Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

While Handel was composing the famous Hallelujah Chorus of the Messiah, he was reported to have said "I have seen the face of God" (reference 1). Handel was able to see God's face (or rather, God's reflection) in what he was doing, as a moment of revelation where God allowed a brief glimpse of Himself. The reason I say "reflection" is that staring directly at God would most likely be too much for us. To use a secular analogy, it would be much like looking directly at the basilisk in the Harry Potter books. Our human bodies could not handle it.  Instead I believe a reflection? transformation? - a glimpse of God taken sideways through another lens (nature, music, art, science, love, and so on) is the closest we can get to seeing God in this world and still live in it. Continuing with our analogy, this is much like seeking the basilisk of Harry Potter by looking in mirrors and reflections so as not to happen upon it in deadly full face. Handel had the for...

I have read the book "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins.   ["The Blind Watchmaker - why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design" by Richard Dawkins (1986) W.W. Norton & Company, New York.] Although the book is intended to argue for atheism, it falls far short of this mark.   Instead it could be more accurately described as arguing for evolution and against creationism.   However, most Christians and most types of Christian theology do not have any problem with evolution - indeed, many Christians see evolution as a necessary part of God's design.   Just as I cannot prove the existence of God, neither can Dawkins disprove it In "The Blind Watchmaker" Richard Dawkins uses examples of the complexity of life to argue against a designer, instead arguing that these complexities came about through evolution.   Indeed it reads more as a carefully thought out popular-science book on evolution, than as an argument promoti...

I was fortunate enough to take part in a conversation with two other biochemists once. We all came from different religious backgrounds (one Hindu, one Jew and one Christian). We posed the question "Can science explain everything? [about the universe]". This was quite an interesting question, especially as we didn't already know the others' viewpoints (we were only working together briefly). The discussion didn't last long because we all had exactly the same viewpoint, which was that "Science can explain a lot… but only up to a certain point. Beyond that there is something more." In my scientific career, I've noticed a few scientists having the poor logic of "Everything can be explained by atoms, therefore God doesn't exist". Even if you could explain all of the physical laws by atoms and quantum mechanics (which in itself is a matter up for debate!), this is not necessarily proof that there is no God. It's simply a discovery of t...