In my younger years, I was sure that two kinds of people made up a vast majority of North American Christianity: children who were too young to know any better and seniors too old and frightened to think clearly.
Yes, I knew it all – and without the annoying, time-consuming bother of checking out the claims of Jesus of Nazareth (who many people believe is the Son of God) or having any meaningful conversations with Jesus followers. All the knowledge I needed came from superficial newspaper articles or scornful remarks by equally ignorant friends and family members.
This ‘approach’ to faith went far beyond me. Consider these words, written in 2011 by blogger Chelsea Hoffman: “Atheism isn’t so bad; you don’t have to feel guilty for hanging up your entire existence on the idea that you’re being watched and judged by an archaic deity that is universally accepted among the science community to not even exist.”
The truth, as I’ve found out since becoming a Jesus follower in 2002, is startlingly different. Wikipedia lists a whopping 24 living scientists who stand in direct opposition to Chelsea Hoffman’s sweeping pronouncement.
And just in case you think – as I might have 10 years ago – that they’re all doddering seniors, consider just these two: Physician-geneticist Francis S. Collins (famous for helping to map the human genome) was only 56 when he published the 2006 bestseller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health in the United States, wrote, “Science is not threatened by God; it is enhanced” and “God is most certainly not threatened by science; He made it all possible.”
Astronomer Jennifer Wiseman is chief of the ExoPlanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory in the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (wow!). She is also director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion.
I couldn’t find out Wiseman’s birth date, but she earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard University in 1995, so she’s likely in her early 50s. Wiseman has commented on movies from a Jesus perspective, and written about how to encourage young Jesus followers in science. (You can find both online.)
She notes, “Churches and Christian schools are sometimes heavily influenced by the perception that Christianity and scientific processes (e.g., Big Bang cosmology, evolution, etc.) cannot mix, and that Christians must always have a ‘defensive’ stance toward science. This is tragic because our Christian friends can miss out on rejoicing in some of the discoveries that reveal God’s glory and creativity.”
I wish I’d known, before 2002, about Wiseman, Collins and all the other brilliant minds doing scientific work while having a fulfilling relationship with the creator of the universe and His Son. It might have changed my life much earlier.
Does this knowledge make any difference to you? Type your thoughts below and let’s have a conversation.
Frank's Cottage 
I have SO much I could say here, I hardly know where to start. This is my favourite topic!
I highly encourage everyone to read Collins’ book. It is a great read! I also had the amazing fortune to meet and listen to two lectures from Jennifer Wiseman a few years ago. Other related great reads on this topic are from Hugh Ross (“Creation as Science”, “Origins of Life”, “Who as Adam”, and others), Denis Alexander (highly, highly recommended… a true bible scholar and leading biology scientist at the Faraday Institute of Science and Religion, “Creation or Evolution, Do We Have to Choose”?), and a great secular science book (Rare Earth, by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee).
Most people, if asked, might say they believe science is slowly but surely disproving God. But actually the exact opposite is happening. The highest rate of conversion to belief in God among scientists is in two areas: microbiology and astronomy. The closer you look, and the further you look, the more clear is the miracle of God’s creation!
A few snippets:
– There was a beginning… the Big Bang! Perhaps one of the most shocking scientific discovers of all time… and one that matches the very first words of Genesis. How cool is that.
– Much emotion and strife immediately come to be whenever someone dares to talk about this topic (God, Creation, Evolution, Science, Nature, etc.). Seems like the evil one is really fighting the hardest to keep the smokescreen going in this area as long as absolutely possible. Imagine if the fact leaks out that there no conflict (but support) between what science is finding and God… imagine the amazing positive impact it would immediately have on so many in the world struggling to understand and believe in God (especially the young!).
– the only truly dangerous position to take on God and his creation of the universe is that “I have it all figured out”. Keep a completely open mind, and admit we cannot ever understand it all. And this is OK. Imagine… life, that self assembles from lifeless atoms, that themselves are merely little bundles of pure energy. And we move. We are conscious. We ponder our existence. We ponder our Creator. We recreate ourselves. We make cars, computers, bridges, bombs, art, music, beauty. Unbelievable.
– Since God created the universe, “nature” is His too, as is our mind’s understanding of Science! Can a “natural process” be in conflict with God, then?
– Dig as deep as you can on any topic (the more controversial the better!), and you will be pulled closer to God, not pushed further away. Doubt unchallenged is simply a waste. God has absolutely nothing to hide from us!
– Try not to equate process with purpose. Look at the big picture. The miracle of life, the beauty of earth, our “whole existence” in a tiny boundary layer of air so thin it is like the thickness of a hair laid on a globe of the earth… 100 miles up it is all over! The “whole wide world” is looking pretty small these days, but that is all we have!
– Einstein found that everything we think is unquestionable and firm is indeed not as it seems. Length is not constant. Time is not constant. Mass is not constant. All change easily with speed. How can this be? But it is true. And it has been experimentally proven! You can’t make this stuff up… even the GPS in your car only works when relativistic effects are accounted for between the satellite and your car. If something is not obvious, confusing, or contradictory to common sense it does not necessarily change the facts. It is OK not to understand something. It is myopic, even dangerous, when we insist we are right because we believe we fully understand something to the absolute bottom. So just what is constant? God.
