Overcoming our dragons

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I grew up in a small community whose major employer worked with science. From early childhood through adulthood Science was a large part of my life. One thing that surprised many was that it was a very religious town,

A couple of days ago someone wrote in a town newspaper letter to the editor, “ there is too much road construction here, and too many churches.”

I was taught that there is a God and he used science to create the world. It made sense to me.

The other day I got caught up in a conversation on face book. The subject was do you believe in science or God. Many took offense that I could believe in both.

Another topic was why would anyone prefer an anonymous spiritual being controlling their lives rather than being able to care for their own lives and happiness. Our brains were surely capable of that! 

 

I am grateful that through all the difficult life experiences I have passed through I have had the comfort of the Holy Spirit to comfort me and guide me through.

Jesus Christ promised, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” John 14:18 He will give us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning” Isaiah 61:3. Because Christ suffered the Atonement for each of us, He will not forget us. “Our Savior has taken upon Himself … our pains and our suffering and afflictions so that He can know what we feel and how to comfort us,” said Linda S. Reeves, second counselor in the Relief Society general presidency.

Knowing that Christ will comfort us can bring us peace and inspire us to follow His example by ministering to others. President Thomas S. Monson said: “Our knowledge of the gospel and our love of our Heavenly Father and of our Savior will comfort and sustain us and bring joy to our hearts as we walk uprightly and keep the commandments. There will be nothing in this world that can defeat us.”

“How does understanding that the Lord remembers you bring you comfort?” (Sept. 2014 Ensign magazine)

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Einstein is probably the best known and most highly revered scientist of the twentieth century, and is associated with major revolutions in our thinking about time, gravity, and the conversion of matter to energy (E=mc²). Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."