Could God Pass an Ink Blot Test?

Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence/nonexistence of God. The universe is both orderly and chaotic. If God is orderly, is he also chaotic? Is God schizophrenic? Stephen Hawking, British theoretical physicist and author, has been quoted as saying he wants to know what God knows.

Did we evolve from single-celled organisms within the so-called "Goldilocks zone?" Seems like it. One thing we must acknowledge is that there are billions and billions of planets, so if life develops on even a few of them, it would seem miraculous.

Did life on Earth originate here from single-celled organisms, or were we seeded by a comet or asteroid? Or did God create us during a week (with a bit of overtime)? Is a week for God equivalent to millions of years by our reckoning?

Animals are in a constant state of evolution -- unless there is no reason for them to change. For instance, sharks have hardly changed at all over a million years. The time span from the trilobites to the first amphibians is, again, beyond our comprehension.

I think a test was done where the maximum number of things that a human being could hold in mind at any given instance is 5.

We know that evolution is real. Man, himself, has bred horses, dogs, cattle, parakeets, guppies, and fruit flies to name a few. This is selective breeding, which takes a lot less time than random evolution. So how did fish develop a sense of hearing or smell?

Well, it took many millions of generations, but a few fish were able to inadvertently translate vibration into something that eventually became an ear-like sensor. The same thing occurred with smell. Starting with just one clutch of eggs, the offspring developed an organ that could roughly distinguish atoms in the water that enabled them to either find food -- or escape becoming such themselves.

Again, all of these developments were incredibly slow, even haphazard.

The Earth has endured a few extinction events, so nature had to go back to the drawing board more than once. But, life has incredible tenacity. Life will try to adapt to any environment. Given sufficient time, there are few places where life will not dwell.

The heart of the scientific debate against God is that the universe never needed him. As scientists get closer to a mathematical theory that can explain the beginning of the universe and its probable demise, the less they need God as a participant in the process. That's a compelling argument. It's far, far more difficult to try and understand quarks, quantum mechanics, dark matter, black holes, and microwave background radiation, but it's worth the effort.

And as scientists delve deeper into the quantum world, the feedback seems more religious or at least spiritual.

While the religious have tweaked the Bible over the years, it stands as one book against many thousands written for scientific advancement.

For those who find positrons and quarks too difficult to imagine, don't worry. There is no default clause when it comes to science. If you prefer to believe in a personal God, you will not be condemned to a lake of fire, as detailed in the Bible. Science is NOT a religion. It's not in competition to win your brain or your soul. If you ignore it entirely, you won't be labeled a heretic and burned at the stake. Just let them go on drawing pictures of a newly discovered form of spiders. At the same time try to remember that it was science that thought up electricity, penicillin, apparatus to land on the moon and explore mars, as well as atomic bombs and cyanide.

Wouldn't it be odd if science and religion were to bump into each other on the same tracks, coming from completely opposite directions? What could scientists say or do at the point (if it arrives) where they are confronted a physical universe that incorporates the supernatural? The next ten years in science should be very interesting.