If we just take God out of it, might there not be some things right that your scientific beliefs can't explain?
My name is Matt, I'm 41 years old. I'm a pastor.
I'm Gyokei, I'm 40 years old. I'm a minister of a Buddhist church.
I'm Andrew, I'm 42, and I'm a chemist.
I'm Jess, I'm 36, and I'm a volcanologist
I'm Don, I'm 64. I'm a paleontologist and geologist.
I'm Amy, I'm 53, and I'm a Rabbi
This is literally my greatest fear that I'd be all alone in the circle.
I believe that this world was created
I've placed my faith in a God that is
Infinitely creative in what he's made. He then deserves my worship and my affection.
Seriously last night I was talking to wife. I was like 'what if there's a question that I'm
the only one that agrees to?' She's like 'just stay where you are,' and I was like 'I don't know'
The big problem is that means they start talking with creator and I've battled
Creationism most my entire career as an evolutionary biologist and paleontologist,
it brings in a whole category of things that violate my rules as a scientist as well and
When I step back from that, especially when I step back from where I started as a religious person when I was younger
I look at this and I say, you know
if anything what we see now about the universe shows how poorly designed it is how sloppy it is and how painful it is and
all these things which don't speak to a very benevolent creator because if anything it makes him look bad.
I don't believe in a supernatural God. I'm a reconstructionist Jew. For me, I don't
rely on a supernatural creator in order to remain astounded at the beauty of
this world, that's sloppy.
It's the world right? It's the world. We're sloppy, the world is sloppy, but it's also incredibly
magical and and and worthy of awe and and respect and
That it's here is amazing that we're here is amazing and I want to live in relationship to that amazement
I never looked to science to go, like, "Is murder right or wrong?"
I look to science to say "How many murders were committed last week?"
You know? That - that's what I want to know and then say "Is there a trend?"
"What is the cause of these murders?" And then we use, you know, we use different,
tools, I guess is the best way of putting it, to, to assess whether or not we should be murdering people.
- Where did - where do those morals come from?
- I think they're innate in humans.
All societies have had certain things that agree on. A Makar, that's a religious background, and so on.
We don't require a deity or any kind of religion to give us those things.
And we come with them as part of our species.
And for me, it's not so much that science can answer moral questions, but science certainly can guide us in a lot of ways,
especially when moral questions in conflict with realities we've now learned it.
- I've got serious gaps in my faith that require a supernatural answer. I mean, I can't.
I can't understand and fathom the complexities of the universe all on my own. I'm a Christian. At a church service,
someone had a hurt shoulder and they said "My shoulder really hurts. Will you pray for my shoulder to get better?"
I'll be honest with you. I have about 5% faith that that's gonna work out. But I prayed for him.
I put my hand on his shoulder and I said, you know,
"I want this shoulder to get healed in Jesus name," and I walked away thinking
"Oh no, another disappointed person who didn't get healed today."
Well, the next morning that person called me and said "You wouldn't believe it. My shoulder feels 100 percent better."
I still don't have a good answer to that.
But I just know every time I get an answer or an opportunity
to exercise my faith in a supernatural way,
I want to take that opportunity because I just don't know what the answer might be. It could be something terrific.
- I totally agree with you. I liked when you said 5% I pretty much feel the same way, yeah.
But in my hometown in Japan, like, we have this kind of service to instead of consultive spirits in the line
When we chant for like an hour, you know half an hour maybe then
Everybody feels a whole I feel so peaceful
But then can quite explain it like logically and that's the stuff
That's it's efficient in that situation
Science is all about understanding what we can understand and the science
You're pretty much not allowed to even consider is the supernatural because it's beyond testable hypothesis
It's beyond anything that you can evaluate in any- what we might call an objective manner
We are comfortable with the idea that we do not know something and we say we do not know something and that some day
We might find the answer, or we may not.
There's a lot out there that we can't explain
It has absolutely nothing to do with my beliefs
I was raised Catholic and I'm just as confused now as I was then about what's really going on, you know?
There is a small amount of stuff we can explain. I don't need to have a belief about it
I don't even need to go beyond that just to decide that it's
magnificent and terrifying all at the same time and just kind of leave it at that
So I think your your answer to the question would have been yes. I mean because I think you might agree that there's
Stuff that you can't even know to test
Yet so- maybe there's something beyond scientific theory and proof that we don't even know yet, and I'm not saying God,
If we just take God out of it,
might there not be something, right, that-
that your scientific beliefs can't explain.
