Science + Religion

A source of limitless renewable energy

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The garden of Eden is upon the Earth, but people will not see it. — Joseph Campbell

We humans are very good at thinking up all manner of ideas and “explanations” for things, and we have a lot of confidence that our ideas and assumptions and beliefs are the truth. We are willing to go to war over our ideas and beliefs. They matter a lot to us because they enable us to make sense out of this complicated universe and to advance our interests.

We’re all cosmologists

Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends. — Joseph Campbell

Some of the big ideas and questions we all wrestle with and try to make sense of include

• Who are we?

• Why are we here? Where are we going?

• Who “made” us, the planet, the universe?

• What is good/right?

• What is true?

Who wouldn’t want answers to such big important questions? So over the millennia, thinkers have created all manner of philosophies and religions and theories and paradigms to answer those questions. We each tend to gravitate toward and embrace one or more of these belief systems depending on our own particular upbringing and community and mind. We cling tight to those organizing ideas and reject the others, only sometimes changing our mental horses in mid-stream/life.

Can’t we all just get along?

One of the most intense intellectual “debates” (and wars, both cultural and military) in human history is that between RELIGION (theism, faith) and SCIENCE (skepticism, evidence). Each school of thought has its own internally consistent set of beliefs:

• Religion: a powerful supreme being created and directs everything in the universe. Even if we have no direct evidence of that being’s existence and actions, we accept this view of the truth and take the teachings of its human representatives on “faith”.

• Science: the universe is large and complex, and the human mind is limited. Most of what we believe to be true is wrong. Therefore, we must remain skeptical and set a very high bar (“proof” by disciplined observation and experimentation) for accepting any claims to the truth.

You might think the adherents of these two schools of thought were completely different species. They seem to have little in common and tend to deeply distrust each other. They prefer to segregate themselves into separate tribes, and when they come into direct contact the chemistry can be volatile. They view each other’s ideas as an existential threat to their own, so their disagreements often take the form of fights to the death, both cultural/political and military.

What if there was a way to integrate the religious and scientific minds into a stable and energizing isotope without setting off a nuclear explosion? What if these historically warring camps could engage with mutual respect and understanding with less heat and more light?

Science + Religion = ?

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. — Galileo Galilei

I was taking Chemistry 101 in college and went to the lab one evening to complete an assigned experiment. As I entered the building, I heard the strains of one of Bach’s suites for unaccompanied cello echoing through the corridors. I assumed a record (flat plastic data storage medium) or radio was playing until I walked past my chemistry professor’s office where I saw him hunched over a cello playing with great discipline and passion.

I later learned he was a person of strong religious faith who, like Bach, viewed music as a gift from God. How can one person contain science and religion within one mind (see Albert Schweitzer and Albert Einstein and Jimmy Carter for other examples)? What is the intellectual magic trick they’re performing? Do they possess the diplomatic solution to centuries of violent “culture wars”?

People who “believe in” Darwin’s theory of evolution think they are smarter and more rational than people who “believe in” God. They believe their paradigm for reality is backed up by more facts than the religious one. And they are not wrong about that. BUT … all of the writing and observations and research on Darwin’s theory can not prove the theory to be “true”. There may be another better explanatory paradigm waiting in the wings that will ultimately replace the evolutionary one.

And to paraphrase a good science maxim, the absence of proof of a deity is not the same as the proof of its absence. So the fight between science and religion continues endlessly, neither able to land a winning argument or knock-out blow.

Let there be LIGHT! ☀️

To change the world, you need to change the metaphor. — Joseph Campbell

IMAGINE an all-knowing all-powerful being floating in the void and deciding to create … a universe. They envision creating billions of suns with trillions of planets orbiting around them. Each planet will have weather and gravity and chemistry and some will have living beings. It will be truly a miracle of creation. So we will call this omniscient omnipotent being who creates the universe … the CREATOR (“They/Them”).

As the Creator contemplates this project, they envision themselves as a celestial gardener who tills and plants and cultivates a field of worlds. Being able to see how a project will turn out before beginning it (something we poor humans wrongly believe we can do), they imagine all the work that will be involved in caring for the infinite number of living beings on those trillions of planets revolving around those billions of stars.

Now of course the Creator is perfectly capable of managing that massive project without getting tired or “burning out”, but they can imagine it might be nice to take a sabbatical for a few billion years after such a creative effort, and perhaps even retire for good. So in order to avoid the labor of having to micro-manage all those beings on all those worlds for eternity, the Creator designs a very special piece of biological software called … natural selection.

Inserted into every living being, this program serves a continuous improvement function. Any being who is successfully adapted to the specific environment on the part of the planet in which they dwell will reproduce themselves in greater numbers, thereby conveying this advantage to future generations. Running this natural selection program continuously across generations means that once the universe is started up, the Creator can admire their work (“… and it was good”) and take that well-earned Sunday R&R.

One predictable outcome of this continuous improvement process is that certain “higher animals” (to use Darwin’s term) will emerge. These are the beings who are just chock full of the advantages programmed in by generation after generation of struggle and adaptation and natural selection. Contemplating this reality, the Creator envisions a sort of “middle-management” function where the higher animals can serve as local caretakers who tend and cultivate the lower ones.

[NOTE: the Creator does not judge the “lower” beings as in any way inferior to or “less than” the higher ones. They love those differences and diversity as a rich trove of material to mix into the continuous improvement process for ever more creative combinations.]

Stewardship 101

If something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. — Albert Einstein

The Creator, able to foresee all potential problems and solve them before even beginning to create the universe, recognizes that if they want the higher animals to be excellent caretakers, there will need to be a very effective hiring and management training process (something many human leaders ignore!). So the Creator broadcasts a universal recruitment message to every planet that its higher animals can understand:

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To the “Higher Beings” of your planet:

Bless you. Be fruitful and multiply. Watch over all I have created and care for it, each to its needs. You are to be the stewards of your world in my place.

I know that I am placing a heavy duty upon you: to care for yourselves and each other and all the living beings of your planet. It is a sacred trust given out of respect for your higher nature and ability to learn and understand the world around you. I will help you bear this burden and carry out your responsibilities.

I am able to know the results of my actions before I take them. You are not. Do not be ashamed of this, but also do not fall prey to the hubris of believing that you can know my mind.

I am unable to teach you how to fulfill your caretaker duties, but I will provide you with a perfect method to discover the right way in all things that is within your power to understand. It is called “trial and error”. When you want to solve a problem or discover how things are, make your best effort. Then stop and determine the results of what you have done.

If the outcome is good, continue along that path. If it is not good, think together of another way, and try that. Continue to do this until you get a good result. Keep a record of your experiments. By doing so, you will grow in wisdom and understanding which you can pass on to others and to future generations of your kind. This will benefit you and your entire planet greatly throughout eternity.

Do this in my name. Be humble and diligent in your attempts to understand and improve your lot. Be respectful and kind to each other and attend to every living thing. In doing so, you will come as close to my nature as you are capable of being, and I will bless you for your efforts.

Live long and prosper!

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Let there be peace

A religion that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge. Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. — Carl Sagan.

For too long there has been a hurtful and harmful war between the communities of Faith and Science. By modifying some of the stories we tell ourselves, we can create a bridge of mutual respect and understanding between them:

RESOLVED: a benevolent omniscient Creator would want us to learn about all their creations so we can best care for them. We have a methodology for doing so. It is called SCIENCE.

We are now facing the kind of existential threats that require us to come together as one people and one planet in search of effective solutions. May we find the humility and wisdom and compassion to do this before it is too late.

Amen.

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