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| Pastor Larry and Secretary Sue Schmidt, 2012 |
From the age of 6 until I reached 16, I was a practicing
Lutheran, first in training in Sunday school and confirmation classes, then as
a full member of the church at 14. Around 16 years of age—that time of teenage
rebellion--I quit the church and organized religion in a tussle with senior
members of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Moorestown NJ. Since 4th
grade when I was given my first Bible, I read it every day, marking my readings
with notes. The nickels and quarters I earned from doing household chores went
into the collection plate on Sunday. What drove me away was not a sudden
disbelief in Jesus and God, but the surprise that Christians weren’t the people
that I thought they should be if they followed Jesus’ teaching. I was a naïve
youngster.
For the next decade I began and completed my training as a
scientist learning the ropes in college, grad school, then as a postdoc at the
Geophysical Lab of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. I forgot about
Jesus, religion, God, and did not attend church services with the exception of
my grandfathers’ funerals. I was learning about the origin of the universe,
evolution, the origin of life, and the beauty of biochemistry.
The Bible was no longer relevant. As the years passed, I
harbored a grudge against the Lutheran church. I was angry with them. When my
sister was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes about that time, my father gave up on
God because he couldn’t understand why a God who loved the world would inflict
such a disease on his pretty 12-year old daughter. The only religious person
left in our family was my mother.
As I grew more self-aware about the science I was involved
in, it became apparent that a significant bunch of Americans believed in a
strict interpretation of the Bible as it pertains to the origins of almost
everything. Lutherans believe in a liberal interpretation of the Bible, so it
never troubled me about the 6 days that God created everything. The story is
allegorical to me—a story, not real fact. And the idea of Adam and Eve as real
people never entered my mind as anything remotely real. I mean who would have
recorded their story?
At the Geophysical Lab, folks were nearly apolitical back in
the 1970s and 1980s. They were also largely neutral about religion. One of my
colleagues, Ed Hare, however was a standout (see the blog link below). He was
the son of early leaders of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. I learned years
after I’d first met him that he was specifically trained as a scientist in
order to prove the Earth was just 5,443 years old, not the millions or billions
scientists had figured out. His research on a novel dating method (i.e. amino
acid racemization) showed that human remains in North America were at least 10,000
years old. Shells found in sedimentary rocks in California’s beach terraces
were millions of years old. The Church was disappointed in his findings at
first, then gradually accepted them. There was no way the Bible could be seen
as a literal translation of how the Universe had started and evolved.
Amino acid racemization: https://isotopequeen.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-we-date-eggshell-amino-acid.html
When I became a leader in the Astrobiology movement in 2005,
we held a session at our annual meeting on Creationism that was led by Connie
Bertka, a Mars scientist I’d worked with at the Geophysical Lab, who had become
an ordained minister in her spare time. Pan Conrad, another astrobiology
colleague and one of the Babes of Science, followed in this path nearly 15
years later. Neither one lectured me about drinking alcohol, swearing, dancing,
or eating meat on Fridays. They just felt a strong connection to God, then
Jesus, and allowed this to send them in a direction towards religion. Did I
suspect they were no longer scientists? I did not.
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| Pan Conrad, now a minister, and Steelie |
The uproar of teaching evolution in public schools surprised
me. Even my own sister questioned the concept of evolution. How had our
educational system failed to teach students that science and religion need not
conflict with one another? I suspect it had to do with teachers who were not
convinced or had not enough knowledge about science’s more complicated
subjects. I was fortunate to have teachers in junior high and high school who
broadened my horizons.
In 9th grade at the age of 14, my world cultures
teacher took our class into Philadelphia to hear Professor Louis S. B. Leakey (https://leakeyfoundation.org/celebrating-louis-s-b-leakey/)
lecture on his findings of early man in Africa. It was my first academic
lecture and one I remember 50 some years later. Modern humans have been around
for more than 50,000 years. Their ancestors lived several million years before
evolving into the people we are today. In 10th grade, my world history
teacher taught us about all of the world’s major religions. It was eye opening to
learn that one of the 10 Commandments about only one God wasn’t part of most
people’s religion. Were these people right about who God is? Or were they dead
wrong?
By my forties, I realized that God was a very personal
choice. I still had no feeling that God existed, but I accepted anyone else’s
choice. I was able to tolerate attending church services to please my mother. A
few years earlier when my kids were born, their grandparents asked if the
children would be baptized. Chris and I said, “No.” Baptism means parents
promise to rear their kids as Christians, something I was not prepared to do.
Things changed when I met Larry Schmidt, the husband of our Lab’s secretary Sue
Schmidt. Larry was the pastor of a neighborhood Lutheran church. He and I
worked together holding memorial services for Tom Hoering and other Lab people
who passed away without a formal church affiliation.
I attended Christmas Eve services in his church after
wrapping up presents for the kids from “Santa”. On occasion, I felt the need to
listen to something other than a scientific seminar. He’d see me in the pew and
greet me after the service. One day, he called and asked if I wanted to re-join
the Lutheran church. I hesitated. But I gave it a shot attending classes for
about a month for adults re-engaging in religion. I decided, at the end, to
decline to join any religious organization. I was left with a new understanding
of the concept of Grace and the importance of Forgiveness, something that Jesus
and a loving God favored.
There was nothing in these classes that conflicted with my
calling as a scientist. Larry and I continued to collaborate with Lab
memorials. When Chris’s dad suffered his second Code Blue and we knew the end
was near, I called Larry. He came down to the hospital and we prayed. I was old
enough to know that praying wasn’t the simple thing I did as a 10 year old
asking God to bless me before bed. Chris’s dad died the next morning. Larry
came to our house when Chris’s sisters flew in to see him. I allowed myself to
let Grace overflow.
Today, we have religious wars in the Middle East. At home,
we have political wars with evangelical Christians taking strong stances
against non-religious things I am in favor of. Together with a President who
has their support and a distain for science, the conflict between religion and
science has come to the forefront especially as the COVID-19 virus pandemic
proceeds. The disrespect angers me and brings back those teenage year feelings
that although Christianity may not be the problem, Christians could be.
For some reason, religion is linked to how people view
climate change. I fail to understand how Jesus and God are confused with
changes in our Earth’s environment. This isn’t a blanket response of all
religions, of course. In fact, Pope
Francis has been a beacon in the religious community for his understanding of
the problem facing the world and mankind. His book “Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home” is a standout.
I used it as a textbook for a class I taught at UC Merced on
Sustainability and the Anthropocene—the geological era in which humans have put
their stamp on the world. I recommend it to anyone. I don’t believe in the most
of the tenants of the Catholic faith, but the humanist elements of this book
are strong.
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| Laudato si means Praise be to you! |
Some people have noted that I’m more spiritual these days,
as I deal with the serious neurological disease ALS. I’ve got to turn to faith
in people, inner strength, and hope that there is a greater purpose in life.
It’s not religion, but it is faith. If I do pray for those in my life who need
it—my mother, my children and family, anyone who is suffering—I’m praying to
hope that what ever their belief system, they will be given peace and
understanding.
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