That's right, certainly
But and also in my philosophy, I don't see any point in putting any kind of supernatural label on it as an explanation
It's just not solving the problem
I'm so glad you're with me because I didn't want it to here all by myself. I
Yeah I mean , I just see
purpose for our lives that extends beyond the here and now that there is an eternity that God
wants to have with us, his love for us is so deep that it desires to have a continued relationship with us as
As far as time goes on.
Because I live in Long Beach
I go down to the beach and I see the waves of the ocean
At the beach they- they come ashore and leave - we compare that to life
We take different shapes in different forms and the length of the wave, we have no idea. You'll show up in different locations
Which you have no control
The idea of this momentary shape that we have, this life and trying to preserve it
You know and then we're kind of missing the whole point that we are actually that greater ocean
In my limited capacity as a
Individual human like in this form and this shape. I have no idea
how could I possibly have any idea about what that being ocean is gonna mean or be and
so I know that I will continue to be part of the universe but not as
me, not as this.
I would agree with that
I mean, I see no evidence from anything that I can observe or anything that that goes on
that it's more than just wishful thinking that humans in some form are gonna exist in some afterlife or they're recognizable and their identities carry on
When I was a kid, I asked my dad
Mm-hmm. If our pets would be waiting for us in heaven when we died
and my dad said no and I was shocked and I was like
Why would there not be pets in heaven and my dad's like well?
there are animals and I'm like why not my animals and he's like well
There's just like, a generic cat and a generic dog. And I went "wait, what?" and so at that point
that's when I started to question. Like wait a minute what happens next?
And uh- and yeah, I'm kind of you know with a lot of you guys here
I'm just saying that look
You know
It wouldn't it be great if we could go on and on and on but I think because we don't see any evidence for it
I have to be in the camp of, well
we get this one shot, make the most of it, do the best you can and then when it's done,
you know, don't have any regrets,
you know, live with doing as much as you could that is good so that you will live on in the memories of those who
stay behind.
I'm so sorry your dad told you your dogs not going to heaven. What what a crushing thing to hear as a child
You know all good dogs go to heaven
Thats what the movie said!
It must be true
I think he was trying to, you know like, let me down gently. Yeah, I know.
Like some days I'm like totally Zen I'm totally like solely there like it's okay. It's all one and I will just not exist
I'm usually not as afraid of death as I am of dying
Like I mean, I'm afraid of dying because I've seen some really bad dying
I'm very afraid of pain and a you know, the process of dying
I lost both my parents from cancer, so I witnessed the whole process. My mom died
Over
30 years ago and
It was it was painful to witness that part
I mean, my mom's kind of has health deteriorate my dad
went through the same process
But then he was once writing letters as it just really
Coincides with some Buddhist teachings that I'm having a wonderful day and really grateful for everybody who support us
We have a saying that every day is
As you say the greatest day I can see that, you know intellectual
I can understand it intellectually
but I just wasn't sure if I could I
Could feel if I I would be able to say something like that if I'm put in the situation
Man, I'm such a skeptic and that includes questioning my own
My own beliefs, especially if I form a hypothesis, and I'm working on an experiment
I mean you always kind of want it to go a certain way and you have to do your best to remove that
That bias and then some a lot of times if you're in research just doesn't work
one of the things I tell students because I work with students a lot with my nonprofit organization and
I tell them you know as they're
journeying into becoming
Scientists and they come from all sorts of different backgrounds and I just say look don't ever work with anyone who's afraid to admit that
They don't know something or that they're wrong
Like those are really important qualities whether it's in science or any aspect of life
The whole fun in being a scientist is trying to break things and I actually wanted to start a journal of scientific mistakes
so that we could share with each other what went wrong because too often we only talk about the successes and I think it's very
its very valuable to also know what failure is and what it teaches us the questioning. Is that such a healthy thing
I always think it's a healthier thing
So whenever I see younger man asks a priest like yeah
Go ahead and question question me a question what you do and then be okay and you need to understand?
understand intellectually
But at the same time I want to understand there are things that's beyond this intellectual understanding
so that's an
Unrecognizable part of understanding that comes only through experience
Nice to meet you. Thank you good to meet you
Hey guys, this is John I'm Kendra thank you so much for watching this episode of middle ground
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