– Earth’s composition is very well known. It comes from an exceedingly rare event of the explosion of one normal star and two rare stars in the same close space and time proximity (well documented fact), that then coalesced, in part, into the earth. Turns out we need exactly this composition to have the perfect volcanic activity we do on earth over its 4.5 billion year history so that earth’s thermostat (blanket from volcanoes, in part) can adjust its’ temperature somehow perfectly so that liquid water can exist (not frozen, not boiled away), even though the Sun’s power has changed by 30% over this same time frame. Amazing!
– The earth’s huge moon… a strange anomaly in our solar system! But if we did not have it, our (computed to be optimal) tilt of the earth would not be stable, and would flip flop every few million years (as is the case on Mars, for example) making life impossible.
– The earth’s composition is critical and perfect to give earth a nice liquid iron core (still!) which makes a perfect magnetic field around the earth, which just so happens to nicely keep life on earth from instantly being wiped out by radiation from the sun, which instead just pleasantly warms us and grows our food.
– Life has been determined to have started on earth the moment there was what we could think of as a “surface”. No big time lag. How is that possible?
– Humans do not make vitamin C. Other mammals do. This is why I eat oranges. If you look at the DNA there is a single “bit” flipped differently between us and other mammals (including apes) that turns off vitamin C production for us. Hard to argue with that. So the question is, does the random “process” of going from lifeless atoms all the way to humans means God did not create everything, or that we are an accident? Denis Alexander has a great analogy for this… think of a huge box with a lot of small dividers inside it (like in a case of beer), making a bunch of small open squares. Now fill in some of these holes and leave the others open. Put a bunch of balls on the top of the open box and shake it vigorously for a long time. Eventually all the open squares are filled in. Do it 1000’s of times, and each time the process of filling in all of those holes proceeds differently, but each time the end result is the same. The huge box is God’s design for us (in his image). The process of filling the box is random, but all these random processes proceed to the identical outcome… us! Works for me. I would guess that if we ever find life “out there” that they look identical to us!
– We are binary / digital beings… each of our full life’s unique blueprint is written in a 4 bit system (DNA). Massively organized information. And a full and perfect copy of our blueprint is inside each and every tiny cell of our body. How is that? Each cell’s DNA, unstretched, is about a 6 foot long recording of this information. Cool. have you ever seem anything randomly organize itself, and further, decide to make a precise recording of the design information, on its own, itself inside each and every component? And, oh ya, do this biologically with lifeless atoms, and not by a computer.
OK, I have to stop… I hope something I wrote makes you upset enough to go and find out for yourself that life is a miracle no matter how you look and God has created this miracle out of nothing! Please do not stop at being “just upset” by something written here. I am sure I have lots of things mixed up and/or plain wrong above, from my bad memory, but this is OK too. Find out for yourself and get your own facts. You will be shocked what you learn! Chase your doubt and you will be shocked what you will learn about God!
Wow, Paul!! I think it took more time for you to write your reply than it did for me to write the essay! Thanks for all the excellent, well-written information! 🙂
Cool stuff! I’ll have to look up this book! (I study microbiology.)
Thanks for reading and commenting, Sara. Glad you found some new reading material. 🙂
Bible: 6,000 years ago, God created Adam out of dust, and Eve out of a rib bone.
Science: Humans evolved over many millions of years, ultimately from the first single cell organisms.
Exactly how are science and Christianity compatible?
If you’re going to tell me that the Bible’s creation story is obviously allegory or metaphor, then I have a further question. How do you tell? It’s not made clear in the Bible itself that some parts are allegory and some parts true, so how do you know which are which?
Jimmy, the differences between the scientific and Biblical accounts of creation are a mystery. And that’s not the only mystery in the Bible for me, either (like, how did all of humanity come out of just Adam & Eve?)
But I’m OK with those mysteries, Jimmy. First off, your point (and mine) are not what I would call “kingdom issues”. They have no effect on the most important parts of the Bible – which is God pursuing His wayward children, then offering His son as a gift to everyone who would accept it.
Secondly, to paraphrase Mark Twain, it’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that challenge me, it’s the parts I DO understand. Those are the parts that, through God’s Holy Spirit, I need to work harder at to obey and fulfill.
I’m not sure my reply will satisfy you, Jimmy. But that’s OK, too. Your fate, ultimately, isn’t up to me. It’s up to you and up to your Creator.
Thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate it. 🙂
The simple fact remains that 90+ % of scientists DON’T believe in the christian god.
Is that so surprising?
“God” leaves no verifiable evidence of his existence, that can be proved by the scientific method.
It doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist, just that it can’t be proved, scientifically.
The sad fact is the religious now realise that science is held in higher regard than the spiritual, and are desperate for ANYTHING that shows “intelligent” people have faith.
Thanks for your thoughts, Steve. The fact remains that there are brilliant, thoughtful, important scientists who DO believe in the God of the Bible.
P.S. I can’t respond to anything about “religious” people. I’m not religious and Frank’s Cottage isn’t written for them.