Are We Dead Yet?

Apparently not.  Once again, it seems, the prophets of imminent doom have proven to be mistaken.  Early this morning, just over the French border into Switzerland, scientists at CERN switched on their Large Hadron Collider to begin the search for the Higgs boson.  

Preliminary reports indicate that the Earth has not yet been swallowed by a black hole.  Although -- and this is true -- we heard something on the radio about a dog which began barking strangely in the field above the underground collider.

In any case, we are delighted that, in this singular case, the doomsayers were actual scientists, rather than religious fanatics.  It had to happen once, right?  And religious fanatics, for their part, seem strangely uninterested in the LHC project, despite the frequent (and so-off-base-it-makes-you-laugh) description of the Higgs boson as "the god particle."  One senses that, as we approach the bicentennial of Darwin's birth, they are simply feeling overwhelmed.  They are still pissing about evolution even as scientists get closer to a vision of the Big Bang. The actual mysteries and majesties of nature are so vast and complex that those who insist upon a reductionist fantasy world simply cannot keep up.

Perversely, the defeat of the fanatic God-shouters is a victory for God, at least in the eyes of those of us (and we are, ahem, legion) who believe that the truths of the Christian faith do not depend upon a simple-minded reading of Scripture, and that the natural world provides a spectacular testimony to God's wisdom, power and providence.