I often ponder what would of happened to my mind had I taken anything taught in school seriously. I think the two subjects that would have crossed the most wires in my head would have been religion and science. We all know how much those two subjects are at odds because that is the constant narrative we are fed. Religion class presented teachers the opportunity to stray away from state mandated indoctrination, and instead provide more personal insight. Unfortunately, this lead to a majority of religion classes consisting of teachers to trying to mash Bible verses together with the lockstep left wing ideology most of them are taught in college. A fitting name to describe my four years of high school religion would be Socialism and the Apocalypse. (Ironically, millions of people have met their abrupt personal end under socialist regimes.) Although less apocalyptic, science was not much more informative. In 9th grade science class the teacher presented The Big Bang Theory and Intelligent Design as the polar opposite theories for how the universe was formed. A brief look at the history of The Big Bang Theory shows this conclusion to be demonstrably false. Primeval Atom Theory states that the universe is expanding from a single point of origin. This theory, now known as The Big Bang Theory, was developed by Father Georges Lemaitre, a catholic priest, who would probably take exception to the suggestion that his work is antithetical to the existence of God. It was not until senior year Physics that I had an intelligent teacher that actually knew what she was talking about, but by then I had lost all interest and received a D- as a final grade. My interest in both religion and science had been successfully quelled for the next decade, and it was not until the last couple years that I returned to the topics on my own.
Recently I read Welcome to the Universe, which starts off with an introduction to astrophysics and concludes by touching on quantum theory. Unlike 15 years ago when I literally fell asleep on my Physics book, I was extremely interested in the content and could not stop reading. As it turns out, the universe is really big. It may very well be infinitely big, as there are over 100 billion galaxies outside of our our Milky Way galaxy, which itself has a diameter of about 106,000 light years. A light year is the distance that light travels in a year which is just under 10 trillion kilometers. Based on the calculation of the expansion rate of the universe, also known as the Hubble constant, and the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is the remaining resonance from the Big Bang explosion, the universe is measured to be about 13.8 billion years old. The amount of the universe that is observable is limited by the amount of time that the universe has existed. In other words, since the light from the farthest point we can measure took 13.8 billion years to arrive and the universe is expanding, the areas we see at 13.8 billion light years are presently about 45 billion light years away, and there is no telling what lies beyond.
Father Lemaître came up with his Primeval Atom Theory in the late 1920s, and in the theory he noted that the universe should have a rate of expansion, and he allegedly identified the possibility of a background resonance from the initial explosion that created the universe (this was not included in the published version of his theory, casting some doubt on the claim). The Hubble constant and the Cosmic Microwave Background were measured several years after his death in the early 1960s, and discoveries building on Father Lemaitre’s theory are still being made today. With so much more information available than at the time of his death, the fact that the creator of The Big Bang Theory was a catholic priest does not preclude any of the newer discoveries form challenging the existence of God. There is no conclusive evidence in cosmology that either validates or invalidates the existence of God. The best way to prove or disprove intelligent design would be to measure all the way back to the absolute beginning of time and space, and this cannot be done. The earliest time that scientists can measure is 5 × 10^(–44) seconds, known as the Planck Time. A clock capable of measuring beyond that point would have to be so dense that it would collapse in on itself and create a black hole. Discoveries made about the origin of the universe simply do not contain sufficient evidence to disprove a creator.
There are much more compelling arguments for atheism such as God of the Gaps and the Copernican Principle. My cursory understanding of the God of the Gaps is that many things that could not be explained in the past were attributed to some type of supernatural cause. The argument follows that science would often come along with a rational explanation for these occurrences, inevitably filling all of the gaps. The Copernican Principle was touched on in Welcome to the Universe. It was not presented as an argument that there is no God, but it certainly seems to imply that conclusion. Basically the idea is that we are not special, and the evidence for this begins with Copernicus’s discovery that the Earth is not in the center of the Solar System. Later discoveries show that the Sun is not in the center of our galaxy, and that the Milky Way is one of billions of galaxies and is not located in the center of the universe. This observation can be used to make countless inferences, the example in the book being that if we are not traveling through space and are most likely not special, than other intelligent life forms would also be unlikely to engage in galactic exploration. I came to the conclusion that this would be a good atheistic argument because the Bible certainly implies that we are special.
Although I do not view any of the above to provide a sufficient refutation of my faith, there are a lot of legitimate questions raised, especially by the vastness of the universe. One of the questions I immediately thought of was concerning the Ascension. In the Acts of the Apostles Jesus leaves the apostles for the final time by ascending into the sky. Where did He go? This question is slightly facetious, but there is a serious note that I think should be addressed. When you look at the vast emptiness of space, there are no visible signs of even the possibility of life within a several light year radius. There is simply no tangible explanation as to where He could have gone. The gospels provide a theological explanation (other than He is God and can do whatever He wants) that can be applied scientifically but requires faith as well. After Jesus rose from the dead, he was transformed into a spiritual body, and there are several incidents in which He walked through walls and locked doors that indicate His altered state of existence. It is possible that during the Ascension He simply slipped into a dimension that we cannot see, and there is no evidence presented in the entire Bible that is contrary to Heaven being in a different dimension. Actually, the possibility of a fourth dimension is consistent with Einstein’s theory of relativity, and quantum mechanics adds several more dimensions and phenomena such as time travel and worm holes, that allow the travel of extremely far distances in very short amounts of time.
