Accepting God; A Scientists' Perspective

I described in a prior post how I had come to accept God and how I had been healed both physically and emotionally by God. In this post I want to share how I have managed to reconcile my intellectual beliefs as a scientist, and how I continue on a daily basis to reaffirm those beliefs with my acceptance of God through the Word of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man and the Son of God.


I have a degree in engineering from a reasonably prestigious state university, and have spent the past three to three and a half decades reaffirming my atheism. I read Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance while in high school and it changed my life. I refined my view of the world to be one where logic and intellect ruled. I designed and built machines and software programs that could do virtually anything. I had been known to say "if I can image it, I can build it."

My experience with God and religion had been through a prism of fundamentalist religion that was imposed on me as a child through the cult that my family was a member of. Hell fire, brimstone, and righteous judgement ruled the day. There was no concept of either grace or forgiveness, only perpetual living with shame. Even though I was familiar with the bible my view was tainted by this Old Testament view and I judged the bible and all persons who followed it by the evils perpetrated in its pages such as the genocides of Joshua.

When, in my mid-forties, I experienced a traumatic life experience, that of losing my family to an ugly separation, I had neither deity nor religious belief to turn to. My family includes many alcoholics and drug addicts, none of whom could help me. Most of them simply would not help me, preferring instead to ridicule and denigrate me due to my being a transsexual lesbian. I was alone with my atheism, surrounded by the cold intellectual framework of Stephen Hawking, James Watson, and Francis Crick. We had seen the mind of God, unraveling the mysteries of both the universe and of life itself.

I studied quantum physics, wondering at the mystery of quantum entanglement and wave particle duality. I studied astrophysics, accepting the age of the universe as approximately 13.7 years old. I studied paleoarchaeology, accepting that humans evolved from lower mammals (effectively from apes) over the last five to six million years. I studied paleogeology, accepting the age of the earth as approximately 4.5 billion years old. I came to believe that the theory of panspermia best explained the development of DNA. 

I studied and sometimes participated in religious ceremonies and beliefs including Wicca, Buddhism, Islam, and others. I never found any religion that coincided with my intellectual beliefs and continued to scoff at those who accepted the concept of a deity. I had found nothing in my studies that would explain how any supernatural force would work. I reveled in my atheism, stating that atheists were more likely to be good people as they didn't get a "second chance". Only when I had hit rock bottom for the second time, ending up in a state supported treatment facility as an addict did I reevaluate my position.

I have covered how I came to be in rehab in a prior post, and the impact that my addiction to synthetic marijuana had on my life in another. In this post I am only addressing how I have managed to accept God into my life while still accepting the scientific evidence of the world and the universe around me. 

White willow bark has been mentioned in some of the oldest texts known to exist and is believed to  have been used as far back as six millennia. Modern tests conclude that "The active extract of the bark, called salicin... was isolated to its crystalline form in 1828 by Henri Leroux, a French pharmacist, and Raffaele Piria, an Italian chemist, who then succeeded in separating out the acid in its pure state. Salicylic acid, like aspirin, is a chemical derivative of salicin." White willow bark is, effectively, Mother Nature's aspirin. Ancient civilizations had no way of knowing this of course, but they knew that it was effective as an analgesic and anti-inflammatory agent. It is likely that our ancestors, as hunter-gatherers,  tested virtually every species of both flora and fauna for edibility in their efforts to survive. Those found to be inedible due to unwanted reactions were avoided; those found to be edible were gathered (and eventually farmed); those found to provide beneficial side effects (such pain and inflammation relief) would certainly have been identified and used for medicinal (or recreational!) purposes. It was not necessary for these people to know the underlying chemical compounds responsible. Our ancestors were wise enough to use what worked. 

I often wonder if we have lost the ability to appreciate both the beauty and wonder around us without dissecting it. We have become a culture of reductionists, our religion that of reductionism, disbelieving anything which we cannot both dissect and understand. Stephen Hawking stated "When people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense... there is no god. No one created our universe,and no one directs our fate...There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. " We now know how DNA replicates to sustain and create life. To the pure scientist, the thrill is gone, the cat is out of the bag, what was hidden has been revealed. We no longer need gods; we have become gods. 

