I recently read about Dr. Francis Collins likely becoming the head of the National Institutes of Health (here in the U.S.). Along with the article was a link to his foundation BioLogos. There mission is quite simple “The BioLogos Foundation promotes the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms seeking harmony between these different perspectives.”
Luckily, this has coincided with some of my own thinking.
I attend a Christian church on a regular basis (but I would caution against jumping to conclusions about my beliefs) and in the course of the sermons there are often moments when my mind begins to think about broader topics. Most recently, during one of these wanderings, I wondered ‘What if God is a Scientist’. I mean this in the truest sense. What if Earth (and the Heavens) are just his/her petri-dish and what we discover, over time, are really just the results of different experiments. Like all good scientists God has had his run of good experiments (i.e. organelles, DNA, hydrogen) and some terrific failures (i.e. Dinosaurs, Pluto, [redacted due to British Libel laws]).
By way of example I have chosen a few of his/her actions and tried to use the basic Scientific Method to determine (perhaps) his/her motivation.The destruction of Babel
Observation: Everybody is getting along and thinks they can build a tower up to heaven.
Hypothesis: What if they can’t talk to one another?
Experiment: Create many languages
Results: Wow, did that really muck up their plans
Conclusion: Still under investigation
Or
Biblical flooding
Obs: Nobody is paying attention to my laws
Hypoth: What if I scrap the whole thing, expect for a few specimens, and start over.
Experiment: One boat, two of everything and lots of water. Mix well and wait.
Results: Clean fresh scent at the beginning same spoiled smell later.
Conclusion: Try plague, fever, locusts, fire and brimstone, Earth 2.0, etc. in future iterations.
Or
In the name of God
Observation: Now that I created all these languages I have that have different usernames and passwords!
Hypothesis: Everyone knows its me, should be fine because they all get my updates in real time.
Experiment: Religions
Conclusoin: Oh!
Cheers,
Is this post blasphemous?
Do you have a test protocol in mind for that determination?
Yah, see if someone slaps a fatwa on you.
Interesting. Does British libel law extend to the heavens? Do you think He would sue?
I’ll let you know if Corie or Timo call me.
There is only one God and Timo is his prophet. Yeah, I can live with that.
Why were dinosaurs a failure? Because they became extinct? Then every species is a failure by that criterium. I think dinosaurs can be considered a highly succesful grouping.
… and successful still! Dinosaurs continue to be the most successful tetrapod group in terms of numbers of species. I have ten of them in my garden, laying delicious dinosaur eggs as I
squawkcluckspeak.You haven’t read the T&Cs have you, Frank?
O.K. about the dinosaurs. . . I don’t make the decisions I just report and you decide. Like many experiments success or failure can be in the eye of the beholder. Notice that His results aren’t in peer-reviewed literature (or are they?) but were first in self-published books/tablets/papyrus (blogs 0.1).
Speaking of such things, I once concocted a way to prove the location of heaven (or at least the Catholic one).
1. Push the Pope into a black hole.
2. Nothing can escape a black hole, not even the papal spirit.
3. The Pope’s soul must therefore go into the black hole.
4. But the Pope’s soul must also go to heaven when he dies.
5. Therefore, Heaven must be inside the black hole.
QED
Unless he pulls some kind of clever trick with Hawking radiation.
In Budhhism, they say every one on this planet flurishes and then decays, dianosaurs are not extinct they are here in the changed morphology i.e. birds etc.
Francis Collins. Top scientist, no doubt about that. And I’ll take his science seriously. But didn’t he claim to have observed ‘The Trinity’ in a waterfall, or some such? You’ll excuse me if I give his metaphysics short shrift.
Matt – To further support your argument that Heaven is in a black hole (a cold, dark, light retaining space). I submit the “classic” proof that Hell is exothermic (light radiating, heat emitting). Since Hell should be in opposition to Heaven I think this subject matter is now closed.
I’m just worried that God has decided to replicate His experiments. Imagine the carnage.
OMG. Are we an outlier?
Bob – what if he already has Earth 2.0 going somewhere else in the Universe and we are now the forgotten experiment?
You know, that could explain a lot. Jesus must be pretty upset about it all, though.
Here’s something I said before on one of Frank’s blog posts, but it’s even more appropriate here: I once saw a cartoon entitled ‘The Adolescent Almighty’. The scene was two dinosaurs fighting to the death, with a speech balloon coming out of the clouds that said Cool!!!
I am now LOLing at Henry’s description of that cartoon.
Also, I am willing to get behind Matt’s black hole theory, except that I think there’s an implicit assumption about the
Popeperson whom I cannot explicitly name due tostupidboneheadeddebatably unreasonable British Libel Laws. To wit: you are presuming the Pope is as virtuos and saintly as he’s cracked up to be. Which is probably true, but ya never know.In the meantime, I enjoyed Craig’s examples and am willing to accept his thesis. I suspect that Disco music, the duck-billed platypus, and various bus schedules are all experiments too.
If I understood Hawking correctly, nothing that has mass can ever escape a black hole, but the papal spirit is (presumably) immaterial. So there you go…
anyway, here is my contribution to the list of failed experiments:
dodos
bendy buses
Windows Vista
Maybe we already are on Earth 2.0?