Faith: Science and religion

As I write, American forces are conducting a war I believe is justified and well founded in law and morality. As many know, there already have been American lives lost in the liberation of Iraq. All feel the grief accompanied by such sacrifice. But what happens when those lives are lost?

During my studies at VCU’s Medical College of Virginia, I spent enormous time talking with fellow scientists about the meaning of life and death and how religion factors into the mix.

Scientifically, death occurs when an organism is unable to maintain equilibrium. Homeostasis is lost; the ability to maintain critical electrochemical gradients ceases and the second law of thermodynamics is followed.

Since matter can neither be created nor destroyed, through decomposition, a dead organism is broken down into molecular constituents and is redistributed. For example, a fish dies. It falls down the water column and becomes detritus, food for others such as crustaceans.

For many years I lived disconnected from any spiritual life, save science. Yes, science became a religion for it had an explanation to the most complex biological, molecular, chemical and physical questions that could be posed. Granted, there are theories that have yet to be explained, but in time, through the scientific process these questions will also be elucidated.

Things changed, however. A particular tragedy evidenced my need for better answers. A friend of mine decided that he had enough and took his life. His father was my mentor at the Medical College of Virginia.

Here was my conundrum. My mentor could not tell me why his son performed this act. Of course one can speculate that certain brain chemistry was incorrect and that lead to lethal thinking, but that would do injustice to my friend; he was brilliant, a third-year medical student. He was full of life and that was gone.

I spent the next three years wondering what I was doing slugging it out in law school and how things had gone so terribly wrong with my friend. No formula, no equation to follow, nothing I could think or do brought me closer to the answer.

During this time, I would visit my mentor and discuss developments in the lab, where students were placed, and the fates of my contemporaries. And then I told him about the difficulty I had in dealing with his son’s death and all the questions I had. My mentor, who is Islamic, said not to question, but to forgive, for Allah works that way and it is best for the departed’s soul.

I thought about that for a long time. It made much more sense than wasting precious CPU cycles on something I could never change.

I went to a small church on Easter Sunday 1998 in Woodstock, Vt. I felt uncomfortable being there, but as the service entered into the sermon, and the words reverberated within my head, I felt there was greater meaning to life and death than just the scientific equations that describe the same.

Later that year I joined the Anglican community. In looking back I realize that when I was young, I could rationalize what I experienced either through parental explanation or my own research. Now, the older I get, the more complicated the questions, the more I need religion.

When I moved back to Richmond, Va. in 2001, I quietly joined St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and regularly attend the 11:00 am Sunday services. I have even been known to usher every now and again. For me it has worked. My unanswered questions are still unanswered, but that is OK because I now have something much more than before, I have a faith.

Being the son of an Islamic father and an Episcopal mother, religion was not a topic discussed at our home. Right now it is particularly sensitive, but remember Saddam has killed more Muslims than anyone else in the Middle East; he is a butcher of Islamic people.

At our dinner table, religious discussion was for educational purposes only, unless “Uncle Hoot” asked, “you believe in Jesus, right?” The answer was always “yes” regardless of what one believed.

But discussions of religion and explorations of faith are important. The assignments that are due, the exams that require study, the complicated and confusing rituals of courtship, the loss of friends and family, they cannot be explained by science alone. If we have nothing beyond ourselves, what are we then, simply atoms following certain principles? That would be bittersweet indeed.

I have no scientifically reliable evidence that can prove there is a higher power. However, I think, therefore I am. And given the ability to think and be, one can only conclude that part of thoughts’ purposes includes faith, which can result in profound insight.

One final note on science and religion. Science cannot explain religion and therefore religion is generally excluded from scientific reasoning. However, religion can explain science. One would hate to see recent progresses in genetics and cloning developed outside the context of spirituality. Great leaps in technology necessitate great leaps in faith. In fact, without leaps in faith, science would not be.