Science and belief in God

Immediately after Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon in 1969 and his “one small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind” speech, his colleague Buzz Aldrin celebrated Holy Communion in the landing craft. Buzz, after whom the toy ‘Buzz Lightyear’ is named asked Mission Control for silence. Then to mark this historic moment he took Holy Communion which had been prepared for him in advance by his home church. Quite literally the first bread consumed on the moon and the first wine drunk there were the elements of Holy Communion!

This symbolic act was deliberate. The astronaut was sending the world the message that Christian belief and science are in harmony together. Here he was at the cutting edge of science and yet at the same time a believer in God and a churchgoer. Science merely tells us how God makes things work, the Bible on the other hand tells us why we are here. God is the ultimate Scientist because science is His design and handiwork!
 
Many people in Britain imagine that science and religious belief are incompatible, but  in reality, across the world, millions of scientists believe in God. Even NASA has its own chaplain with so many of those involved in space research being regular churchgoers! (Indeed no less than 20% of the congregation of one local church works in some way for NASA).

These people see scientific discoveries as proof the universe has been designed by a Supreme Intelligence. Science shows that the nucleus of every cell in the human body contains as much data as that contained in 500 volumes of The Encyclopedia Britannica.
Such complexity cannot have happened by chance and is clear evidence of a Creator Designer God.

Sadly, whenever reference is made to science and religious belief in the British Media it is often done so assuming that there is a conflict between the two. In reality, many scientists believe in God precisely because of their scientific studies and see true science as the friend of religious belief. With this fact rarely mentioned it is no wonder the UK is one of the few places in the world where churchgoing is declining whilst churches in many other countries are filled to capacity!