God and Science are Harmonious
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."- Einstein
This started as a response letter to an old friend, who had said he was reading "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. When I realized this was turning into more than the appropriate "Um, why are you reading that?", I decided to share my writing with a larger audience. I start with one of the most commonly referenced analogies for a greater consciousness, move on to a critique of that analogy, and for the remainder of the paper delve into modern physics while constantly searching for a God-Science link.
Old school thoughts:
“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there… There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers… Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.”-William Paley, Natural Theology: or Evidences of the existence and attributes of the Deity
The critique:
“Admirable conclusion! On this time on this planet, stone, wood, brick, iron, brass are not ordered or arranged except by human artiface and contrivance; therefore the universe could not originally attain its order and arrangement without something similar to human artiface. But is a part of nature a rule for another part that is very different from it? Is it a rule for the whole? Is a very small part a rule for the universe? Is nature in one situation a certain rule for nature in a different situation vastly different from the former? Is nature at work in our considerably deveoped universe a certain rule for nature at work in a starting universe?” -David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, as spoken by character Philo
“Hume also reasoned that if a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God’s mind (being so well-ordered) also requires a special designer. And then this designer would likewise need a designer, and so on ad infinitum.”-Wikipedia, sharing David Hume’s view on the Watchmaker analogy
Now to get into some particle science:
“At least for three decades, nucleons (protons and neutrons) were considered to be our final destination. Then, peering into them, we detected shadows of yet another layer of matter that lurks inside. Unable so far to crack open a nucleon and bring out one of these shadowy objects for observation and measurement, we can only guess what they are. We have named them quarks. We believe that two types of quarks — one named “up” and the other “down” — make up the proton and the neutron. Quarks are held together by a force dubbed the chromo force, represented by particles named gluons, which are just as unseen as quarks. So it is the quarks and gluons that lie at the bottom of all known matter!”- M Y Han, QUARKS AND GLUONS: A Century of Particle Charges
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