After reading Greg Melia’s article entitled ‘Geeky Christianity’, in which he expounds the theory that “dweebish types” are drawn to Christianity because they “can’t get a social life any other way”, I feel compelled to respond. Of course the article was intended as light humour, and I am not taking personal offence at the suggestion that regular churchgoers such as myself must be socially inept and unable to form normal relationships.
However, Greg’s article has drawn my attention to a worrying trend of ignorance over the fundamental link between science and religion. It suggests that this ignorance exists in our Christian community to such an extent that even a well- meaning person such as Greg Melia, when writing about science and religion, should fail to draw any link between the two, preferring instead to build an absurdly elaborate sociological theory to explain why logically-minded people might be drawn to religion.
The answer should be obvious: ‘geeks’ and other logically-minded students are drawn to religion for the same reason that modern scientists so often reach the conclusion that the universe must be planned by an intelligent mind: to believe otherwise is scientifically unsound. The universe came to exist out of nothing, and developed into an ordered cosmology. The nature is constructed of mathematically complex laws. As scientist Hoyle wrote, “Imagine a blindfolded person trying to solve the Rubik cube. The odds are roughly the same as those against just one of our body’s 200,000 proteins having evolved randomly by chance”.
Can there truly be so many Christians out there who, despite being convinced in their hearts that God exists, have given no thought to the logic behind their conversion? This article brought me sharply up against the realization that atheists, with their quasi-scientific assertions about the ‘conflict’ between science and religion, have made Christians afraid of science, even to the extent of convincing us that the two cannot exist in harmony. The atheist propaganda that ‘science disproves religion’ has been so thoroughly drummed into people from an early age that it does not occur even to Christians to suggest an alternative.
I do not have space to bewail the woeful ignorance that prompts communities such as certain states in Texas to ban the teaching of evolution. Such disassociation from intellect ual scientific inquiry can only be harmful, and drive Christianity into the realms of ignorance, denial and ‘blind faith’ . Of course faith is important. But how can we be taken seriously in a cynical and progressive society if we alienate ourselves from the scientific discoveries that are going on around us?
Yet it seems that just such denial exists in our own Christian community, amongst the scientists and mathematicians of the future. As a Christian, I find this has worrying implications for Christia nity. We have no excuse to be left behind in the dark ages of mysticism and eccentricity. Scientific enquiry is not the weapon of atheists; it is a means of establishing the truth. We must not be afraid to use it.