[Repost from Old Site]
For my entire life I have been uncomfortable with the idea that either science or religion
is the truthful representation and study of reality. All of us can
agree that reality is a many splendored thing, full of mystery and
awe. Few who examine it find it uninteresting.
My problem comes
when people choose to pin reality down to one set of explanations. It
arises out of the ancient scientific notion that there is an
explanation for everything and that such an explanation is knowable. A
great much is knowable, but not all is explainable. In the absence of
explanation, many scientific minds reject the existence of the
unexplainable thing. Yet those who experience such a thing directly
cannot deny its existence.
Science makes sense to me. Organized
and methodical thought seems a worthy enterprise, and I have witnessed
its triumphs and usefulness first hand. I am using one such triumph
right now, to put these words down. When it comes to examining reality,
science is the best objective methodology.
But not all of reality is objective. To you, I may be an object, but to our own selves, all of us are subjects. To
deny the relevance or existence of the subjective is to deny the
existence of one's own mind. To attempt to pin all subjective
experiences to states of brain electrochemistry is to deny the novelty
of these experiences. I believe that religion is the best subjective methodology for examining reality.
The relationship between science and religion comes down to the difference between how and what. To say that I am happy is to say what is happening to me. To explain that I am happy because my brain has just received a rush of endorphins is to say how that happens.
I
personally believe that saying "The universe was created by an enormous
explosion of matter and energy called the Big Bang" is to say how the universe came to be. Saying "God created the universe" is to say what happened when the universe came to be.
I am convinced that I exist. I am convinced that there is something that
is me. I perceive myself to be an object that I call a human body, and
that this object seems to contain my mind/soul/consciousness. How the
two are connected is a mystery to me, but wherever my body goes, my
mind/soul/consciousness follows (under normal circumstances). If I were
to deny any of this, I would have to deny my very existence. Yet it is
completely impossible to prove any of the above to you.
Similarly, I am convinced that God exists. I have experienced God's
presence directly, and his will has produced results in my life. No
logic or evidence can prove this to anyone, but to deny it would be to
deny my very existence, because it was and continues to be a subjective experience.
Not
all things are able to be supported by evidence. Yet this very fact
does not invalidate their existence. Does a list of certain actions
prove that you love someone? Are any actions so inseparable from the
emotion of love that to perform them is itself to love? Is there any
critical combination of these actions that when performed in tandem, are
equal to love?
The idea of faith comes in to play as well. Faith
is the belief in an idea in the absence of empirical evidence. Taken
from a purely objective point of view, it sounds silly. However, If you
will agree that the senses are capable of being deceived (and I think
most people would agree with that) then it follows that the human
consciousness accepts all information on faith alone. I
believe that I see my laptop in front of me right now. I believe that
my feet and hands are cold. I believe I feel the click of the keys
beneath my fingertips. But I must acknowledge that it is possible that
these things are not occurring in reality, but perhaps in a dream or
hallucination. Who among us has never had a dream that they were
convinced was real while they were experiencing it? So I cannot know
that these things are real. I accept that they are, because it would
be inconvenient to do otherwise. If I questioned the reality of my
every experience, I would be immobilized with doubt.
Science
intends to operate without faith, but this is impossible. Even the
scientist who directly experiences his evidence is merely accepting
information from his senses on the faith that it is not a
hallucination. The casual reader of a scientist's findings must have
even more faith, as he must believe that the scientist is not lying to
him. I've never looked through a telescope and seen the face of Venus.
Yet I believe that Venus exists. I've never done the math to describe
the curvature of space-time. Yet I take it on faith that their are
valid mathematical arguments about it. To say that science removes the need for
faith is asinine. Science is simply one more thing to have faith in.
And in the end, each subject has really only one choice: To accept
information from their own senses or not. If not, you are what is
called a solipsist. To believe that nothing but one's self is real is
immobilizing. Otherwise, you are a person of faith, whether you believe
yourself to be or not.
So have faith in what you experience, and
in what rings true to you. If the idea of God sounds silly to you,
that's one thing. But don't tell me that faith is silly. Don't tell me
that Richard Dawkins has made the idea of a creator unnecessary. Dawkins
has faith that his findings are a true representation of reality. That
he has never made true findings regarding the existence of God does not
remove the necessity of faith. It merely points out that his
subjective experience of reality differs from that of the majority of
people.
Faith is real. It is all that is real. You have faith in
something, even if it is only that you exist. So I have faith in what I
have experienced, and I tell you a thousand times I have experienced
God working in my life. And therefore, I'm not stupid to believe he
exists. And I take it on faith that science is quietly working out the
objective nature of the universe, bit by observable bit. And no matter
what they find, they will only be enhancing and refining our
understanding of God's creation.
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