anthropomorphic qualities is a reflection of the need for a higher power which is deeply embedded into the fabric of humanity.
C.S. Lewis practically predicted this phenomenon outright in The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape tells Wormwood, “I have great hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotionalize and mythologize their [human] science to such an extent that what is, in effect, a belief in us [demons], (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy [God].”
That is exactly what’s happened.
Science is rapidly becoming an emotional field, not based on the analysis of evidence, but on the philosophizing of abstracts. One need only read a bit into “multiverse theory” in order to see how true this is.
CRUD is the trickle-down effect of such a change in the fundamental point of science. Science used to be about observing the world and figuring out how it works as a result of those observations. Science is now about postulating about the world and searching for whatever you can to support that postulation.
Any real scientist will affirm the following: in order for something to be scientifically proven it must be (1) observable, (2) testable, and (3) repeatable.
These three qualifications must be met for someone to rightly assert, “Science has proven…” A true scientific discovery and report always follows the basic formula “I did one specific thing over and over again and another specific thing happened every time.”
Anything else is not science. (That doesn’t mean things other than Science aren’t useful, it just means things other than science are not science, and that’s okay.)
You might think I’m over-reacting… but I think people are more serious about this belief than they think they are. Most would deny believing in CRUD but would be comfortable making the cockamamie statements that CRUD thrives on. Either they actually believe it, or they are willfully ignorant of the pantheistic philosophies they are unwittingly ascribing to.
Which is worse, a person who thinks he’s joking but isn’t, or a person who is so apathetic about what he believes he’ll say whatever sounds good regardless of its actual meaning?
Focus on the Family Radio Theater put out a Radio Drama titled C.S. Lewis at War. In it, the Lewis character complains about some men with whom he served a night patrol. The Lewis character says, “One of them talked on and on about the purposes of nature, in the world, to which I expressed the opinion that nature can’t have purposes unless it is rational. And if it is rational you’d better call it God, or a god, or the gods, or the devil. And unless he was a poet specifically giving nature personifications he ought to stop talking that way. It’s bothersome. I wish people knew what they were saying instead of speaking in a fog of obscurities.”
I was ecstatic to hear that the producers at Focus on the Family feel the same way I do. I agree entirely.
“I wish people knew what they were saying instead of speaking in a fog of obscurities.”
I wish people realized what they are really saying when they talk about “the universe” as an active agent. It’s nonsense and should be treated as such.
I’m not the only one miffed about this. Amy Schumer, a vulgar and unappealing comedian from comedy central, picked-up on this same ridiculous CRUD. (disclaimer: there is bad language and dirty humor in this video, but it makes the point well. View with caution.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eqCaiwmr_M
I find it funny that Amy and I finally have something we agree upon. People who talk about the universe like it’s God are ridiculous.
CRUD is actually more dangerous and deadly than those who intelligently deny God’s existence. The new atheists who wouldn’t be caught dead uttering the phrase, “I think the universe is telling me to…” actually know what they believe. (They’re wrong about almost everything, but at least they are clear and mostly consistent in their views.)
The people who do use such a phrase haven’t got a clue what they actually believe. They’ve been duped into, “using bits and pieces of whatever eastern philosophy will drift through their transom.” (To quote Spinal Tap.)
An even deeper level to all of this reveals that original sin is presently and subversively taking hold of human thought. This idea of a willful universe, this CRUD, shows that we innately need a higher power, but also secretly want ourselves to be that power. Hardwired into humanity is the need for God to watch over us. Due to the fall, we want to be God. We would love to have ultimate control over all of reality. Unfortunately, we don’t. God does.
By making the universe the ultimate author of reality (instead of God), we can then ascribe whatever events we want as the universe’s doings.
Read that again. Slowly. It’s important.
By making the universe the ultimate author of reality (instead of God), we can then ascribe whatever events we want as the universe’s doings.
It’s not happening on a conscious level, but it is happening.
With CRUD, we can create our own god. In essence, we can be god, but nobody will know. Pride puts on a humble mask, idolatry puts on a submissive mask, and we sit on the throne of our own ignorance and sin, blissfully awaiting our own destruction.
What a sad and sinful state in which we live. Praise God, for he has made a way out of this self-idolatry masquerading as the phrase “I think the universe is saying…”