a brilliant statement from angels and demons

yeah, this is a long one...but i felt led to post it. so i hope it touches you as it has me.

i'm reading angles and demons by dan brown. the prequel to the davinci code. and it's been a great read, as was the davinci code. though you need to be in constant detection mode trying to weed out the fact from fiction, but it's been a fun read. on sunday i ran across the below statement and was blown away. i don't believe in the entire go, but i think it's hits so many caveats to the whole faith vs. atheist debate, i had to post it.

here's the background...a huge bomb was stolen from a huge science research facility by the illuminati and hidden under vatican city, set to implode the entire city at midnight. 4 top cardinals have been kidnapped and three have now been murdered. the camerlengo (the replacement to the pope until a new pope has been chosen) addressed the media with this statement.

'....you have won the war. the wheels have been in motion for a long time, your victory has been inevitable. never before has it been so obvious as it is at this moment. science is the new god.

medicine, electronic communications, space travel...these are the miracles about which we now ell our children. these are the miracles we herald as proof that science will bring the answers. the ancient stories of immaculate conception, burning bushes and the parting seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle. we concede.

but science's victory has cost every one of us. and it has cost us deeply.

science may have alleviated the miseries of disease and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. the complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. science proclaims that planet earth and it's inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. a cosmic accident. even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. we are bombarded with violence, division, fracture and betrayal. skepticism has become a virtue. cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? science shatters God's world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest for meaning...and all it finds is more questions.

the ancient war between science and was is over. you have won. but you have not won fairly. you have not won by providing answer. you have won by so radically reorienting society that the truths we once saw as signpost now seem inapplicable. religion cannot keep up. scientific growth is exponential. it seeds on itself like a virus. every new breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs.. mankind took thousands of year to progress from the wheel to the car. yet only decades from the car into space. now we measure scientific progress in weeks. we are spinning out of control. the rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void. we cry out for meaning. and believe me, we do cry out. we see ufo's, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body experiences, mindquests-all these eccentric ideas have a scientific veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. they are the desperate cry of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, cripples by it's own enlightenment and it's inability to accept meaning in anything removed from technology.

science, you say, will save us. science, i say, has destroyed us. since the days of galileo, the church has tried to slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means, but always with benevolent intention. even so, the temptations are too great for man to resist. i warn you, look around yourselves. the promises of science have not been kept. promises of efficiency and simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. we are a fractured and frantic species...moving down a path of destruction.

who is this god of science? who is the god who offers his people power but no moral framework to tell you how to use that power? what kind of god gives a child fire but does not warn the child of it's dangers? the language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad. science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reactions, and yet they contain no chapter asking us if it's a good or bad idea.

To science, i say this. the church is tired. we are exhausted from trying to be your signposts. our resources are drying up from our campaign to be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest from smaller chips and larger profits. we ask not why you will not govern yourselves, but how can you? your world moves so fast that if you stop for an instant to consider the implications of your actions, someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. so you move on. you proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the pop who travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. you clone living creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider moral implications of our actions. you encourage people to interact on phones, video screens and computers, but it is the church who opens it's doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do.

and all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. but who is more ignorant? the man who cannot define lightening, or the man who does not respect it's awesome power? the church is reaching out to you. reaching out to everyone. and yet the more we reach, the more you push away. show me proof there is a God, you say. i say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not be a God. you ask me what does God look like. I say, where did that question come from? the answers are one in the same. do you not see God in your science? how can your miss Him? you proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God's hand in this? is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from the deck of billions? have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?

whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this. when we as a species abandon our trust in the power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. faith...all faiths...are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable....with faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves and to a higher truth. religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. if the outside world could see this church as i do...looking beyond the rituals of these walls...they would see a modern miracle..a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.

are we obsolete? are these men dinosaurs? am i? does the world really need a voice for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? do we really need souls like these who, though imperfect, spend their lives imploring each of us to read the signposts of morality and not lose our way?

tonight we are perched on a precipice, none of us can afford to be apathetic. whether you see this evil as satan, corruption or immorality...the dark force is alive and growing every day. do not ignore it. the force though mighty, is not invincible. goodness can prevail. listen to your hearts. listen to God. together we can step back from this abyss.'