CONVERSATIONS IN THE PANTHEON - The Truth about God and Religion

Religion Versus Evolution and the Big Bang

Mathew: What about the theory of evolution espoused by Charles Darwin? It's also at odds with the Old Testament and other creation stories. Why didn't it evoke the same knee-jerk response from the Christian Church?

Mary: The church's response to Darwin marked a major shift in approach to scientific discovery. By 1859, when Darwin published his theory of evolution, things had changed. The Catholic Church had seen the errors of its ways and instituted a subtle change in its dogma, which allowed it to moderate its response to new scientific earthquakes.

It proclaimed that the Old Testament was not to be taken as the literal word of God. That was easy because it was borrowed from the Jews. Catholic faith would henceforth depend solely on the New Testament, which is unique to Christianity. The creation stories were no longer to be taken as the gospel truth.

Not so for evangelical Christians, though. Today, for most christian religions, the Old Testament is only to be interpreted metaphorically. But most evangelicals still cling to it as divine truth, even after it's been proven wrong!

Mathew: How can the evangelicals get away with it?

Thomas: Conservative Christians in the USA managed to construct a successful christian subculture with its own churches, schools, colleges, shops, radio and television channels and networks of associations. With that goes religious and political power. Darwin's theory of evolution poses an existential threat to them; and so they developed their own theory of intelligent design. They say yes to evolution, but only if guided by God. However, even a child can see through such a smokescreen. Promoting intelligent design is itself an admission that the Old Testament is wrong. So, by advancing it, they're condemning the same book that they hold to be the word of God. There's a big difference between God making Adam out of clay and God guiding evolution!

Mathew: Isn't intelligent design unscientific? Wouldn't they first have to prove the existence of God for their theory to be considered scientific?

Mary: That's the whole point. Science is fact based, not faith based. What they have done only demonstrates that the new authors of intelligent design are just as wrong as the authors of the Old Testament. The more things change the more they stay the same!

Thomas: They have some scientists who claim that life on earth is only possible because God wanted there to be life on it: so he designed the universe just for us. What they don't say, of course, is that the Milky Way has billions of stars and therefore billions of other life-supporting planets. Moreover, there are billions of other galaxies and numerous other universes. So, all of a sudden, there is nothing unique about life on Earth.

Evangelicals affirm the supreme authority of the bible, the sinfulness of humanity, full and perfect salvation through Jesus Christ, the necessity of giving one's life to him and being 'born again' in Christ through the Holy Spirit, the importance of a strict biblical morality that affirms family values and active evangelization.

I don't criticize their beliefs, but pushing intelligent design in schools is plain wrong: it's not science!

Mathew: What about the church's reaction to the big-bang theory?

Mary: As we all know, the big-bang theory is also at odds with the various creation stories and the religious reactions to it vary. Even within Christianity, those who still adhere to the bible as gospel truth reject it; those who have distanced themselves from the creation myths find no conflict.

It may surprise you to know that it was a catholic priest by the name of Georges Lemaitre who came up with the theory. It may also surprise you to know that it's almost a century old. Some people have the impression that it's a very recent discovery, but it's very old. The theory was published in 1927.

In addition to being a priest, Lemaitre was an astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Leuven, in Belgium. He was the first astronomer to realize that if the universe is expanding, as the evidence indicated, then it had to have a beginning when there was nothing. Although the concept is very simple, not many astronomers believed it initially. The name big bang was actually a derogatory term used by a preeminent scientist who dismissed the theory when it was first proposed.

Just to give you an idea of the expanding universe, imagine a balloon that keeps getting bigger as it is inflated. At the beginning it has zero air and zero volume. As it expands, its volume increases, but if we know the rate at which it's expanding, we can calculate the time when it had no air inside it. Astronomists measured the rate at which the universe is expanding and with that they estimated how long ago it came into being. After many independent calculations, measurements and recalculations, they now believe that the universe is 13.8 billion years old.

In contrast, based on the Old Testament stories, some christian believers have put the age of the universe at 6,000 years. We're talking about an error of a million orders of magnitude!

Thomas: I find it truly amazing that almost a century ago, without satellites and big earth telescopes, not to mention the Hubble Telescope, Lemaitre was able to come up with such a startling concept.

Mathew: I have difficulty accepting this theory. How can the universe possibly have come into being from nothing? One moment there's nothing and less than a split second later there's everything. Only fools could believe in such a theory. Where did everything come from? The universe is so immense! Only god could have created it.

Mary: Let's examine this situation. One moment there is nothing and immediately after there is everything. This sounds very familiar. One moment there is god and nothing else; and soon after there is god and a vast universe. Where did God get all that humongous mass and energy from? Isn't that just as incredible? It's actually much more incredible. God, who made humans in its own image, would have been dwarfed to nothingness by its own creation!

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Believers of the god creation story offer no proof. Believers of the big bang have incontrovertible proof. Every prediction that has been made from the big bang theory has been verified by measurement. So, on the one hand we have faith in god backed up by no proof; and on the other we have faith in science backed up by irrefutable proof.

Thomas: What was there before the big bang? That's the big question. From what I've read, no one knows the answer.

Mary: I agree. No one really knows the answer. Scientists are still working on it. Of course, Einstein told us that space and time are intertwined. So, if there was no space there was no time before the big bang. Therefore, time began with the big bang. But, this is not scientific proof.

Mathew: If that's the case, then it must have been God!

Thomas: That's the kind of logic religions use, but it doesn't hold water. Just because science doesn't have the answer doesn't mean that it must have been God. But even then, which of the many gods did it?

If believers are serious about using such an argument, then they would have to answer, where was god before the universe existed? And who created god?

Mary: You talked about how Galileo nearly lost his life, in 1633, for holding scientific truths that were counter to established church dogma. You also talked about Darwin exposing his truth to the world, in 1859, his theory that humans and all other living things where not the creation of the almighty, but developed from one-cell organisms, without the slightest threat to his well being, life or scientific career. Something fundamental must have taken place between those two dates to account for this shift in attitude.

Thomas: We'll talk about that next week.