America Has Stopped Dreaming (No Longer the "Home of the Brave")

Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White, Roger B. Chaffee, Francis R. Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair, Gregory B. Jarvis, S. Christa McAuliffe, Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael P. Anderson, Laurel B. Clark, IIam Roman.

These seventeen (17) names are the forgotten heroes of America.  The brave men and women on this list were not soldiers (though some had served in the Armed Forces), thus their legacy has nothing to do with war or dying in battle.  They never stormed a beachhead or secured a strategic hill; they never triumphantly lead a force into combat or eliminated some foreign threat.  Yet with all of that being said, these seventeen souls are the greatest of human heroes. Why?  Because they dared to venture into the unknown for nothing more than the quest for greater knowledge and further exploration. And while the soldiers of war are certainly deserving of the honor they have dearly earned, these seventeen soldiers of curiosity, whose battlefield lies in the stars and whose enemy is the ignorant, dared to escape the bonds of Earth to dance with the gods on a stage far greater than anything our puny little planet has to offer, thus making them, in my opinion, the greatest of heroes. 

For over 50 years, one organization has done more to wage this war for greater knowledge and exploration than any other in human history.  Founded in 1958, NASA has given America (and the world at large) more opportunities for growth, more avenues for progress and more desires to dream that big dream than any other organization in the history of our species.  And throughout its history, brave men and women have answered the call to breach our earthly atmosphere and to reach for the stars, and today provides us all with an opportunity to say thanks.

Ten years ago today, the Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed while attempting to return to Earth, claiming the lives of seven brave astronauts.  And though this day belongs primarily with their memory, I believe that this occasion also affords us the chance to recognize the sacrifice of all seventeen brave NASA astronauts who have died in the ultimate line of duty: the quest for greater human knowledge.  The Apollo I, STS-51L (Challenger) and STS-107 (Columbia) missions all serve to remind us that our greatest possible quest, the human pursuit to explore, comes, at times, at a very high cost.

Ironically enough, all three NASA tragedies occurred on roughly the same dates (they are separated by 6 days on the calendar), so it's only natural for us to remember all of them when we honor one of them. Twenty-seven years ago (January 28, 1986) the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded during liftoff, while forty-six years ago (January 27, 1967), the astronauts of the Apollo I mission were burned to death in a cabin fire during a routine launch pad test.  These two national tragedies, along with the Columbia disaster which we mark today, are hallowed anniversaries that should compel us to reflect upon that which we hold most dear.  The natural human drive to explore, expand and soak in all the knowledge that we can is, by far, the single greatest characteristic that separates humans from all other known living things.  We aspire.  We dream of the impossible.  We fantasize about becoming more than we are.  In the words of Mark Twain, we humans dare to "Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in [our] sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." 

But sadly, this dream is dying a quick and painful death.  The drive to continue our exploration of the heavens is running out of fuel faster than a rocket during liftoff.  The public, by and large, has grown ignorant of the immensity of the challenge before us and has erroneously regarded space travel as "routine."  This, coupled with the fact that incompetent leaders have lost sight of the vitality of space exploration to the human race, has mothballed NASA and placed its agenda on the back burner.  Too often we hear national leaders and ignorant citizens foolishly proclaim that we have "nothing more to explore" or that there is "nothing out there worth our while" or that "other pressing matters take precedence."  These idiotic statements, along with many others like them, would be laughable if the implications weren't so tragic.  Space exploration is, without question, the most important, most galvanizing, most essential endeavor that we can hope to embark upon.  There is absolutely zero justification for us to simply discard or downgrade the space program.  As Gene Krantz, the former flight director for NASA during the Apollo program stated:

We have the young people, we have the talent, we have the imagination, we have the technology.  But I don't believe we have the leadership and the willingness to accept risk, to achieve goals.  I believe we need a long-term national commitment to explore the universe.  And I believe this is an essential investment in the future of our nation.

No financial crisis, no global pandemic, no natural disaster, however severe, can serve to justify our wanton disregard for humanity's greatest challenge and adventure.

But that is EXACTLY what we have done.  We have allowed economic pressures, global fears and partisan political paranoia to derail us from what is absolutely essential to our survival, and yes, space exploration is absolutely essential to our survival.  I say that not because of the fact that eventually our species will be forced to migrate to another world, but because space exploration lies at the very heart of human exceptionalism.  If we truly hope to become more than we are we must push ourselves towards the horizon.  Space exploration is vital because of what it brings out in us as a society.  It forces humanity to look past the pettiness of so much that we esteem to be of "value" in this world.  It affords us the chance to discover new scientific, technological and medical breakthroughs.  It inoculates our culture from becoming too complacent and too lazy.  It makes us dream bigger, work harder, and think deeper.  In short, space exploration is the "hard thing" that will make us all stronger.  In the words of Kirk, Spock and Picard, space truly has become "the final frontier." 

Now, you may be thinking to yourself that all of this is achievable without sending rockets and astronauts into space and you may be right...to a point.  I suppose we could achieve much of this without landing a man on the moon or venturing to Mars and beyond but I maintain that NOTHING has forced us to dream bigger, think deeper or work harder than NASA and the manned space program.  As a result, there is no more efficient manner in which we could improve conditions than by continuing to push the envelope of space.  Yes, more astronauts will die and more multi-million dollar space vehicles will be destroyed, but the ends more than justify the means.

Consider for a moment what the Apollo program gave humanity.  Aside from bringing home moon rocks and cool pictures, the Apollo astronauts (and NASA as a whole) gave society some very practical and important innovations such as:

Memory foam, freeze-dried food, hand vacuums, CAT scans, MRI scans, cordless power tools, ear thermometers, huge improvements in insulation, satellite television, GPS navigation, shoe insoles, scratch resistant lenses, smoke detectors, improved water filtration, fire resistant suits, solar panels, pacemakers, improved and simplified kidney dialysis, athletic equipment, physical therapy, cochlear implants, LED technology, artificial limbs, anti-icing for aircraft, radial tires, enriched baby food, powdered lubricants, Velcro, AED heart resuscitation, invisible braces and Tang!

And this doesn't even take into account all of the innovations that the Apollo program brought to computers.  Everything from smaller and more reliable components to the development of micro-chip processors, digital watches, fibre optics, flat screen televisions (eventually), video games and much more can be directly linked to the great space race of the 1960s...that's right...the 1960s!!!  One can only imagine what we could have achieved by now had we not simply chosen to give up on serious space exploration.  For too long we have been content with doing circles around our own globe and putting satellites into space (which is all fine and good) when we could have been venturing out much deeper into the infinitude of space.  By now Mars should even be in our rear view mirror.  Pathetic that we haven't done more, isn't it! If there is a God in heaven, he must surely be disgusted with the fact that we have settled for the scraps when we could have had the stars.

But all of these technological advances pale in comparison to what the space program has done for American culture.  The Apollo program not only gave birth to the next generation of scientists, but it also redefined American culture.  In the following lecture, Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson illustrates, in great detail, just how dramatic the space program was on American culture, in ways most people don't even realize:



Too often we hear partisan political hacks on both sides complain about the erosion of American culture taking place before our very eyes.  And though their assessment of the situation is accurate, their solutions for the problem are bogus.  Having been hampered by the near-sighted vision of partisan bigotry, their remedies almost always consist of petitions for society to adhere to the narrow and one-sided view of their respective political leanings.  In other words, as long as society accepts the tenants of their particular dogma all will be right with the world.  But these proposals, unfortunately, fail to address the larger picture.  American (and world) culture is eroding not because of political strife or religious apathy; it is eroding because we no longer dream the impossible dream.

