I have come up with a
resolution of the whole science vs religion arguments and as usual it's a
simple agreement on vocabulary: scientists will agree to replace the noun
"boson" with the noun "angel". When science claimed that
the planets were pushed through their crystal spheres by “propulsion angels”
the Church was fine with that. It was only when people wanted to start calling
things “elliptical orbits” around “gravitational forces” that the Church got upset.
Eventually, they've gotten over that, too. Now, if we can cooperate as believers and explorers instead of spending billions of
dollars to understand secular sub-atomic particles at the LHC they can spend trillions to
understand subatomic God. The evangelicals will dig deeper into their pockets to help us
identify the Higgs angel and then measure how many can dance on the head of a
pin!
Really it's all the same
wolves in aging fleece with one significant change: scientists don’t have to
admit they think a god created anything and believers don’t have to accept that
no god was involved. Why is it so important to atheists to convince believers
they are wrong if their belief doesn't affect their lives? Of course, this
means that believers can’t make laws and try to control behavior on the grounds
that “God said so!”, but then, God doesn't make anybody behave in any way even
though He says so over and over again. How can believers justify restricting
agency when God’s example is strictly and completely hands off?
Instead of science
saying "See, this is how it happens so we don't need a god and therefore a god doesn't exist!" they
compromise with "If there is God and we can't prove there isn't, well if
we want to get to know HIM we have to know better how He does things."
It's not a total surrender to "intelligent design" or celestial
breath on a lump of clay, it is just recognition that God's omnipotence must be
His omniSCIENCE. We drop the whole Scientology assertion that
everything we experience is a sham of "the egg man", a figment of our
spiritual imaginations. We admit there might be God and if God created
everything and if everything includes the physical world we are experiencing
(which makes it "good" instead of "bad" by virtue of
provenance) then all we have to do is quit calling things "subatomic
particles" and call them "subatomic angels" with the caveat that
these angels may not be representations of humans or even human like matter. We
admit that there MIGHT be spiritual matter of all sorts that we haven’t
sorted out yet. We already admit that there might types of matter we can’t measure
or define, so why not something called “spiritual matter”?
I came across a very
interesting idea in C.S. Lewis the other day (I'm on a marathon re-reading
everything of Lewis I didn't understand in sixth grade which means everything
Jack wrote). He accepts the concept of eternity and then flips on its head the
general human interpretation of eternity being synonymous with immortality.
Eternity is most like the present because the present just "is".
We've gone Zen, everything “is”. The future is the concept at greatest odds
with eternity because it absolutely isn't. It's all sorts of "might
be" and "may be" and "could be" with the erroneous
assumption that we shape it. In actuality we determine our future by what we
have done and what we are doing. This is bound to make existentialists
uncomfortable who are going to assert that all religion is “fatalism”, but the
contrary is true. Fate is not determined by a god in the future or past or even
us in the future or the past, it is determined by us by what we are doing with
the past.
We accept the past as
eternity, because it too has “been” and indeed continues to “be”. We never
"un-become" what we've done and we never "undo" what we've
done (this has problems with relativity in some ways and in other ways confirms
it). Now we are saying that whatever we did in the past still exists, and only
what we do in the present can have an effect on the consequences. It's not
exactly debits and credits where we're performing offsets or "equally
good" for corrupt, it is spiritual evolution that might take, well,
forever. We don't un-lose the trust we lost, we do something to earn it back
(and here is where we have to turn energy into spiritual matter or regaining
trust would be as easy as it was to lose it). We know that healing some
past consequences requires a great deal of energy on top of the material
manifestations required to compensate for past corruption.
