IF
I WERE GOD:
I
Would Keep Up with Modern Science
SYNOPSIS:
I am not God in any sense, but if I were,
I would agree with everything discovered by modern science.
In my mind, there is absolutely no conflict between me and science.
When humans learn something new about the world,
they are only uncovering what I knew from the beginning.
Unfortunately many humans who believe in me
are stuck in the
human understandings of the world
that existed way back in the days when people were listening to me.
These world-views are now hundreds
of years
out of date.
OUTLINE:
MEDICAL SCIENCE IS THE BEST WAY TO UNDERSTAND DISEASE AND CURE.
If I were God, I would endorse the latest
discoveries of medical science.
Modern medicine did not exist at all
when people were last receiving revelations from me.
So the Bible, for instance, has only the most primitive understanding
of disease.
I know that demons never were the cause of disease.
Most diseases are caused by micro-organisms
that were too small
for people to know anything about until a few hundred years ago.
And because my people lacked this background of understanding,
and because no one had yet invented the microscope,
there was not way for me to tell them about microbiology.
But now, I hope that my people will keep up with the
advances of modern science.
Whatever is correctly
discovered by the sciences is a fact
that should be accepted by everyone who believes in me.
People who don't believe in me usually do not feel compelled to reject
science.
But some human beings are stuck in primitive world-views
simply because their cultures knows nothing about science.
COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN.
How has this problem arisen?
A breakdown of communication emerged between me and my people
hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
Some of my people are stuck in ancient understandings of the world
because they have not been
listening for the last few centuries.
They waste their time reading ancient texts,
as if all of my truth is to be found in very old writings.
But those old 'scriptures' are always limited
to the understanding of
the people who wrote them.
When they did not understand the real causes of disease,
they just put down whatever guesses seemed right to them.
If they would listen to me today,
I would set them right about modern science:
You are not being faithful to
me when you insist on ancient world-views.
Instead of sending words into the minds
of my servants,
which so easily gets mixed up with their own speculations,
I now depend on scientific investigation to disclose the truth of the
world.
Pay attention to what the
scientists are discovering.
That is a much more reliable means of understanding the world
than trying to discover truth by re-reading the ancient books
written by my servants who were so limited by their prior
understandings.
If I had a reliable way of disclosing the truth,
I would have my servants write down the results of all future
scientific research.
I already know what will
become known to human beings
hundreds and even thousands
of years from now.
But there is no way for me to write the physics and chemistry books of
the future.
BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS.
Occasionally there are human beings who claim to
have revelations from me
about how the world operates.
But, so far, these have all been people with unsound minds
or who were stuck in ancient understandings of the world.
Do not believe everything
that is told to you in my name.
Be wary of any human being who claims to speak in my
name.
How will you be able to separate true revelations from false
prophecies?
Here is an easy test:
If the prophet says something contrary to science,
then that person is a false
prophet,
proclaiming something coming from his own mind,
not something that I am trying to communicate to you.
I will not share with you anything that is contrary
to modern science.
YOU SHOULD RELY ON EVIDENCE-BASED SCIENCE.
As communications now stands,
you will have to rely on the scientific method for discovering the truth
about how the world is put together and how it operates.
Stop
praying to me to intervene in the natural
course of events.
That is not the way the world works.
You have at your disposal many useful tools for making the world a
better place to live.
So get to work
instead of wasting your time and effort
trying to please me so that I will do your work for you.
There is nothing sacred about the ancient
world-views
of the times and places when I was communicating in the past.
Please give up teaching outdated understandings of the world
as if that folklore were truth
from on high.
This is the best we can do right now.
You will have to uncover the facts about the world
using the investigative methods of the sciences.
There is no way that I can
tell you something
that you are not ready to
understand.
You have a similar experience whenever you try to educate your children:
They have to learn to walk before they can learn to dance.
They must understand cause and effect
before they can understand the operation of the world.
You teach them only what they are able to understand
at that particular stage in their development.
Likewise, the peoples of the Earth will only discover
the facts that they are ready to understand,
the facts that fit within their world-views at that time and place.
I wish I did
have a shortcut for explaining
everything.
But it has taken you millions
of years
to arrive at your current level
of understanding.
(Yes, I said millions of
years:
The human race really is that old, no matter what some people say in my
name.)
Progress was especially slow in the first few million years of human
growth.
But now you human beings are beginning to advance more rapidly.
Since I cannot communicate truths to you by
electronic means,
you will have to depend on the slow methods of science.
EVOLUTION IS THE WAY THE SPECIES CAME INTO BEING.
My servant Charles Darwin got it right in the middle
1800s
when he discovered that the differences among the animals
was due to evolutionary
change rather than special
creation.
I did not create all of the plants and animals as they now exist.
Rather, after billions of
years without any
forms of life on the Earth,
some simple molecules got together,
linking up because of their natural chemical bonds.
This first string of DNA was the beginning of all life on Earth.
And for the last 3.5 billion
years,
new forms of life have been emerging from the earlier forms.
Over these billions of years of life on the Earth,
most of the life-forms that ever existed have become extinct.
But those forms of life that were best adapted
to their environments survived and reproduced.
The beginning of human life was about 7 million
years ago,
when your first ancestors branched off from the other large apes.
And it took most of these millions of years for you to develop brains
large enough
for you to even begin to speculate about me.
I do not object to people saying that I created the
world
—and
that scientific investigation is the way to discover how I did it.
Exactly how life emerged from non-life is an amazing story.
And I am glad that human beings have finally discovered how it happened.
DON'T
PRAY FOR MIRACLES.
I am especially upset when people pray to me for
miracles,
when they have easy medical means to cure themselves.
People! Don't be so stupid!
When you can take an antibiotic to kill the micro-organisms,
taking the drugs is
the best means of healing, not praying to me.
I do not have the power to change the laws of nature just for you.
[to be continued]
Created
January 8, 2009; Revised 1-23-2009; 1-28-2009; 3-20-2009; 7-2-2009