Sure, we still have collective dreams as a society, but more times than not, those dreams consist of narcissistic ambitions based on the meaningless acquisition of personal wealth.  We dream of "striking it big" by picking the right combination of numbers in the Lotto or winning a huge lawsuit.  We define success as getting that job promotion or creating the next "big idea" that guarantees us a huge pay day.  And though these dreams are, for the most part, acceptable, not a one is capable of delivering us the desired cultural change we seek. 

The problem is that the "American Dream" is a self-serving dream.  Sure, a white picket fence and a stable job is great and is a noble thing to work for, but it doesn't bring about cultural change.  To truly change a culture we must shift our paradigm of thinking.  We must dream the impossible dream.  And I'm not talking about the impossible dream of becoming the next NFL or NBA star, or of becoming the next winner of American Idol or Next Top Model.  I'm talking about those big dreams that come to us all as we gaze up at the night sky.  Is it any wonder why so many children want to become astronauts or fantasize about traveling to new worlds?  This isn't just science fiction taking over their minds.  It is pure, raw, undisturbed imagination at work.  The dream that we can shoot for the stars.  This is what we need in order to change our culture. The LeBron James', Kim Kardaishian's and even the Barack Obama's and/or Ronald Reagan's of the world can only do so much.  It takes a Neil Armstrong or a Christopher Columbus to truly expand our collective world view.

But the fact of the matter is that nobody wants to make the necessary change because we are now a culture that is based on fear.  The collective paranoia of the masses has created a society that cannot embrace the needed change because we are too frightened by our own shadow.  And I'm not just talking about a fear of terrorists or plots to destroy our democracy.  The fear I speak of is far more subtle.  It is the fear of letting go and embracing the unknown.  Like the starving man who frantically scavenges for the scraps under the table, thus missing the feast above him, we as a culture cling to our iPod, cell phone, On Demand, flat screen, GPS society without realizing that we could have something even greater.  Our frantic paranoia prevents us from embracing the unknown, which then reinforces the fear factor. 

We are no longer the "Home of the Brave."

We are the home of the complacent.  The lazy.  The self-serving.  The comfortable.  But certainly NOT the "Home of the Brave."  And yes, it takes much more than valiant soldiers and mighty armies to be considered a truly brave society. We've convinced ourselves that the pointless political and social matters that we obsess over today actually reveal our valor when in fact they reveal our cowardice, unwillingness to embrace the unknown and our lack of resolve to make any actual change in the way we perceive the world. There is nothing brave about our collective rejection of dreaming the big dream. 

Case in point: as the clocks turned to February 1st, the top stories on all the major news websites were:

On MSN: Joe Biden on how new gun laws won't stop shootings, how service animals help the elderly, Kim Kardashian's pregnant belly starting to show, Beyonce admitting to lip-syncing at the Inauguration, the NFL union chief ranting about concussions in football and underwater explorers discovering a giant squid.

CNN featured leading articles on an X-Games snowmobiler who had died, and more drama about guns.

Fox News: More gun crap, an article on Obamacare, and a deadly explosion in Mexico.

In fact, not a SINGLE MAJOR NEWS OUTLET featured any leading story about the Columbia anniversary!

This is an obscenity!  The collective lack of recognition for humanity's greatest achievement and most daunting quest, that being manned space flight, reveals just how warped we have truly become.  We insult the memory of the crew of STS-107 (Columbia), along with all the others who have died for the cause of exploration by essentially blotting them from our collective memory and discourse.  We have belittled their contributions to little more than a "special interest" or a novelty act. 

But make no mistake, NASA and the manned space program is no special interest.  In fact, it should be our MAIN interest.  All other concerns and priorities pale in comparison.  What could possibly be more important than exploring God's playground?  We can either use our resources to uncover the mysteries of this tiny and relatively insignificant blue rock or we can use them to reveal the wonder of the cosmos.

How much would you be willing to pay for the universe?

As we remember the seven brave astronauts who perished on board Columbia, along with the ten others who died during other missions, let us recognize the fact that our ability to dream the big dream is what truly makes humanity special.  Without it we might as well return to our caves and draw stick figures on the walls.  If the legacies of Apollo I, STS-51L and STS-107 teach us anything it is that mankind can achieve just about anything it sets its mind to...so long as we dream big and act brave.  As Christopher Columbus stated:

You cannot discover a new world unless you first have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Thank you, brave astronauts for revealing to us the true nature of humanity and the correct perspective we should all embrace!

A brief video tribute to the seventeen brave astronauts of Apollo I, Challenger and Columbia:

Neil Degrasse Tyson on the importance of space exploration:

Religion v. Science

and the Pitfalls of Literalism
in Both Camps

This past week I purchased a book on my Kindle Fire (thank you, God for the Kindle Fire) that I have been wanting to read for quite a long time: Proof of Heaven by Ebon Alexander. The book chronicles the alleged near-death experience of Dr. Alexander, a revered neurosurgeon who fell into a deep coma that completely rendered his neocortex (the part of the brain that allegedly controls human conscience) completely inactive.

Of course, there is nothing unique about Dr. Alexander's claims of his "spirit" journeying to the beyond.  Thousands of people from all cultures have made such claims.  But there are a few special circumstances surrounding Dr. Alexander's account.  First, it is a documented fact that the "thinking" parts of Dr. Alexander's brain were totally shut down for at least seven days.  Second, as an accredited neurosurgeon, who has lectured at schools like Harvard and Yale, Dr. Alexander was inherently a skeptic of things like near-death experiences.  As a result, Dr. Alexander attempts to analyze his experience through the lens of a scientist as opposed to the traditional approach that most survivors of NDE's take.

With all of this being said, I wish I could report that I found Dr. Alexander's book particularly enlightening.  Sadly, I was very disappointed.  The book, which seemed more like a bio of Dr. Alexander's life rather than an account of his experience, was, for me, a huge let down.  I also found little scientific analysis into his experience (for example, Dr. Alexander stated that "all of his questions" were answered by "god" but he never tells us what those questions were.  Not very "scientific.").  Long story short, the book was a lot of fluff with very little substance (in my opinion).

Anyway, the intent of this blog post is not to provide a review of Dr. Alexander's book.  I mention it here as a lead-in to a much larger and more difficult topic that never seems to go away: the topic of religion v. science and how both sides cooperate/clash with one another.  And whether you believe him or not, Dr. Alexander's story is the perfect illustration of just how messy this topic can be.  Even though most of us will never have the "privilege" of experiencing a NDE like Dr. Alexander, we all come to the same crossroad that he arrived at: where does human reason and scientific inquiry end and divine light and spiritual faith begin?

Of course, there is no possible way to answer this question and my simple little blog post will do little to address it today, but I do think we can clarify a few of the "rules of the game" that I find particularly troubling.  After all, it is impossible to even attempt an honest discussion on an issue like this if both sides cannot agree on a general code of conduct.  This is my goal today.

The first fact we must accept is that religion and science, though operating on fundamentally different playing fields, are essentially two different languages trying to tell the same general story: who are we? where did we come from? where are we going?  Religion, which is inherently dogmatic, resistant to change and often dictatorial in nature, provides a nuanced view on things like morality, kindness, charity and forgiveness, and the eternal value these intangible attributes have over what the palpable world offers.  Science, on the other hand, is self-reflective, always changing and based on verifiable realities, which places almost all value upon the provable, observable and rational.

And though these differences in approach to truth seem to regularly lead both parties into a head-on collision with one another, I believe that most of the wreckage comes as a result of both parties being either unwilling to concede any ground on even the most basic of principles and/or taking ridiculous cheap shots at the other side's weakest elements.

