Sometimes what we believe is not good enough, and by that, I mean we need to answer others’ questions. We are called to reach others with the truth (2 Timothy 2:25, 1 Peter 3:15). So that is why I am writing this article.
There are two things I wish to discuss in this article; they are about mixing God with science and religion. Over the years of learning the Bible and about life, I have come to a very different conclusion than I did as an inexperienced young man. I think if one holds on to what they first learned, they can stand on dangerous grounds.
Look at Jesus, for instance. He did not go to the religious leaders because they had already convinced themselves their ways were right. Instead, Jesus took some humble average men, and they most likely had learned the Torah but still had room to learn. Then Jesus had to confront Jewish leaders about their errors constantly. So never get to where you cannot consider a different view as being important.
Don’t mix God with religion
In my opinion, one of the tricks of Satan is to get God mixed up with religion. What I mean by this is the idea that one has to be religious to believe in God. Here is the definition of religion found on Dictionary.com
“a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”
Dictionary.com
I believe the very first part of the Dictionary.com definition gets to the heart of what religion is. It is a worldview of where we get our moral value and purpose and act on those beliefs. So yes, believing in God will naturally involve religion; however, my point is that religion does not dictate God’s existence. If it did, God is created by religion instead of religion being a response to our understanding of our world, which may include a God. Consider this Buddism is a religion that does not have a God.
When we let people pin God to religion, they say we have to keep the belief in God out of secular life because it is religious. Do you see the problem? Believing a God created the universe or believing the universe exists without purpose is philosophical, not religious. Both of these ideologies lead to social constructs. The ironic part is that those who say we need to leave God out have no foundation to stand on because what they believe only exists in their purposeless minds.
Don’t mix God with Science.
If there is a God that created the universe, He must exist outside of it. That being said, we cannot expect to measure God with proper scientific methods. You cannot study the creator from its creation. It is true we can draw some conclusions about the creator from the creation, but we cannot measure or study the creator through the creation. I will try to illustrate this using the late Steve Jobs and the iPhone. While a scientist can take an iPhone into her lab, she can examine, perform tests, and do other methods, but she cannot studies Steve Jobs through the iPhone. I am optimistic that you could gather nearly every iPhone on earth, dust it for prints, swab it for DNA, and find no sign of Steve Jobs. Based on science Steve Jobs does not exist.
Many, however, will say I see the creation and study it but cannot see any scientific evidence for God. It would be silly to conclude that the is no mastermind behind the iPhone. I suggest it would be just as foolish to conclude there is no God. The best any of us can do is to decide whether our universe is meaningless or has meaning.
Through my experience, some will still have trouble having confidence in God because they cannot see him. But let me illustrate that logic this way. We have no idea who invented the bow and arrow. Science cannot tell us who did. That does not stop us from believing it is an invention by a designer. As we use the bow, we acknowledge it is an invention and as we live on the earth, we should recognize life too is the result of an inventor.
So, in conclusion, I want my readers to distinguish between religion and God, as well as God and science. We cannot let others tell us we must remove God from our culture because that belief is religious or non-scientific. By doing so, we give way to a culture that is baseless and hopeless.