Awesome: my journey from Science to Religion

The following is the text of the sermon I delivered at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Santa Paula, CA on July 10, 2011.

Title: "Awesome: My Journey from Science to Religion" 7/10/11

You know what’s really awesome? 5 Billion years! That is the age of the Earth, since it cooled into solid rock. For the first Billion years, the planet was lifeless. Then one cell came to life. Scientists agree that all life descends from this single common ancestor, a one-celled organism. Life began one time only, as far as we can tell, 4 Billion years ago. Isn’t that awesome!

When I stare up at the stars, I feel small. There are billions and billions of stars to the edge of the expanding universe, 14 Billion years after the Big Bang.

I feel awe when I study the principles of science. This sermon is inspired by those experiences. It is a sermon about science and religion, the two most powerful forces in human history, according to Alfred North Whitehead.

Science offers a lawful system of matter in motion that human reason can explain without recourse to supernatural agencies. The laws of Nature are beautiful to contemplate. Darwin’s theory of evolution is a great achievement in explaining the natural world. Natural selection has been called “design without a designer.” But how did these laws of nature come to be? Does this beautiful design imply the existence of a designer, that is to say, a God? Approximately half of all scientists in America profess a belief in God. Ben Franklin said: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

The UU’s 1^st Source is “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and openness to the forces which create and uphold life.”

Sometimes I feel like a purring cat. I feel such gratitude for all the good things in my life. A beautiful sunset is awesome. Natural beauty overwhelms us and this experience of awe transcends ordinary experience. This is religious experience.

When I first started attending the Unitarian Universalist church, I had a conversation with a fellow who was a militant Humanist. I said, speaking of religion, that there are experiences that cannot be put into words. He said: like what?

Thandeka, a UU minister and professor, put it this way: first we have these feelings. Then we try to put the feelings into words. Then we try to organize these words into a coherent rational system of thought. But the original impulse is a feeling of awe.

What is outside the realm of science? Life’s meaning, purpose, value, ethics, the experience of music, dance, art, beauty, love, awe, wonder, joy. Those are religious issues. The science of love is different from the experience of love. The menu is not the meal. The map is not the territory. We know we will die, so how shall we live?

A friend of mine calls himself a Fallen Agnostic: he used to not know; now he doesn’t care! My kids say my religion is voting and recycling. I believe in the Mystery! I feel all life is one, that all 50 Trillion cells of my body, all the animals, even somehow the earth itself, is alive and therefore connected. I feel I am God and you are too. So is my cat.

I was raised in a fundamentalist church, the Church of Christ. Later I became infatuated with science and I became an atheist. I made science my religion, which is scientism. Scientism is the belief that only what can be demonstrated using the scientific method is true. But that is itself a faith statement; it is not demonstrable.

You know Jesus was a Californian because he wore long hair and sandals and started his own religion. I started a religion with a couple of friends back in the 70's. Gordon did most of the writing so we sometimes called it Gordonianism. It’s all spaghetti sauce, Gordon would say, as he cooked down ripe red tomatoes, green peppers, yellow onions, herbs and spices until it would be transformed into spaghetti sauce, the metaphor of unity. My Gordonian phase was an attempt to find meaning in a world devoid of a transcendent God.

I have had experiences where I felt life was one, that I was part of everything, of all life, of all creation. That is why I don’t believe in a God that is separate, a sky God like the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God. My experience is that I am part of it, not separate from it. It’s all spaghetti sauce.

One day Gordon and I went hiking at Nahoqui Falls. We got separated. I climbed to the top of a ridge, and climbed an oak tree where I had a commanding view. Then I saw this red-tailed hawk coming straight towards me. We made eye contact. Then I saw through the hawk’s eyes. I was the hawk. I flew over ridges and canyons far beyond. I saw the landscape of my life stretching out before me. I chose a direction, and that led me to certain places and not others. We choose from the options we perceive as available, and we are shaped by our choices.

Science and religion are not in conflict. Both use reason and faith. Science is premised on faith statements like there is an objective reality that corresponds to my sensory experiences. When I look in a telescope, I am seeing something out there.

All the early scientists were deeply religious. Science came out of research in Roman Catholic universities that were staffed by members of religious orders who had the education and means to conduct scientific investigation. Examples:

Copernicus in the 16^th Century was the first person to claim that the earth was not the center of the universe, actually the earth revolved around the sun.

Galileo, the first to use a telescope to observe the heavens, discovered the moons of Jupiter. Galileo was a pious Catholic who seriously considered the priesthood before he became a math teacher. Galileo’s case is supposed to prove the antagonism between religion and science. However, an honest look reveals Christians on all sides of this debate.

Isaac Newton in the 17^th Century wrote perhaps the most influential book on science ever. He devoted more time to the study of Scripture than to science. Newton saw a monotheistic God as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Awesome!

For all of human history until the 16th Century, people thought of themselves as residing in a living world with a Fatherly God or gods tending to his creation. The scientific revolution led by Newton & company led to a transformation in people's world view. A living world was replaced with a mechanical world. It was all billiard balls bouncing off each other. The steam engine became the great metaphor for the world. Our bodies were seen as mechanical. The planet was mechanical. The spirit no longer inhabited and moved everything. Materialism became the new theology of this mechanical age. Nietzsche pronounced God was dead in the 19^th Century.

Well, the wheel of science has turned. Quantum physics has replaced classical physics. Quantum mechanics says that what we think of as the probability that a radioactive atom randomly decays is actually described by it being both decayed and not decayed until observed. The physicist Erwin Schrodinger wrote to Einstein this thought experiment: his cat was in a box with some Uranium. If an atom randomly underwent fission then the Geiger counter would break a flask containing poison and kill the cat. Quantum physics says Schrödinger’s cat is simultaneously alive and dead. The characteristic trait of quantum mechanics is entanglement, where one object cannot be fully described without considering the others. Einstein derided this as spooky action at a distance, because it meant information travels instantaneously, faster than the speed of light.

Quantum mechanics is not just for scientists; it has transformed our economy: 30 percent of the U.S. gross national product is based on inventions made possible by quantum mechanics, from semiconductors in computer chips to lasers in compact-disc players and retail checkout counters, X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging in hospitals, and much more.

The very nature of physical reality has been transformed by science. Our world is built, not on matter, but on information. DNA is the map that uses information to harness dumb matter to its own ends. We don’t think of our bodies as steam engines, but as computers. Materialism is so 19th Century when matter is in a wave-particle duality. Nihilism, the view that nothing matters, is obsolete in a universe where every observer changes what is observed. Science teaches us everything is connected to everything. I therefore pronounce materialism and nihilism dead. The universe is alive again.

In worship we awaken our sense of the sacred, of what is most meaningful. Religion is our vision of the good, of our highest common aspirations. Religion is our answer the universal human quest for meaning and purpose. Let us covenant to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Let us lead lives of gratitude, integrity, compassion and love. Let us go now in peace.