Why this scientist believes in GOD

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Why this scientist believes in GOD

By Dr. Francis Collins
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the Human Genome Project. His most recent book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan. did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.

I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?" (Watch Francis Collins discuss how he came to believe in God )

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."
But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.

For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.

So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?

Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

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[MsMi321]

@kilroy055 is there even a point in arguing anymore when we are both ignorant to what the other has to say ? i guess not XD

[kilroy055]

@MsMi321 However you want to rationalize it to yourself.

[MsMi321]

@kilroy055 a standard admittance to defeat, and my quotation proves it, u may reject what i have to say, and u put yourself on a intellectual or whatever pedestal, as most such as u do, LOL

[nlytend1]

So from 1:35 to 1:47 our scientist is pretty much saying he was compelled by EMOTIONS to turn to a belief in a deity. And obviously this man was not secure in himself and his beliefs to start with. He says at 1:50 that he "SET OUT to prove his atheism was correct." What scientist who's genuinely for the truth and is thus a FREETHINKER, operates in that way? Confirmation bias is not unlike dogma. Well, if he's happier that's what counts, but cognitive dissonance can't be healthy, just saying.

[kilroy055]

@MsMi321 I'm done talking to you, you aren't even making sense anymore (though you weren't making much sense to begin with). Have a nice day.

[MsMi321]

@kilroy055 ur asking for something that would destroy the whole universe, and quantum physics has everything to do with god, the theory itself begins to prove his its existence, thought is different from philosophy, thought is rational, and the rational is the tool of the irrational, u lack philosophy since u havnt come to the conclusion of "everything is real and unreal, everything is true and false, its just a matter of perspective"(MsMi321), god external, come into bubble = die all

[kilroy055]

@MsMi321 Quantum physics is irrelevant in this discussion. You have no good reasons for believing in God, if you disagree with that statement then name some. Bald assertions (statements without evidence to back them up) are meaningless, God must be either the laziest being who ever existed or the weakest because you can shout insults at him and beg him to smite you and nothing will happen, yet you claim something will. I don't lack philosophy, you lack thought. Look at the world around you.

[MsMi321]

@kilroy055 yes there could be and there is one, if he exists in my mind and my stories lets say, he is very much real, in a sense of course, but surprisingly he can knock me over right now or whisper in my ear, u really lack philosophy

[MsMi321]

@VideoAudioDisco09 i like how u say the churches not the beliefs, i myself dont trust the church, and i dont trust its new ways, and all that, but believing in god is a different matter altogether, historically even in the bible, ever since Jesus died the teachings have been really twisted, hence why i dont trust them anymore

[MsMi321]

@kilroy055 again with another troll, sigh, there is A LOT of room for god, and u really know nothing of quantum physics, go look it up, great program here on u tube is "what the bleep do we know" and if u didnt know, Wikipedia is a non reliable source of information, they teach that in high school, but if what u say is true, then the big bang is even more impossible, there was nothing to observe it, i suggest a little studying rather than lashing out in despair,