Does a scientist believe in God?

When I was a third-grader, I discovered the idea that humans will return from dead at the end of the world and be judged for what they did on earth. That was a very fresh, fascinating concept! I could't wait to share this news with my mean gang of third-graders. I said to them 'Do you know that dead people come out of the grave after 1000 years (which pretty much sounded to me like the day the world ends) and be judged for what they did?!?'. The witty third-graders were not impressed. One of them said out loud 'Liar!, Liar! If that is true why didn't Emperor Menelik come out of the grave yet??'. That was a tough question, and the end of my third grade hearsay. At fourth grade, I realized that Emperor Menelik was dead for only 8 decades and I could totally have won that third grade argument. I guess I was a year late by then.

Since those early days of my encounter with science and religion, it has been very tough for me to separate my belief in God and what science says about him. Earlier in my life, I have been very religious and spiritual. I could easily have attributed every scientific knowledge as the design of God. I was religious and I was scientific. Or so I thought, until a storm of colluding ideas started perturbing my young mind. During my teen years, I had a discussion with a good friend of mine who was experiencing similar storms in his mind. But he seemed to have found some rest from this storm in what he called 'the realization', that there are multiple ways for mankind to discover and understand the universe: the scientific method, spirituality/religion, and the intuition of life or what he called 'psychology'.

This idea was stuck in me for years, but so was the storm. Later, as my scientific muscles grew stronger, I started asking myself even more uncomfortable questions. Meanwhile, my global sociopolitical awareness and personal life experience exploded in a manner I had never anticipated. The result was that I had to painfully discard some of my dearly held religious views. I came to understand religion as a sociopolitical tool that bases on an innate human trait for transcendence, and religious books as beautiful works of fiction. Yet, as every fiction draws from real life, so are these doctrines based on certain gem of truth in our (human) universe. As a matter of fact, some of the most uplifting and inspiring ideas that crossed my mind were associated with one or more of these religious books. It may be my personal bias, but I found deep intimate connection with the universe through spirituality that is linked with different religious traditions. 

Science, on the other hand, is a method - by far the best one - employed by humans to understand the universe. And I love using it. But I am also well aware of its shortcomings, that as a work of humans, it is not as pure, objective, and enlightening as we wish it to be. As an outsider to the western world, I could see how modern scientific discourse is significantly influenced, and at time biased, by western culture and historical development. It even surprises me to see an almost religious dogmatism in science - the way research themes are chosen, communicated through publications, or assimilated to the general public. Fortunately, the dogma is ever shattered by new findings and ways of doing science... only to be replaced with newer ones.

Yes, I do satisfy my curiosity about nature by learning more through science. Yet I know  that the scientific method is as good as the kind of questions that one asks and the tools readily available to investigate them (not to mention availability of grant money). And each of us possess more questions than can be answered with the science of our day. I for one enjoy exploring some of these überfragen through other channels, including spiritual inspirations and religious traditions.

I think it is unlikely that there is a judgement day, heaven and hell, or getting saved by your favorite benevolent character. As a matter of fact, it is unlikely that there is a single answer to anything. I think the universe is much bigger and deeper than we possibly would ever be able to comprehend. The truth is we are limited - limited by this fragile body and a still-on-the-making primate brain, limited by our ignorance, limited by our arrogance, limited by the superiority and inferiority complex we possess towards multiple world views, limited by time and space... Perhaps we would understand the universe better as our bodies and societies evolve further.... Perhaps not. Whatever the case, I believe that the reality of this universe is simply too big to be captured by one single view of 'God' or method of investigation. So I try to learn from every fool :)