The world we live in was not created randomly. There is plenty of scientific evidence to prove this. Gregg Easterbrook discusses this in his essay, “The New Convergence.” There are a few things he brings up to make this point. The first is how exact gravity is. If it were slightly stronger or weaker things would not work out the way they do now. The stars and cosmos would either blow up or would have never been able to come together.
Another thing to look at when realizing the world is not completely random is the element of Carbon. This element needed exact conditions to be produced in the quantities it is found in. The late astronomer Fred Hoyle converted from atheism because after studying this he realized that there must be “purposeful intelligence” behind the creation of the world.
This fact that randomness is not at play when looking at how exact the earth is shows evidence of a higher being. It shows that somebody had a plan and knew exactly how things such as gravity and carbon would need to be created in order to work in our favor. Although many scientists may be atheist or not believe that a supreme being could not have formed the earth, there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. Science and religion need to use this to work together to explore the universe.

As discussed in the previous blog entry, scientific theories of how the world came to be and the creation story can co-exist. In "The Well-Crafted Arguement" there is an essay by Gregg Easterbrook called, "The New Convergence." It talks about how the debate between religion and science was declared closed in the 1980s, but this essay, published in 2002, states that it has been re-opened. As we have seen in recent years, this is a true statement. One of the reasons being that nobody can agree how the world came to be. The big bang theory is one option given by scientists, but it has also been said to be "only understood as a 'miracle'"(The New Convergence). Another statement in this essay is that "discoveries of physics 'seem to reflect intelligence at work in natural law'." Both these and many other statements and observations bring up the point that scientists have started to turn to religious leaders to fill in the blanks.
The really big questions in life, such as why we are here and how the universe began, are still not completely answered. And the more scientists find out, the more mystery there is to all these questions. Which is probably the main reason they are turning to religion to find out. They are reaching towards "spiritual thinkers to help them comprehend what they're learning"(The New Convergence). Religion can be really helpful in this aspect. The big bang somewhat explains how the Earth could have been created, and the theory of evolution explains how we got to where we are now. But religion fills in the missing pieces. We don't have to know exactly why something is the way it is and the science behind it. Sometimes just knowing that there is intelligence behind the design can keep us at ease and know that even though we may not have exact answers, somebody knows what they are doing and we can relax about it.

The theory of evolution and religion can coexist. There are even scientists who admit to this. I found an article about this topic at:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1018_041018_science_religion_2.html

I was surprised to find out that there are many scientists who belive in a religion and don't let it interfere with their work lives. If anything they make it work together. In the above article is states, "In a 1997 survey in the science journal Nature, 40 percent of U.S. scientists said they believe in God—not just a creator, but a God to whom one can pray in expectation of an answer." Scientists are just as likely to believe in a God as other people. Why would this be? One thought is that science is good at answering "how" questions one may have, such as "how did the universe evolve to what we see it as today?" Then on the religion side, it is better at answering "why" questions, such as "why is there a universe at all?" Looking at this idea can give us more insight to how we can incorporate both religion and science.

An astrophysicist named Joel Primack said in the article, "In the last few years astronomy has come together so that we're now able to tell a coherent story of how the universe began. This story does not contradict God, but instead enlarges [the idea of] God." This also shows us how scientists can be religious and believe in a God. Back when science was first becoming popular, scientists were studying the way of the world by believing they were researching how the things God created work. They wanted to prove the existence of a supreme being, not counter-prove as many are doing today. In today's world, the debate between science and religion is a topic in which people are trying to prove one side is better than the other, not that they can work together. That is why one needs to look to the scientists of the past and those today who are religious. They show us how we can use both aspects of life to answer the many questions we may have about our universe.

Atheism is a fast spreading concept in the world today. It may be because people don’t want to have anything holding them back from what they want to do; therefore they don’t want to believe in a supreme being that wants them to live their life a certain way. Or maybe it is because they can’t see how one being could create this earth and the wonderful things on it.

This may be part of the reason scientists and those who believe completely in science only think the way they do. They don’t want to admit or have a belief in a God because they want science to explain everything. Knowing how things work described in a scientific way gives them comfort to know they may have control over what happens and it’s not all up to the Supreme Being they would believe in.

