{"id":104108,"date":"2018-06-04T00:20:36","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T07:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=104108"},"modified":"2018-05-31T15:00:57","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T22:00:57","slug":"interesting-piece-on-scientists-from-different-spiritual-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2018\/06\/interesting-piece-on-scientists-from-different-spiritual-traditions.html","title":{"rendered":"Interesting piece on scientists from different spiritual traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026can be found here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When you ponder the vastness of the universe, the wonder of the natural world, or the mysteries of consciousness, what are you left with?<\/p>\n

Are you someone who sees nothing but a material world, the workings of which are just waiting to be discovered by the logical reasoning of science?<\/p>\n

Or are you someone who believes there must be a creator, or at least some sort of divine power that gives meaning and purpose to it all?<\/p>\n

Some argue that being religious is incompatible with being a scientist \u2014 but do they realise\u00a0the father of the Big Bang theory<\/a>\u00a0was actually a Catholic priest,\u00a0the pioneer of modern genetics<\/a>\u00a0was an Augustinian monk, or the\u00a0decoder of the human genome<\/a>\u00a0converted from atheism to Christianity in his 20s?<\/p>\n

Scientists these days may be less religious than the average person, but just over half of scientists\u00a0surveyed in 2009<\/a>\u00a0said they believed in some sort of deity or higher power.<\/p>\n

Is the conflict between religion and science as deep as some think? We talk to three scientists about how they reconcile their faith with their work.<\/p>\n

Dr Jennifer Wiseman: A Christian astrophysicist<\/h2>\n

As a child, Jennifer enjoyed late-night stargazing walks with her parents on their Arkansas farm in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stars were incredible,\u201d she told Kumi Taguchi on\u00a0ABC TV\u2019s Compass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had dark, dark skies there. And I think I was always curious at that point as to what was out there and how could I explore it.\u201d<\/p>\n

About that time NASA was sending the Voyager spacecraft to the outer planets of the solar system for the first time, and beaming back exotic pictures.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, you know, I\u2019m going to be a part of that,\u201d Jennifer says.<\/p>\n

She now spends her time using telescopes to study how stars and planets are made \u2014 and is credited with discovering the comet Wiseman-Skiff in 1987.<\/p>\n

But the sense of wonder and curiosity Jennifer felt as a child, as she looked into the vast and magnificent night sky, has never left her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are at least 200 billion stars in our own galaxy, and there are maybe 400 billion galaxies in our observable universe, each one of them with billions of stars,\u201d Jennifer says.<\/p>\n