On Science and Religion

  The presence of so many outspoken scientists who believe that the discoveries of science refute God's existence can be rattling for the believer, while being yet another brick in the wall between the potential seeker and faith. There are many in the scientific community with whom the religious believer loses intellectual credibility for believing in something that cannot be scientifically proven. They insist that there is no point in asserting something that cannot be placed into a test tube and dissected.
  This is as incredulous to me as it would be if I were to tell an Atheist, "you can't possibly be a good person because you don't have scripture to tell you how." Now you and I may have a different opinion on what a "good person" is, (see Mark 10:18) but you get my point.
  The assumption that a person who believes in an all powerful being is somehow incapable of rational thought is a slap in the face to the foundations of science itself. "Natural Philosophy", after all, has Christianity for its mother. It was successful because of the assumption that we live in an orderly and observable universe which God established with certain unchanging laws. In fact, it was (and by many still is) believed that the more we could discern from observing our universe, the more we could learn about the nature of God. After all, the Bible may tell us that God did this or that, but it leaves the how for us to discover. As we make these discoveries, Scripture is illuminated further for us.
   Roger Bacon, who is credited by some as the father of modern science, was a Franciscan Friar, and a strong proponent of experimental science.  400 years later, Sir Francis Bacon (no apparent relation to Roger) and Rene Descartes, among others, made significant contributions to the establishment and development of the scientific method. Francis Bacon was a devout believer in God, and Christian. Rene Descartes' faith is debated among scholars, but he was certainly a Deist. Sir Isaac Newton, himself the father of modern physics, was a monotheist, if not necessarily Orthodox Christian. Darwin himself, was in fact a Christian, and it was after losing his daughter to illness (not after discovering the theory of natural selection) that he lost his faith. One of his closest correspondents, devout Catholic and botanist Asa Gray, also embraced Darwin's theory of natural selection. He saw Darwin's work as an explanation of how God did His work.
 The concept of an old Earth was a widely accepted one at the time, and was in fact the mindset of many Christians going back to St. Augustine. The "young Earth movement" began as a fundamentalist movement by the Church of Latter Day Saints in the 1910's as a response to a movement in the atheistic portion of the scientific community to use evolution to their own philosophical ends.
  A more recent example of a scientist who also happens to be a devout Christian is Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project, and current head of the National Institutes of Health. His website, Biologos, is committed to promoting an understanding that one can believe in God and accept scientific discoveries at the same time.
   My point in all of this name dropping? Some of the most influential scientists throughout history have also been firm believers in God. Their discoveries not only furthered our development as human beings, but also gave them a sublime sense of being able to touch on something that is outside of the "natural" world. In its beginnings, what we today refer to as Science was known as "Natural Philosophy." It was a method for seeking knowledge from our physical world, and experimentation played the key role. It was not, however, seen as being the only form of real knowledge. It was one of many "Sciences" which endeavored to explain our existence, and our place within it.
  I would end on this note: If you believe that the only reality is that which you can readily grasp, measure, and empirically observe, you may wish to ask yourself whether or not you have fallen into the same snare as that which you think the religious believer has. To claim that the only true knowledge is that which can only be detected by our five senses, or that God isn't real because he won't put himself under your microscope, may be more narrow-minded and dogmatic than claiming spiritual, experiential knowledge. I believe that an honest search of "the starry heavens above and the moral law within" will lead the seeker to an acknowledgement that there is more to existence than we mere human beings may ever fully understand. There is a sense of something more in everyone, and it is the responsibility of each individual to seek that out in an honest, humble, and sincere way.

  As always, thank you for reading. I encourage you to share your thoughts and ask questions.  I'd love to hear what your ideas are as well!