My Faith-Based Belief In Physics
Posted by Nicole Chardenet on Jul 27, 2012 in Geeks/Nerds, Religion, Science/Technology | 4 comments
The world doesn’t lack for far-out crazy-ass bats**t insane conspiracy theories and all-around weirdness, but I put my faith in the craziest-ass beliefs of them all – modern day physics.
I’m reading Stephen Hawking’s A Briefer History Of Time and honestly, I’m beginning to understand why some people simply prefer nutty explanations for universal and human origins like Creationism. It’s just easier to deal with. And less eye-goggling-inducing. Also, it requires less faith.
Anyone who says they don’t have a faith-based belief system is lying. I don’t care if you’re Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris, there is something you put faith in. It may well be modern science. But whatever your level of expertise, you have faith in others because no one can wrap their heads around all the scientific bodies of knowledge. Don’t tell me Stephen Hawking understands the granular discoveries coming from mapping the human genome. Don’t tell me Bill Gates has the foggiest idea how Barth-Niggli norms work. At the end of the day, it comes down to this: I have no idea if there really is an Intelligent Designer or a bunch of science behind our very existence. Intellectually, I’m really just gonna flip a coin. Tails it is. Okay, I’m a believer, Dr. Sagan!
But look, read any physics book and ask yourself if the average reader doesn’t suspect they’re being asked to swallow a gigundously ridiculous amount of tomfoolery about how the world got started. I mean, when scientists tell you the universe started out as a single speck or particle or something and then exploded – for no reason that we know of – and became the universe we know, which is constantly expanding every day – just try and tell me that’s sooooo less insane than the story about a bearded guy who loves you except when you’re bad for which he has no one but himself to blame, because he made you that way, with free will, and on top of that gives a couple of innocents who’ve been alive for all of fifteen minutes a talking snake who gives them bad advice when they really aren’t old enough to know better, and that’s why there’s evil and poverty and war and Rupert Murdoch in the world.
Yeah, sure. Then note that the Big Bang happened billyuns and billyuns of years ago and look at the frackin’ size of the universe – our closest star is 25,689,592,881,950.7 miles away (41,343,289,408,638.5 kilometres if you’re a Canadian) and tell me that Stephen Hawking and his string theory buddies don’t sit around Ye Olde Pubbe in Cambridge after like 14 pints of Guinness going, “Hey, I know, we’ll say there are eleven different dimensions! That’ll really fark ‘em up. Who the hell can imagine anything behind the spatial Big Three and Time?”
"Steve, that's the stupidest thing I ever heard and *I'm* the guy the neighbourhood voted Most Likely To Blow Up The Sewage System With One Of His Ridiculous Experiments!"
“We gotta give it an esoteric though silly-ass name,” sez Michio Kaku.
“I know! Let’s call it string theory!”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“Who cares? These idiots were dumb enough to buy super-symmetry, they’ll believe anything we say!”
Look, even the Church of Scientology can’t come up with anything even half as weird as modern physics, and L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction writer.
So, you know, I flipped the coin and decided to believe in physics rather than religious cosmology because, let’s be real, even physicists and other scientists are cuter than most evangelists. And added being a Carl Sagan Pagan just to mess with the science fundies for whom the difference between themselves and Jerry Falwell is, like, one god.
Because let's face it. If she was packing a Bible and a cross you'd be all over Noah's Ark and Adam riding dinosaurs like holy underwear on Mitt Romney.
All I can say is that if there is some sort of “creator”, he is definitely a man otherwise how come women have to look like hags when they reach menopause while men age gracefully like George Clooney and Richard Gere?
I tell you, the creator has a lot to answer for. I tried to send him an email at god@heaven.com but received no reply. I was having a go at him about all these things, and the state of my novel sales. But not a peep from him, oh no!
Perhaps science is the best thing to believe in–at least we know for sure that we don’t have to come back (as in reincarnation) and do this shit all over again. Frankly, one lifetime is enough to f**k with my mind, so the last thing I need is a whole lot of lives which I can’t even remember, and pay karma for something I did ten lifetimes ago. I mean, “hello”! Where is the sense in that, right?
Finally, I truly think the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42, and I’m going to stick to it :-)
Sylvia Massara
Novelist
I guess, Sylvia, I’m missing the part where *all* men age that well. Including, most likely, Messrs. Clooney & Gere, who have access to plastic surgery when we don’t (well, we do, but we’re too cheap/intelligent to avail ourselves of it…)
“and that’s why there’s evil and poverty and war and Rupert Murdoch in the world.”
LOL!
I’ve always called Quantum Mechanics the science of magic. When physicists can’t find the math to properly explain something they just pin it down to something smaller they can’t see doing whatever it is the think they see being done and decide to look for “it” later. Translated: “we might stumble on the answer at a later date so lets leave the possibility open for now.”
Physicist want to so badly believe in time travel they came up with the whole multi-universe thing. Not saying it’s not possible, but having 1 million copies of me stumbling around the verse is a very scary proposition. That’s a whole lot of f—ups out there!
You’re right though, I’ve often thought it would be just a whole lot easier to give into the old guy with the white flowing beard and control issues floating on some cloud in the sky theory rather then try and suss it all out rationally and solve our problems in a more realistic fashion… Then I realize that’s the exact attitude that gave us Republicans. Enter moment of clarity.
Another great post Nicole, as always, you made me laugh.
Thanks for stopping by, AJ. Sorry it took so long to approve you, I’m still getting my Schlitz together after the move to the new hosting service. It really all does sound freakin’ insane! I swear you have to have MORE faith in scientists than you do in holy men..!