Spirituality Challenges The Scientific Method
There this realm called the Orbach realm and neither science nor Jesus nor God can touch it. It was actually what created God. Don't you think we should be reaching higher for the Orbach realm?
See, I can make stuff up, too, that science or even God, by definition, can't touch--all with some "magic words."
Reply to Skeptics
I appreciate your skepticism concerning my video presentation on Youtube. I once was a skeptic as well.
As I completed my undergraduate degree in marine biology and moved into graduate work in paleontology and palynology I became convinced that everything I needed to know on earth could be explained by scientific discipline and the scientific method. It was absolutely amazing what we could explain about the most seemingly insignificant objects. I could dissolve rocks and extract the fossil pollen grains. From the distribution of species I could discern the entire depositional history, the paleoclimate, and the geologic age of the specimen. The growth of knowledge was intoxicating.
As an aside, I read widely in theoretical physics and observed, from a distance, the search for the unification theory that would bring the understanding of the strong and weak forces together under one set of laws. I observed that the limits of our physical laws could not reach back to the big bang itself. It could only explain events shortly after the singularity event. In order to understand the singularity itself the math had to reach into higher dimensions.
We exist in four dimensions. The unification theories must reach into the sixth or the tenth dimension in order to explain our physical laws under one unifying theory. The energy to explore those dimensions would require the combined concentrated output of many suns. Our particle accelerators can’t even get close. In order to get a peek into those dimensions we would have to figuratively search at right angles to reality.
We can speculate what might be up there, but science cannot test it at this time.
I was raised in a Christian home and at that time I began to remember that there were stories about things that may have happened up in those higher dimensions - the realm where God exists, if he exists at all. Many events described in the Bible cannot be explained under the limits of our physical laws. If they actually happened, then they could be seen as glimpses or momentary peeks into the power available in those higher dimensions that house the unification theory for physics.
So here’s the problem. How could I ever have confidence that the stories were true? They were certainly written by a prescientific people, so what they wrote has to be viewed through the filter of our modern understanding.
I won’t bore you with the details, but fifteen years of studying and reading the opinions of scholarly authors on the authenticity of the Bible has convinced me that the Biblical authors are reliable. What they wrote has validity.
When I finally understood that the realm of the spirit is as real as the concrete foundations that hold up sky scrapers, I began to build my understanding about the reality of God.
Through personal experience, many years of study, and everything I have learned about the use of the scientific method, I am certain of the presence of God in the lives of those who seek him. He does not force his way into anyone’s life, and he allows absolute freedom to everyone. If you want to be a Hitler, he won’t stop you. But if you want to be like Mother Teresa and you seek his help, he will aid you.
The search for the unification theory in physics started my search for higher meaning. The scientists who began the search understood that there must be something higher. The theories and laws that describe our natural world are like wooden carved statues. They are beautiful, but Michelangelo carved his masterpieces out of Carrere marble. The laws that will unite the forces of physics under one theory will be like a marble masterpiece. Wooden statues simply won’t suffice. The laws that describe the pinnacle of human morality are a masterpiece in marble as well. They were communicated to us by Jesus Christ and His apostles and they came from somewhere above our realm.
We are given glimpses into that realm in order to provide enough evidence to prove the reality of God to our own satisfaction. We have the opportunity to test that reality. If we are willing, God will meet us in the process. If we are unwilling to try, God offers us a hands-off existence while we live on this earth and then to the best understanding of our scientific disciplines we say, “That’s all folks.” If we take God up on his offer to reveal himself to us, he offers us an eternity to figure it all out.
Good luck in your search.
Randy