Science & Religion/Time & Eternity

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.

Christian Existentialism

Christian Existentialism

Evolution

Most people seem to believe that you either except Darwin's Theory or you except The Bible. I don't understand their dichotomy. Science tells you HOW something happened describing the process in empirical formula showing cause and effect.  It's very "if p, then q". Science is physics. To be science something must be subject to precise description, repeatable and measurable. The theory of evolution continues to struggle with some of these in our experience (nobody has lived long enough to witness the creation of homo sapien from an amoeba), but by and large it is an acceptable theory. That is, we think we've got most of it right, but we're still refining our thoughts as our skills improve.  We don't expect something to come along and refute natural selection and sexual selection. We can apply this model reliably in other science and make progress. We explain how it happened: mutation (thank you, Mendel).

In The Bible we read a wonderful story of divine beings using the matter at hand and organizing it (I hope NOBODY still supports creatio ex nihilo [http://tektonics.org/af/exnihilo.html]). There are some wonderful "coincidences" in the biblical description (the discovery of the seven basic amino acids in clay that's bolted by electrical current or the progressive creation from dust to man), but God does not appear to be concerned with transferring knowledge of how this is done. He does want us to understand WHY it was done (search the scriptures for the words "try" and "test"). We are here on probation. The irony might be that this is a scientific experiment on God's part to see what "q"s will result from the "p"s when placed in an environment with certain (in His experience) controlled variables. In doing this, He would use the theories and laws of physics (My omnipotent god cannot break the laws of the universe any more than we can break the law of gravity. We fly because we put aluminum together in a particular pattern and apply thrust, not because we defy the law of gravity). This does not diminish His power any more than using standard American spelling diminishes my power to communicate. In fact, it enhances it.

Nature vs. Nurture

The logical next step is trying to understand why we are the way we are. We've really progressed in this area. My grandmother knew that my green eyes came from my grandfather, but she did not understand how it was the result of a genetic crossover or evolutionary algorithm. My wife and I have continued this scientific experiment to create humans with blue, green and brown eyes; red, blond and brunette hair. Modern religion seems to not be concerned about why I have green eyes, but in some social groups I might have been executed for this witch-like phenomenon. Science continues to get better and better at helping us know how to produce humans with certain physical traits and without congenital challenges.

Social Science, one of the great oxymorons attempts to explain why we have become what we are. As we continue to advance in this area we identify more variables and build theories that are better at explaining our behavior. It requires a great deal of faith to accept many social theories and our experience demonstrates that the vast majority of these have to be continuously revised. When this art evolves to a true science we should be able to explain how I became obnoxious and better yet, predict the environment where somebody will have a certain behavior. This prediction is the true value of science.

As I read books like Albion's Seed and other social history I can see patterns develop influenced by the social variables (often the result of physical variables) inherent to a group of people. We combine physical science with social science and we begin to predict the pattern of blond and red-headed people coming from a region besot with violence creating the warriors that we appreciate today. My father always said that the Japanese attacked the United States because they had been to California and thought all Americans were laid back and submissive.  If they'd bothered to explore Alabama they might have changed their ideas.

Religion

As an aside I comment that the world uses the expression “tradition” interchangeably with “religion”. To my point of view this defines religion as a set of behaviors or habits that a group portrays. I define religion in terms of faith: Religion is believing.  It is faith the way Paul describes it in the New Testament. It is the power of believing. Faith does not define a system of beliefs (an organization or a “church”), but a power and influence over matter and behavior. Contrary to its etymology, religion is a liberating force allowing you to go beyond what is scientifically described.

What all of these approaches lack is recognition of Divine Nature. This is where we can only find acceptance of principles through faith.  The religious experiment is to question an idea, principle or event, research and study with all the tools available and then present it to God for affirmation or disqualification. We call this process faith or spirituality, and like pain we have no way of determining its presence or measuring its intensity. I am an expert on pain and can verify the similarity in experimentation with both. I can also verify the power of belief in dealing with its attributes.

What honest religion does is accept the laws of thermodynamics: 

• Matter and energy are eternal and constant. The form may change, but the quantity remains the same. This is the genius of e=mc2. There is no more or less matter/energy in the universe today than there was at "creation" (organization). 
• The next law, entropy, states that "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state" (http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/biobookener1.html). This means that as you talk or stand by, your cell phone battery will die. Your phone will not work again until your battery is recharged (a transfer of energy).

What science cannot measure (yet), but our subjective observation affirms is a level of matter and energy that result in life and death. This is as much a spiritual state as it is physical.  Our common sense accepts this in all that we do. When animation ceases, we call the experience death. The spirit leaves the body. Spirits may account for other attributes. I have four children with the same woman. Genetics explains their various physical features.  They were all raised in the same environment (excepting the period of time which is different for them all as none are twins). They have very different personalities. The expression of this started with their first breath. Any parent knows this, but I defy you to explain it based on science. I posit that each of us has a divine nature or spirit. Everything on the planet expresses spiritual qualities. An influence in all the behaviors we exhibit is the result of this spirit.

At some date, we may be able to answer the why of everything in scientific terms. If I could do this, I would be a god among men.  Maybe, just maybe, this is why we're here. My faith confirms this. My science? It's still trying to figure it out.