It can never be stressed enough that Faith and Reason are inextricably connected. The rejection of the one is always at the expense of the other. It is for this reason that Catholic priests and religious have made some of the most important discoveries in science. The modern science of genetics owes its genesis to a Catholic scientist, as does the science of geology. With this in mind, I can’t recommend highly enough this half-hour radio documentary about Father Georges Lemaitre, the father of the Big Bang Theory. The priest emerges not merely as a great scientist and a good Catholic, but also as a cross between Santa Claus and G. K. Chesterton! I have seldom enjoyed listening to the radio as much as the half-hour of sheer edifying pleasure that this wonderful documentary afforded me.
Father of the Big Bang
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About the Author: Joseph Pearce
Joseph Pearce is a Catholic author and biographer who has written about subjects as various as GK Chesterton, economics, and Shakespeare.
Yes, one would like to remind Stephen Hawking when he talks about ‘credulous religious people’ that the profoundest question posed by cosmology was answered by a catholic priest.
Also, Richard Dawkins needs reminding that the very discipline he has devoted his life to (genetics) was created by the a certain Fr Mendel. Another ‘credulous religious person’.
Stephen Hawking on Larry King. To the question what created the universe? He answered ‘gravity’. Which is ridiculous.
If there were no physical forces how could gravity bring the universe into existence?
It’s all to do with nothing.
from out of nothing nothing comes…
See religious people can imagine that. I think (paradoxically) atheists find it hard to imagine.
Now nothing is not a void. Because a void has ‘orientation’. No, nothing means no THING. Nothing exists.
What is my point point?
We religious people have a bigger mind than atheists because we have nothing in our minds.
The linked radio piece is well worth a listen. It’s also intriguing to learn that Msgr. Lemaitre was wary of drawing religious conclusions from the science of cosmology. In this he sounds very much like Fr. Stanley Jaki, who understood science and religion and how the two do and do not work together.
James, I love the paradox about having nothing in our heads with which you conclude your comment. It’s truly Chestertonian! The problem, of course, is that the atheists will take your paradox literally, missing its essential irony, and will quote you as confessing that religious minds are vacuous.
Yes Joseph,
R Dawkins would jump on it. You’ve got to be so careful.
Lemaitre’s words -‘a day without yesterday’ they balk at. They simply can’t accept nothing. We on the pother hand, want to go to the logical position. We are more REASONable than them. It is our REASON we are using.
I’m not say I can conceive of nothing. I just accept it because it is logical-I accept there was ‘a day without yesterday’ but I cannot truly fathom it.
I think it’s to do with fact that we accept ‘mystery’ as part of our faith. So we find it easier to accept than non-believers.
ALL the evidence points to Creation. So they try to wriggle out of it through ‘wormholes’.