"God" is a word. If we define it, even subconsciously, as something that cannot exist in our universe, we banish the idea of God from our reality and throw away all possibility of incorporating a potent spiritual metaphor into a truly coherent big picture. But if we take seriously the reliable — and, thus, invaluable — scientific and historical knowledge we now possess, we can redefine God in a radically new and empowering way that expands our thinking and could help motivate and unite us in the dangerous era humanity is entering.
For more than 30 years, I have had a ringside seat to one of the
most exciting scientific revolutions of our time, the revolution in cosmology.
In the 1970s, the great cosmological mystery was this: If the Big Bang was
symmetrical in all directions, why isn't the expanding universe today just a
bigger soup of particles? Instead, beautiful spiral and elliptical galaxies are
scattered throughout, but not randomly; they lie along invisible filaments,
like glitter tossed on lines of glue. Where several big filaments intersect,
great clusters of galaxies have formed. Why? What happened to the soup? Where
did all this structure come from?
My husband, Joel R. Primack, is one of the creators of the
theory of cold dark matter, which answers these questions by telling us that
everything astronomers can see — including all the stars, planets and glowing
gas clouds in our galaxy, and all the distant galaxies — is less than half of 1
percent of the contents of the universe. The universe turns out to be almost
entirely made of two dynamic, invisible presences unknown and undreamed of
until the 20th century: dark matter (invisible matter not made of atoms or the
parts of atoms) and dark energy (the energy causing the expansion of the
universe to accelerate). They have been in competition with each other for
billions of years, with dark matter's gravity pulling ordinary (atomic) matter
together and dark energy flinging space apart. Their cosmic interaction with
ordinary matter has spun the visible galaxies into being and, thus, created the
only possible homes for the evolution of planets and life.
Over the decades, as data
confirming this story began to trickle — then pour — in from telescopes and
satellites, I kept wondering: What does it mean for us humans
that we're not living in the universe we thought we were in? Today,
astronomers worldwide accept the double dark theory as the modern story of the
universe, but they have not answered this question. Someone must.
Does God have to be part of our understanding of the universe?
No. But if scientists tell the public that they have to choose between God and
science, most people will choose God, which leads to denialism, hostility to
science and the profoundly dangerous mental incoherence in modern society that
fosters depression and conflict. Meanwhile, many of those who choose science
find themselves without any way of thinking that can give them access to their
own spiritual potential. What we need is a coherent big picture that is
completely consistent with — and even inspired by — science, yet provides an
empowering way of rethinking God that provides the human and social benefits
without the fantasy. How can we get this?
Science can never tell us with certainty what's true, since
there's always the possibility that some future discovery will rule it out. But
science can often tell us with certainty what's not true. It can rule out the
impossible. Galileo, for example, showed with his telescope that the medieval
picture of earth as the center of heavenly crystal spheres could not be true,
even though he could not prove that the earth moves around the sun. Whenever
scientists produce the evidence that convincingly rules out the impossible,
there's no point in arguing. It's over. Grace lies in accepting and
recalculating. That's how science moves forward.
What if we thought this way about God? What if we took the
evidence of a new cosmic reality seriously and became willing to rule out the
impossible? What would be left?
We can have a real God if we let go of what makes it unreal. I
am only interested in God if it's real. If it isn't real, there's nothing to
talk about. But I don't mean real like a table, or a feeling, or a test score,
or a star. Those are real in normal earthbound experience. I mean real in the
full scientific picture of our double dark universe, our planet, our biology
and our moment in history.
These are characteristics of a God that can't be real:
1. God
existed before the universe.
2. God
created the universe.
3. God
knows everything.
4. God
intends everything that happens.
5. God can
choose to violate the laws of nature.
I explain in my book, A
God That Could Be Real, why physically each of these is impossible,
but I don't think the scientific readers of this blog need that. The point I
want to make here is that this list pretty much agrees with most atheists'
reasons for dismissing the existence of God. But this is no place to stop.
We've merely stated what God can't be. We haven't considered yet what God could be.
We've all grown up so steeped in some religious tradition or
other, whether we've accepted it or rebelled against it, that it's hard to
grasp that the chance to redefine God is actually in our hands. But it is, and
the way we do it will play a leading role in shaping the future of our planet.
To me, this is the key
question: Could anything actually exist in this universe that is worthy of
being called God? My answer is yes, and in my next blog post I'll explain what I
mean by "a God that could be real."
Twitter: @Cosmicsociety
Source: AGTCBR
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