Scientists agree that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom during the evolution of our universe would have rendered it a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies. Yet most people fail to see God's hand in this! Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe a mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?
Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith...ALL faiths... are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith, we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because MAN is flawed. But if you look beyond the sex scandals, or the violence waged in the name of God or Allah, or corruption, you will still find in each religion a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.
Are these religious people obsolete? Are they dinosaurs? Does the world really need a voice for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? Do we really need souls like these who, though imperfect, spend their lives imploring each of us to read the signposts of morality and not lose our way?
Who is this god Science? Who is this god who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of god gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers? The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or a bad idea.
Scientists proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. Scientists clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral implications of our actions. We are encouraged to interact on phones, video screens and computers, but it is the church who opens its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do. We murder unborn babies in the name of research that will save lives and the church points out the fallacy of this reasoning.
Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident.
Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electonically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture and betrayal. Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history?
Science has not beaten religion by providing answers. Science has won by radically reorienting our society so that the truths we once saw as signposts now seem inapplicable. As the rift between science and religion grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. We cry out for meaning. We see UFOs, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests -- all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.
The godless and anti-religious ones may mock us mercilessly. But I believe goodness can still prevail. Listen to your hearts. Listen to God. Together we can step back from this abyss.
