philoessay3

Of God and Science

It is often puzzling to me that some people would find scientific discoveries, and science
in general, to be contrary to the idea of God. And yet there are people on both sides who
share this view; scientists who think that science disproves God, and people of faith who
feel that science itself should be viewed with suspicion; as though the hidden goal of
science as a whole is the debunking of God.

In truth, perhaps neither viewpoint describes what actually is. The comparison is crass;
but think about our reality in this way for just a moment.

Picture an isolated tribe somewhere, that had never been exposed to modern
technology, and then imagine setting a car amongst them. The thing would seem like a
miracle - as though we had pulled the it out of a hat, complete and whole.

Our reality; the planet we are standing on, the solar system we are spinning around in, the
galaxy and the universe that we inhabit, is like that car. When we were young, looking at
the world through fresh eyes, we saw one big thing, and understood little about how it
worked.

The same with our mythical tribesmen.

And like them, they would begin to explore the car, just as we began to explore our world.
They would discover that the car was made up of smaller parts, and those parts were
made up of smaller parts - just as science has done with reality.

It would be easy to think, perhaps, that as science explains exactly the way things work
they become less miraculous. That theory is crass, and does not grasp the complexities
of that which we see around us every day.

Science can only explain to us the mechanical way in which our world works - it can be
proved or disproved because it takes place entirely inside our own existence. As we
grow, that existence grows with us, and so does our understanding of the mechanical
nature of the universe. Science cannot explain anything beyond that; scripture gives us
hints, and sometimes clear understanding. But unlike science, there is always the need to
look at the other side of our life, and ask ourselves if what we are doing is really God’s
will.

Just as the natives would gradually figure out the car on a deeper and deeper level, that
does not deny the miracle that the car could be built in the first place.

Science is the physical description of the forces which God set moving; the result of
those forces, which come from outside our reality, gives us what we see today. It is easy
enough to say God snapped his fingers and we were here, but that denies the true
miracle of God’s invention. It may be easy for us to imagine God snapping his fingers,
and suddenly everything is here - but that is just the way it seems to us. If the act of
creation took one microsecond of God’s attention and time, I am betting God could tell
you exactly what he had done.

And, just like an engineer explaining rubber compounds to people who do not know what
rubber is, that explanation would be lost upon us. When we go into the next realm, after
the last sleep which comes to us all, those questions will, I am sure be answered at least
in part.

I personally want to know exactly how this machine which we call our world works. God
gave it to us in a pristine form, and accordingly we should try to treat it; accordingly we
should try to plumb it’s mysteries, for only by a truthful and thorough study of our reality,
only by an expanding base of knowledge of the exact way God designed the physical
aspects of our reality can we help to expand our knowledge of God. This has been
proven again and again. The church tried to throttle scientific information because the
information threatened the way they did business. In the end, though, those tribulations
were good for the health of the church.

To think that I am here by accident seems a bit to farfetched to me. I am, I hope, a
pessimistic optimist. A realist, of sorts. And, according to science’s study of how the
universe was formed, and the odds that life could never have happened if things had
been a bit different are just to great. I have never really believed in coincidences, except
in movies. I am sure there are some; but I am just as sure that we are no coincidence or
mistake.

Just as in the study of the bible, the study of nature proceeds in fits and starts. As our
understanding of nature grows, we realize that there are near infinite gradations of what
we consider reality, and that the more secrets we discover the answers to the more
questions it raises.

The subject of time is a perfect example. To God, time is irrelevant. God knows all that is,
was and ever shall be, and he knows it all at once. We are not like that; we see time as a
SlideShow of events, marching forward with nothing we can do about it. The subject of
freewill is therefore a sticky one; how can God know what has already happened, and
freewill exist at the same time? A reasonable person would have to say that it could not,
and could use that as an argument against any type of God.

But suddenly, science is an ally - for scientists in the field of physics, through
experimentation, have proven that the biblical perception of time is accurate. The
experiment has to do with the way light rays are bent around celestial objects, and the
time it takes them to travel in certain ways. The science and the math is well above my
level of intelligence, but all serious physicists know that ‘is, was and always shall be’ is a
true description of what we consider the inexorable march of time.

It is for this reason that change in religion can be good as well; just as our understanding
of the machinery of God’s miracle grows, so should our understanding of life, and of God
and the true purpose we are here.

Religion has been misused in the past, to steal treasure and oppress people. And it has
been used to the good as well. It is up to us, in this world, to make the right decisions, to
make sure that our religions are used for the good of the people - to analyze the best way
to achieve the love and compassion that is inherent in God, and to make sure that our
respective religions reflect God’s will, and God’s love - and not our will, or our perception
of who deserves love and compassion and who does not.