Is Science Pro Religion?

I used to be an atheist. Like many other atheist’s, I believed in science like it was religion. Science was fact, after all, and religion was mythology. What I didn’t realize is that this is an extremely ignorant position to hold.

Galileo_facing_the_Roman_InquisitionScience is not fact. Science is the best guess considering the provable evidence. That is far from being fact. Scientific “facts” are prone to change when new evidence comes to light. (kind of like Pluto being the ninth planet was a scientific “fact” up until just recently).

Another example that comes to mind is the excavation of the archeological site at Gobekli Tepe. The temple complex at Gobekli Tepe is about 11,000 years old. This temple predates the previously earliest know permanent structures by about 3,000 years. (that is almost 50% longer then the time between now and when Jesus was supposed to have lived).

What is more interesting to science is the fact that Gobekli Tepe appears to be a temple. There is no sign of permanent habitation. This disrupts the previous view of early civilization which stated that our ancestors first settled into farming communities, and created civilization, and then developed religion. A temple predating those first civilizations by 3,000 years seems to suggest that we developed religion, and then developed agriculture and settled into communities forming civilization. Time to rewrite those science books again.

As is clearly evident, science is much closer to an “intelligent guess” then it is to “fact”. In reality, the whole basis of science seems to be based on the idea that the universe is somehow put together in an intelligible way. For that to happen, the only logical conclusion (or best guess) would be that the universe was put together intelligibly because it was put together by an intelligence. This seems to support religion, or at least what some people call “intelligent design”.

Efficient Cause

Benozzo_Gozzoli_-_Triumph_of_St_Thomas_Aquinas_-_WGA10334The great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas was a supporter of what is known as the “efficient cause” theory. Efficient Cause simply states that:

  1. There is an efficient cause for everything; nothing can be the efficient cause of itself.
  2. It is not possible to regress to infinity in efficient causes.
  3. To take away the cause is to take away the effect.
  4. If there be no first cause then there will be no others.
  5. Therefore, a First Cause exists (and this is God).

This theory was put forth in the mid 1200’s. Long before the theory of evolution, long before the big bang theory, yet none of these theory lesson the efficient cause theory. After all, what was the efficient cause of the big bang? We may find out some day and it may seem like simple physics, but what then will have been the efficient cause of it?

Why Science led me down the Road to Faith

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I used to be an atheist. But several scientific studies opened my eyes to the scientific plausibility of a superior intelligence.

The first study that cast doubt on my doubt was a study that showed in quantum physics, a particle (the basic building block of matter) can be in more then one place at the same time. What forces these particles to be in one specific place is the effect of being observed. This seems to say to me that matter would simply fall apart if it were not being observed. And since we cannot see the furthest reaches of the universe, something must be observing it for it to exist. This “something” would be God.

The next study that peaked my interest in a superior intelligence was one in which a randomly generated influencer determined the state of a particle, before the influencer was randomly generated. to quote the gizmag article about this experiment:

the arbitrary number generated to determine if the grating was added or not was only generated after the atom had passed through the crossroads. But, when the atom was measured at the end of its path – before the random number was generated – it already displayed the wave or particle characteristics applied by the grating after it had completed its journey… this means… that a future measurement is affecting the atom’s past.

Predestination is not a theory commonly associated with science, but more closely associated with religion. Yet here it is being shown in a scientific experiment.

Simulation theory is the third scientific theory that made me accept the possibility of a superior intelligence. Simulation theory states that it is statistically more likely that we are in a computer simulation, then that we are real.

If that is the case, then “God” could simply be the programmer of the simulation, or just another part of the program itself.

It is difficult to hold on to the atheist “religion” of science when you understand that science does not prohibit the existence of God, and in many cases actually supports it. It is also very difficult to accept science as an absolute “truth” when by it’s very nature, science is nothing more then a guess.

When one truly understands science, one has to come to the conclusion that there most likely is a God.

Religion is not blind faith in that God, it is a way to understand the God that science suggests exists.

creation-of-adam

 

 

Additional Reading:

Why Science Does Not Disprove God – Time Magazine

Science Finds God – The Washington Post

Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God – The Wall Street Journal

 

 

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