Take for example the works of scientists like Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan: two men whom I admire for their scientific expertise and prowess with the written and spoken word.  Few men in the scientific world have the ability to inspire and persuade as Dawkins and Sagan do.  But their powerful prose notwithstanding, I am regularly disappointed to see these (and other) accredited scientists resorting to childish attacks on the low-lying fruit of religion.  They treat religion with such blatant contempt that it becomes impossible for them to be truly "scientific."  In other words, they take the worst of religion, portray it as a rigid monolith, that when compared with the best of science (which is fluid and evolving) makes any and all believers look like ridiculous, uninformed buffoons.  Such an approach is both unscientific and immature, and certainly unworthy of "sophisticated" minds like those of Dawkins and Sagan.  It is cheap shot, bush league nonsense.  In short, men like Dawkins and Sagan may be/have been great scientists, but they are/were piss-poor theologians.

But as is the case with any dysfunctional debate, it takes two sides to tango.  When we look at religion's contempt for science, we often see reason and common sense being replaced with suspicion and paranoia masquerading as "faith."  Religious leaders, bent on preserving the "integrity" of their holy books, resort to some of the most ridiculous arguments in human history.  Men like Ken Ham, who cannot accept the FACT that the world is billions of year old, have twisted reality to such an appalling level all in the name of protecting the Bible.  Such a narrow-minded view of reality, all in the name of literal biblical Christianity, is an embarrassment to religious people everywhere.  For men like Ken Ham the bottom line is this: Religion has had to concede so much ground over the years because of the FACT that so much has been proven wrong.  To believe, in the modern era, that Adam and Eve were the first human beings, living in a perfect garden only 6,000 years ago, until a talking snake convinced Eve to eat a naughty apple, thereby causing death and sin to enter the picture, which eventually caused a man named Noah to build a magic ark to save all animals from a global flood, isn't an example of a person's faith; it's an illustration of a person's ignorance.

But there can be a balance between both science and religion.  As Galileo stated during his bogus trial:

The Bible tells you how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go...In my mind God wrote two books. The first book is the Bible, where humans can find the answers to their questions on values and morals.  The second book of God is the book of nature, which allows humans to use observations and experiment to answer our own questions about the universe.

Admittedly, there is a lot wrong with Galileo's summation, but I think that we all can see what he was getting at.  At the risk of sounding insensitive to scriptural literalists, taking the Bible, Qur'an, Book of Mormon or any other holy book as literal, factual undeniable truth is, at best, stupid.  But to discredit the moral lessons found in scripture for those same reasons is equally stupid, and the scientists who regularly slam scripture for such reasons would do well to watch their tongue.  After all, I wonder how scientists might react if theologians were to judge their mistakes by the same standard.  Whether taking the form of alchemy, the four humors, social Darwinism, or bloodletting (which killed our first president), science hasn't exactly batted 1.000 either and would be equally wrong to claim literalism.

Of course, Science doesn't judge itself by as strict a literalist standard and does a MUCH better job of learning from its mistakes than does religion.  After all, science doesn't claim to know the will of God.  But science does make it a regular practice to discredit that which requires faith, as if faith were a hindrance to an honest quest for truth.  But such an approach makes a mockery out of some of the basic elements of humanity...that being primarily our HUMANITY.  As Emily Dickinson wrote:

Faith -- is the Pierless Bridge
Supporting what We see
Unto the Scene that We do not --
Too slender for the eye

It bears the Soul as bold
As it were rocked in Steel
With Arms of Steel at either side --
It joins -- behind the Veil

To what, could We presume
The Bridge would cease to be
To Our far, vacillating Feet
A first Necessity.

So if taking too literal of a religious or scientific approach is a bad thing then what is the solution?  I'm not sure there is one.  Perhaps it would be a good starting point for both religion and science to take the best from one another.  Science would do well to recognize that there is much about the world that is not provable, verifiable or testable but is still a reality (dark matter, dark energy, quantum gravity, etc.) and that much of what religion esteems of worth (kindness, charity, etc.) cannot be tested in a laboratory.  There is real value to sincere prayer, meditation, positive thought, and devout devotion.  To simply say, "I don't need church" is far too simplistic.  Sure, I would agree that one can live a good life without a faith, but a faith doesn't hurt.  In fact, it helps...a helluva lot.  As a recent Gallup poll shows, those who go to church are, by and large, happier, more successful and more charitable.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Attending church, like attending school, helps us to grow our understanding of what faith really is.  Benamin Franklin once stated that, "Genius, without education, is like silver still trapped in the mine."  Might I be so bold as to say that faith/hope/charity, without religion, is like silver still trapped in the mine as well.

On the flip side, religion would do well to recognize that science has CONCLUSIVELY proven some of religion's most archaic ideas and teachings to be completely untrue.  As a result, religion is going to have to learn how to be flexible.  This is where science blows religion away.  Nobody (or at least very few) in the scientific community get as crazy as those of the religious community when their ideas/beliefs are challenged.  Science is about challenging EVERYTHING, and religion would do well to challenge at least a few things.  As Thomas Jefferson apty stated:

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.  Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Questioning things is not a sign of weakness or a lack of faith.  In fact, I believe that an argument can be made that any faith, without a healthy dose of honest skepticism, isn't really faith at all.  It is both right and good that we change how we think about the nature of God.  For example the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-benevolent god doesn't even exist in the oldest Hebrew texts of the Bible.  It may just be a mistake based on the Aristotelian thought of the Medieval era that God was nothing more than a mystical but simple unmoved mover.  Perhaps he isn't the celestial dictatorial magician we think He is but rather a teacher, motivator and persuader of good?

The bottom line is this: anyone who insists upon taking an absolute, literalist approach to either religion or science could probably benefit from learning a little more about religion and/or science.  After all, there is little REAL merit in the atheist argument that tries to explain away religious belief through reason and psychology.  To the believer know this: you don't have to listen to their ilk.  In the end, all they are saying is something like this:

"I'm an atheist because I am strong, rational and thoughtful; you're a believer because you are all about wish fulfillment and emotional response.  Therefore religious people are weaker, less sophisticated and more prone to deception that us atheists." 

Again, the Carl Sagan's and Richard Dawkins's of the world are far more eloquent in how they say it, but make no mistake; this is EXACTLY what they are saying...and it's bullshit.

And for the religious zealot who rebukes any and all verifiable claims of science by simply regurgitating the line, "because the Bible says so," all I can say is...GOD HELP YOU!  Your INTENTIONAL stupidity does your cause no good, but instead weakens the hand you have been dealt. Instead of taking such a hard-lined stance on what your holy book says, try to simply accept truth wherever it can be found.  I've often wondered as to whether or not biblical literalists believe in Jesus or in the Bible?  Or if Muslim literalists believe in Allah or the Qur'an?  In other words, has your holy book become such an idol for worship that you cannot look past it any longer?  Are you seriously that diluted in your thinking?

I don't mean to be harsh but sometimes harsh speech can shake people from apathy.  I think I have said enough.  Instead, let me leave you with the words of astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, from his excellent book, Death by Black Hole.  He writes:

Let there be no doubt that as they are currently practiced, there is no common ground between science and religion...history reveals a long and combative relationship between religion and science, depending on who was in control of society at the time.  The claims of science rely on experimental verification, while those of religion rely on faith.  These are fundamentally irreconcilable approaches to knowing, which ensures an eternity of debate wherever and whenever the two camps meet.  Although just as in hostage negotiations, it's probably best to keep both sides talking to each other.

I couldn't agree more.  What is most important is that we keep talking...a lot...and often.  Both sides stand to lose too much by backing into their respective caves and relying exclusively on their own "truths."  Or as Albert Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."  In conclusion, I leave you with the words of the good Doctor Ebon Alexander.  Perhaps his near-death experience illustrates the strange but important dichotomy that exists between religion and science better than I originally thought:

Today many believe that the living spiritual truths of religion have lost their power, and that science, not faith, is the road to truth. Before my experience I strongly suspected that this was the case myself. 

But I now understand that such a view is far too simple. The plain fact is that the materialist picture of the body and brain as the producers, rather than the vehicles, of human consciousness is doomed. In its place a new view of mind and body will emerge, and in fact is emerging already. This view is scientific and spiritual in equal measure and will value what the greatest scientists of history themselves always valued above all: truth.

