RE: 11-Year-Old College Grad Wants to Pursue Astrophysics to Prove God’s Existence
July 23, 2018 at 4:40 am
(July 22, 2018 at 5:43 pm)Kit Wrote:Quote:“I want to prove that God does exist through science,” William said, his robed father [an Orthodox priest] looking on. “So that the world can know.”
To be fair to him, he is only 11 and has obviously been raised in a religious household so has had no real chance to find out that his god does not exist. He's probably got the same drive as many scientists, to understand the world and to make a big discovery but because of his upbringing this gets translated into something religious. After all, has he really had any need to question whether his understanding of reality is fundamentally flawed.
Saying that though ... if this kid is supposed to be ready to enter college, then even a rudimentary perusal of pop-science books on astrophysics will reveal just how large the universe is. Does he genuinely expect to look through a telescope and see Heaven? Or has he been inspired by some bullshit argument about fine tuning and thinks that he can prove this. Moving from an arts education to astrophysics is tough for anyone, yet alone an 11 year old.
He'll soon crash and burn and will need to pick himself up again. If not then he'll be introduced to the scientific method and critical thinking skills which means his religious belief will quickly fall away. And that will be painful.
