The Temple of Science

This post comes from Thomas Lazlo. He and I went to school together and when I read this on his facebook page, I had to share it with you. You can find it HERE. The image above is of the "temple" itself. You can learn more about it at WIRED.


In a South Parkian turn of events, an artist has created a temple devoted to the worship of science. From the pictures I've seen it looks as if it's replaced stained glass windows with a picture of the cosmic background radiation. For info on that read Hugh Ross in "The Creator and the Cosmos." That's not the point. The point is that science thinks that it can replace religion, the problem is that it can, and athiests and Christians alike should be worried.

The artist's muse came after a Beyond Belief conference where men like Richard Dawkins talked about how the worship of science could do all that religion does: "They were trying to figure out what science might do to provide an alternative to religion. There wasn't a consensus, but there was momentum towards the idea that science could do everything religion could, that it could be everything religion had been."

I'm not going to debate this one bit, all I can say is thanks but no thanks. If you want to worship science, beware, science is a cruel deity.

Do you want to talk to me about happenstance and cruelty? Do you want to talk about unnecessary suffering? Do you want to talk about the silence of the Heavens?

Yes, science can provide all of these to you. In fact science can give them to you wholesale, no need to format a theology. Why do bad things happen to good people? Because the universe is a cold, harsh, unfeeling place in which life has beaten the odds and survived for billions of years, yet the universe does what it takes to make certain that life that has grown to the point that it feels...that it feels nothing but pain. No need to come up with theology explaining why science doesn't answer your prayers, because there is no voice.

And how does one worship science? How does one worship the pursuit of knowledge in a universe that exists SOLELY TO EXIST!!! Thanks but no thanks.

What of faith? Faith is lost. What of love? Love exists to perpetuate the species. What of hope? Illogical. What of kindness? Altruism or egoism, all leave someone out. The worship of science can provide help only for the majority. The poor, the uneducated, these are all left out. Thanks but no thanks.

Isn't there enough religion? Isn't there enough organization of like-minded individuals setting up institutions and rules to make sure that "we win and they lose." All that science creates is a hierarchy of education and wealth. The third world has no potential, the manual laborer, he offers no spiritual benefit to society. All he does is provide food, while the men and women in ivory towers provide him with another message from the Heavens, like last week when they found a thirteen million digit prime number. Science be praised! Thanks but no thanks.

Has the point not been made? Have Christians said but not done too often? We do not serve a capricious angry God, we do not seek knowledge of a silent Heavens. The God I serve is a God that puts the worship of science to shame. I serve a God who said that true religion is taking care of the widow and orphan. I serve a God who didn't look for the strongest, and most capable, but sought the prostitutes and the lepers. I serve a God who can weigh the heart, a God who I cannot hide from who actively makes me into a better person.

I don't care who I am in the cosmic scheme of things. I don't care about my place in the universe. I'm man number 4,385,123,892 in the tiny blue speck by the tiny yellow speck in the tiny disc shaped galaxy in the vastness of space. I don't give a damn about that identity. I want to be a man who people know is full of love. I want to be a man who provides hope to the hopeless, who exercises faith in the dark times, who triumphs through humility, and does not neglect the call to serve. I want to be a good man, I don't care about science when compared with my soul.

Science is nothing new, the god is no more powerful than any of the other gods served worldwide, except one. My God loves me. You may call me an idiot, you may call me gullible, you may call me regressive, but my God calls me his son, and that's what I care about. You see? I don't care what the Richard Dawkins of the world say about me. They're the ones devoting their lives to a futile cause. And in a hundred years when we're all dead, the great minds won't matter. Thanks for the blu-ray discs and surround sound science, thanks for the vicadin, it didn't heal my heart, but it made me numb for a while. I'm sick of people devoting themselves to purposelessness.

If all Christianity is a lie, then I will devote myself to the lie and make the world a better place than anyone bowed before the altar of knowledge. Without my God I become a freight train, get out of my way as I race for the top. Without my God I become a handgun, coldly firing without any care of my target. Without my God I become a brute, demolishing all weaker than me so that I can let my seed flourish. Your god may be more popular than my God, but my God is good, your god isn't anything at all.

If all your god is is everything, then your god isn't anything. My God is more than everything, he made everything. He set up the universe and he put us on the best planet possible to seek knowledge about this universe. Science wouldn't exist if this planet weren't fine-tuned to support observation. Science poses no threat to God, I glory every time it tells me something new about the universe he created. It doesn't matter how, all that matters is who.

My God may have been used in the past for wars and crusades, but don't think that the god of science won't be used in the same way. Men have a way of using belief for their own benefit. It's all the same. Maybe there's a lot of dissenion in Christianity, as knowledge increases, uncertainty concerning the things we don't know increases as well, and as that increases, disagreements are created. There will be disagreements and factions in science. There will be disagreements in Christianity... but just for now, someday all will be forgotten because we will not just know truth, we will see it and sense it with every aspect of our being.

Thanks but no thanks science, you can do all that religion does, but we don't want any more of that. I'll take Jesus Christ instead.