On October 2, 2005, at the time of a trial in the Federal district court in Dover, PA to determine if “Intelligent Design” should be taught as science in public schools, Paul Nussbaum in the Philadelphia Inquirer reported an interview with a citizen, Judy Grim, age 63, who said:

"If I’m taught there is a God I’m responsible to, I know I have to treat people right. But if there’s no creator to answer to, it changes your whole lifestyle. Then it’s just survival of the fittest. That’s where our society is headed. That’s why we have so many of the problems we do.”

I imagine that there may be those who think of science as a religion, a strange religion, one that worships chance as a deity and for which the greatest sin is falsification of data. They may think that science canonizes its saints with Nobel Prizes, that the clergy of science promotes Darwinism as propounded by their prophet, Charles Darwin, and that Darwinism teaches “survival of the fittest”, a “me first, you last” code of behavior. All in all an unsatisfactory religion. They could think better of science, not as a religion, but as an understanding of part of what is and was. They could think of scientists as foraging like honey bees for data to condense into facts and distill into theories that mesh together like cells in a honeycomb. Religion is based on the word of God. Science is based on experience: shared, reproducible, consistent experience.

Judy Grim needs a creator in order to treat people right. So I adapted the first verses of the Bible, hoping to provide her with a creator consistent with science.

NEW GENESIS
or How the Big Bang Got Its Ingredients

In the beginning, 13.7 billion years ago, at the time when God created the heavens and the earth, there was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.

Then God said, "Let there be light" and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.

But the light did not shine; there was nothing to emit it. So God said, “Let there be matter.” And there was matter. And God saw that the matter was good.

Then God said, “Let there be space within the matter to separate matter from matter.” So God made space and separated matter from matter. And it was so.

But the light did not move. So God said, “Let light have a velocity”. And it was so.

But still the light moved not. So God said, “Let time begin.” And it was so.

Time began and matter rushed outward spreading space and radiating light to fill the void. And God saw that the big bang was good.

The rest is cosmology, paleontology, evolution, anthropology, archeology and history.

About 3,000 years ago God saw that humankind was not aware of Him. He spoke to prophets and priests about this, including those of ancient Israel, who began to write the Bible.

The rest is religion
and treating people right.

Copyright R. L. Post
February 3, 2008
rpost1492@comcast.net

You may distribute this document as you wish. You may not copyright it.

Postscript. I wrote NEW GENESIS hoping to adapt the account of creation in the Book of Genesis to contemporary science. For a different accommodation between religion and science see Darrell R. Falk’s book Coming to Peace with Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology (2004), Inter/Varsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL USA.