7. We all have to believe in something Crazy?

[21 February 2021]

I do not wish to tarry long on the issue of if God exists, most specifically because I do not want to attempt to persuade others. I merely wish to recount the journey that has led me to a point of holding what some would describe as liberal views, so my secret objective is to persuade the religious, not the atheist!

Hence NOBODY has to read this post or next week’s, the two cover only a fraction of this question, but it has the key points that I hold at the core of my beliefs. These posts are over-complex and rushed specifically to get this issue out of the way.

It turns out, we do all ultimately have to believe in something superbly improbable. After much scientific reading (well, skimming really - and where possible only books with pictures in them!) it became clear that believing in the ‘magnificently improbable’ really is the only option on the table.

I am a scientist by instinct and love the scientific method. I believe the scientific consensus and have no problem with natural selection, evolution, Big Bangs, singularities and whatever they are going to find on Mars this week. Love it, love it all! If you are waiting for a ‘but’ in this paragraph, there isn’t one. The scientific pursuit of Provable Truth is in my bones.

It is, however, phenomenally crazy at the moment. Science is openly honest about the expanding problems which current theories generate; the black holes in our knowledge are expanding as knowledge itself expands! The pursuit of knowledge has led to unbelievable layers of theoretical complexity. I certainly cannot get my head around much of it. I thought I understood particles (protons, neutrons, electrons, etc.), conceptually I think I can get my head around about 8 or so, but there are 17 now. I can handle the concept of 4 dimensional space-time, but in order to make M-theory fit I have to grapple with another 7 dimensions! And then there are strings and multiverses and, to round it off, the wonderful realities of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. We know it must account for 80% of the stuff in the Universe - we have to have it or all the calculations are wrong. The problem is that it is currently undetectable in any format that we know of.

Please don’t interpret any sarcasm above - I am not a sceptic. I appreciate this is how knowledge expands, by wonderful minds exploring crazy concepts, testing them until fact emerges. And that’s okay. But the concepts alone are staggeringly full of intellectual improbabilities, they simply do not add up (yet) and certainly defy the normal understanding of ‘rational’ empirical methodology. Science has had to embrace the seemingly absurd and occasionally fantastical in order to try and fathom this universe.

Most of us simply don’t try to understand it anymore (and that’s okay too!), our lives have more pressing concerns and just holding our own mental health together is challenge enough! But at some level, I think we all have to reach a point at which we evaluate which versions of the Improbable we are able to live with. For me there were two critical turning points: ‘Origins’ and ‘Pill Popping’.

Firstly ‘Origins’. The belief in a God seems irrational from a science-based perspective, with the belief in the ‘miraculous’ and “so where did He come from?” being key complaints. If we believe the latest science completely (and I do) we actually find a similar dilemma at the heart of that perspective also.

The Big Bang (BB) singularity seems to ‘start’ our universe, and since the whole of the universe began at a single tiny point of intense energy/matter, the current consensus seems to be that asking what happened before is ultimately futile. Any evidence cannot now exist and hence no scientific investigation of it is realistically possible.

This is where I part company with the consensus for a while. In my journey I always came back to this point, basically because (surprise, surprise) I don’t like being told asking a question is not possible; all doubt should be pursued equally. To me it seems there are actually only two options for ‘before’ this universe: SOMETHING or NOTHING.

Whatever model is followed (even multiverse) there is always the same dilemma: either there was SOMETHING before the Big Bang and hence ‘stuff’ (Energy/Matter) is ETERNAL (has always been there), or there was NOTHING before the Big Bang, and hence the origin of the Universe is, by simple definition, MIRACULOUS (a Something from Nothing).

As a scientist, therefore, I cannot just walk away with my ‘Evolution and Big Bang Plus’ alone as my universal explanation, there is always going to be some extra baggage: I still have to accept the ETERNAL or the MIRACULOUS. No Ifs or Buts, and we may not know if it is the Eternal or the Miraculous, but it is, has to be, one or the other. Hence, to me, my scientific perspective still has to accept some commonly understood ‘irrationality’ at its core.

Put simply I began to realise that believing in a God is NO MORE LUDICROUS than not believing in one.

Not much of an argument really is it? It was never meant to persuade others anyway, but for me it makes sense. For me it was a starting point. And the second critical turning point was ‘Pill Popping …’

Bear with me! Jonathan

Apologies

1. To any religious friends who do not feel comfortable with this type of reflection.

2. To my non-religious friends, again, forgive me for the diversion I am taking here into the realm of ‘belief’. I will return to social justice issues soon.

3. To my friends in the scientific community for this word-mangling simplification of things, but sometimes it is necessary. Some may object to the two options of SOMETHING and NOTHING before the BB. There are so many conceptual discussions, including ‘Time itself did not exist before’, Bounces rather than Bangs, lopsided singularities, but frankly to my mind they seem to all fall into modified options of the same thing: they are just SUPER SOMETHING or SUPER NOTHING. To me these are the only options.

And the photo? Just page 55 of Stephen Hawkins’ final book, ‘Brief Answers to the Big Questions’. Rather a lot of Improbability built into just one page, I feel, and perhaps not so brief either - still 200 more pages to go!