From Denial to Belief

From Denial to Belief

1987 5 May 18-20 From Denial to Belief (851) Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, a Sri Lankan who heads the department of. Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at University College, Cardiff, Wales, has been conducting research into the origin of life since 1962 in collaboration with the eminent English scientist, Professor Sir Fred Hoyle. The results of their research have been published in the form of a book entitled, Evolution from Space.

When the two scientists began their research, they were both agreed on one point: that the notion of a creator is inconsistent with scientific principles. But they were so shocked by their ultimate findings that they had to make a drastic reappraisal of their thinking. “From my earliest training as a scientist,” says Wickramasinghe,’1 had been thoroughly brainwashed into believing that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be very painfully shed. I am quite uncomfortable in the state of mind I now find myself in. But there is no logical way out of it.”

Both scientists made separate calculations of the mathematical probability of life on earth having begun spontaneously. Quite independently of each other, the both arrived at the same conclusion that the odds against life on earth having had an accidental beginning were staggering – in mathematical jargon, 10 to the power 40,000. Add 40,000 noughts to the number one and you have the figure. “That number is such an imponderable in the universe that I am 100 per cent certain that life could not have started spontaneously on Earth.” says Wickramasinghe.

As they write in their book: “Once we saw that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it became sensible to think that the properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate.”

“Sir Fred Hoyle was tending much more than I towards the higher intelligence Creator,” Wickramasinghe explains. “1 used to argue against it, but I found myself losing every argument. At the moment I can’t find any rational argument to knock down the view which argues for conversion to God. If I could have found an argument – even a flimsy one – I would not have been a party to what we wrote in the book. We used to have open minds; now we realize that the only logical answer to life is creation, and not accidental shuffling. I still hope that one day I may go back to favour a purely mechanistic explanation – I say ‘hope’, because I still cannot come to terms with my conversion.

“My being a Buddhist – albeit not an ardent one – was never a problem, because it is an atheistic religion which does not profess to know anything about creation and does not have a creator built into it. But I now find myself driven to this position by logic. There is no other way in which we can understand the precise ordering of the chemicals of the universe except to invoke creation on a cosmic scale.

Until recently, belief in God was considered to be a mere personal creed, unsupported by rational thought. In recent decades, however, this situation has changed. New evidence has again and again come to light which makes belief in God a scientifically credible concept, rather than just an institutionalized form of anthropomorphism providing a personally desirable creed.

The latest findings of science impress upon man the abstract reality of God’s existence. Granted that there is a God, what should man’s relationship with Him be? Science does not and cannot occupy itself with this problem. This is a question which can only be answered by religion.

Basically, all religions do attempt to answer this question, but to what extent they are successful is difficult to determine considering that, besides Islam, no world religion has been preserved in its original form. Other shortcomings in present-day religions, no matter what their antiquity, are in some cases, the absence of the concept of a God, (or Creator and Sustainer) and in other cases, the proliferation of gods and goddesses. The definition of man’s relationship with God (or the absence of one) by such religions is impossible to accept, because the premises on which they base their doctrines are false. Science certainly does not support polytheism, just as it does not support unconscionable ‘religious’ tenets such as discrimination on the basis of colour and race.

Just as science brings one to belief in God, so also does it bring one to belief in Islam, for Islam is the only religion which is completely consistent with scientific facts. Science shows that the universe has a God – a fact, which in itself, is enough to prove the agnostics wrong. A study of the cosmos shows that it operates in unity and harmony, thus ruling out the possibility of there being many gods, as is claimed by certain religions. Conversely, such a study makes it abundantly clear that there can be only one God – a concept faithfully presented by Islam, but by no other religion. And as for man’s relationship with God, the only religion which can properly define it is, again, Islam.