As you’ve already heard, physicists Peter Higgs and Francois Englert were recently awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in discovering the Higgs-Boson particle, tragically nicknamed the “God Particle” by the media. The discovery has helped give credence to hypotheses scientists have held for years about the origins of the universe. And like any scientific revelation throughout history, it has been greeted with disdain by the ultra-religious community.
Photo courtesy of patheos.com
One of these science doubters is Rev. Austin Miles, an author and blogger who has bounced around different sites due to some criticism over his integrity in the past. Rev. Miles wrote an article that appeared on the site allvoices.com among others, but interestingly enough, the post on allvoices was the only one I could find that had comments enabled. I can only assume that’s because the good reverend isn’t able to control it, but that’s yet to be confirmed. In his article dripping with sarcasm, he displays his obvious objection to the Nobel Prize decision by adding quotes around it as if it were not a real or distinguished award. He claims that the work of Higgs and Englert was the work of the devil, since they’re atheists apparently on a quest to disprove the existence of any gods, although Miles’ article is the first I’ve heard of such a motive. It’s impossible to prove that something does not exist, and I would imagine scientists as intelligent as this pair would know that.
Considering the author’s history of dishonesty, I was appalled that someone, who has dedicated his life to a religion that preaches loving everyone, would willfully discount the hard work of two men who have dedicated their lives to advancing the knowledge of the human race. So I decided to find a site that hosted his article and had comments enabled. When I found the allvoices post, I wrote the following:
Are you serious? Scientific discovery is Satan’s work? If you’re so anti-science then please write an article about how you’re no longer going to use computers (advanced largely by the work of atheists and nonreligious people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs) or any other technological advances. And please include how you are against the medical devices that saved your life when you had a stroke.
Every time there is a new scientific discovery, it’s rejected by religious people because their archaic belief systems are not designed to evolve with scientific discovery, i.e. a spherical earth, the age of the planet, the earth revolving around the sun (not vice versa), evolution, stem cells, etc. Why does it always take you 200 years to come around and accept modern discoveries?
It’s time to grow up. There is no Santa Claus in the sky.
Rev. Miles responded with this gem, where he attempts to prove his higher intellect by tearing down my comment and insisting that major scientific discoveries were done in God’s name:
It is astonishing how one who so adamantly attacks religion and defends science knows absolutely nothing about the history of either. It was not even closely stated that “Scientific discovery is Satan’s work” as falsely attributed to this article. Science today is however being used improperly for that reason.
The protester responding under the name, DividedUnderGodcom sarcastically asked how we Christians would no longer use computers (advanced largely by the work of atheists and nonreligious people like Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs) or any other technological advances. First of all, they did not discover computer science.
Computer Science ORIGINATED with Bible-believing scientist, Charles Babbage. Other scientific discoveries by Christians include, Dynamics, by Isaac Newton, Celestial Mechanics (space exploration) began with Johannes Kepler and furthered by the Lutherans who subsidized and published Copernicus’ book, De Revolution-ibus (The Copernicus Revolution), Galileo introduced physics and astronomical observations with his telescope which led the way to modern space exploration.
Deeply committed Christian Blaise Pascal’s Hydrostatics is still being studied today in the universities. This is only a small sampling of scientific achievement founded by the church and Christians.
And by the way, almost every one of the first 123 colleges and universities of the United States had Christian origins.
The responder then made an incredibly juvenile attempt to blast me by asking how I could be against the medical devices that saved my life when I had a stroke.
The responder next climbs the wall of frantic ignorance in a feeble attempt to attack Christianity. The church FOUNDED hospitals that employed Antiseptic surgery developed by Joseph Lister and Bacteriology by Louis Pasteur, both men of God.
It was George Mendel, a Czech monk who began experiments in the mid 1800s that resulted in the discovery of DNA.
The respondent’s education will be greatly improved by reading the book: What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?-D.James Kennedy-Jerry Newcombe–Thomas Nelson Publishers, and How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization-Thomas E. Woods,Jr.,Ph.D, Regency Publishing, Inc.
