God Is Not Science (and vice versa)

It’s this kind of thing that reminds me just how freakin’ small we are.


Interactive slide showing the scale of the universe

If you want to read the Genesis of the bible and believe that it literally describes the exact creation of the entire universe – all 14,000,000,000 light-years of it, every galaxy, nebula, black hole, red giant, neutrino, quark, and preon – then that’s totally your choice. Given the information that man has discovered since the time the bible was written, it might be beneficial if you take it with a slight grain of salt. It could be a vast metaphor. It could be completely made up. It could only pertain to our planet, not necessarily the whole universe because we didn’t need to know that at the time. Or let’s say God was transcending the knowledge of the universe into the meager minds of humans 4,000+ years ago – do you think there’s even a slight chance they might have missed 99% of the point, and just paraphrased the best they could?

Anyway, when you’re presented the whole of the known universe in a silly (yet impressive) little internet applet like this, I think it simultaneously brings two things to light:

One: we know for a fact that the universe is bigger and more complex than anything ever imagined by the guys who wrote the bible on dried tree bark. I mean these guys didn’t even have the vague concept of a celestial body, including the one called Planet Earth that they lived on. They had no concept of sub-atomic particles or ultra-violet light waves. So to think this simple explanation of the creation of the universe and all complex life on earth, which happens in just a few pages, can word-for-word accommodate for all that we know exists is kinda silly.

Two: I think by illustrating how much we know about the universe, it also illustrates how much we DON’T know about the universe. As I’ve discussed before, the human perception and comprehension of our reality is pretty limited. We only exist in 4 dimensions: length, height, width, and time. And we can’t even control anything about that last one, we’re just along for the ride. Yet we know there are countless other dimensions that are provable mathematically, that actually do exist, yet we will never be able to experience. At the smallest end of that “scale of the universe” chart is the theoretical quantum string. Who’s to say this isn’t exponentially more enormous than truly the smallest bit of matter, or that it doesn’t continue shrinking to infinity? And neutrinos… what the HELL are those things? They travel through matter at the speed of light and actually go back in time. All the time, everywhere, right now, as you’re reading this.

Who’s to say there isn’t something tying together every sub-atomic particle in the universe, perhaps even an intelligence that exists in every point and dimension simultaneously? If it all exists now, it had to have been created from somewhere, but who or what created it? God? Chaos?

Who. The. Fuck. Knows.

I think the concept of God goes beyond any scientific concept or theory human beings could ever dream about. And yet science has shown us innumerable things that every religion in existence fails to mention. It’s a toss-up, folks. So take your pick, and be very happy with it. But it’s not advisable to proclaim that your choice is the “truth”. It’s more like “the best conclusion you could come up with based on the evidence you were given.”