An Astronomer's Testimony

Yesterday, a friend from institute (a place where Mormon students hang out between classes) showed me a part of LDS.org that I had never seen before, the LDS video library. I was grateful that he showed me such a large resource for new videos for my blog.

Update on editing my blog and putting videos on it again: I found out that I am incapable of editing my blog. My blog uses a Blogspot.com address, but it is now run by Blogger. Blogger lacks the ability to modify Blogspot's webpages, though I am still able to post on my blog and edit my posts. If I really wanted a blog that I could edit, I could make a new one completely through Blogger. The transition probably wouldn't be as difficult as I fear, but in the meantime, I'll just use this blog.

Another update: I'm going out of town this Friday and I won't be back until Monday evening. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about my commitment to blog each morning. Should I see if I can blog while I'm out of town? Should I blog twice each morning for a few days after I get back? Would I be justified in just taking the weekend off? I should probably check with the Boss, but I want to hear your thoughts, too. Please let me know your opinion, either in the comments here or in the comments on Facebook. Right now, I'm thinking that if I can blog, I should, so I should talk to people who may or may not be able and willing to let me use their computers.

In the meantime, I need to blog today.

The friend who showed me the video library also showed me one video in particular. It's called We Lived With God. Personally, I would have called it An Astronomer's Testimony or All Things Testify Of Him. It's a good video. Four minutes long, plus the time it'll take to load the page. It's basically an astronomer telling how the universe testifies of God. (Technically, he calls himself a Chemist involved in "the chemistry of the universe," but since I have no idea what that means, I've simplified his identity.) He said, "As scientists, we can understand a great deal about when things happened, where they happened, how long they took, but science is completely silent of the subject of the who and the why of creation."

Later in the video, he speaks of science and religion like this:

To me, one of the most fundamental principles here is that the universe is God's handiwork. Therefore, if the scriptures are God's handiwork and the universe is God's handiwork, then science and religion represent two independent witnesses of creation. And we're told throughout the Old Testament that two or more independent witnesses are required in order to certify the truth.

They are not opposites, but they are like the vision seen from your two eyes. If you close one eye, then close the other, alternate back and forth, you don't see the same thing with the two eyes. But it is the combination of those two views that gives you three-dimensional perception, and shows you many things that neither eye by itself sees.

I love what he says about science and religion being two independent witnesses of the same truth. It may take the scientists a long time to realize that they're looking at God's handiwork, and it may take believers a long time to accept that may God used methods of creation that can be partly perceived through science. Ages ago, I wrote about how there's so much evidence to support evolution and the scriptures don't really say how God created all the animals, so maybe He made them through the process of evolution. Then again, that's just my guess. There are people who are way smarter than me on the subjects of both Biblical creation and the history of evolution. Maybe they have a better hypothesis.

All I'm saying is that, in some cases, science and religion don't necessarily have to disagree. God created the universe somehow. He may have done it through universal laws that we don't fully understand right now. He may have started it with a big bang. Who can say for sure? But what I can say for sure is that God created the universe, and it is very impressive. Part of the reason we know how impressive the universe is is because of the pursuit of knowledge through science. Both science and religion have a lot more to teach us about the world we live in, and personally, I'm grateful for both.