Science, World, and Faith

* Hot topics:
  ~ What Science is
  ~ The Mystery of Self-Consciousness
  ~ On Evolution
  ~ Why a Scientific World
  ~ Why a Not So Scientific World
* Discussing the most challenging questions about Christianity
* Providing a suitable scientific background for Christians in the 21st century

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Introduction

Here is a short explanation of who I am, why I wrote this book, and what this book is for. I am an ordinary layman of an ordinary Christian church. I attend Sunday worship regularly and fulfill the usual duties like tithing, attending the required services, etc. Outside the church, I read the Bible, pray, listen to Christian music, read Christian books, and participate in fellowship activities in order to strengthen my faith. In addition, I like to argue with nonbelievers. When I meet people who have challenging questions about Christianity or theology, I can't help doing my best to find answers to respond to them. I believe Christianity is true, thus I also believe that if I strive to think, there are always good answers for those tough questions.

During my discussions with friends of both nonbelievers and believers, I have found many valuable arguments that are worth writing down. Some of which are my ideas, formed only after being baffled by some very difficult questions of nonbelievers for days or weeks; some are my inspirations, after years of confusion about Christianity and other religions; and some are the essence of the thoughts of great Christian teachers. Accordingly, it is my belief that if these ideas are written down and organized as a book, they can and will be a solid reference to persuade people to accept Christianity. This book may also save time and energy that is otherwise spent engaged in religious arguments. I felt compelled to finish this project, and this book is the result. It is my hope that people will consider it both interesting and helpful.

Throughout this book, I assume that you, the reader, are a person who does not believe in any religion. You know plenty about modern scientific concepts such as the evolution theory in biology, or the big bang theory in cosmology. You feel uncomfortable when someone invites you to go to church. You sometimes argue with your friends about their beliefs and feel that they are uninformed and a little bit stupid. This book is a collection of what I have come up with so far for arguing with people like you.

Because of my educational background, I open with a chapter entitled, "What Science is".

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What Science is

We begin with a situation. There was a door. I pushed the door but it didn't open. I increased the force and then the door opened. This event satisfies our common sense. In another situation, I needed to cook a piece of steak. I set the oven at medium and it took five minutes to make it well-done. If I wanted to cook faster, I might set the oven at high power and it would take three minutes for the same job. These are examples from our everyday experiences. We consider them normal, because we can use some reasoning skills to explain them.

Let's try to explain the above examples. In the first situation, let's say the resistance to open the door is 40 units. If I use more than 40 units of force, I can open the door. I originally provided 30 units of force. The door wouldn't open, because 30 is smaller than 40. My next push gave 50 units of force. The door was moved, because 50 is greater than 40. It is an explanation which involves physical knowledge and an arithmetic method, the comparison of numbers. For the second case, 300 units of heat energy are needed to make the steak well-done. Medium power gave 60 units of heat energy per minute to the steak, 5 minutes yields 60 * 5 = 300 units of heat energy. High power gave 100 units of heat energy, 100 * 3 = 300, so 3 minutes was needed for the equivalent 300 units of total heat energy. This explanation, again, involves physical knowledge and a slightly more difficult arithmetic method, multiplication.

We experience these kinds of happenings every day. As a result, we know that there are principles to explain things in the world, and that things in the world follow these principles. People who lived thousands of years ago should have experienced similar things during their lifetimes. We, the people of the twenty-first century, are living in the world in which they lived. The rules that governed them also govern us every day. We use many methods they taught us to take advantage of these rules. The activities of explaining things are in a pattern: assumption, deduction, and conclusion. In the previous examples, physical principles for opening the door or cooking food are assumptions; arithmetic methods are applied for deductions; how to open the door or to cook faster are conclusions.

Science is nothing but extensions of everyday experience like the ones just discussed. All statements in standard scientific materials are in this "assumption, deduction, conclusion" pattern. Science and technology are derived from natural events in our lives with this methodology. The differences between modern science and our everyday experiences are that in modern science, assumptions are sometimes known only to scientists who suggest their existence; deductions are some very difficult mathematics; and conclusions are some fancy statements created to compare with the results of experiments using complex and precise equipments. Every scientist was once a baby knowing nothing, was a child knowing some common sense, and then studied scientific knowledge one level after another, and is trying to create new ideas at today's frontiers.

Take physics as an example. The study of physics began with discussions of the natural phenomena: heat, sound, light, electricity, and force. Generations of scientists proposed many theories as assumptions. The conclusions deduced from these theories match things happening in our world. They established the theory of atoms and subatomic particles (protons, neutrons, electrons, etc.), Newton's laws of force, Maxwell's laws of electricity, Einstein's theory of relativity, and quantum mechanics. To explain these theories, they established the standard model, which describes the properties and behavior of elementary particles, like quarks and leptons and the interactions between these particles. To explain the standard model, some top physicists proposed the superstring theory, but it is not successful today.

