By now, you probably already know that Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath won the Nobel in chemistry for their work on the structure of the ribosome, and a well-deserved award it is. They (and many others) put a lot of work into puzzling out how this central feature of the cell works.
However, wouldn’t you know it, there are always religious parasites around who want to coopt a scientific discovery.
What strikes me today, however is that scientists who receive these honors win such praise for what they discover, not what they create. Through their cleverness, hard work, and remarkable brilliance, they have asked new questions and devised creative methods to unwrap hidden mysteries in the universe. But their success is detective work, not invention. This year’s award for the explanation of how ribosomes work is notable and certainly deserved. But these scientists discovered wonder that was already there – put there by the Creator!
Our deeper delight today is the surprising and vivid new window this work has created for those of us who want to give honor and glory to God, our Maker. The work of these Nobel laureates is a profound act of worship to the One who thought up the very possibility of “LIFE” and is slowly but eagerly giving us the right and capacity to uncover His secrets. As we honor those who discovered and explained ribosomes, we also pause to praise and honor God the Creator of ribosomes!
No, we don’t. Your god did not create ribosomes — they evolved. Not only did your god not have anything to do with it, his priests and unthinking followers, like the wanking cheerleader at beliefnet who wrote that piece, made no contribution to our understanding of how life works, and in some cases either discouraged knowledge-seeking or drew away resources for their pan-handling churches that could have been used, for instance, to educate the poor and bring up a generation of smarter, more productive citizenry who might have helped broaden and deepen our understanding.
Notice, too, how the fraud who wrote the piece also gives credit for the work of discovery to his god — as if he were giving us the ability to figure it out.
That freeloading moocher, that imaginary phantasm, deserves and gets no credit for anything. The bottom feeders of faith just want people to bestow their gratitude on the coffers of their churches, nothing more, and they will lie and steal credit for their personal benefit.
