Does God Exist?

Brandon Martin at Daily Uprising has this video posted of a commercial aimed to promote the study of the work of serious theologians. This was produced by the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, Ministry of Education and Science. The headline of the campaign, religion is knowledge, too, bringing religion back to school:



I believe Snopes declares the interaction between young Einstein and a professor to be fiction. In truth they merely point out there is no evidence the exchange ever took place, which hardly makes it fiction. Einstein did struggle with faith and was at times agnostic. There is some evidence that his agnostic leanings were at the root of his dismissal of the findings of the father of "Big Bang" theory Monsignor Georges LeMaitre. The following exchange is documented to have taken place:

A Belgium Catholic priest, Father George Lemaitre, using both science and religion, came up with a solution (the universe was expanding from a moment of creation) that eliminated the need for Einstein’s ‘cosmological constant’. The priest told Einstein about it at a 1927 physics conference in Brussels but Einstein said “Your calculations are correct, but your grasp of physics is abominable.” By 1929 the astronomer Edwin Hubble at Mount Wilson proved that the universe was indeed expanding. “In 1931 Einstein visited Hubble at his Mount Wilson Observatory in California, and on Feb. 3, he admitted publicly ...that he had been wrong...and that Lemaitre ...had been right.”1 Einstein said it was the biggest blunder of his career. In 1933 in California after Fr. Lemaitre gave his lecture, Einstein stood and applauded and said, “This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened.” 2

As one might expect, LeMaitre made some of the best arguments for the natural relationship between faith and reason.

Removing all discussion of religious texts from public schools deprives students from understanding the origin of some of the most often repeated phrases in our culture. Here are a few:

* "A law unto themselves" Romans 2:14
* "A house divided" Matthew 12:25, Luke 11:17
* "A man after his own heart" 1 Samuel 13:14
* "Apple of my eye" Deuteronomy 2:10, Zechariah 2:8
* "At my wit's end" Psalm 107:27
* "Blind leading the blind" Matthew 15:14, Luke 6:39
* "By the skin of our teeth" Job 19:20
* "Can a leopard change his spots?" Jeremiah 13:23
* "Don't cast your pearls before swine" Matthew 7:6
* "Drop in the bucket" Isaiah 40:15
* "Dust of the earth" Genesis 13:16
* "Eat, drink, and be merry" Ecclesiastes 8:15
* "Eye for an eye" Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, Deuteronomy 19:21 Matthew 5:38
* "False prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing" Matthew 24:24, Mark 13:22
* "Fell on rocky ground" Matthew 13:5
* "Fight the good faith" 1 Timothy 6:12
* "Golden calf" Exodus 32
* "Good Samaritan" Luke 10:25-37
* "Hammer swords into plowshares" Isaiah 2:4
* "He gave up the ghost" Luke 23:46
* "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone" John 8:7
* "Handwriting on the wall" Daniel 5:5
* "How are the mighty fallen" 1 Samuel 1:19-27
* "Labor of love" 1 Thessalonians 1:3
* "Letter of the law" 2 Corinthians 3:6
* "Many are called, but few are chosen" Matthew 22:14
* "Man shall not live by bread alone" Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4
* "More blessed to give than to receive" Acts 20:35
* "My brother's keeper" Genesis 4:9
* "No peace for the wicked" Isaiah 48:22, Isaiah 57:21
* "Out of the mouths of babes" Psalm 8:2
* "Pride goes before a fall" Proverbs 16:19
* "Put your house in order" 2 Kings 20:1, Isaiah 38:1
* "Red sky at morning" Matthew 16:3
* "Salt of the earth" Matthew 5:13
* "Signs of the times" Matthew 16:3
* "Soft answer turns away wrath" Proverbs 15:1
* "Stood by the stuff" (a reference to troops that guarded supplies) 1 Samuel 25:13, 30:24)
* "Strait and narrow" Matthew 7:14
* "Suffer fools gladly" 2 Corinthians 11:19
* "Sweat of your brow" Genesis 3:19
* "The blind leading the blind" Matthew 15:14, Luke 6:39
* "The love of money is the root of all evil" 1 Timothy 6:10
* "The truth shall make you free" John 8:32
* "There's nothing new under the sun" Ecclesiastes 1:9
* "Thorn in the flesh" 2 Corinthians 12:7
* "To everything there is a season" Ecclesiastes 3:1
* "Twinkling of an eye" 1 Corinthians 15:52
* "Wars and rumors of wars" Matthew 24:26, Mark 13:7
* "Weighed in the balances and found wanting" Daniel 5:5
* "What is truth?" John 18:38
* "Where there is no vision, the people perish" Proverbs 29:18
Actually every time students learn about the Big Bang theory they are studying the work of a serious theologian which is why the argument seems all the more absurd. Think about it.