The ALCAIDE’S CAFE

January 08, 2004

Yes! What a time to start this! NASA has landed, and a fantastic mission begins its work on Mars! I am thoroughly excited!

I am, I must confess, absolutely fanatic about space exploration. Nothing else we do inspires quite so much awe and excitement. I cannot wait to see the first real pictures and data from a rambling Rover coming back. I’m practically holding my breath in anticipation. Mars has so long been such an enigma, full of promises and disappointments and mystery. Remember our first Rover landing in ’97? I couldn’t stop watching the TV then, switching from channel to channel for the latest pics and reports. Now I can’t imagine what the next few months will be like, with two (get that, two) far more sophisticated Rovers hard at work on Mars! My greatest regret – the paucity of actual TV coverage. We should have an hour or two of live broadcasting coverage every day! Come on PBS, Fox, CNN, one of you guys should get out in front of the pack … give up a rerun of election pundits, or something!

Yes! What a time to start this! NASA has landed, and a fantastic mission begins its work on Mars! I am thoroughly excited! I am, I must confess, absolutely fanatic about space exploration. Nothing else we do inspires quite so much awe and excitement. I can’t wait to see the first real pictures and data from a rambling Rover coming back. I’m practically holding my breath in anticipation. Mars has so long been such an enigma, full of promises and disappointments and mystery. Remember our first Rover landing in ’97? I couldn’t stop watching the TV then, switching from channel to channel for the latest pics and reports. Now I can’t imagine what the next few months will be like, with two (get that, two) far more sophisticated Rovers hard at work on Mars! My greatest regret – the paucity of actual TV coverage. We should have an hour or two of live broadcasting coverage every day! Come on PBS, Fox, CNN, one of you guys should get out in front of the pack … give up a rerun of election pundits, or something!

A lot of my Christian friends are threatened by the planet Mars. They are very much afraid that the scientists are going to find exactly what they hope to find there, when this double-barreled shot at Mars is finished. I’m not! In fact, even though very much a Christian, I would actually be quite thrilled if we did find the conditions right for life on Mars. Even more thrilled if we actually find the proof that life is, or once had been, there!

What most of them (Christians, and scientists and atheists as well) do not understand is that there is nothing in that that is going to contradict the Bible! The Bible doesn’t say there is no life on Mars. Or Venus. Or anywhere else in the universe. All the Bible says (which many scientists and all the atheists don’t know, and don’t want to know) is that He, God, created life. And the Bible only talks about the creation and history of life on earth. It doesn’t say life has not evolved into new forms or patterns (speciated) of life here or somewhere else. Indeed, even here on earth, the Bible only says that God created life and then, subsequently, throughout the history of creation that it records, it merely insists that He created the kinds, the major types and fundamental forms of life, as the history of creation marched on.

That bears repeating, because it’s something few people understand: the history (I call the “creation account”) of the universe and life given in Genesis, only says that He, God, originated/created (bara, in the Hebrew) the universe, and the shape and general course of life on the earth. Little else is spoken of. I think of the Bible as a “need to know” book of information. It’s focus is on you and me and where we live, and the history of our earth and our relationship to the Creator. It’s not about Mars or the rest of the universe. If we should find intelligent life or civilizations out there, it wouldn’t change or contradict anything in the biblical record! I would be surprised, however, if such intelligent life was unaware of God. The Bible does insist that He is the Creator of all, and that all has been created for His own good pleasure. So, to me, the Mars missions are a wonderful and exciting response to the invitation of Psalm 65, to go forth and see more of the awesome creation, the works of God!

This is probably going to bother some of you, the idea that I openly profess a belief in God while at the same time professing a great belief in modern science! That’s Ok. I understand. The cultural war between science and religion has created a lot of misinformation, and a lot of division. Both sides have spent a lot of effort building the false belief that the two are unable to meet on common ground. And I’m spending a lot of effort trying to prove that belief is false. In fact, I think it is worse than mere falsity, it’s a self-destructive bunch of BS!

I hope you will the courage and intellectual honesty to stick around and follow me here, as I go forward. I promise that I’ll give you a lot of excellent scientific theory and exposition, and show how it fits with a new (and far more accurate) interpretation of the relevant biblical passages. I’ll be the first to admit that much of what I’ve learned has been a total surprise to me, but it’s made my scientific journey and studies a real joy! I am sure it will be worth your while. We will go, in this blog, where many refuse to go, and face up to evolution, space exploration and SETI, relativity and quantum theory, and many of the increasingly desperate cockamamie theories that some cosmologists have been coming up with, lately. I have been doing this for years, now, and the longer I’ve been doing it the more I have found not contradiction but complementarity between good science and good scriptural interpretation.

But science and religion, per se, are only part of what we will be getting into. There’s also going to be a lot on the politics and present-day cultural conflict involving science and religion.

As I was getting ready to launch this forum, I was watching a cable TV news program. The program began with this solemn declaration: “What you’ll get here are the facts; no politics, no religion, just facts”. That has got to be one of the most incredibly stupid or naïve remarks I’ve heard, especially from some one who professes to learned and intelligent! I’m sorry, but there is nothing in human affairs that isn’t shaded by politics and religion. Everything we think and believe and do is influenced by personal and community agendas and beliefs, by personal and cultural views of what is and ought to be. That certainly includes “science” !

That might come as a surprise to some of you, living in a time and place where “science” is generally perceived as the one and only branch of human endeavor that is truly about “facts”. Indeed, I think most of us think of “science” and “facts” as one and the same thing. We don’t even expect political or religious spokesmen to speak “facts”, but we do trust and expect scientists to speak nothing but “fact”. Seeking facts is almost by definition conducting science. But whether you are conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, of the “East” or the “West”, you have to be somewhat aware, at least, that science is often not neutral. Look at the political hotbeds of environment and climate science. Or the almost as contentious field of health, diet, and mental health. The latest “truth”, theory, or “facts” change almost daily. Or don’t change but merely compete. Become the faithful doctrine of this group or that. And we needn’t mention any of the sciences involved in evolution, genetics, and cosmology, need we?

Anyway, those are the things that are going to drive this blog: science, religion, and politics. I love all three. I’ve lived and worked, even brought home a paycheck from each of them at some time in my life. I tend to write with passion and (I think) pretty good authority on them all. So, come back a few times and see if I can’t get your juices running a bit more swiftly, and your mind a bit more engaged. If today isn’t what gets you revved up, maybe tomorrow will. We’ll cover the spectrum of topics in science and politics and religion – always looking at how they interact, react, and influence each other - as time goes on.
Posted January 8, 2004 04:15 PM