What I taught yesterday
in the lesson on atonement were two concepts: sin is something that results in
the corruption of spiritual matter (which we need the atonement to expiate) and
that God does not punish us for our sins: He will allow us to suffer the
consequences if we choose. The corruption is the direct consequence of sin (the
actual definition of sin being something that results in spiritual corruption
whether God said it or not) and while God might be able to loan us a cup of
spiritual perfection, He just gives us enough to cover what we can't fix, and
that only if we ask. What we're dealing with here is getting to a point where
our spirits are strong enough to prevent us from making physical choices that
result in spiritual corruption. We're stuck with these silly emotions to
communicate between body and spirit and we have to learn how to prevent our
bodies from dumping too much testosterone into the muck. We also have to learn
how to determine whether something physical introduced dose of testosterone
into the muck of our emotions (like the beautiful, half-dressed girl) and when
our spirits did it (like when we connect absolutely while making love with our
wife). We can usually tell by our emotions as the testosterone subsides and we
feel incredible joy or start looking around uneasily to see if somebody caught
us.
Unfortunately we are
best at compensating for the physical corruption we caused while we may still
be 90-pound weaklings when it comes to taking care of the spiritual damage. As
a matter of fact our whole experience on Earth is learning how to control the
physical to prevent damage to body or spirit. Since we are not fully capable
spiritually (maybe our hands are tied or maybe that muscle isn't strong enough)
we have to borrow a little spiritual atonement from the Savior to expiate our
spiritual corruption. We know we already had a great deal of spiritual strength
to get here. Nothing in life really "heals" in the sense of bad gets better
and becomes good, it heals according to its etymology of "becoming
whole". Physically, corrupt cells die or are surgically removed and are
replaced by healthy cells. Since we can't leave a vacuum physically or
spiritually we must fill that space with healthy spirit or prosthesis. Either
the atonement provides us with spiritual stem cells that we grow into healthy
progression, or in some cases we may just receive a transplant from the
infinite atonement store that fits our particular need. In any case we have to
deal with possible corruption and rejection of the new spiritual matter.
In the end our future is
never about what we will do, because what we will do is determined by what
we're doing. When we don't understand this we latch on to the lie that we can
mess around now and fix it later. When we tell ourselves that, if we
simultaneously turn off the spiritual nutrition by leaving scripture,
mediation, love and worship we will never turn it around. Repentance for
today's stupidity is only possible as long as we accept that today's stupidity
is sin, leaving ourselves susceptible to the restorative power of those who
love us and just humble enough to admit that we aren't making a good decision.
Once we break those ties, our future is decided. Only one thing can avert total
destruction when we separate ourselves from atonement. That is the love of
someone else who can arouse our desire love them back; to reach into us and
relight the fires of righteousness.
Contrary to popular
religious and theological meandering, the atonement did not start in the Garden
of Gethsemane or on the cross at Calvary. It started when one amazing spirit
said, “Send me, and the glory be thine.” At any time, Christ had the agency to
say, “OK, I’m done. Sorry guys, I quit. Only a partial atonement is all I’m
doing. I know that is terribly insufficient, but I quit.” However, just as we
become a certain kind of person through our personal, spiritual discipline and evolve
to a point where it may become impossible for us to lie, cheat, gossip, waste
time, anger, hate, or be prisoner to any other single mortal foible, at some
point it became impossible for Christ to go back on His word. Just as it
becomes impossible for a mother to feel nothing for her child, it became
impossible for Him to abandon His mission. And He’s is still doing it. It is
infinite.
I don’t know if ever a
specific scientist might acquire faith, or if a specific fanatic, ignorant
believer will admit that there are eternal laws that must always be obeyed by
everyone. That we may someday accept that everything that is done, every world
that is created, every blessing that is obtained is based upon the appropriate
behavior dictated by that law.
For my point, I will do
both. My faith gives me power to accomplish things that are physically
challenging. It’s my faith that allows me to wake up in pain and smile at a new
day. It’s faith that allows me to work to heal physical, spiritual and
emotional damage I have created. It is faith that helps me to feel that maybe I
am doing some small thing that is beneficial, maybe even essential for the happiness
of someone else. It is faith that makes love accessible.
It is science that fills
my day with excitement. As I better understand current theories of everything I
want to live another day to understand more. Science allows me to enjoy music
in a way that is more profound and poignant. Science proves to me that
everything can be healed. There will be an equal reaction. Mass times the speed
of light squared will become energy. I can’t wait till I know how that happens.
