Can one believe simultaneously in God and The Big Bang?

     As children, we don't question the doctrines taught to us in our formative years of life. They are accepted without question, and rightly so. For we come into this life not knowing. Our parents teach us the ways of the world as they see them, as did their parents before them. But as one lives through "the whips and scorns of time," and consciously decides to develop the intellect and a need to discover the truth, certain ideas and beliefs once learned in childhood become tried and tested in order to find the real meaning of things.

     What is the truth? Who, or what, is God? In our present day, the amassed knowledge of humankind over millennia of trials and tribulations have stimulated inquisitive, open minds to ask a few pertinent questions concerning the origin of the Cosmos, and our purpose as living beings within it, in this modern age.

     We live in an age of Religion and Science. The age of God, the age of Reason, the age of God and Reason? Two schools of human thinking intermixed. What are the origins of each? Would one not agree that both are there to explain the unexplainable? And most of the time they have complemented each other throughout history. Religion was a fundamental pillar in the development of Western Civilization. Many great minds have had belief in a Supreme Being of some kind; and indeed we could say that since each mind was individual, each God was as individual as each mind.

     This Deity, as I understand, is definitely the almighty kind who lives and reigns forever throughout the entire universe. He has been, and continues to govern in the affairs of His creations on His tiny planet He has called Earth. He is omniscient, omnipresent and undoubtedly most of all, and lucky for us, merciful. Now that's an important point! It would certainly turn into one nasty situation if such a powerful thing had a permanent mean streak. And if you believe what God has done in The Great Flood, Sodom and Gommorah, the Egyptian enslavement of the Jews, and even in recent times when He apparently allowed the world to ghastly witness the annihilation of six million of His chosen people by ruthless Germans, it is reassuring to know that this Entity only becomes disturbed once in a while.

     Since time immemorial, people still die in natural, and unnatural ways, many too early, for little or no reason; tragically, accidentally, willfully. Essentially the same events still occur, have occurred, and will yet occur. In fact, statistically, God has ranked right up there with the leading causes of death for some time now. And yet there still remains scant physical, three dimensional, humanly understandable, proven proof that history and present existence is the intentional manifestation of a merciful, almighty, loving, supernatural being, who supposedly already had foreknowledge that His own creation would disobey His own laws!? Is this beginning to get confusing? Ah, yes it is. And in confusion lies comfort, especially for those whose business it is to educate you about this God; for they are human. Be not dismayed. We can make up something to compensate, and even compliment our way of thinking. I've got it! Say that you simply need faith that God knows what He's doing. Case closed forever -- for some anyway.

     Then there were some of us individuals who decided not to take their word for it. We decided to investigate the nature of things more closely; asking pertinent questions, risking, experimenting, observing, noting, recording, understanding, teaching. And time marched on over the centuries and millennia. Gaining knowledge has been a slow, arduous process.

     In times past our ancestors lived life in primal existence from day to day, seemingly at the mercy of every peril the elements of this hostile earthly environment could deliver. Early death was the way of life. And since no human had made any significant visits from the "undiscovered country," be it from paradise, purgatory or the inferno, deities were the only hope that satisfied an extremely important, and pertinent question: why am I here, how do I survive this ordeal, and where do I go from here? This remains the question of all time for mortals, and a source of great confusion. For there is no evidence, only faith.

     In the millennial process of human groping, trying, failing, detecting, discerning, inventing and questioning for knowledge' sake, man has only just begun to understand his significance, or should I say insignificance in an inanimate universe (as far as we know). He has painstakingly come to know the properties and behaviors of the elements in nature through this process. These are physical things, existing in the three dimensions in which we ourselves have substance and presence. Things we can see, hear and touch. And in this vast span of time of taking this "adult education course," man can even see, hear and touch things that are unseen! Then why is it that the Supreme Being has gone to all the trouble to create these things? Could it be that perhaps He has just placed them in front of our noses, and amused Himself watching how hard we work unraveling His intricately woven celestial web? Perhaps to God, "all the world's a stage." Seems divinely childish does it not? And in all of this there is a supposedly divine purpose?

     Historically, there could be evidence that God may have actually gotten in the way of Man's uncovering the truths in His Cosmos. Anyone have recollection of a guy named Nicholas Copernicus? He found out some information that those close to God didn't even know. Perhaps it was their jealousy of the truth that fired the anger towards him. Lucky for him, and them, that he conveniently died. Or maybe you recall another guy named Galileo Galilei. The new invention of the "looker" could now let anybody see and prove by observation what Galileo himself witnessed first hand; that is, those open-minded and courageous enough to reassess current wisdom of the day. And undoubtedly, there was nothing like "the rack" to physically redirect one's thought down the "straight and narrow." Thus Galileo recanted, but only in his words. He knew what he saw when he peered at Jupiter. It was something that God never mentioned to anybody, not even the Pope! "Religion, we got a problem (pun intended)."

     The human mind is the most complex assemblage of matter in history. It thinks. I think, therefore I am. Everything I know, I have learned. And I have the freedom within my own mind to think, and reason my own thoughts, no matter what they may be. I can construe, misconstrue, deconstrue and reconstrue information in any way I wish to myself. And I don't have to believe anything anybody tells me if I don't wish to.

     Our formative knowledge runs deep in the psyche, but there is one thing for sure about this existence; things change. And as I come of age in this world, and begin to reason about the Cosmos around me, I must weigh all the options, and come to a conclusion with myself. Will the evidence to which I am exposed be debated in the balances of my mind precisely and accurately, so my verdict is absolutely the undeniable and proven truth? Yes, the truth for me.

     And I will not deny the existence of a super entity in the universe. For I am merely a mortal who is locked in three dimensions and limited by physical peculiarities. I would be a fool to say that there are not "more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in their philosophy." Perhaps God always is, has always been, and will always be? Maybe He exists in millions of different dimensions simultaneously. And, then again, is it possible that, as some say, He has just created everything, wound up the clock, and sat back to see what happens. But, of course, if He did all that, He already knows what will happen.

     So, to answer your pertinent question, I would be in good conscience to say yes. It is possible to believe in both God and The Big Bang. The human mind can be made by its owner to think and believe what ever it wants! The lesson history continually dictates to us is tempora mutantur (times change). Only when probing minds and the changing times give us overwhelming evidence, will some hear. But I'm not willing to bet a cup of coffee on that. From my experience with those of my own kind, the rest will do what is humanly natural -- they'll ignore it!