At the moment, I am not mathematically literate enough to calculate any of these possibilities, but there are scientists who claim that the existence of worm holes and time travel is likely. Just as my belief in the divinity of Christ leads to faith in some fairly extraordinary stories, the authors of Welcome to the Universe‘s belief in science and mathematics led to their faith in some fairly extraordinary theories. A claim, that I admittedly had a hard time following, was the idea of a multiverse. One of the authors was discussing a beginning point in existence that was spitting out bubble universes that were then set to an inflationary stage which varied based on principles of quantum mechanics that seem hypothetical, but I also don’t even begin to understand. There was also the claim that on the other end of a black hole is a white hole that can deposit matter into another universe. All of this is supposedly calculable with real variables that are found in the universe, but there seems to be an element of faith involved in accepting some of these results as an actual representation of reality.
Some examples that cannot be explained by science and have kept my faith mostly in tact are the Shroud of Turin and the eyes of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The shroud of Turin is the alleged burial cloth that Jesus Christ was wrapped in after his crucifixion. The image on the shroud is a photo negative of a man with wounds matching the description of the torture and form of execution that is described in the Gospels. There have been attempts to carbon date the shroud and some of these tests have come back to the 11th century, way too late in history for it to be the authentic burial cloth. However, the sections of the cloth that were tested were said to have been of a separate cloth that was used to repair damage from a fire in the church where it was kept. This fire is documented in history and is not just a cover up for the dating results. The rest of the material that the shroud is made of, although not carbon dated to my knowledge, is said to be consistent with the time and region of the world in which the historical Jesus lived. The image on the shroud cannot be reproduced, even with modern technology. In order for a body to produce this image on a cloth and not obliterate everything in sight, it would have to generate an astronomical amount of energy in an infinitesimal amount of time (sounds familiar). The mysteries behind this burial cloth and the implications of its existence are absolutely fascinating.
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the Tilma of Juan Diego is another bizarre story that keeps my interest in the church alive. Juan Diego was an Aztec in Mexico about 500 years ago, who is said to have had a few encounters with the Virgin Mary, in which she appeared to him to deliver a message to the local bishop. In order to prove the authenticity of the apparition, Mary instructed Juan to wrap flowers from the place she appeared to him in his Tilma and present them to the Bishop. When Juan unwrapped the flowers for the bishop an image of Mary appeared on his Tilma. This image is still on display in Mexico City today. An incredible aspect of the image is that the eyes were found by ophthalmologists to be anatomically correct, and further more her eyes contain microscopic reflections of Juan and the Bishop. Neither of these feats could have been accomplished by an artist 500 years ago and would be extremely difficult to replicate today.
Other stories that have peaked my interest are the matching blood types in several unexplained incidents. An Italian priest in the 8th century, who was said to have been doubting the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, saw the bread and wine transform into flesh and blood as he gave the consecration during mass. The flesh and blood has been kept in a church in Italy for 1200 years and has yet to decompose. In 1971 a study determined that the blood from this incident was type AB. In 1996 in Buenos Aires a desecrated host was found and given to a priest. In order to dispose of the host the priest placed it in a glass of water to dissolve. Instead of dissolving the host transformed into human heart tissue, which upon a blood test was also found to have a blood type of AB. The blood type from the Shroud of Turin has also been tested and identified as AB. These phenomena are admittedly easier to fake than the previous two, and I understand the argument of motive to control the faithful. However, I cannot find any legitimate evidence that these claims are false. I would like to visit all of the places that these items are kept and see them first hand, and hopefully, the time and money will be available for me to do so in the future.
A compelling argument can be made that at a macroscopic level humanity is pretty insignificant. The universe is very large, and we seem to be just another tiny occurrence within the vastness of space and time. A different story can be told within the brief history of humanity, in which there is convincing evidence to support the premises of Christianity. Mainly that Jesus was a historical person, He did rise from the dead, and physical evidence of this continues to appear through miracles and apparitions that cannot be explained by science. This would indicate that humans are important and that all life is created to have meaning and a purpose. The combination of these thoughts is admittedly confusing, and explains why Father Lemaitre reportedly strayed away from mixing his scientific endeavors with his duties as a priest. However, I disagree with the narrative that faith and reason are at odds with each other. I fully believe in applying as much reason as possible to my faith, even if it leads to an increasing number of unanswered questions.
Sources:
The Bible
Much of the information I have about Catholicism has come from catholic radio, especially EWTN. A lot of the information about the Shroud of Turin came from talks I have heard from Fr. Robert Spitzer, who has a very informative show called Father Spitzer’s Universe. His show is also where I first heard of Father Lemaitre. I’ve also read some of his book For God So Loved the World and he has several good online sources one of which being crediblecatholic.com. I first heard information about the eyes of Our Lady of Guadeloupe on The Patrick Coffin Show. Catholic Answers is another great show for information on the faith and they often mention Eucharistic miracles like the ones I used.
Wikipedia is usually sufficient for filling in timelines
I’m sure there are other places that I picked up some of the information and I often google the things that I write from memory to double check that I’m not just typing random nonsense.
If you don’t appreciate this informal and messy style of citation I don’t care.