Only time will tell I suppose.

A New Burial (and Birth) for Richard III

To even the causal fan of Shakespeare, tales of the pale, abusive and foolish English King Richard III ring quite familiar.   As the final king of the Plantagenet line, Richard's legacy has become synonymous with the epitome of Machiavellian deceit and malevolent cunning.  British historians have, for centuries, marked the end of the Middle Ages with his death, while men like Shakespeare have esteemed Richard as little more than a petty, cruel and repulsive hooligan:

"And thus I clothe my naked villainy With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ,And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

[...]

I shall despair.  There is no creature loves me; And if I die, no soul will pity me:Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myselfFind in myself no pity to myself?"

And though it is true that Richard III was a relatively ineffective and perverse figure (Richard suffered from scoliosis and other physical deformities that seemed to add further credence to his abhorrent reputation), Shakespeare (and others) was wrong to label him as arguably the most vile figure to ever sit upon the English throne.  Surely much of the negativity surrounding Richard's legacy can be attributed to the propagandist efforts of the Tudor dynasty, which supplanted Richard in 1485.  True, Richard was an inept, oblivious and cocky leader but he was far from being the devil incarnate.  In many ways, Richard simply died in the wrong place and at the wrong time; an unfortunate casualty of history.  No wonder why Shakespeare chose to portray Richard as one of his most vile of anti-heroes.

With that being said, it looks like Richard may catch a bit of a break.  Over the past month, archaeologists with the University of Leicester have been excavating lands in and around Bosworth Field, the location where Richard was killed in battle.  Shortly into their excavations, archaeologists were astonished when they discovered human remains that appear to be those of Richard himself.  DNA and other scientific tests are still needed to confirm the findings but all early accounts seem to suggest that Richard III's final resting place has been unearthed.

Needless to say, this discovery has set off a firestorm of excitement within the historical and archaeological community.  Many have seen this moment as an opportunity to reevaluate the legacy of Richard by rescuing him from the rhetoric of generations past.  As Robert McCrum aptly states:

Richard was the last English king to fight and die on the battlefield. The end of both the Wars of the Roses and the Plantagenet dynasty was a turning point in English history. For these reasons alone, Richard III has a special place in the national myth. What follows, however, was sheer propaganda. Contrary to popular opinion, this came not from Shakespeare but from the pen of the saintly Thomas More.

The History of King Richard III was a hatchet job designed to explore the nature of power, leading to tyranny, and the sin that made such despotism possible. In More's account, Richard is accursed and unnatural, a parricide who broke all ties of kinship, like the figure of Vice in a morality play. An avuncular protector who was not a protector, a plotter and a killer, More's Richard contrives the murder of his nephews (Edward V and Richard of York), the princes in the tower. More, a loyal Tudor servant, had no interest in an impartial history. He wanted to present a narrative of evil with the hunchback king as a secular Satan.

I couldn't agree more.  It is rare when a historical figure is granted a "rebirth" 527 years after their final act.  This is a wonderful opportunity for not only the British people but the world to recognize the profundity of this discovery.  Already different organizations in Britain have been arguing over where Richard III's remains should ultimately rest.  Most historians agree that Richard intended to be buried in York, but others insist on giving Richard a full royal and state-sponsored funeral, with internment at Westminster Abby.

No matter how this story plays out, there is little doubt that Richard III is about to become a whole lot more popular now than ever before.  And even though all the DNA tests and royal processions will ultimately end with Richard's bones still ending up in a crypt, a new legacy is likely to be born.  Again, from Robert McCrum:

So this, perhaps, is the redemptive archetypal version that might be available to the British people soon: "The Return of the King" - his bones triumphantly verified and acknowledged, a new tomb...and another royal shrine for the British tourist trade.  As in the best dramas, we're now held in suspense, awaiting the closing act...The king's bones may yet become a secular relic, an object of national veneration.  Shakespeare, for one, would relish the irony.

Venus and the Birth of America

Over at my group blog (American Creation) Author and Unitarian Pastor Gary Kowalski (who wrote this excellent book in 2008) explains how the orbit of Venus, which crossed in front of the Sun today, has a unique link with America's founding.  In his post, Kowalski writes:

Today the planet Venus makes a rare transit across the face of the sun.  During the eighteenth century, the astronomical alignment took place twice, in 1761 and 1769, drawing observations from scientific teams all over the world, including North America.  Astronomers at that time were able to produce the first truly accurate measurements of the distance between the Earth and the sun, vastly expanding the known universe and kindling the human imagination with an understanding of Deep Space.

The Declaration of Independence, a short time later, would receive its first public reading from atop a tower constructed in Philadelphia to view the transit.  The American Philosophical Society, the scientific body Benjamin Franklin founded, which built the tower and organized the astronomical viewing under the leadership of David Rittenhouse (who constructed the telescope, quadrant, pendulum clock and other precision instruments necessary to do the siting) is located just next door to Independence Hall.  The new cosmology went hand in hand with the new political paradigm, no longer based up the heavenly mandate of a hereditary king, but upon the equal access of all to the heavenly realms and their motions. 

The Royal Astronomer of England, upon receiving a report of the American measurements, wrote that “the first approximately accurate results in the measurements of the spheres given to the world [was made] not by the schooled and salaried astronomers who watched from the magnificent observatories of Europe, but by unaided amateurs and devotees to science in the youthful province of Pennsylvania.” 

What else might come out of these colonies, where men by their own wits and abilities could vie with the lords of the Old World?   Today you can watch the transit online or with protective filters—your last opportunity to see what America’s Founders saw and wonder at an event that won’t be repeated for 105 years.

The following is a fascinating video on the transit of the planet Venus:

 

Getting a Dull Shave With Occam's Razor

“The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be “Seek simplicity and distrust it.” – Alfred North Whitehead

Most people are familiar with the philosophical principle known as Occam's Razor, which suggests that whenever faced with competing hypotheses to a particular problem, the one with the fewest and simplest assumptions is probably best.  Occam's Razor implies that there is an inherant virtue to simplicity, even from a scientific or philosophical perspective, and that by taking a minimalist stance to a given problem the truth can become more clear. Occam's Razor has become a staple for theological skeptics and nominalists who prefer a more deliberate and palpable view of the metaphysical world.  In many respects, Occam's Razor has been wielded as the ultimate dagger against those who put their faith in the intangible.  As actress Jodi Foster demonstrates:



The portrayal of Occam's Razor in the movie Contact is probably the best known allusion to this philosophical principle in modern culture.  In fact, when most people refer to Occam's Razor they usually end up quoting the very lines that Jodi Foster used in the film: "All things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one."  And though the idea behind Occam's Razor seems simple enough, the reality of Occam's Razor is that it is far from being the Holy Grail to all logical pursuits, and in many respects is an outdated relic of a time gone by.  Of course, by no means am I suggesting that Occam's Razor is completely worthless.  I personally find much to be desired by appealing to simplicity.  However, Occam's Razor, like any blade, has two sides to it.   

**********

The origins of Occam's Razor date all the way back to the early 14th century, when a brilliant man named William of Ockham began to challenge some of the standard orthodoxy of his day.  William was, without question, one of the greatest and most important thinkers of the Middle Ages.  Next only to perhaps Thomas Aquinas, there are few who can claim to have shaped Western philosophy and Christian epistomology more in that era than William of Ockham.  His ideas gave birth to a more deliberate, logical and nominalistic interpretation of philosophy and religion, many of which continue to this day. 

