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© Copyright 2001, Jim Loy
Just like normal people, scientists disagree on whether there is a God or not. I imagine that the minority of scientists actually believe in God. But there is plenty of disagreement and uncertainty. Like the general public, scientists can be divided up into those who believe in God (one way or another), those who are agnostic (are uncertain), and those who are atheist (believe there is no God). Science, more or less, proves whether things are true or not. Scientists (and other people) might hope that science would prove the existence or nonexistence of God. But science doesn't help us very much on this subject.
Science and religion do not normally intrude upon each other. Religion is a realm of miracles and morals. Science has little to do with both. When Laplace published his theory of the formation of the Solar System, Napoleon Bonaparte asked him where God fit into his theory. Laplace replied, "Sir, I have no need of that hypothesis." Laplace was being neither flippant (just a little) nor sacrilegious. He was neither confirming nor denying God. Science continues to neither confirm nor deny.
Some scientists would disagree with that. Some would say that science continues to confirm the beauty and grandeur of the universe, on every scale from the universe itself down to the constituent pieces of the subatomic particles. Just as seeing a sunset or a waterfall may be a religious experience, so too examining the equations that order the universe may be viewed as evidence of God. On the other hand, most scientists fail to see God almost everywhere they look. Of course, most of them are not looking for God; again, that is not what science does. But they too find that they have no need of the God hypothesis. Then maybe there is no God? I assume that many scientists are not convinced, one way or the other.
The question that concerns me is, "Why?" If there is no God, then why am I here asking these questions? Is it all a meaningless joke? Whose joke?