P.S. The responder is correct in one thing. No, Santa Claus is not in the sky. He is in the Mall.
Isn’t he witty? I decided to set the record straight and call him out on his inaccuracies with my follow up:
You’re missing the point. And yes, I can use Wikipedia too.
Your post and subsequent response to my post are dripping with sarcasm and that’s unfortunate. Putting Nobel Prize and PROOF in quotes because you don’t like who won the award shows a lack of tolerance on your part (not surprising) from a man who follows a religion based on loving everyone. It’s hypocritical.
A scientist, regardless of his faith or lack thereof, made a fantastic discovery which fills in a lot of holes regarding the origin of our solar system. Just because that information does not coincide with your own archaic belief system (based on a book written by men who thought the world was flat), you reject it as works of the devil. It’s no different than the church excommunicating Galileo for proving the earth rotated around the sun and not vice versa. And it’s no different than the church spearheading a new effort to excommunicate people who engage in stem cell research.
To address your short sighted responses, I did not say computer science was invented by an atheist. I said it was largely advanced by 2 atheists, and likely would not be in the form it is today without them. So while you’re using the devil’s operating systems to respond to me, remember he’s watching. I sure hope you don’t have a Facebook account either, since Mark Zuckerberg is an atheist so the site is obviously the devil’s playground. Also DNA was discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick (2 atheists). Nice try attributing it to someone else. Their discovery has led to the exponential growth of medical research, cures for diseases, and the way we look at biology today. We use the discoveries of atheists to fight diseases that your “god” gives us as part of his “plan”. Sounds demonic to me too.
If it weren’t for the work of atheists and nonreligious, our world would be vastly different and we’d be stuck in the dark ages, where scientific progress was frowned upon if it didn’t agree with religious teachings. Let’s get real. More than three quarter of the scientific community holds no religious affiliation or is atheist. Why? Because they have a real education that trumps childhood indoctrination and helps them understand the world more holistically. They don’t look at things in such an arrogant fashion, thinking that out of the infinite universe, a god picked out this little blue dot to encompass all of the life of the universe and be his little pets to do with what he wishes. Such a narrow world view the religious has, indeed.
Furthermore, your take on why we’re exploring Mars is way off. Finding water is not an effort to prove humans lived there. That’s ignorant. Finding water and the building blocks for life may show us that the origins of the first organisms on earth may have come from a martian asteroid landing in an environment that was more suitable to sustain life than Mars, allowing it to flourish, eventually leading to the evolution of humans ON EARTH.
Should I list a bunch of books for you to read now to make myself look smart too?
I then posted a short comment that was later deleted, where I refer to him being fired from the Christian Post for a run-in he had with a commenter. I came back to find it deleted, and I can only assume it was done by the author, but there’s no way for me to know, so I reposted it with an addition:
interesting how you deleted my last comment where I mentioned you getting fired from the Christian Post for your lack of integrity. Deleting comments from readers further illustrates this. So that your readers can better understand the type of person you are, here it is again:
Feel free to edit your original post now and remove anything I’ve referred to as false to cover yourself like you did on the Christian Post, and then lie about it. Oh right, you got fired for that.
As of this post, I’ve yet to hear back from the author, and I don’t expect to. But I thought since he has a habit of deleting things, I’d post this on my own site to preserve it from “atheist hackers” that he blamed for altering content on his Christian Post article, resulting in his dismissal.
It’s unfortunate that some people’s religious beliefs can alter their ability to use reason and keep them in a bubble of denial so impenetrable that they reject fact and evidence, ultimately attributing human discovery to a fabricated demon enacting his evil plan.
Filed under: Headlines, Science & Religion Tagged: Atheism, Atheist, Austin Miles, Big bang, Christianity, God Particle, Higgs Boson, Nobel Prize, Religious right, Rev Austin Miles, Science, Science and religion