As a member of the Franciscan Order, William had become well-aquainted with the strict orthodoxy that persisted in much of Christianity.  Pious priests and monks had faithfully maintained the status quo with little resistance to the chuch's central teachings.  Most of the faithful had grown accustomed to the ritualized lifestyle of Medeival Catholicism, complete with its emphasis on faithful discipleship through humble acquiesance to heavenly guidance and passive acceptance of Vatican supremacy.  And while William of Ockham had no apparent problem with church authority (he was, after all, a devout Franciscan monk), he did have one basic character flaw: he was a genius.

It didn't take long for William of Ockham to begin questioning and revising some of his personal beliefs. As a man who prided himself upon logic and reason, William took issue with some of the doctrinal aspects of his faith, particularly surrounding the Trinity and the church's growth and dependence upon wealth.  As William himself stated in his now infamous Summa Logicae:

Plurality ought never be posited without necessity.

And:

It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer.

William was never a fan of the convoluted doctrine of the Trinity.  On many occasions, he argued that the Bible nor logic and reason would support such a view.  In addition, it troubled William deeply when he saw the massive expanse of wealth that was being enjoyed by the chief officers of the church in his day.  As a result, William embraced a minimalist view of theology in where logic and reason were seen as tools to purify one's personal faith.  As a result, William of Ockham is often hailed as being the father of Medieval Nominalism.  Needless to say, many of William's ideas landed him in trouble with the church, and eventually led to his excommunication.  But these developments did not change the fact that William's ideas were here to stay...for the long haul.

And even though William of  Ockham's contributions are praised for their reliance upon logic, reason and the pursuit of basic simplicity, it would be wrong to say that he had no room for accepting matters of faith.  As William himself stated:

Only faith gives us access to theological truths. The ways of God are not open to reason, for God has freely chosen to create a world and establish a way of salvation within it apart from any necessary laws that human logic or rationality can uncover.

These don't sound like the words of a man who supposedly believed that the simplest ideas are always the best.  In fact, William of Ockam seemed to be less interested in the ideas of Occam's Razor (the philosophical idea that was named after him) than most people want to believe.  While it is true that he maintained many nominalist ideas, I disagree that William of Ockham was truly a nominalist at heart.  It is presumptuous for us to say that William's dependance upon logic and reason somehow negated his belief in faith and the intangible.  It did not.  Occam's Razor may be based in principle upon many of the teaching of William, but the end substance of this philosophical concept is far from being in harmony with the man whose name it now immortalizes.

William of Ockham would never have foreseen the day when the pursuit of objective reason and logic would somehow be put in conflict with a life of faith.  As a result, I wonder if it is even right for us to call Occam's Razor after William of Ockham.  After all, the phrase didn't come into existence until 1852 by Sir William Hamilton, more than 500 years after William of Ockham's death.  Since that day, Occam's Razor has evolved to become something that William would never have embraced himself.  For scientists and philosophers today, Occam's Razor has been employed as a heuristic (general guiding rule) to guide scientists in the the development of theoretical models, rather than simply being an arbitrary tool between conflicting theories.  In other words, Occam's Razor has become a nearly irrefutable principle of logic that no objective scientist would dare to question.

But the fact of the matter is that Occam's Razor is not a crystal ball to all logic and objectivity.  In fact, there are quite a few problems with this supposed gem of philosophical thought.  The bottom line is that validity of a theory and simplicity are not automatically related.  Whether an idea or a set of facts is littered with complexities or is stripped down to its absolute bare simplicity has no bearing on its veracity.  Sure, the simpler concept may be easier to understand, but it is not inherantly more correct than a complex theory.  The danger of "appealing to simplicity" is that there are many cases in which factual scientific theories and ideas are incredibly complex. The theories behind quantum mechanics and general relativity for example are so complex that appealing to Occam's Razor wouldn't be practical.  As a result, Occam's Razor can become, at times, a logical fallacy.

As one science blogger aptly illustrates, Occam's Razor can regularly fall victim to a number of pitfalls in science:

Occam’s Razor is actually a vestigial remnant of medieval science. It is literally a historical artifact: William of Ockham employed this principle in his own 13th century work on divine omnipotence and other topics “resistant” to scientific methods. The continuing use of parsimony in modern science is an atavistic practice equivalent to a cardiologist resorting to bloodletting when heart medication doesn’t work.

And it is in the life sciences where Occam’s razor cuts most sharply in the wrong direction, for at least three reasons.

1) First, life itself is a fascinating example of nature’s penchant for complexity. If parsimony applies anywhere, it is not here.

2) Second, evolution doesn’t design organisms as an engineer might – instead, organisms carry their evolutionary history along with them, advantages and disadvantages alike (your appendix is the price you pay for all your inherited immunity to disease). Thus life appears to result from a cascading “complexifying” process – an understanding of organisms at the macroscale will be anything but simple.

3) Third, we know that the even the simplest rules of life can give rise to intractable complexity. Unless you’re a biophysicist, the mechanisms at your preferred level of analysis are likely to be incredibly heterogenous and complex, even at their simplest.

[...]

Thus, the utility of Occam’s Razor is highly questionable. Theories which it would soundly eliminate are usually questionable for other reasons, while useful theories might be discarded for a lack of parsimony relative to their over-simplified competitors. The theory which states “height determines weight” can do a reasonable job of providing evidence that seems to support that theory. And it’s highly parsimonious – Ockham would love it! But the theory which says “nutrition, exercise, and a collection of more than 100 genes predict both height and weight” is highly unparsimonious, even though we know it’s better than its competitor theory. Statisticians have quantified the appropriate penalty for various theories based on the number of variables they involve, but the more theoretical modes of quantitative science have yet to catch up.

In other words, Occam's Razor is wonderful for grasping at the low lying fruit that is easy to reach, but offers little in terms of understanding many of the complex realities of the modern world.  Sure, we would all love to have simplicity reign supreme.  It makes life easier.  But sadly, this cannot always be the case.  No matter what Lynyrd Skynyrd has to say on the matter, there really are no "Simple Men."

Or simple solutions to all of life's problems.

Einstein Was Wrong?!?

One of my favorite organizations to follow is CERN: the European Organization for Nuclear Research. CERN, which is best known for its studies with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has afforded physicists a deeper understanding of our universe and its origins. And though I am FAR from understanding everything going on with CERN (I'm no scientist), I have enjoyed reading about some of their incredible discoveries.

One of CERN's biggest discoveries has to do with neutrinos. Neutrinos are one of the fundamental subatomic particles that make up our universe. They function somewhat like an electron except for the fact that they cannot carry a charge. While conducting studies on neutrinos in the Large Hadron Collider (which essentially accelerates particles to the speed of light and then forces them to collide), scientists discovered something remarkable: neutrinos can apparently travel faster than light. From the Associated Press:

Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light. That's something that according to Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity — the famous E (equals) mc2 equation — just doesn't happen.

"The feeling that most people have is this can't be right, this can't be real," said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, outside the Swiss city of Geneva.

Gillies told The Associated Press that the readings have so astounded researchers that they are asking others to independently verify the measurements before claiming an actual discovery.

[...]

Scientists agree if the results are confirmed, that it would force a fundamental rethink of the laws of nature.

Einstein's special relativity theory that says energy equals mass times the speed of light squared underlies "pretty much everything in modern physics," said John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN who was not involved in the experiment. "It has worked perfectly up until now."

"This would be such a sensational discovery if it were true that one has to treat it extremely carefully," said Ellis.

And though this discovery probably doesn't stand out to most people it is a massive discovery for physicists, for it challenges one of the fundamental theories of Albert Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity.



One of the fundamental teachings of Einstein's Theory of Relativity is that nothing in the universe can travel faster than light (approximately 186,287 miles per second). This is important because Special Relativity teaches that time is relative to one's motion and position in space. Simply put, the faster a person is moving, the slower he/she will perceive time.


