How He Did It

Astronomer Guy Consolmagno was recently interviewed as part of ABC's Encounter programme. He was asked about 'religion and science' and made the following remark...

One of my quick answers is that the Bible tells me that God made the universe but it is my science that tells me how he did it!

The episode covered a number of areas, and also interviewed 2008 Templeton Prize winner Michal Heller. Meanwhile, Guy Consolmagno was also asked about being a religious person embedded in the scientific world...

There absolutely is this commonality and you forget sometimes but modern science really is fundamentally based on religious ideas. It's based on the idea that the universe does make sense, that there are laws to be found. You know, a lot of religions thought that things happened arbitrarily, because you know the god of thunder made the thunder fall, the god of crops made the crops grow. And Christianity says no there is only one God and he made the universe in an orderly way and he gave us the intelligence to be able to figure it out. But even more than that: our religion believes that, you know as the Bible puts it, God so loved the world that he sent his Son, it was primarily out of love of this creation that he found was good. So to love creation and to become more intimate with it by studying it as a scientist is a religious act, it is an act of worship. It is why I get up in the morning.

Climate Change and God

Believe or not, there are still a few people out there who think that climate change and global warming are just a natural occurences - that 27 billion tonnes of annual greenhouse emissions have no effect on the atmosphere.

As ludicrous as that sounds, it got me thinking as to why someone might be so attached to denial. My best guess is that it's because there are consequences in admitting there is global warming and climate change. Consequences such as admitting our past actions have harmed our environment; and changing the way society operates (in order to avoid future damage). Possibly the most difficult consequence is that of thinking beyond mere self-interest and considering the effects of our actions on others.

In thinking about this, I realised the parallel to the situation with Jesus and becoming a Christian. It involves owning up to being less than perfect (and being forgiven). It involves making an effort to be better in the future (with God's help). Also, it often involves being less self-obsessed and materialistic than might otherwise be the case.

For some, this is too much to confront. For some, it seems easier to construct a barrier of tenuous logic and rationalisation, rather than face the possibility of an inconvenient truth.

New-age Self-centred

Brisbane PhD student Rosemary Aird examined a possible link between new forms of spirituality and mental health. She found that spirituality and self-focused religions may undermine a person's mental health.

"I had a look at two different beliefs - one was a belief in God, associated with traditional religions, and the other was the newer belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God," Dr Aird said.

Non-traditional belief was linked with higher rates of anxiety, depression, disturbed and suspicious ways of thinking and anti-social behaviour. Young people with new-age beliefs were twice as likely to be more anxious and depressed than those with traditional beliefs, the research found.

"Traditional religion tends to promote the idea of social responsibility and thinking of others' interests, whereas the new-age movement pushes the idea that we can transform the world by changing ourselves."

Magnifying God

From time to time you may hear the expression "to magnify God". Sometimes from preachers - sometimes in Christian songs. It's a phrase that can get on my nerves. I might be getting a bit semantic, but it seems to me that God is quite huge enough already - without magnification. I imagine someone trying to get planet earth in under a microscope.

However, recently i heard a different take on it. Sure, a microscope magnifies things, but so does a telescope. But in the case of the telescope, it's not so much making small things look big, it's more a case of making far away things resemble something closer to their actual size. After all, even planet earth looks small when viewed from other planets.

This analysis makes a lot of sense to me. Sometimes (unintentionally) God gets squished into the background of life. But just like the moon (which is actually sooo much bigger than our thumb) God is also much greater than we often perceive. I guess it just depends on our perspective.

Washed Away

In the Bible, and in Christian tradition, the acceptance of God is often marked by the act of baptism. Amongst other things, it is meant to symbolise a fresh start.

I recently read a study which examined the link between washing and morality. The conclusion was that the two are very much intertwined in the human brain. Participants who were asked to think of previous unethical behaviour were significantly more likely to desire physical cleansing.

So i guess it's of little surprise that when we (the human race) devised an act to signify the removal of sin, and the starting of a new chapter of life, that water is involved.

Healthy Religion

An article appeared in Seed Magazine, discussing the link between spirituality and health.

A Handbook on Religion and Health has been published, reviewing the 1200 studies on the subject. According to co-author Koenig "When you measure religious beliefs, you find that they're related to better mental health, better coping and greater life satisfaction."

Lynda Powell, whose study observed a 25% reduction in risk of mortality in religious service attendees, admitted "We understand that there's an effect but we don't understand why the effect exists." Conducting further research on the daily practices of people of various religous backgrounds, she now suggests that "becoming mature spiritually is akin to being very effective at coping with stress".

Meanwhile, medical schools train doctors to take a detailed spiritual history without imposing their own beliefs on patients, said Koenig. "Doctors are coming out a lot more well-rounded and able to address these issues, and can realize the power that religious faith can have in terms of healing and sometimes in terms of disease, also." Physicians shouldn't proselytize to patients, but connect them with a spiritual care expert if they have any spiritual needs, he added.

Against the Odds

My interest was piqued by an article titled God by the Numbers where Charles White discusses some fairly large numbers and some fairly abstract ones.

He discusses the probability of the universe occuring through pure chance; 1 in 10¹⁰¹²³ according to Beckenstein and Hawking.

In biology, he alludes to the Dembksi hypothesis, which suggests that for a one-celled organism to have enough time to evolve into a human being (at least one trillion cells) the universe would have to be 10¹⁶² times older than it is.

Then, in theoretical maths he explores the connection between e, pi and i - which is purely baffling. The serendipity of it caused one mathematics professor (an atheist) to write on the blackboard "There is no God, but if there were, this formula would be proof of his existence."

I'm not so sure that numbers or formulas can prove that, but these discoveries do tend to suggest that there is something else going on, that we don't yet fully understand.

To quote the subtitle from the article "Coincidence and random mutation are not the most likely explanations for some things."