Author: Nate Schmidt
A few years ago, I remember scrolling through Facebook and I remember a friend of mine shared a quote comparing science and religion. Unfortunately, I do not remember the exact quote, but I do remember that the underlying premise was that religion was unable to prove that God exists using scientific methods. I remember giving it a small chuckle, not because I thought that it was idiotic, but because I agreed with the premise. The goal of these types of quotes are meant to anger the faithful and be a way to start an argument that would end in a stalemate. For the people that know me, this may come as a surprise. I firmly believe that proving that God exists is fundamentally impossible. I’ll even go as far as saying that I don’t want God’s existence to be proven. With proof there is no need for faith, a foundation block for everybody’s belief. The quote completely disregarded that science deals with the natural and physical world, while religion and faith deal with the supernatural world. Therefore, science wouldn’t be able to prove that God exists. I used to think that it was that black and white. That was very naïve of me.
Being a biochemist and constantly being in science classes, I knew that this ideology of God vs. Science would never leave me. Up until Spring 2018, I used the same black and white rebuttal, science is that natural world and religion is the supernatural world. Boy, was I wrong on it being black and white. It is, just like everything else in this world, completely gray. (Warning! Science is about to happen.) This epiphany came last year when I was learning about Glycolysis, Gluconeogenesis, β-oxidation, and nucleic acid metabolism, all of which help us create ATP, our energy currency. The picture shows every biochemical pathway in the human body. Every pathway is interconnected with each other and all one the same goal, ATP. When I look at it I see something that could not be created by evolution itself, but was created with the guidance of an intelligent being, God.
This photo is not proof that God exists, as science doesn’t prove anything, never has never will. This is, however, to me evidence of God. A God that loves us so much that he has given us an unnecessary amount of ways to live. The more I study science the more I question, how people in the scientific field believe that our beings and way of life come through natural selection. The deeper I get, the greater my love for science increases and the stronger my faith grows. “Science without Religion is Lame. Religion without Science is Blind.” -Albert Einstein.