Although the concept that science can explain everything may be comforting or logical, believing that a God created the earth and how things work within it can give more meaning to life and give us something to believe in after death.

In an article that can be found at http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/200011/0161.html by Freeman Dyson called, “Science and Religion can work together” he says:

“Francis Bacon, one of the founding fathers of modern science, was the smartest man of his time, with the possible exception of William Shakespeare. Bacon saw clearly what science could do, and what science could not do. He is saying to the philosophers and theologians of his time: look for God in the facts of nature, not in the theories of Plato and Aristotle. I am saying to modern scientists and theologians: don't imagine that our latest ideas about the Big Bang or the human genome have solved the mysteries of the universe, or the mysteries of life. Here are Bacon's words again: ‘The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.’”

So even though science may be able to explain many things, religion can give us meaning to life and look at the facts of nature with a different view.

In my last blog, I brought up that the bible story matches the scientific theory about the Creation. I didn’t mean that it matched up exactly, I just noticed that the order of how things came about matches. Starting with the land and then leading to life. The way that these things developed differ in the stories, since science says that life came from different gases in the atmosphere, and in the bible God created all of it. But the order of things is similar.

In an article published by Criss L. Cox at http://www.associatedcontent.com she says, “Science is the study of how things work. Faith in God is the belief there is a Higher Power watching over us. Science studies how the things God created work. Where is the conflict?”

This controversy between science and religion may not all be that simple, but she makes a good point. For those of us who believe in a higher power, we can see that science is just studying the things that the higher power created in this world. There must be some scientists who believe in God or some other higher power, so why do they not see this connection? I believe it is because people search for something other than faith to tell them how and why things work the way they do, which is fair, but incorporating both should be twice as helpful, should it not? We can have the facts discovered by those researching it, but having faith to back it up can make it even better. The Creation is an example of this. One can read the bible to know the story, but study the scientific facts to know more about it and decide which part they believe.

Albert Einstein once said, “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.”

This being said by a great scientist can make those who are very one-sided on the science vs. religion issue maybe think again. The reality is that they may not change their minds, but it can also help those in the middle not knowing what to think realize that we can and should have both science and religion in our lives. Having a religion to believe in gives us something to look forward to and is important, on the other hand having scientific knowledge can also help us know how the world we are in works. Let’s look at an example of how these two things can go together when talking about a huge controversial topic- the creation of Earth.

When it comes to Creation, there are many different stories in religion and theories in science. However, the main theory of the order of things being created is the same order the book of Genesis in the bible describes. I don’t want to debate on the bible and whether it’s correct or not, but many people do believe in it. Since the scientific theory and the bible story match up, why argue? Why can’t we just accept that science is just studying the things the God created and how they work? There are many who could, including me, but overall those who are strongly opinionated one way or another are not likely to change their thoughts and include the other side, but that’s no reason to not discuss it. We can still try to make them see both ways, and accept that science is just studying God’s creations and how they work.

What good has science done? It has discovered things of the world years ago, studied many aspects of life, and researched cures for many different diseases. It also explains many phenomena we wouldn’t know about otherwise. Scientists research and study issues we want to know about and explain how it happens. On the other hand, what good has religion done? Religion has also played a part in our lives to explain things. There may be different religions, but they all give us comfort because they give us explanations and reasons to live the way we live. Then why do these two important aspects of life quarrel over just about everything? Can’t they just combine their thoughts and research to come up with one explanation? Well, it would be possible if every scientist and every religious official could agree, but it’s just not probable. We should still try to take pieces of each to use in our lives. The tricky part is how to do this. Some people just want to be completely religious, and some may not believe in any and want scientific answers for everything. In an article I found on scienceray.com called, “Common Ground in the Science-Religion Debate,” it says:
"Of course, just like historians argue over different historical accounts of events, scientists and religious proponents will continue to argue over the details even though the end result is the same. But then again, to many, the details do matter. And for those of us that don’t mind the details, its certainly an interesting and long lasting debate to follow."
So even though the two aspects may not agree, we can follow the debate, find things we like about both and come up with our own thoughts and feelings on the issue. After all, that’s what being in a free country does for us.