So if neutrinos really do travel faster than light does that mean they are traveling back in time? I won't even pretend to think that I understand physics well enough to answer this question. But what everyone, expert or not, is recognizing is the fact that if this discovery is true, our understanding of the universe will once again have to change. It will force physicists to reevaluate the notion that light is the "speed limit" of the universe.

But before we all rush out and buy our Deloreans and Flux Capacitors don't get too excited. As is the case with any major alleged scientific discovery, skeptics have questioned these findings. As one physicist states:

The things you need to know about this result are:

• It’s enormously interesting if it’s right.

• It’s probably not right.

By the latter point I don’t mean to impugn the abilities or honesty of the experimenters, who are by all accounts top-notch people trying to do something very difficult. It’s just a very difficult experiment, and given that the result is so completely contrary to our expectations, it’s much easier at this point to believe there is a hidden glitch than to take it at face value. All that would instantly change, of course, if it were independently verified by another experiment; at that point the gleeful jumping up and down will justifiably commence. This isn’t one of those annoying “three-sigma” results that sits at the tantalizing boundary of statistical significance. The OPERA folks are claiming a six-sigma deviation from the speed of light.

But that doesn’t mean it’s overwhelmingly likely that the result is real; it just means it’s overwhelmingly unlikely that the result is simply a statistical fluctuation. There is another looming source of possible error: a “systematic effect,” i.e. some unknown miscalibration somewhere in the experiment or analysis pipeline. (If you are measuring something incorrectly, it doesn’t matter that you measure it very carefully.) In particular, the mismatch between the expected and observed timing amounts to tens of nanoseconds; but any individual “event” takes the form of a pulse that is spread out over thousands of nanoseconds. Extracting the signal is a matter of using statistics over many such events — a tricky business.

In other words, verifying that neutrinos are traveling faster than 186,000 miles per second is a difficult thing to do, even with all of the technology and expertise at CERN. Despite these difficulties we can all rest assured that the good folks at CERN will do all they can to get this right. If the finding is true, then we can look forward to improving our understanding of the universe. If not, it just confirms that we already are on the right track. Either way, this alleged discovery does prove one thing right beyond a shadow of a doubt: science is alive and well in our day and age!

To Bee or Not to Bee

"Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue." ~Songs of Solomon 4: 11

"The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him is aristocracy." ~Emily Dickinson

"And thy Lord taught the bee to build its cells in hills, on trees and in men's habitations...there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for mankind. Verily in this is a Sign for those who give thought." ~Al Quran 16: 68-69

"How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth." ~Psalms 119: 103

"For so work the honey-bees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom." ~William Shakespeare

"Like the honeybee, the sage should gather wisdom from many scriptures." ~Bhagavad Gita.

"Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price." ~2 Nephi 26: 25

One of my closet ambitions in life is to be a professional beekeeper. In my opinion, bees are one of the most beautiful, hard working and interesting forms of life on this planet. The ability of these tiny little insects, to work tirelessly together towards a common goal is an inspiration to even us who reside at the top of the food chain. And make no mistake, the role of bees is fundamental to our food chain.

Most people don't realize that bees and their hives are much more than simple little honey factories. In fact, honey is far from the most important function these little guys perform. Bees are nature's most proficient pollinators, and as such, they are directly responsible for the continued prosperity of literally thousands of forms of plant life. And many of these plants are of huge importance to humans. Whether it is kiwis, onions, cashews, almonds, strawberries, celery, beets, broccoli, cabbage, papaya, peppers, watermelons, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, zucchini, lemons, carrots, figs, soybeans, apples, mangos, avocados, lima beans, kidney beans, cherries, plumbs, peaches, pears, eggplant, cocoa, vanilla, tomatoes or grapes (and those are just a few), bees are fundamental to the survival of these plants. In short, roughly half of everything you and I put into our mouths to eat is the direct result of a bee's efforts. That's right, these tiny little guys (actually gals, since 95% of a hive is female including 100% of the workers) are of paramount importance to humanity. Crazy to think that we big, bad Homo Sapiens, with all of our technology, knowledge, and dominance of this planet rely so heavily on a simple little insect!

And just what would happen if these little bees died off? Well, we may get to find out sooner than we thought.

Ever since the dawn of civilization, mankind has looked to bees for their sweet nectar. Ancient cave dwellers drew pictures of bees and their honey, hailing them as the workers of the gods. In Egypt, bees were seen as great soothsayers. The location of their hives were graced with worship and awe, and the bee's honey was so special that only those of Pharaoh's court could partake of the liquid gold. Medieval Europe, having still not discovered sugar, saw honey as the nectar of the gods; a substance that demanded great appreciation from all of society. Yes, it is safe to say that human history is replete with stories of respect and reverence for the mighty little bee.

That is, until today. Sadly, the bee has been introduced to a modern world where corporate interests and the capitalistic quest for continued consumption and production have forced our little yellow and black friends into uncharted waters. Now days, bees are shipped across the world to large corporate farms who need these bees to pollinate their crops.

And sadly, this is the least of the bee's concern. Modern pesticides have made their way into the bee's precious nectar, causing the hive to succumb to disease. Their brood is often born with weaker immune and nervous systems. And as American farms become more oriented to a single crop (often spanning over acres of land) pests are able to find all the food they need, thus increasing the need for pesticides. In consequence, the bee's job is made even harder to accomplish. In short, the mass corporate agenda of our modern food industry has forced beekeepers to ship their bees further, to farms with even more pesticides, thus causing the bees far more stress than they have ever experienced before.

So what's the big deal? Why should we care in the first place? Because our bees are dying...by the BILLIONS. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has become a new phenomenon that the American beekeeper is having to face on a daily basis, and the consequences have been disastrous. Literally thousand upon thousands of hives have simply gone extinct all across the United States leaving the beekeeper virtually destitute, and the American farmer in a real pickle. The blueberry and almond farms of California have suffered huge losses, as have the cranberry fields on the east coast and the farms in the American heartland. If Colony Collapse Disorder continues, chances are we will see serious losses to American farms that will have real and long-lasting consequences for all of us.

So what is causing Colony Collapse Disorder and how do we stop it? There have been literally hundreds of suggested causes ranging from cellular phones to a supposed Soviet plot. And though these suggestions are provocative, you don't have to look for the dramatic to see what is killing our bees. The increased stress to produce goods in order to fulfill the hunger of the capitalist markets has fueled the need for more bees to do their job faster, longer, harder and better than ever before. Farms that were normally producing 80 bushels of goods per acre are now being forced to produce 150 bushels. Economic pressures to compete with other countries who aren't required to meet the standards of our FDA have pushed farmers and food companies to find any way possible to cut corners in order to turn profits. And as can be expected, the bee is taking the brunt of the work.

But unlike the American worker, bees don't care about capitalism or other economic pressures. And as the bee is shipped further to stranger farms, full of pesticides, mites and diverse climates, the bee has reached its limits. Being confused due to geographic relocation, gathering pollen from plants infected with pesticides and fed with synthetic sugars as opposed to their rich and natural honey has caused the bee to die in numbers we have never seen before. And can any of us be surprised? Just imagine how each of us would handle being shipped across the country, given synthetic food, forced to work is a strange climate and exposed to foreign chemicals. It's no stretch to suggest that we too would get very sick and possibly face death. Now just imagine what this must do to the little bee.

We can save the bees, but unfortunately it requires change on our part. As Albert Einstein stated: "We can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created." We must change the way we think and operate before we can effect real change, and such is the case with our bees. Eliminating the ridiculous corporate mentality that permeates our food industry along with the pesticides that infect these hives is of paramount importance. We must quit seeing the food industry as a way to magnify the corporate drive for further consumption and production. We eventually need to recognize that we will never be able to eat money! Taking care of our bees (and our farms/environment in general) is a priority that will forever transcend corporate interests.

That is, assuming you want to keep half of the food you now enjoy!

