No Reason to Thank the Big Bang: Why the “Beginning” Owed Nothing
We use smartphones every day, yet we do not offer prayers of thanks to Benjamin Franklin for discovering electricity every time we plug them in. The civilization and nature we enjoy are merely the results of countless past coincidences and necessities; there is no reason they should become a “debt” for those living in the present. Even if a God created the world and designed its systems, that is a completed event of the past. To attribute the credit for every current action to God simply because He was “first” in a chronological sequence feels as forced as giving all the credit for a masterpiece novel to the inventor of the alphabet.
The Ownership Fallacy: The Platform Designer is Not the Owner of the Content
Christian logic posits God as the “Platform Designer” and seeks to vest the ownership of all content (actions) created on that platform in the designer. Real-world logic dictates otherwise. While it is true that YouTubers can only exist because the YouTube platform exists, the creativity and effort behind a video belong entirely to the creator. The moment we label a creator’s every move as “the platform acting first” simply because the platform provided the space, individual agency evaporates. Our skepticism—the “Why should I?”—is a justified rebellion against having our unique efforts and will swallowed by the massive label of “God’s Precedent Grace.”
Forced Gratitude and the Creation of the Passive Self
Attributing the root of every positive outcome to a God in the distant past paradoxically reduces humans to passive beneficiaries. When achievements won through fierce risk management and difficult decisions are dismissed as “God’s provision,” the sense of human accomplishment is diluted. This “coerced gratitude” is not a mechanism for confirming the basis of our existence; it is a logical shackle intended to subordinate the present self to a past deity. We live upon the legacy of the past, but that legacy does not perform our current actions for us.
Ultimately, the attempt to attribute the precedence of all actions to God may be nothing more than religious rhetoric designed to dismantle “the pride of the individual.” From my secular perspective, life is not a passive acceptance of the past, but an active struggle waged by the “me” of the present using the materials of the given environment.
Rather than thanking a primordial designer, I choose to applaud my own will for taking a step today while enduring risk. Breaking free from the forced worship of origins and reclaiming full sovereignty over “my actions” is the true beginning of independence—a path that makes life more vibrant and responsible.
The Intellectual Property of Min Jin-sung
From chronological traces to algorithmic artifacts.
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