LJ Repost from 2003 on Religion and Science

Western religion got separated from western science. I think they may be on their way back together in the near future. The more I learn about "scientific" stuff, the more I believe that there's some dude messing with us.

I mean, at the seventh grade level, I was convinced the biological things work is because RNA randomly coalesced in primordial ooze and from there inefficient things died out and efficient things replicated. But at the 16th grade level, I've since learned that there has to be a lot of things going right for a bacteria to evolve. Moreover, more things have to go right than tragically wrong, which I think is much more likely. I mean, I spent WEEKS isolating mRNA in large concentrations, and in like five minutes total thaw time, it all degraded on me. I mean, look at the T4 phage. Come on! You're gonna tell me that this thing randomly evolved? If it were just the result of dumb luck- then "dumb luck" is a great power to be respected, admired, and even feared.

Physics is no better (and of course Chemistry is derived from physics). Everything falls into place in nice tidy laws but the more detailed and complex you get, the more you get the feeling that you're still in the pursuit of "second causes." I mean, why does light travel at 3e8 m/s? Because it does. That's it's nature. Why isn't the diameter of a circle exactly proportional to its circumference? Doesn't that strike anyone as odd?

Anyway, it all makes me feel like there's some "first cause" that transcends our current mode of logic.