The Science of God

Although I missed the original airing, today I discovered the video and transcript of a news story entitled “The Science of God” recently presented by First Coast News, a local television news program, about a scientist who claims to have proven not only God but Christianity with physics. The man is Frank J. Tipler and his hypothesis is the omega point.

Tipler seems to toss the word proof around without justification. His omega point is not an accepted theory and has even been dismissed as pseudoscience by prominent scientists. Furthermore, it depends on other hypotheses which are still hotly debated. Puzzlingly, he identifies a hypothetical future state of the universe itself as the immaterial, eternal, personal creator of the universe. In the article, he refers to three “hypostases” of reality, a supposed trinity which somehow “proves” that a historically-questionable, illiterate, itinerant Jewish preacher in first-century Palestine executed for blasphemy is the only begotten son of God because some of his later followers decided to teach an unintelligible doctrine that God is three persons in one being based on confusing and contradictory sayings patched together long after his death. Tipler absurdly compares the certainty of his conclusion that Christianity is true and all other religions are false to “2+2=4”. He also claims that Biblical miracles can be explained by physics, but the only hint how given in the video was the suggestion that since God wrote the laws of physics, he can change them at his whim. This non-explanation is the epitome of banality. I doubt Tipler's work has any affect on anyone who wasn't already inclined and acclimated toward Christianity. Tipler, for the record, was born in Alabama, was raised as a Christian and now works at Tulane University in Louisiana. It's absolutely no surprise that he doesn't now claim to have proven the truth of Hinduism.

News stories like this are standard fare. They champion the uneducated, simple believer over the arrogant atheist intelligentsia, supposedly beating them on their own turf and validating the believer's traditional (read: backward) values. Never mind that the scientist's hypothesis is completely unproven and his conclusions are patently ridiculous; the man has proven almighty God with math and science! Stories like this don't even register a blip on a skeptic's radar.

The article features a comment section which displays a disturbing tendency within Christian thinking which probably merits its own entry, that it doesn't matter at all why you believe, just as long as you do. Several posters made this remark and no believer disagreed. Admittedly, it makes some sense given that they believe you will be tortured in a lake of fire if you believe the wrong things when you die, but this doctrine itself is remarkably perverse and despicable. The further conclusion that reasons for believing something are unimportant is very harmful to rational and critical thought.

Perhaps Tipler will continue his research and will eventually discover which sect of Christianity in particular quantum physics validates as the one true faith. We all need to know whether to join the Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879 or the Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915 to save our eternal souls from damnation.