Some years ago I was working at manufacturing plant where one of my projects was to build a lab environment where the machinists and tool and die makers could build prototypes. I have an engineering degree and had at that time worked with machinists and tool and die makers for over a decade in addition to machine shop labs in school and years of helping my older brother, father, and step-father work on cars and various equipment. I determined that I would build one of the parts that I had designed in the new lab rather than assign it to one of the machinists. I finally had to give up after breaking several hundred dollars worth of milling heads and ruining perhaps half a dozen expensive tool steel blanks. I simply do not have the talent required to be a machinist. I had a similar experience with welding years before. Although I had a minor in welding metallurgy I could not (and most assuredly still cannot) weld two pieces of steel together adequately no matter how hard I try! I can calculate tool paths and figure metal alloys, design complex structures and machines, but I simply do not have the talent to be either a machinist or a welder. I can neither sing nor dance of note either. 

I believe that, given an expensive Swiss mechanical watch and the proper tools, I could take it apart, figure out how it works, and perhaps even design a new one or make improvements. I might even (with considerable luck and lots of notes!) be able to get the disassembled watch back together in working order (want to let me try on your Rolex?), but I have virtually zero confidence that I could build one from scratch. As an engineer and scientist I am able to dissect an object and understand it, even perhaps able to describe it and possibly determine what changes might do to its behavior. Still, none of this mean that I am capable of either building that object from scratch or, more importantly, in the absence of such an object, does it mean that I am able to conceive of and create that object. 

A heart surgeon brought his vintage motorcycle to the shop and was told it needed a valve job. On picking up the motorcycle some time later the mechanic asked him, "Doc, I opened up the head, cleaned the valves, and put it all back together so that it's running smooth. You open up a heart, clean the valves, and put it all back together so it's running smooth. Why is it I make thirty dollars and hour and you make three hundred dollars an hour?" The surgeon replied without pause, "Try doing it while the motor is running."

When I was healed of my brain damage, guilt, and shame, I had to come to terms with that. Either I denied that I had been healed, in which case I was back to the cold, stark reality of an atheist, or I accepted that I had been healed, in which case I had to understand how that happened. Further, denying that I had been healed would be an admission that I am in fact insane! I know what happened to me. The scientist in me "observed" the healing and compared that to prior data. There simply is no way for me to deny having been physically and emotionally healed other than to deny my own observations, effectively accepting that I am insane. (The astute among you will note my use of the scientific method to "prove" a very non-scientific result!).

That we understand how the "clockwork" of life, DNA, and of the universe works does not mean that we are capable of understanding why or how either was created nor that we would be able to create, envision, or understand either in the absence of their existence. In fact, we do not even come close to understanding either the universe or the creation of life. Proponents of the anthropic principle note the fine tuning of fundamental constants without which our universe and life would not be possible. Those who understand the replication of DNA are awestruck by the process, and we still do not understand how each cell "knows" what type of cell to become. How we are so different from chimpanzees although we differ in DNA by only a percentage.

I had to accept that I was healed, and that I had not been healed on prior occasions no matter how hard I wanted it. Not only was I powerless over my addiction, I had absolutely no control over the damage that drugs had done to my brain. Once I accepted this, it became obvious to me what I had been missing; our ability to dissect DNA and to mathematically describe the universe did not in fact make us gods. Stephen Hawking is wrong; no matter how well we describe the world around us, we will still not know the mind of God.

I have had conversations with those who don't believe in evolution, believe in a literal creation story where humans and all the flora and fauna of the world are immutable. Parallel with the belief that life on earth is immutable, believers in a literal creation story believe in a young earth, it being 'created' by God less than ten thousand years ago. Modern science has disproved both these theories. Charles Darwin, the primary developer of modern evolutionary theory fought to believe in a literal creation story. He had to recant, but only after years of research, stating on 11 January, 1844 in a letter to a friend that he was "almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable." Modern science has proven the literal interpretation of creation myths to be just that, mythology.

I still believe in evolution and that man evolved from apes. I still wonder at the miracle of quantum entanglement. I still believe that the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old and the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. I still believe that the speed of light is constant throughout the universe (e=mc2) and that no physical object can approach the speed of light due to the infinite increase in mass. I still don't believe that inter-stellar travel is possible due to e=mc2 and that the use of wormholes is impossible due to time dilation (although I do not discount future discoveries such as traversable wormholes). I still believe that there is no time outside the beginning of the universe. 

