Robert Jastrow

God and the Astronomers

"There is a kind of religion in science: it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event .. This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which hte known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized. As usual when faced with trauma, the mind reacts by ignoring the implications - in science this is known as 'refusing to speculate' - or trivializing the origin of the world by calling it the Big Bang, as if the Universe were a firecracker. .. At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." p113-114, 116

"Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements and the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same; the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."