The Scientific Revolution emerged at a time when religion maintained an oppressive grasp over the minds of the day. Great minds like Isaac Newton lived in fear that his discoveries in scientific philosophy would bring down the weight of an inquisition upon his head.

Perhaps he had good reason to worry. His laws of mechanics helped promote the idea that the universe may simply be a gigantic machine. In that case, it became possible to see a machine-like universe running itself without the need for the God of religion to be running things.

Materialists loved the idea. A God in heaven was no longer needed to run the universe. Freed from the oppressing idea that a judgmental God is watching your every move, they felt liberated, almost like wild, rebellious schoolchildren who suddenly find they “don’t need Teachur no more!”

Such a reaction is understandable. After all, they had lived under an image of God as a stern old man with a personality more dour than their local bishop.

The theory of the universe as a self-running machine seemed fine for inanimate objects, but it had problems when applied to living things, especially human beings.

After all, there was that unpredictable attribute of humans called free will. How automated can that be? I have yet to witness a machine have a mood swing and exercise its free will to go off in a huff.

There are people today who think that, because computers can add two and two together really quickly, they will soon be able to do everything better than humans. Yeah… right!

How about imagination? Can a computer imagine its own possibilities?

Can it Feel the Fear and do it anyway?

How about creativity? What can a computer create that is better than anything that has ever been done before. The last time I looked, programming is based on the past. It can’t create anything new, as in clever and original.

How about curiosity? Where does that come into the picture of God Not In The Machine? Does a computer yearn to discover why it was created and what its true mission in life may be? I think not.

This, then, is science’s biggest blunder. In a juvenile quest to eliminate anything bigger or better than their fragile egos, some people ignore the obvious question.

“If the universe is a giant machine, then who is its designer and creator?”

Machines do not build themselves.

Science will progress by studying the brilliant work of the Grand Engineer, not by ignoring it.