As late as the nineteenth century, it still seemed reasonable to believe in God. People looked at the world around them and thought, “I can’t see how the universe and life, in all their complexity, could have come about naturally.” So, they concluded that those things must have come about supernaturally. But the fact that you do not understand something does not imply that it cannot be understood.
Today’s physicists and cosmologists have shown that no laws of physics were violated—no miracle was required—to produce the universe. The laws themselves look just as they should look if they came from nothing. Similarly, biologists, beginning with Darwin, along with modern-day computer scientists, have shown how easily complexity can arise, without design, from simplicity.
Of course, this is not what the many people who still talk to their invisible friend want to hear. Currently, science is under heavy attack in the public arena because of its unwelcome message, and scientists are struggling to defend themselves.
But, barring a new Dark Age in which science is removed from the schools and its books and journals burned, the empirical fact that there is no need for God is bound to seep into common knowledge. The world will remain scary, but we will grow up and learn to grapple with our fears like adults—realistically, without the expectation of help from some imaginary realm.











Max