"Let There Be Light": The Big Bang, Evolution, God and Creation, Part II

Part II: Reckoning the Genesis Creation
with Scientific Creation

***Note: Be sure to start with Part I of this series, which can be found here.***

In this installment I want to attempt to look at how the biblical account of creation (found in the Book of Genesis) compares with scientific reality, and how both can be useful source material. To do so we must first attempt to understand why so many Christians adhere to such a strict and literal interpretation of the Holy Bible.

Sola Scriptura
During the Protestant Reformation, religious leaders like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, John Knox and many others revolted against the traditional doctrines of the Catholic Church, which had maintained a virtual monopoly over Christianity for centuries. Due to a number of factors (church corruption, disagreements over doctrine, church hierarchy, etc.) these "reformers" essentially sought to improve the conditions and direction of Christianity in their day. As a result, the Protestant Reformation brought to life different interpretations for what it meant to be a Christian.

One of the key arguments that arose from the Protestant Reformation was the doctrine of Sola Scriptura (By Scripture Alone). As mentioned above, one of the key problems that reformers had with the Catholic Church was the emphasis it placed on the supremacy of the Pope and other hierarchical leaders. The emerging Protestants had little tolerance for such practices and sought to place ultimate ecclesiastical authority in a source other than a Pope. In consequence, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura became extremely appealing.

At its core, Sola Scriptura suggests that the Bible is the only inspired and authoritative word of God, and the only source for Christian doctrine. As a result, the authority of all ecclesiastical leaders became subordinate and inferior to the ultimate authority of the Bible. In short the Protestant Reformation taught the defenders of Sola Scriptura that no single person (i.e. the Pope) could ever claim superior status or authority over the Holy Bible.

It should therefore come as no surprise to learn that Sola Scriptura caught on very fast with the emerging Protestant congregations. As the Bible became more prevalent in the lives of ordinary believers (thanks to the printing press), more and more people were able to study for themselves the doctrines found in scripture. This essentially placed the burden of salvation back into the hands of the individual, since ultimately Protestants rejected the need to follow a Pope. By studying and then applying the teachings of the Holy Bible, one would be able to find all the needed guidance in order to gain salvation.

And as one would expect, any attack on the sovereignty and infallibility of the Bible was met with severe scorn. In Puritan America, for example, Roger Williams' ideas were met with such scorn that he was eventually forced to flee. Williams suggested that the anti-Christ was the Catholic Church (a common belief at the time) and that its distortions of true Christianity were so severe that a restoration of the holy apostleship was needed in order to know God's true will:

If Christs Churches were utterly nullified, and quite destroyed by Antichrist, then I demande when they beganne againe and where? who beganne them? that we may knowe, by what right and power they did beginne them: for we have not heard of any new Jo: Baptist, nor of any other newe waye from heaven, by which they have begunne the Churches a newe

. (John Winthrop Papers, vol. III, 11. Quoted in Roger Williams: The Church and the State, 52, by Edmund Morgan).In other words, Williams was stating that Christianity needed further guidance and understanding in addition to what the Bible taught. Needless to say, this didn't sit well with those who embraced Sola Scriptura.

Fast forward to today. Scientific discovery has completely changed many of our traditional views of the universe, and in the process, has contradicted (heck, completely refuted) many of the teachings found in the Bible. As a result, those who defend Sola Scriptura are constantly attempting to explain (in a futile effort mind you) why the Bible is still the superior source of knowledge. Take for example this ridiculous debate over dinosaurs. If we take the Bible as literal truth, we must accept that the earth is no more than a few thousand years old (see 2 Peter 3:8). Faced with this Biblical teaching, defenders of Sola Scriptura must then attempt to explain why science insists that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. Here is an example of their futile attempt to reconcile this dilemma:


Needless to say, this willful rejection of scientific fact combined with blind allegiance to ancient scripture, has become the main catalyst for today's religion/science debates. Men like pseudo-scientist Ken Ham (shown in the video above) have gone to such ridiculous and futile lengths to prove the Bible's validity that it comes as no surprise to see that 4 in 10 Americans believe in the literal Bible account of creation.

So how are we to reckon the realities of scientific discovery with the biblical accounts of creation? Perhaps we will never fully be able to. With that said, there are ways that we can see the truth of both arguments.

The "Seven Days" of Creation

The Book of Genesis opens with a very general overview of God's creation of humanity, the Earth and the universe in general. Needless to say, this vague creation story has become the topic of ridicule in the scientific community. After all, science has proven that the earth is much older than a few thousand years and life took millions of years not days (or 1000 years for each day) to develop.

But is the Genesis story of creation completely worthless? Should we discard it right out of the gate for its apparent flaws? If you accept Sola Scriptura my answer would be, yes. Of course the creation story in Genesis isn't literal truth as so many suggest. But if you believe that the Bible is ancient man's attempt to explain his origins, then some incredible truths can be found. If we take each day and juxtapose it to what science teaches, we can see that there are some striking similarities.

Genesis 1:2-5: 2.) And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3.) And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4.) And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5.) And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

According to astrophysicists, the universe began when a singularity of light, heat and matter suddenly exploded roughly 14 billion years ago, sending an immense amount of heat, matter and gases into the expanses that became space. As the matter and gasses cooled, it eventually coalesced into giant galaxies, stars, nebulas, planets and other celestial bodies.

Genesis 1:9-10: 9.)And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10.) And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Geologists have shown how during the Archean Eon the Earth experienced incredible tectonic activity. As the Earth's core continued to form, the planet experienced a huge jump in temperature. Volcanic activity spewed molten rock across the surface of the planet. During this era, the Earth's magnetic field was established, which protected it from the immense solar winds of the time (winds that were 100 times greater than what we see today). This protected the infant planet's atmosphere from being stripped away, unlike the atmosphere of Mars which was completely annihilated during this era. During the later parts of the Archean Eon and the beginning of the Proterozoic Eon, water began to form on the newly cooled planet's surface.

Genesis 1:11-1211.) And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12.) And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

At this point, life is introduced to the world. Some have suggested that these verses are in complete opposition to evolution since they employ the phrase "after his kind." Geologist and theologian Greg Neyman suggests otherwise. He writes:

Notice that God did not say, "Let there be grass," and there was grass. God told the land to produce the vegetation! It was the land doing the producing, not God. God told the earth to bring forth grass, and in verse 12, "the earth brought forth grass..." In essence, God let the land "do its thing" on its own. Instead of flat, out of nothing creation, the text for Genesis actually supports evolution better!

And when speaking of verses 20-21 (which also have to do with the creation of life) Neyman writes:

In this passage where God creates ocean life, He tells the ocean to bring forth the creatures. He does not say, "Let there be whales;" or "let there be sharks." Verse 21 shows the result, that "God created great whales." Verse 20 gives the process God used to create..."Let the waters bring forth..." Again, this seems to support evolution better than flat, out of nothing creation.

This is an important and often ignored distinction. The Bible does not say that God simply snapped his fingers and created all forms of life. Instead, it says that "the water brought forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven" (Genesis 1:20). And as any evolutionary biologist will tell you, life on earth began in the sea. As evolutionary biologist Steven Faux (who happens to be a distant relative of mine) states:

Animal life developed in the sea before reaching dry land. The first fishes were evident about 500 million years ago. Land tetrapods (four-footed land animals) evolved from sarcopt fishes (lobe-finned) about 400 million years ago.

By 300 million years ago the first reptiles were found.

The first mammal-like reptiles (synapsids) were evident by 200 million years ago. True mammals probably arose about 100 million years ago (see also: Bininda-Emonds).

The first birds (like Archaeopteryx) were evident about 150 million years ago, and they derived from dinosaurs.

