It even has what looks like blood flowing from a palm wound. Article
World-renowned astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, founding director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, explains the “fear of faith” many of today’s scientists experience.
There is a kind of religion in science, it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the universe, and every effect must have its cause; [but] there is no First Cause. …
“No First Cause,” however, means there is no Creator, no God. As Jastrow continues:
This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized. As usual when faced with trauma, the mind reacts by ignoring the implications – in science this is known as “refusing to speculate” – or trivializing the origin of the world by calling it the Big Bang, as if the Universe were a firecracker.
Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proven that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks, What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter and energy into the Universe? Was the Universe created out of nothing, or was it gathered together out of pre-existing materials? And science cannot answer these questions …
“Now,” Jastrow continues, “we would like to pursue that inquiry farther back in time, but the barrier to further progress seems insurmountable. It is not a matter of another year, another decade of work, another measurement, or another theory; at this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation.”
The famed scientist’s ultimate conclusion is astonishingly candid, particularly in light of his own professed agnosticism: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
