Faith and Wonder

This President seems to talk a lot about his faith based programs. Now I have strong feelings about this President, but I was taught that members of polite society never discuss religion or politics, and this post treads dangerously close to both, but it really is not what this post is about. The point is that there are a lot of things that we do in this life that are not based on “scientific evidence.”



For instance, some might say that there is no scientific evidence of the existence of a supreme being. To be fair and balanced, others say there is plenty of proof of the existence of God. The point I am trying to make is that you cannot put Him in a test tube, expose Him to controlled conditions, and expect to get repeatable results, in the fashion of the scientific method. If you could, religion would be easy. There would be a right answer and a wrong answer. You would be able to tell people definitively that there is — or is not — a  supreme being. Not only that, you would be able to tell them His — or Her — name. Think about it. No more religious arguments. No more religious wars. No more jihads. No more crusades.



But the world is not like that. Belief in God is based on faith and faith alone. You either have faith or you do not. You either believe or you do not. But wait, for those that do not, there is a further breakdown. They are either convinced there is no God or they “wonder” about His existence.



The logic of those who wonder goes like this… Suppose there is a God and an Afterlife — the whole enchilada, just like they say. If there is, then you better behave they way they say to. If it turns out there is not, does it really hurt to act that way? Does it suddenly become a bad idea to “love thy neighbor?” Does it suddenly become a good idea to go out and start killing people or dishonoring your mother and your father? Do lust, anger, envy, gluttony, sloth, pride, and greed suddenly become virtues? Think about it.



So here is the point: Just because an action is not based on scientific evidence does not mean that it is a bad idea.



There may be no scientific evidence for a connection between feeding Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) infected cow byproducts to other cows and the development of BSE in those cows, or for a connection between eating food made from BSE infected cows and the development of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease (vCJD) in the people who ate them. However, that does not mean that stopping the practice of feeding BSE infected byproducts to cows is a bad idea and it also does not mean that the practice of keeping BSE infected beef byproducts out of the food system is a bad idea, either.



My faith in God is between Him and me. I openly “wonder” whether it really hurts to behave as if cows should be fed a vegetarian diet or that BSE causes vCJD. I am willing to let scientists continue to search for scientific evidence for the existence of God and for the causes of BSE and vCJD. In the mean time, I am willing to go on faith and wonder.