Modern science is really an astounding achievement. We have a great deal of knowledge in many different areas. Besides physics, the direct extension of research on everyday experience, we have:

* Mathematics -- the specialized studies of the methods and skills of deductions from easy to hard, and from hard to very hard

* Chemistry -- research on the behavior and interactions of materials

* Biology -- research on living things

* Earth science (including geology, geography, meteorology, oceanography, etc.) -- research of the things on earth

* Astronomy -- research of the things beyond earth

And so on. Modern science has proven its power by the invention of many things that change the lives of mankind and the face of the world. From the observations of the world, scientists proposed many theories to explain them. Scientists and engineers apply these theories with many smart ideas to create numerous appliances to benefit people (or to harm people sometimes). We can safely say that science has revealed a great part of the reality of our world.

Our universe seemingly always follows these systematic rules found by scientific activities. Naturally, we have some questions such as the following: Is there something that these rules can't explain? Does anything against these rules ever happen? Is there any supernatural existence? This book tries to convince you that the answers to these questions are positive. Science is able to explain many things, and the applications of science have greatly influenced this world. Nevertheless, there is evidence that there are things beyond science.

To illustrate this point, let us discuss another question. How do we use scientific knowledge and methods to explain the idea of "myself"?

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The Mystery of Self-Consciousness

Why are you here and reading this book? What really happened when your eyes read the first line and a second passed? Why do we, the six billion people on earth, share the same time but experience it individually?

Self-consciousness is still a mystery to modern science. Maybe it is because the issue is related to our brain, which is still not understood completely. Maybe it is because many imaginary experiments that could reveal interesting stories can't be realized, because it will kill people to perform them. Maybe it is because our computer devices are not powerful enough at this time to analyze the biological complexity of our body, or to simulate the processes of neural networks. However, we may ask more questions to show that perhaps these possible explanations are not to the point.

What happens to a person's self-consciousness when he or she sleeps and can't experience it? If it existed, what did it look like before he or she was born? After a person dies, what will the self-consciousness look like, and will it still exist? For a person who has mental illness or whose brain is partly injured, what does his or her self-consciousness look like?

All these questions are unlikely to be answered by the scientific method. Self-consciousness is something very different from the normal objects studied in science. In science, the common topics are systematic rules and smart techniques, but consciousness is the being finding systematic rules and creating smart techniques. In science, we discuss what objects exist and how to observe them; with consciousness, our problem becomes why it exists and why it is observed in a particular way. In science, we check how things are composed of smaller things, but perhaps consciousness is an integral concept that is unable to be analyzed in this way. In science, we find reasons behind knowing things, whereas consciousness is the idea that all known experiences are based upon. The problem of consciousness is intrinsic and subtle.

What makes you feel that you own your body, and are separated from the universe? Do you make it clear each time you say, "I" or "me," that you mean the status of your existence or your physical effects on the world? Are your decisions made from your free will (what's that?) or are they just the result of electrical and chemical reactions in your brain? Why do you exist at this time and at this place?

Do you feel confused by the above ? I tried to convince you that the consciousnesses of you, me, and everyone else in the world are very special. They are so special that we have many different names like soul, spirit, mind, etc. used to refer to this subject. All these nouns, as well as their exact meanings, depending on the people who use them, are created to represent the ideas around conscious experiences. Are conscious experiences merely illusions? Do they have some reality? Can they be understood following the pattern of our successfulness on science?

Maybe the idea of self-consciousness can't be explained by science. Let's see what this supposition implies if it is true. If science can't explain a thing at some place, at some time, science can't explain everything in the universe for all time, from the past to the future. In this case, there are some things beyond the capabilities of science. Whether they are some separated single events or they are systematic events, they are some things beyond the capabilities of science. It is more reasonable for us to presume that they are systematic events, like the events in the physical world, which are able to be understood systematically by the scientific method. We may hope that the things beyond science also have their rules and are possible to be understood.

It is not too dangerous to say that all people who ever lived have similar self-consciousness experiences. We believe all of the issues noted here were deliberated and discussed by some other curious people in the same way, or some similar ways, but in different forms. It is not by accident that, from the past till now, some people have believed some things beyond the standard explanations of physical experiences, and left some heritage on this topic. All these things belong to a category of human knowledge called religion.

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Living in a Religious World

We are living in a religious world. In all great ancient civilizations -- Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, Greek, Rome, Maya, etc. -- religion played an important role. This trend has lasted until now. In all countries, most people have some religious beliefs and there are many different religions in the world. (I won't name any religion in this book except Christianity.)

