Science = Religion

On a fine August afternoon at NYU, the first philosophy class of the semester was about to begin. The professor decided he’d begin the year by hitting the students with a question.

“Who here believes in God?” he said, looking around the room, arms outstretched.

Seventy-eight of the 130 students in the room raised their hands.

A smile formed across the professor’s face. “Very well!” he said nonchalantly. He strode across the room and picked up a paper grocery bag. He returned to his place in the middle of the room. From the bag he drew three tennis balls.

“Can anyone tell me what these are?” he said, looking around the room. A girl raised her hand.

“Tennis balls?” she answered meekly.

“Very good,” said the professor, smiling wider still. “These are ordinary, every day tennis balls. What would happen if I dropped one of these tennis balls?” again, he looked around the room.

A boy raised his hand and answered, “It’d fall to the floor!”

“Indeed, it would!” replied the professor. He released his grip on the ball. It fell to the floor, and then rolled to a stop at the edge of the platform on which the professor was standing.

“Okay,” said the professor. “What made it fall? All I did was let go. Why’d it just shoot to the floor like that?”

Someone in the back hollered, “GRAVITY!”

“Precisely!” said the professor. “Gravity made it fall! Who among you believes that God made it fall?”

Seventy-eight students raised their hands.

“But didn’t you just say that gravity made it fall?” the professor answered coolly. The students remained silent. “So you believe that God AND gravity pulled the ball to the floor, but you’re unsure?” the students continued listening in silence, intrigued.

“So you are using dual logic, are you not?” the professor asked the class. He dropped another tennis ball. “You are saying that God AND gravity pulled the ball to the floor? How is this possible? It must be one or the other! We all understand that gravity exists. Isaac Newton discovered it. We all know the story of the apple and the tree, do we not? Not of course to say that the story is true, but the concept is the same. Gravity is the force that pulls you down. The phenomenon that any two objects, if free to move, will be accelerated toward each other. This has long been established in the scientific community and all matter and even energy in the universe follows in with this law. It is inescapable. Therefore gravity, and gravity ALONE, pulled these tennis balls to the floor, not God! We made up god when we did not understand gravity as a means of explaining why things arbitrarily attracted to the ground when free to move. We cannot have both gravity AND God pulling the object down at the same time! It would be a logical absurdity! This same idea can be applied to all laws of physics. Either God OR gravity, but not both. We all know, based on my definition, that GRAVITY pulled the ball to the floor, but there is no evidence that God did it. Therefore, I contend that God did NOT in fact pull the balls to the floor or have any hand in doing so, but merely GRAVITY, and gravity alone! There is no evidence of God’s hand in anything ANYWHERE! Only objects following the laws of physics, but not God. I recant: There is no evidence of God in anything, anywhere, at any time. Therefore I contend that God does not, in fact, exist, but merely a series of scientific laws that man did not understand at the time of the invention of God!”

The professor stopped talking and looked around, smiling ever wider. “Now,” he said, satisfied. “Who here believes in God?”

Only one boy raised his hand.

“Oh?” the professor said. “And why do you still believe in God, despite the fact that I just disproved him?”

The boy looked up at the professor and asked, “Sir, may I please come up onto the platform and address the class?”

“You certainly may!” said the professor. The boy got up onto the platform and picked up the microphone and fixed his eyes on the professor.

“Sir, I believe that the logic in your argument is flawed.” He said blatantly.

“What?” sputtered the professor. “How can it be flawed? There is evidence that gravity pulled the ball, none that God did, and by extension none that God has ever done anything, but merely science, and so God must not exist but in the minds of unenlightened man! What is wrong with this statement?”

“What is wrong, sir, is the fact that you are basing your argument on the premise that Science existed before man did. Who says that when an apple falls from a tree it’s called ‘gravity’? You do! Humans invented this word as a way of explaining the phenomenon. Before we gave the phenomenon a name, the apple still fell from the tree, but it did just that, fell. Nothing more. It fell from the tree. Objects continued to fall for thousands of years and in order to explain this phenomenon man said that an invisible, intelligent being dictated that the apple to fall from the tree. They had no proof other than the simple, basic fact that they said it did. Years later, Isaac Newton was sitting under a tree and an apple fell on his head. He picked up the apple and called the apple’s fall ‘gravity’. Who, sir, is correct?”

“Mr. Newton, of course!” said the professor.

“And what makes Mr. Newton any more correct than the men who said it was God?” the boy shot back.

“Because gravity is a basic law of science! God does not follow science!”

“Sir, you are implying that science already existed before humans did!” an apple falls from a tree. One man calls it ‘gravity’ and another calls it ‘God’. Who is the more correct? One man says that it’s ‘gravity’ and that it simply obeyed a complex series of laws and rules that all objects around him follow. Another says that it simply obeyed the commands of an all-powerful God. Both of these two are equally susceptible to the notion that they were made up by humans simply to help them better understand reality. Who says a falling object is due to gravity? You do, sir! You say so because it helps you keep a grasp of reality. It helps you explain why things do what they do. The same goes for the man who says it’s because of God! Who says God made it fall? He does! He says so because it helps him keep a grasp of reality. It helps him explain why things do what they do. But which of the two is correct, professor?”

Suddenly unsure of himself, the professor says, “The man who says gravity made it fall!”

“But WHY sir, is HE correct, and not he who says it’s because of God? What makes HIM more correct than the other?”

“Because GOD does not follow in with Science!”

“So you believe that Science came before man?”

“YES!”

“So you believe that Science in an inherent truth that existed even BEFORE humans thought of it?”

“Humans did not ‘think up’ Science. It already was.

“And why is this argument more sound that those who say that humans did not ‘think up’ God, that he already was? Both arguments are the same, with the same basic principle, only one is called gravity and another God. In order for your argument to work what does it require?”

The professor stammered, “Well—it—uh…. It umm… It—“

“It requires FAITH!!!! Therefore, YOU, professor, are no longer a philosopher or a scientist, but a PRIEST! You are preaching to all those assembled in here today that Science is an inherent FACT and that everyone should embrace Science based on FAITH that it’s correct! Can you prove that Science is correct? Can you prove that God is correct? I am not proving that God exists, sir, but I am merely revealing that on its basic level, Science requires just as much faith in the unseen reality as Religion does! Therefore, it is YOU professor who is incorrect!” The boy then threw the remaining balls to the floor. “Gravity or God, the balls still fall to the ground!”

The classroom exploded in an uproar of thunderous applause. The professor sat down, dumbfounded.

“Now,” said the boy to the class. “Who here believes in God?”

One hundred thirty of the students in the room raised their hands.