This post is a quick summary of the great wave of science’s advancement in knowledge, from the Big Bang to earth, from the beginning of life to humans, up to our latest mysteries: consciousness and quantum physics.
May it be that Christians and Muslims can find beauty in the scientific story of the history of the cosmos and life. In fact, I challenge any religion to present a more vast, more comprehensive, more beautiful creation story than that shown to us by science. From the Sufi perspective, both beauty and reason are from God and are not to be denied.
Scientists have discovered the stunning progression from simple to complex; from a tiny dense point to our vast universe of stars and galaxies, from a one celled organism to almost 9 million species, including viruses, tomatoes, elephants, and humans.
However, I must also challenge atheists and scientists to prove that the systematic emergence of the cosmos and life is based on random materialism.
The respected atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel raises this issue. The movement from simplicity to vast complexity must at least be acknowledged as extra ordinary and may prove a point of intelligent discussion between those of religious and scientific perspectives.
As a result of inspiration, reason, and the scientific method, the last 150 years have brought tremendous increases in scientific knowledge. Why would we expect current science to have been revealed to the ancients? Who would have believed it? If no one knew the explanations, stories were the next best thing, and a dash of morality thrown in with them didn’t hurt.
Religion should not separate people from science. While many scientists interpret their findings as independent of a greater intelligence, others are concluding that the study of consciousness and quantum physics may suggest something beyond today’s scientific materialism.
Here is a general overview of the development of the cosmos and life from the perspective of science. The coming series of blogs will explore scientific and religious perspectives in more detail.
THE COSMOS
Before the beginning there was mystery.
13.7 billion years ago, from an infinitesimally small, hot dense point, the universe expanded at a speed beyond our imagination.
As the universe cooled, clumps of gas began to form the first stars and galaxies.
Nine billion years later, some 4.6 billion years ago, our sun and solar system formed from a rotating cloud of dust and gas. From this cloud developed our nine planets and smaller orbiting bodies.
Earth is the third planet from our sun and a place where life developed.
LIFE
Genetic and fossil evidence shows development of life from the simplest organisms to the human being.
The rough order is from bacteria, to cells with nuclei, to plants and early sea creatures and fish, to amphibians, to reptiles, to birds, to mammals, to humans.
CONSCIOUSNESS
Arguably, only humans have advanced consciousness. Our consciousness allows us to reflect on our origin, the first and only creatures of earth to do so.
We associate our consciousness with our brain.
The human brain has about 100 billion neurons. Each neuron may average 7,000 or more synaptic connections to other neurons.
Although there has been tremendous progress in neuroscience, we do not understand how these neurons and connections result in our experience of consciousness and our perceptions of reality. This is called the hard problem of consciousness.
We know that our brains are enabling us to discover the story of the universe and the development of life on earth. But we do not know how we know.
Some say consciousness is but an artifact of evolution. Others say that if Divinity exists, why could our brains not be designed to experience Reality.
QUANTUM PHYSICS
Quantum physics presents a totally new picture of basic reality. Reason and laws are obscured by deep probability. Concepts struggle for connections. What is this all about? Really?
Some religious writers speculate that the mystery of consciousness and quantum physics suggests a greater intelligence. Some scientists say we will solve these mysteries through traditional science while others speculate there may be something beyond reductive materialistic science.
Over the next several blogs, we will review current thinking about the cosmos and evolution, as well as the deep waters of consciousness and quantum physics.
My goal is to investigate how these magnificent scientific developments can be compatible with mysticism and God, Being, Spirit, or Absolute Reality, depending upon your designation of choice.
To quote F. Scott Fitzgerald,
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
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