The leap of faith required by me in order to believe in God as a Creator is far greater than that of someone ignorant of modern science and too belligerent to consider it. I had to decide that I believe in God even though the evidence produced by all of humanity over the course of all history contradict His existence. The ignorant and close minded person simply has to believe his pastor. It is interesting to note that, of those who believe in a young earth and the immutability of species, most still rely on modern science when it comes to medicine. Hypocrite is the most appropriate term for these people, and it is interesting to note that the earliest reference I can find to its use other than in the original Greek, for an actor, is when Jesus used it repeatedly to those who followed the letter of the law while ignoring its spirit.

My faith in God is strong enough that I don't need Him to fit within the mathematics of Stephen Hawking or within DNA sequencing theory. In truth, I would have no respect for a deity that could be described by our science. That said; I pray every day for God that "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

Do I know what God looks like? Of course not. That we are "made in His image" may not be a literal statement, just as the creation story is not literal. Made in "His image" may be a reference to how we think and act. Jesus said that "God is spirit." We don't even know what Jesus looked like. The popular "Caucasian" image or, as Philip Yancy labels him, the Prozak Jesus, most certainly looks nothing like a first century Jew. Jesus probably looked more like Lenny Bruce with a full beard, and the two probably would have understood each other quite well, generational issues aside.

Do I know what Heaven is or looks like or what the kingdom of God is or looks like? What a ridiculous question! It certainly isn't in the clouds, as was thought up until a few centuries past. Jesus told us that the kingdom of God is upon you. he also said that, wherever there are two or more of us in His name He will be there. Maybe we're in heaven and the kingdom of God right now, as Christians who actually try to follow the words of Jesus and who call on Him. You can find, and I have found, numerous arguments that will shred my simplified statements, however, once I accept that the bible is to be read primarily as a parable and I cast off the desire to be a legalist and interpret scripture as exact, trying instead to live by the spirit of the scripture, no more does the legalist have any hold over me.

I read the bible through the filter of the "words in red." I look for what Jesus actually meant rather than tearing apart the exact phrasing of a particular interpretation. Jesus repeatedly used this same method to both strike down existing law as in His statement that "it is not what goes into your mouth, but rather that which comes out of it that defiles you" as well in his actions such as fraternizing with Samaritans and lepers. 

When I read Paul saying that it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church, I simply run that through the filter of the words of Jesus. Sorry! There is absolutely no way that Jesus would have taken that position! The last people at the cross and the first at the tomb were women. Women of means followed him and the disciples and helped to support them. Jesus used a Samaritan woman to carry the message to a Samaritan town, effectively making her a disciple.

Jesus' message to anyone who will read His words without the filter of his or her own prejudice. He spoke to us in parables that were so simple even children could understand them. When asked what to do to inherit eternal life he acknowledged that we must love the Lord with all our heart and love our neighbor as we do our self. When asked to define neighbor he gave us the parable of the good Samaritan. Samaritans and Jews hated one another, yet Jesus chose one of the most hated classes of people to demonstrate to the Jewish Pharisees what is meant by love. You must love everyone, regardless of differences, even as you love yourself. 

Jesus never mentioned any ritual cleansing that was required before or after the Samaritan helped the Jew, only that help was given and nothing expected in return. Is that really so difficult to understand? With that context in mind how can anyone justify condemning anyone else whether he or she be an adulterer, homosexual, Muslim, African American, or even a Republican?

I've had apologists explain Pauls' statement disallowing women to speak in church as being due to the women being "pagans", but that is not mentioned in Pauls' text. None seems willing to discuss the issue of divorce, although all will readily condemn homosexuality. Jesus was clear on his stance against divorce, but he never mentioned homosexuality. How can someone who professes to be a Christian castigate homosexuals but never mention divorce? Hypocrisy. Homosexuals are an easy target in our society; it is popular to hate us. Criticize divorcees in the same manner and watch your congregation, and hence your cash flow, run screaming for the doors.

Jesus made it clear that there would be a great cost in being a disciple. Those who succumb to social pressure or prejudice and treat others in a manner other than as a neighbor (in the sense that Jesus meant) are simply not following the path that He laid out for us. He made it clear that there would be false prophets. He even made it clear how to identify them; by their very actions. If someone professes to follow His path, but treats others badly, and not as Jesus outlined in his definition of neighbor, that is a false prophet.

Jesus brought to us a new covenant, in which God said; "I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts... No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." How hard is it to read the words of Jesus, understanding his simple parables, and to pray to God in His name asking for understanding? I don't need someone with a degree in seminary to tell me that God doesn't hate me because I'm gay. It's obvious to me when I commune with God.