In my late twenties, before I knew better, I spent several hours slouching on an uncomfortable chair witnessing a physicist and a theologian debate "the origin of everything." A self-evidently futile exercise, obviously, since their arguments proceeded from fundamentally irreconcilable ideas of reality. It was like watching two robotic boxers stepping into two different rings to spar with each other's shadow, going twelve rounds without landing a single punch but both claiming they've knocked their opponent out.
Ah, the eternal conflict between science and religion. It's as old as the conflict between the smooth man armed with a stone axe versus the unarmed hairy man convinced heaven-sent thunder bolts will vaporize the stone axe before it clefts his skull. Both men, of course, were probably trampled to death by a woolly mammoth stampeding out of nowhere. That's just how life works. But like unkillable characters in a Looney Tunes cartoon, they obstinately peeled themselves off the ground to resume their war of attrition. And after exhausting each other, they came seeking the rest of us who were happily ensconced in Plato's cave, watching the pretty patterns on the wall.
These days, they've both turned into versions of the belligerent drunk who corners you at a party: the wild-eyed religionist insisting you won't have a good time unless you try the sangria; the boorish, droning scientist describing the ingredients of his fruit punch in tedious detail. If only they would lock themselves in the bathroom, tearfully demanding everyone leave them alone, before passing out in the tub. But no, somehow they take control of the music and projectile vomit all over the dance floor while performing a grotesque tango. You should have said your goodbyes and left the party many years ago. It's too late now, they're fighting each other again in the hallway and you can't get past them to find the front door.
Perhaps, in some less dogmatic, more tolerant future time, the relationship of science and religion can become a romance rather than a conflict. There's no need for the lovers to instantly cast their differences aside and canoodle in the waves from here to eternity, even a chaste exchange of chocolate and flowers would suffice at the beginning. After all, isn't mutual antipathy the starting point for all romantic comedies with a happy ending? Imagine science and religion as the unwitting correspondents in The Schopenhauer Around The Corner.
And surely "the origin of everything" must be a comedy, often slapstick, occasionally divine. All the world's a banana skin and all the men and women merely clowns who step upon it. Think of the Big Bang as just an old-fashioned fart joke, and God speaking The Word into existence in a Donald Duck voice. Alas, I have no mathematical equation or ancient scripture to support this theory, but I am available if Richard Dawkins or David Bentley Hart dare to debate me.
