The Great Misconceptions of Science & Faith

If science has now caught up to faith in explaining the mysterious forces that make up our universe, it is incumbent upon faith to catch up with science and discard the great misconceptions that were created before the Middle Ages and still perpetuated today.

The first of these misconceptions is that heaven is some physical place floating on the clouds above us, that hell is some fiery inferno deep in the core of the planet and that God is some creature that resembles man. We do not exist in the Hamburger Universe to quote Miceal Ledwith, where the world is flat like a burger and we are surrounded by a bun above us we call heaven and a bun below us we call hell. God is not only the God of some 6 billion people, but the God of billions of creatures in the animal kingdom, the underwater world and more. God is not only a God of this one planet that is one of hundreds of millions of planets in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is only one galaxy in the billions of galaxies in the universe, but God of them all. And it is possible, according to science, that there are billions of potential parallel universes. If there is a God, one God, then surely this God is the God of all the universes and it would be quite arrogant for us creatures who are a speck on a planet that is a speck in a galaxy that is a speck in the universe to presume that The One (in the words of Jesus) looks like us.

The second great misconception is that religion is not the same thing as faith. Religion is man’s interpretation, a set of rules, doctrine and man made policies and procedures that emanated from a faith or belief in something, such as Christianity, that resulted in some 20,000 Christian religions. This is not to say that religion is bad or unnecessary. Quite to the contrary, it is very necessary…to a point. It has been and still is necessary for those that have a faith who need to understand what they have faith in. It is this necessity that resulted in consolidation of some thirty or more gospels into the four gospels that form the Christian Bible. But again we are not in the Middle Ages. People have evolved. We have far more knowledge and we have far more information. As the world continues to become more interconnected and interdependent, the rigid doctrines that form religions are pushing us apart, creating hatred and terror and grave misunderstandings, wars and destruction. It is time for a return to the basic values and beliefs that emanated from the original faiths, many of which share a great deal in common, and a slow relaxation of rigid dogma that drive us apart and set man upon man.

The third misconception is that the world was created in seven "Earth" days as written in the books of Genesis. Back when these books were written we did not even know that the world was round. We did not know about televisions and radio or stem cells and nuclear physics. But today we do. The concept of the world being created in seven earth or man days was a story. It is a metaphor, written in the language of the times that the people of the times could understand. To discard this notion does not mean that the Bible and all of its teachings are incorrect or meaningless. Quite to the contrary, Genesis is perhaps my most favorite part of the bible and I accept the description of Genesis. I also however, accept the scientific evidence that estimates the earth to be seven billion years old. What we are therefore debating, is not the wonders of God or science, but the definition of a day ... in the "eyes" of God. Given that in the beginning, earth did not exist, there certainly could not be a day as we currently define it. If I relax my previously held teachings or dogma and step above the realm of man and attempt to understand the definition of a day in the eyes of God, it is quite possible for a God-Day to be a billion years, with a hundred million years being nothing more than a blink of his or her cosmic eyes.

The fourth great misconception is that we are purely a spiritual being. We cannot use our knowledge from science when it is convenient and discard it when it is not. Clearly we are physical beings and we have well tested and proven laws that tell us how the planet has evolved and how a species evolved. We have a great deal of hard physical evidence called fossils that prove this evolution. But just as science has demonstrated physical laws of our existence, science has now also demonstrated that the energy of our beings is 90 - 95% a non-physical source, a universal energy. Those that believe that we are only a physical being or only a spiritual being should consider the potential that we are actually both, a spiritual essence that is contained in a physical form. And, since energy can be neither created or destroyed, when this spark of energy leaves our body, a life force still exists and this life force must go somewhere.

The final misconception is a derivation from the belief that we are either physical or spiritual, but not both. The misconception is that our evolution is either dictated by a physical planetary process known as Darwin’s Theory of the Evolution of a Species, or a spiritual evolution, and that never the two shall meet. Clearly science has come a long way and we cannot deny the facts or knowledge of our ancestral heritage. But neither can science ignore the facts that there are a great many unexplained phenomenon, including some of the very founding princicples that form the basis of science - such as gravity, force and mass - which we still cannot quite pin down. Since can also not ignore the plausible and scientific evidence that explains how this universal force, emanating from the field of energy, is pervasive in all things and has existed for all time. It is a non-physical force and it is quantitatively the greatest of all forces in all living and nonliving matter. If we refer to the origination of the word spirit it comes from the Latin word inspiritus, which means the breath of life. If our spirit is the breath of life, and the field of energy is majority of the source of our life, then our total being is this field, this source, and although 5- 10% of our energy may be an evolutionary process on this planet made up from visible matter, the other 90-95% is of a universal, cosmic origin.

In conclusion, there is a science called religion and a religion called science. Both are seeking to understand the truth, the true meaning of our existence and the nature of reality. Imagine with me for one moment, what amazing revelations might unfold if the two sides of this evolutionary coin were to join forces.

Live long and prosper in peace knowing that matter is not solid, time is not linear, and death is not the end, merely a new beginning.