All of us have experienced those special kind of situations: some things are simply too perfect to be a twist of fate. The world seems to be put together by such intriguing circumstances and unexplainable coincidences. It would take a real dim-witted person not to be impressed by it at least every now and then.

Some people need a higher being to project their amazement on. They believe in God. In their view the world is so wonderful and crafted with such detail that only God could have created it. Other people don’t believe in a creator and fully trust in science.

So what do I believe?

I believe in the System. I believe that everything around us, nature, plants, animals and humans, fits together perfectly in this miraculous web of dependents. Every bit of it, however huge or tiny, depends on other bits in a most wonderful way. I don’t know how exactly. Maybe it has something to do with magnetic fields or energy flows or something like that. I have no idea. But that there’s a system, I’m sure of.

You can become aware of the system in the funniest things. For instance, in the past people were very concerned about the time it would take for plastic to degenerate. When plastic was invented, there were no bacteria that would eat it. But a few years ago they looked inside some refuse-dumps and found that the plastic had decayed a lot more than they had expected. In the meantime new bacteria had come into existence, that specifically focused on eating plastic! A nice move by the natural system.

Whenever there’s a problem, the natural system will come up with a solution. But there are also lots of incredible coincidences. A few weeks ago I watched Stephen Fry’s documentary about manic depressives. The most common drug for bipolar people was mentioned: lithium. How peculiar, I thought, that the same substance that is used for batteries that have a plus and minus pole, is helpful for those who have severe plus and minus moods. A coincidence? Or just the way the system works?

However, the best examples of the system are to be found in my father’s work field: homeopathy. With homeopathy you use a diluted substance to cure the symptoms of poisoning by that same substance. It could be that being bitten by a certain snake would result in some kind of mental anxiety. Somebody that has that kind of anxiety, without the snake bite, could very well benefit from the diluted version of the snake’s potion. But people with snake poison like symptoms are also usually very territorially sensitive individualists. Just like snakes. It’s the system at its best. Practising homeopathy requires a lot of knowledge about nature, but is also very interesting because of these logical connections. I know my dad not only sees the fun side of it, but also actually uses the way the system works to find the right cure for his patients.

It’s all so very commonsensical. With a bit of reasoning almost every coincidence seems to make sense. We used to be part of the system, living with our instincts and intuition like animals. Probably when we still were animals.

I guess mankind gave up faith in the natural system when men invented God. Until then we were part of the system. But God gave us a reason for living: we were uplifted out of the system and told that we could reign the world, its plants and animals and the entire nature. Such arrogance, come to think of it.

However, some atheists are so science based that they take on the same arrogance. They think we can only trust in science and that everything can be explored and understood. If not, then it simply doesn’t exist (like a common sceptic view on homeopathy). But I ask you, these people know for sure that our ancestors were apes a few million years ago. Our evolution has taken only such a short amount of time. You cannot honestly think that just a few million years later mankind is capable of understanding everything and anything?

When you take this arrogance into account, science based atheists and religious people are very much alike. Either by believing everything can be understood scientifically or by trusting on God’s plan and creation: they both believe humans are higher and better than the rest of our natural surroundings.

In my opinion it’s impossible for humans to not be an integral part of the system. The world is assembled so brilliantly; it can’t be fully understood by people. It just can’t be, it’s too complex. Once you accept your place in the system and open up your eyes to see your surroundings you can begin to experience the beauty of everything. God and science seem to lose their importance and everything becomes more clear than ever. That’s the system. That’s my religion.

Column published by Cecile on Monday, January 28th, 2008.

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