I’m not a scientist. I’m a science buff, in that I read a lot of stuff about science. I read a lot of history, and a certain amount of philosophy. Included in all that would be biographies of various scientists, or the history of scientific theory. When you read a biography of Benjamin Franklin, you’re gonna read a bit about his discoveries in electricity; when you read on Galileo Galilei, you’ll pick up astronomy; when you read on Albert Einstein, relativity. But sometimes I’ve just straight-up read Charles Darwin, or Nicolaus Copernicus, or Aristotle, just to see where these guys were coming from. Never be afraid of the original sources: I found Einstein himself explained relativity much more clearly than his biographer did.
So when I saw the promotions for Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey last year, I was looking forward to it. I saw the original series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, back in 1980, on public television. Dad liked science shows, like Nova or National Geographic, and didn’t mind my watching them with him. Probably because they were “educational.” I found it interesting. Years later I found the companion book to the series and read it; also interesting.
Host and writer Dr. Carl Sagan used it to promote science and scientific discovery: As an agnostic, he’d ruled out the Judaism of his ancestors as an explanation for life in the universe, and the meaning of life. I’ve read enough of Sagan’s stuff to realize he hoped there was a God, but he didn’t care to search for him in temple, or a church. Instead he turned to nature. He looked to astronomy. He got his sense of awe from looking at the biggest things there are. And Cosmos (in both the original and 2014 versions) comes across as quite evangelical: It’s trying to give us that same sense of awe by showing us the wonders of nature, and getting us to be impressed by the science we used to discover it.
The new Cosmos, based on Sagan’s original series but updated for the present (and made with a much bigger budget, with much better special effects) tries to do the same thing. New host Dr. Neal deGrasse Tyson, also an agnostic, also an astronomer, tries to show the awe and wonder of nature and science. It is, as Tyson has said in both Cosmos and elsewhere, a spiritual experience for him.
Of course, Tyson’s using the secular definition of “spiritual.” By which he means emotional. Science excites him. Spacetime intrigues him. Nature awes him. It makes him feel things which aren’t always easy to describe, but say “spiritual” and most people will kinda know what he’s talking about.
We Christians (well, those of us who aren’t buying the secular definition) know “spiritual” has nothing to do with emotion. It has to do with spirits. Tyson and Sagan may call it spiritual, but they’re using the word wrong. To be fair, so do most pagans.
My spiritual experience, when it comes to contemplating spacetime and nature and all the stuff Cosmos touches upon, is also awe. Science is awesome. But where they go loopy for the thing itself, and nothing more, I appreciate the thing’s Creator. When they contemplate and are inspired by the Big Bang, and everything that followed from it, I praise the one who made it bang. When they ponder the mystery of the creation of life, and feel humbled by it, so do I; but even though none of us know how life began, I at least appreciate who began it. I appreciate the Holy Spirit’s involvement in creation, and that is the proper definition of “spiritual.”
Well, some Christians are pretty sure they know how life began: The young-earth creationists. And apparently Cosmos bugs them greatly, because the universe, as described by the series, is very old, and ever evolving: Two things they firmly don’t believe about the universe. And they want equal time to present their point of view.
Tyson, among others, dismisses them, and doesn’t want to give them the time of day. Nor should he. Young-earth creationists aren’t scientists, and shouldn’t be treated as such. You can debate ’em as an intellectual exercise, but don’t call what they do “science.” ’Cause it’s not.
Yeah, I know they claim to be scientists, and some of them even have scientific degrees. Even Ken Ham has a BA in biology. But science starts with a hypothesis, “Is x true?” and tries to prove or disprove it. Creationists start with a given, “X is true,” and only tries to prove it. Anything which disproves it is rejected, even when the evidence is overwhelming. Billion-year-old fossils? Can’t be a billion years old; it violates their worldview.
As I’ve said before, I used to be a young-earth creationist myself, till I discovered a literal interpretation of Genesis not only doesn’t work, but is foolish to attempt. So since I don’t have to believe in young-earth creationism, I figure conventional science has far better answers than the creationists. Yeah, they might be wrong too: Science is an educated guess, after all. Creationists figure that’s a point for their side: “Look how many theories have been disproven!” True. But the new theories which took their place don’t lead any steps closer to young-earth creationism.
Well, enough about the young-earth creationists. I don’t want to give them equal time in this rant either.
But thanks to young-earth creationists, pagans assume if I’m Christian, I automatically believe as they do. Hence I have to keep reminding them: No I don’t. Technically I’m still a creationist: I believe God created everything. I allow for huge time-scales and natural processes, but I believe in a designer, even though I won’t go where Intelligent Design advocates will.
God is Aristotle’s first cause and unmoved mover. God lit the fuse of the Big Bang. Beyond that, I make no claims as to how God created anything, which diverge from conventional science. I’m not a scientist; I haven’t done the experiments nor the math. Experts in those fields, both Christian and pagan, have. Provisionally I’m gonna take their word for it. I’m gonna put some faith in them.
Yes, faith. To atheists this is a dirty word, a word which should never be used to describe science. But it’s the proper word. Faith. It means I trust the scientists. To a point, but still, I trust the scientists. I’ve dabbled in enough science to know that, when done properly and confirmed by fellow scientists, science is trustworthy. I’m no conspiracy theorist; I don’t believe there’s an international cabal of mad scientists hell-bent on undermining Christianity, or out to stick it to the rest of the world. That may make for interesting novels like That Hideous Strength, or fuel the siege mentality of young-earth creationists. But it doesn’t reflect reality.
Atheists don’t like the word faith when it comes to science, for they don’t like thinking there might be something scientific to our faith. They prefer to redefine faith as “wishful thinking,” and claim I believe God exists because I wish really hard there was such a being. On the contrary: I don’t believe God exists because of faith. God has clearly and obviously proven his existence to me; there’s no guesswork in that. To me, God’s as solid as concrete. You don’t need faith to believe in evident things, like the chair you’re sitting on. You do need faith to believe the chair will continue to hold you up, just as I do need faith to believe God’s giving me eternal life. But faith isn’t wishful thinking. Faith stands on concrete. False faith is wishful thinking, and I have no more respect for wishful thinking than atheists do. That’s why I take ’em to task for claiming no God exists: They can’t prove that belief, and it’s entirely based on wishful thinking.
Okay, looping it back round to Cosmos. As I said, both Sagan and Tyson are/were agnostics. Sagan hoped for a God, and I’m not sure whether Tyson’s statements on Cosmos indicate he hopes for a God too. I hope so, and hope he finds him.