You Don't Have to Punt God for Science

One of the greatest challenges for the modern Christian is to reconcile the relationship between their faith and science. Certainly, this difficulty is not only felt by Christians, but any religion that has an authority that they view as superior to the natural order. Conflict arises when the data seems to be telling us one thing, while our religion tells us that another thing has occurred. In Christianity, this is most obvious in things like the resurrection of the dead, the age of the earth, and miraculous healings, and the fore-telling of the future.

Here is how the conflict generally begins. For example, let us take the idea of the age of the earth as our example. If we take Moses seriously in Genesis chapter one, then God created this universe in the span of six days. He wrote, "And God said, "Let there be light" and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were day one" (Gen. 1:3-5). He put in evening and morning, and he called it day one. Pretty hard not to follow Moses' thinking.

It is scientifically ridiculous to believe that this is possible. This act of creation cannot be duplicated, it cannot be verified as to how it happened, and everything in science indicates that the universe must be billions or trillions of years old, not mere thousands as the Genesis account seems to indicate. If the universe were only thousands of years old, we wouldn't be able to see the stars because the light wouldn't have even reached earth yet! So how is the Christian to reconcile these things.

One thing to do is to punt Genesis One as allegory or poetry. The problem is that everyone knows that this is cheating. Genesis one wasn't written as allegory and it doesn't conform to Hebrew poetry. Moses was writing simple prose, and he was quite serious. Punting is an option for a Christian, but it isn't a very brave or thoughtful one. Much of what the Christian faith teaches is just as scientifically absurd as creation ex nihilo, not least of all the idea that Jesus is fully God, fully man, and that he died, stayed dead for three days, and then resurrected himself. Oh yes, and Jesus did all of this 2,000 years ago in order to save people from the eternal consequences that adultery brings. So really, Christians shouldn't wuss out on Genesis One because they haven't thought through their authority structures with regard to truth, too much is at stake.

If a Christian does go ahead and own Genesis one, then the modern world will look at them incredulously. They seem to be denying the obvious: the universe is 'old', not new. This is, in the end, an appeal to authority, and science is a good authority. It is observable, and it is testable, and it works. It works almost every time.

We can use science to fight disease, determine age, and make a multitude of discoveries about the universe and everything in it. But something God does something unusual, like instantly eradicating cancer, raising someone from the dead, or create an entire universe out of nothing. This is where science will fail. It simply cannot be used to test the veracity of a miracle; it cannot prove a miracle has occurred.

Herein lies the dilemma of the scientist or naturalistic man. The religious man has to decide if he wants to punt on Genesis for the sake of science. The naturalist has to decide if he wants to punt miracles, and ultimately the existence of God, so that science can be his supreme authority.

I do not write about these things merely to convince the naturalist to believe the Bible. I write these things so that both Christians and scientists can understand what is at stake when they discuss these things. This is about miracles, God, and science. The Christian can live with all three. The naturalist cannot.

Stephen Hawking is a Computer

At least, I am deluded, according to Stephen Hawking. If you are interested in a philosophical discussion of existence and purpose, you should go and read this brief interview of the renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking. I want to look at a few quotes in that article as food for thought, to see if people really want to go down the road that Hawking goes down.

In 2010, Hawking said, in essence, that science will win out over religion because science works. Ponder that for a moment. First, it is clear that Hawking believes that science and religion in general are at odds with one another. What is the conflict that he perceives? That religion cannot cure cancer or diabetes? That religion cannot explain the origins of life as well as science? The problem, as I see it, is Hawking is trying to do with science what it cannot possibly do, and that is science cannot lay the foundation for its own work.

Here is what I mean by that. Why do we have medicine? Medicine is a science. New medications are made by meticulous scientific research and study. Surely, there is hardly anything religious about studying protein chains, control groups, and chemical reactions at the cellular level, is there? Christianity cannot possibly hope to help us with how it is that the drug in Nexium might help with H. pylori bacteria that cause peptic ulcers, can it?

It certainly can and does. The reason that people study medicine is because they see an intrinsic value in life. Christians stayed behind to tend to plague victims because they believed that man's dignity rested in his being made in God's image. So Christians founded hospitals and began to research treatments because they believed in God. Religion was the foundation for the science of medical study.

It cannot be denied that much research in science is now motivated, perhaps, by greed over the concern for the sick. That is, the dollar drives science, not a benevolence born from the belief that God's image resides in man. I will grant that. However, if you want to say that pursuing medical cures for greedy gain is bad, then you are right back into religion again, aren't you? Consider another quote from Hawking,

I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

The human being, in Hawking's man, is a product of chance. If human beings are really only like computers, then how can we accuse men of greed? Do you think that your computer is greedy? Isn't "greed" just a survival concept made up by the weak to keep the strong from getting their stuff?

Consider this quote, I think it is the most mind-boggling of anything that Hawking says, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going." Hmmm...so, the eternal law of gravity existed when there was nothing? Does that sound like science to you? How can something come from absolutely nothing? What was making the gravity in "space"? Isn't space something rather than nothing? Is this any more believable than invoking God?

This is precisely why Hawking thinks that science and religion are in conflict. Science is Hawking's religion. It is his god. Hawking sounds like a television, flim-flam evangelist trying to get us to align ourselves with his personal religion. He says, "There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." See! The reason that people are religious is because they are afraid of the dark! If we were brave, we would embrace the nihilism that consumes everything.

The problem is that we don't embrace religion just because we are afraid of the dark. We embrace Jesus Christ because darkness exists. Evil is real. The fact that there is a God and a judgment does not make us cowards. It can, however, give us a reason to be a scientist, something that Hawking's religion utterly fails to do.

Religion, Politics, and Being Ridiculous

I want to share with you my "Laugh Out Loud" moment of the morning and why, after I thought about it, I got a little grieved. It seems that the director of the movie "Borat" has teamed up with Bill Maher of "Politcally Incorrect" to make a movie called "Religulous". You can check out the hype/advertisement piece for it here. The article is appropriately titled, Western religions attacked in film "Religulous". Basically, Maher will interview people "Borat" style and attempt to make Christians, Jews, and Muslims look at stupid at possible.

My first thought upon reading that Maher will try to make Christians look dumb was, "Shouldn't be too difficult." Oh the shame of religious goofiness that pervades the evangelical world! Hopefully, our brothers and sisters will see how ridiculous we can actually be and learn from it. We'll see. I confess that the thought of the average evangelical being caught unaware by a guy whose mission it is to make them look foolish made me uneasy. Especially knowing that the film will be purposefully edited to make them look as dumb as possible. Even a good defense of the faith can be caricatured by a good editor.

Enough with that. Let's move on to the blatant, contradictory idiocy that made me laugh. Look at this quote in the beginning by Larry Charles, the director of Borat:

"You can't get elected in America without having a religious affiliation. And it wasn't always that way." He says this as a sort of lamentation. It used to be a good thing, apparently, that people didn't take religious beliefs into account when they voted. That, in itself, is debatable. But does he really believe that this is a good thing? That a person's religious beliefs shouldn't be considered important? Here's the kicker that comes at the end.

"I think if we can create some sort of debate before the election it may actually help defeat McCain and Palin". In the first of this article this same guy bemoans the state of politics wherein people consider a candidate's religion when they vote. Apparently, he'd like some sort of election where people ignore religious "stuff" when they vote. The problem is that the same guy is rubbing his hands in glee that abusing religion and abusing people of faith will help defeat the guy he doesn't like. That, my friends, strikes me as hypocrisy in rare form. And the funny thing is, I didn't even have to edit him to make him look ridiculous.