Science is the elephant in our churches, synagogues, and mosques we don’t acknowledge. We need to change fast. We need to talk about science.

A recent paper documents damage caused by the anti-religious bias of our mass media, combined with the reluctance or inability of many religious leaders to speak up about science. Fifty-five percent of adults believe “science and religion [are] often in conflict”. Close to 30% of young adults brought up with a religious background think “churches are out of step with the scientific world” and that “Christianity is anti-science.” Studies show that 59-70% of young adults who used to regularly attend church will drop out of organized religion during their early adult years. Some will return, but not all. The paper tells of one devout young man who killed himself after reading a popular pseudoscience book bashing religion.

It will take time, but the good news is that modern science strongly supports belief in God in many ways. We need to talk about science.

When we deny our children the true facts of science, our children are vulnerable to claims that the universe is pointless and that life is but a chemical accident.We watch in horror as they abuse themselves with drugs and alcohol, and abuse each other.We watch them walk into public places with automatic weapons and start shooting.We ask “where is God” when it happens.I think God asks why we withhold and deny evidence of design. [Counting To God, p. 213]

Thanks for reading.

A friend recently sent me a link to a newspaper article where a scientist says that, because Earth does not have a “privileged place” in the universe, we should not believe in God. It’s a false statement based on bad science. I wrote my book and I’m writing this blog to set the record straight.

First, modern cosmology has revealed that there is no center, no privileged place, anywhere in the universe. The universe is expanding everywhere, and, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, there is no center to this expansion. So it makes no sense to say that Earth is or is not at the center.

Second, there are MANY special features of Earth. Earth is in the right galaxy, with the right amount of “metals” in the cosmological sense (elements forged in stars or created by a supernova); 98% of galaxies have less. Earth is in the “galactic habitable zone,” the right distance from the galactic center. Earth travels a safe path through the galaxy, nearly circular, on the inner edge of the Orion arm, which is critical because a star passing too close would disturb billions of objects in our Solar System bigger than whatever wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. We have a wonderful solar system where planets have stable orbits and the larger planets help to protect Earth from collisions; computer simulations show that without Jupiter – the “vacuum cleaner” of the Solar System — collisions of large objects with the Earth would be thousands of times more frequent. We have an amazing moon that keeps the tilt of the Earth’s axis stable, and creates tides. I have written a whole chapter on these and many more special qualities of Earth; two scientists who are experts in this area estimate that the odds of finding another planet as suitable as Earth for sustaining life over billions of years are less than one in 100 in our entire galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars.

Third, our special Earth is, by my account, only one of seven areas of modern science that support belief in God and, frankly, the recent discoveries in other areas are even more amazing.

Don’t let false science turn you away from God. Thanks for reading.