These are a few examples of religious ideas:

* Previous life -- descriptions about a person before he or she was born

* Afterlife -- descriptions about a person after he or she dies

* God -- some kind of existence having supernatural power and ruling over human beings

* Angel -- some kind of existence helping people by its supernatural power

* Ghost -- some kind of existence scaring and harming people by its supernatural power

* Soul -- the non-material part of a person

* Miracle -- supernatural events beyond the explanations of science

* Judgment -- an act of God that rewards or punishes a person according to his or her deeds

We may see that these religious ideas are related to our conscious experiences. Maybe they do exist. If they don't exist, it is understandable why some people have created them. Perhaps long ago someone felt that his self-consciousness was so essential and so real that he could not imagine that it would cease to exist, so he suggested the existence of a previous life and afterlife for each person. Next, he imagined there should be a world of Gods to arrange these things and that these Gods may perform miracles to affect our world. He created these ideas and they were passed on through generations, because many others believed what he said. Does your belief that science can explain everything waver a bit when considering the above? It is thus the case that either there are supernatural entities inexplicable by science, or we have evidence that the idea of self-consciousness, which is still a mystery to science, is real. To continue our discussions, let us examine the different viewpoints of people toward religions.

It has been suggested that all religions are equivalently good, no matter which one people choose to follow. We may ask the people who hold this idea, "What do you mean? If someone goes toward a wrong belief, he or she can't get the results that he or she expects." And they may answer, "All beliefs are equally good. It doesn't matter what you believe. You will get what you want." But these statements can't be true. What thing on earth satisfies this kind of logic? Is there any city in which the names of the streets are what people call them? Is there a test for which the official answer for each problem is what is written on the paper? There should be some right ideas and some wrong ideas. If you have a wrong idea, you won't get what you wish. Even if we assume that all beliefs are equally good, for example, Mr. A expects some things are better than what Mr. B expects and Mr. A gets what he wants, then we can say Mr. A's idea is better. Mr. B should expect what Mr. A expects, so now we have a contradiction, because not all beliefs are equally good in this example. The religious viewpoint that all thoughts are good or all thoughts are equal has inherent trouble.

Some people hold to agnosticism, the belief that things outside the physical world can't be understood no matter how hard people try or what method they apply. In a physics class, if a student says that he can't understand certain concepts despite how hard he tries or the methods he uses, the teacher will assume that he is not as smart as many other students, because many other students are able to understand those concepts. Of course, agnostics don't think they are less intelligent than other people, hence suggesting agnostic philosophy. They claim that events or entities outside the physical world intrinsically can't be understood. They are mysterious and untouchable. However, when we engage in religious activities, we are trying to obtain more knowledge on this subject. Furthermore, billions of people possess various types of religious ideas. If any person has an idea that is true, then agnostics are wrong, because at least one person understands at least one thing outside the physical world. Agnostics may ask that person to understand something. When people consult religious books, they defy agnosticism. When people attend religious activities, they defy agnosticism. When we discussed the topics related to our conscious experiences, we defied agnosticism. To be frank, agnosticism is totally useless and has little chance of being true. In addition, this viewpoint has another problem. Strictly speaking, if a person really does not understand something, he or she is unable to say whether it can be understood or not. This person can say nothing. Logically speaking, agnosticism is nonsense.

A more respectable idea is atheism. The view of atheists toward the world is also called materialism, since they believe everything in the universe can be explained by the properties of materials and the interactions between them -- and there is nothing else. For example, atheism claims that all of our conscious experiences are the result of chemical and electrical activities in our brain. When a person dies, nothing will be left. This idea appears to be true because natural laws are so beautiful and powerful and they work so well to explain many things. This idea also appears to be true because people who claim they have had supernatural experiences are rare and perhaps all of them are liars. If atheism is true, the best thing you should do about religious ideas is to ignore them completely. What you do will make no difference and will waste your time and money. It would make you look foolish to attend any religious activity. Atheism is a respectable idea; however, the theme of this book is to defy it.

Aside from the above thoughts, there are many beliefs in this world which consider that there is a world beyond the physical world, and it can be reached in some ways. Let's classify them into two categories. Many religious beliefs tell people that there is a system, similar to the system of natural laws, governing the things beyond the physical world. That system has its own rules and they will decide your fate. What is the difference between the rules of the physical world and the rules beyond the physical world? The rules of the physical world apply to material things. They are reachable by experimental and reasoning methods, which are extensions of our everyday experiences. The rules beyond the physical world apply only to humans (or maybe some other life forms) as spiritual beings. They are considered to be reachable by special methods, like meditations, spells, exorcisms, etc., things that violate our everyday experiences and generally are not discussed in mainstream science. If it is true that there is a transcendental world, and the most important issue regarding this world is its systematic rules, what you want to do is understand the rules and utilize them for your benefit. In our scientific world, we first understand the rules of nature; then we can protect ourselves from disasters and create fancy machines to improve our life. We probably need to do similar things about the rules beyond the natural world.

Many other religious beliefs focus on contacting beings beyond this world. Some people, like your boss or government officers, have authority over you. Some beliefs claim there are some beings of a transcendental world who have supernatural power to influence this world and decide your fate when your life on earth is over. If it is true, you have to understand what they want and act the way they say. You also hope that these beings are faithful and give you what they have promised if you have made commitments to them. You should show respect and do your duties to these beings.

Living in this religious world, how have you reacted on this issue so far? What do you think when you see other people participating in religious activities? Are you clear what will happen to you after your life has ended? How much did you invest or will you invest during your lifetime?

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