So does the Bible support evolution? That probably depends on how you interpret the "Good Book." As I have stated before, any literal interpretation of scripture makes it extremely difficult to accept and embrace the realities of scientific discovery. It's just one of those unfortunate side effects of Sola Scriptura. With that said, I do not see any problem with embracing evolution and the general Genesis story. One can imagine those early biblical prophets, who lacked the current understandings of science, trying to explain the origins of the universe within the context of their time and understanding. From their perspective, breaking the creation into a week-long event seems to make sense, and all things considered, they didn't do as bad of a job as some seem to think.

***Part III: Adam, Eve and the Garden of Eden***

"Let There Be Light": The Big Bang, Evolution, God and Creation, Part I

Part I: An Introduction Into
The Pretended War Between
Religion and Science

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth."

This short sentence has caused more controversy than perhaps any other sentence in Western literature. The natural questions which have arisen over centuries of debate on this passage have obviously centered on how God actually went about creating the heaven and the earth. Did he magically snap is fingers and say, "It is well"? Or were the natural laws of science the primary conductors of creation?

Of course, these questions force us down the road to where the intersection between religion and science regularly collide in a violent head-on crash. Ever since Nicolaus Copernicus looked into his telescope back in 1609 and discovered that the earth was not at the center of the universe (a discovery that greatly angered the church and cost Copernicus his freedom), religion and science have been engaged in a tug-o-war for exclusive rights to the ultimate origins of man and the universe. Even 400 years after Copernicus, despite all of our advancement and discovery, mankind is still engaged in this same tug-o-war which has spread into our schools, communities and even our politics.

But this supposed tug-o-war is, in reality, an illusion.

Though I am not a scientist (far from it actually) I recognize that there are some basic facts that cannot be refuted no matter how much we want to believe otherwise. For example, our earth is a spherical object (7,926.41 miles in diameter) that orbits the sun at approximately 67,062 miles per hour. Of course, these are facts that almost nobody debates. But 400 years ago, such a claim could land a person in prison and even end with their excommunication and death. Today no religious figure would be so foolish as to suggest that the earth is flat or at the center of the universe, nor would they suggest imprisonment and death for those who believed otherwise. We have moved past such trivial debates.

But other trivial debates still remain.

First off, I fully recognize that my take on this topic could be construed as offensive to some, but I hope you will believe me when I say that I mean no disrespect. Every man/woman is entitled to believe as he/she sees fit. Religion is a personal endeavor of faith; and faith, as Jesus said, can move mountains. With that said, I also believe the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan who stated that "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." Regardless of what we believe, some scientific facts are undeniable.

Such is the case with evolution. Ever since the days of Charles Darwin, scientists have been putting together the pieces of the evolutionary puzzle, and their work has yielded incredible fruit. Today, scientists have been able to map the human genome, illustrate our development via fossil records, calculate the age of rocks and bones with advanced atomic testing methods, explain the natural functions of the universe, etc., etc., etc. Simply put, the debate over the reality of evolution is closed. Yet despite these fantastic discoveries some still maintain that science is wrong, while a literal interpretation of a book written thousands of years ago is right.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not a hater of the Bible. In fact, I believe that the Bible has brought more people happiness and joy than any other book in human history. Those who knock the Bible usually are the same people who have never read it or attempted to understand it. With that said, my original statement stands: I cannot, in good conscience, accept a literal interpretation of scripture (scripture that was written by those of late antiquity and translated over and over again) as the exclusive authority on matters that are scientifically proven to be false. At the same time, I refuse to accept the belief of many within the scientific community which suggests that scripture (and even religion as a whole) is somehow outdated, irrelevant and thus unworthy of our devotion. Such a conclusion seems, in my view, to actually be quite UN-scientific and downright arrogant.

This is why I stated that this "tug-o-war" between religion and science is an illusion. In reality, we require both to help us understand who we are and where we came from. Though religion and science may appear different on the surface, the fact of the matter is that they were made for each other. There is no REAL debate between religion and science because God is the author of science. The natural laws which created the universe and humanity are His laws. The Big Bang was His doing and Evolution is His handiwork.

Of course, this probably isn't going to sit well with many devout scientists and religious zealots but I don't care. These are my views and I am sticking to them. I for one am sick and tired of hearing people on both sides insist that they alone are right, while the other side is wrong. It's time we quit throwing the baby out with the bathwater and accept that both sides have much to offer. As Albert Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." Science needs to learn that despite all it has proven, it cannot observe faith in a petri dish. It will never be able to explain the intangible truths of the universe or the infinite strivings of the human spirit. In short, science's biggest hurdle is accepting the fact that observable facts are not the only facts that can be observed.

On the flip side, religion must accept the fact that the stories found in scripture are ancient man's attempt to explain his origins. Obviously, ancient man didn't have the scientific understanding we possess today. As a result, his stories explaining mankind's origins (chiefly those from the Book of Genesis) are founded in innocent ignorance. After all, how could those of late antiquity possibly understand the Big Bang, natural selection, DNA, etc.? But this does not give today's devout believer a pass. In our modern era we have been given (thanks to God) and incredible amount of knowledge that no other society could even dream of. We know with 100% certainty that the earth isn't 6,000 years old (more like 4.5 billion), that snakes can't talk and that modern Homo Sapiens have their origins not in a garden but on the African plains roughly 200,000 years ago.

If our goal is truly to come to a better understanding of who we are and why we are here (the ultimate question that both religion and science tries to answer) we need not turn a blind eye to the beauty of religious faith and the discovery of scientific research. To do so is to see the world only in black and white. And unfortunately it is the extremists on both ends, who insist on this black and white view of the world, who are causing all of the controversy. We will only see the amazing tapestry of colors that is the creation of humanity and the universe when we reject the all-or-nothing nonsense of the secular scientist and the religious radical.

To my ultra-religious friends I say this: It is time to do away with the childish understandings of ancient man and to accept the knowledge of our present day. As 1 Corinthians 13: 11 states:

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Stop and ask yourself why you believe evolution to be such an affront to your faith. Is your belief in God so dependant on literal interpretation of ancient works that you are rendered incapable of accepting and understanding the truths of evolution and science? How is your belief in a God, who simply snaps his fingers, creates the world in six days, takes a nap on the seventh (because nothing says omnipotent like needing to check out for a day or so), and introduces evil to the world via a talking snake and a naughty apple, any less relevant than a belief in a God who brings about the beauty of the world via evolution and natural law?

To my secular scientific friends, who rely exclusively on the merits of "rational" thought and "observable" facts I would ask this: Why does your "reasonable" understanding of things entitle you to belittle those of faith? Are you so arrogant as to think that those who believe in God are simply delusional by choice, since they believe in that which is intangible to the scientific method? By what scientific data are you able to justify your mockery of those who claim a deep, intimate spiritual connection with the divine? Can you offer up anything of substance other than "it's just an emotional reaction"? The reality is that in your quest to disprove that which cannot be seen with a microscope or tested in a laboratory, you have actually added credence to faith. You have proven that we cannot discredit any theory until it has been thoroughly tested. And for the believer, the theory of God is tested (and proved) on a daily basis. It is proven in the answer to a simple prayer. It is proven in the acts of charity of a neighbor. It is proven in the hope for a life after death. In short, the faithful have been using your methods long before science came on the scene. Or as NASA Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow stated:

The scientist has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

In conclusion, let us quit buying into the stupid rhetoric brought on by the zealots and the culture warriors who insist upon the myth that religion and science are somehow opposing forces. Instead, let us think of religion and science as peanut butter and jelly. Though on the surface they look, taste, smell and feel completely different, nobody will debate that peanut butter and jelly are made for one another. I leave you with the words of Pope John Paul II:

Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish...We need each other to be what we must be, what we are called to be.

***This is the first post in a new series on science, religion, God and creation. In part II I will address how the different religious and scientific interpretations of the creation of the world (the Genesis story) can help us develop a better understanding of things when they are taken together as opposed to at odds with one another.***