The target of both Science and Religion is the same, in my opinion; and that is to discover God. I've always regarded Religion to be a theological effort by man to find God, and Science an empirical effort by man to discover God. Science may not agree, but it's been obvious to many scientists for long. Last night, I found supporting view in Albert Einstein; arguably the greatest scientist there ever was.
Him:
"I'm not an atheist... The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages.
The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. it does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is.
That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."
In other words, although Einstein questioned the God preached by Religion (of his day), he would never deny the existence of God. As he admitted, he had a lot more to know.
An increasingly atheist (free-thinking) civilization has popularized a quote mis-attributed to Yuri Gagarin - the first man to travel to space - "I looked and looked and looked but I didn't see God" quoted in 'To Rise from Earth' (1996) by Wayne Lee; in 1961, after his journey to Space. The authenticity of the statement is disputed, Gagarin himself then a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. But Dr Robert Jastrow (1925-2008), a NASA scientist and an agnostic, has a confession I believe the world of today should re-read again and again:
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.
He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries".
The scientific explanation for Creation by Evolution itself reveals a depth of intricacy that just cannot have designed itself. It reveals that there is an intelligence beyond all human comprehension. Surely there is God; and science while striving to disprove Him, are discovering His existence and daily participation in natural life.
I'm sure the quest by researchers to determine the edge of the Universe and what lies beyond it will never end. By the time they come close to concluding on what the edge of the universe looks like, they will find that there is no physical edge to the Universe; that the big bang had been explained in Genesis 1 for ages; that everything could only emerge from nothing at the instance of Someone; that there is a realm beyond the natural that birthed the natural; and that there is life after the natural.
It makes every sense therefore if humans look back inside the Book that most accurately details the script of the architecture of nature and supernature; the Bible. And, rather than drift along with the thoughtlessness of a world obsessed with freethinking, humans should consider that life is their only opportunity to engage disciplined thinking, for after life, there can be no more choice-making and everyone is submitted to the power of Him who started us all.
You can choose to find Him through the script He had men write, or through an open-ended tunnel carved out by Science, and increasingly unfolding more and more questions rather than provide an answer.
Uduak Umo is a Chartered PR consultant and Public Interest researcher; Writes this piece purely as a personal opinion and persuasion. Follow on Twitter on @umo2013
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