Even the great Einstein looked for miracles
NICK Canning (Write Back, February 14) slams all religions as nonsense. He states that any “facts” that are “given to the seer by God” are worthless. This is because they cannot be tested by scientific methods.
He denigrates all religions pointing to actual “strange beliefs which have been held to the point of death by torture which, to a non-believer, seem as madness”.
Nick plays heavily on the distinction between science and religion; religion claims to be fixed, he says, religious truths are “true for all time”.
Science is open to change, as technological advances ever increase the accuracy of measurement of conditions under examination. Scientists are, therefore, beyond criticism, since they have the ever-ready excuse that their horrendous blunders are merely “provisional and subject to correction”.
The content of his letter implies that all religions today are as bad as the Spanish Inquisition in times past; this is akin to Richard Dawkins’s condemnation of all religions, citing the slaughter of 3,000 innocents of the infamous 9/11.
There is no mention of the current disastrous consequences of scientific advances: eg the atom bomb, Chernobyl, Fukushima, the poisoning of our oceans with plastic particles.
Nick cannot conveniently separate the religious from scientists, eg I take it he regards miracles as nonsense, yet one of the greatest scientists, Albert Einstein, wrote: “There are two ways to see the world, either you can expect nothing to be a miracle or you can expect everything to be a miracle.” (Einstein favoured the latter.)
Nikola Tesla, also a scientific genius, the inventor of radio and alternating current, wrote: “So astounding are the facts in this connection that it would seem as though the Creator himself had electrically designed this planet.”
Acceptance of the existence of the atom is fundamental to the sciences of physics and chemistry. But how do we know the atom exists? The Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg wrote: “Atoms, or elementary particles, themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities, or possibilities, rather than one of things or facts.”
BOB GRANVILLE Newtownabbey, Co Antrim
First, Huawei Chinese telecommunications are able to bid for the sensitive 5G contract, with concerns about potential spying, and now the proposed HS2 rail link to Birmingham.
The reckless way that such key assets are sold off is in marked contrast to France, Germany and the USA, who determinedly protect such assets.
This raises very serious questions. Questions like: who paid for Boris Johnson’s £15,000 festive vacation on an exclusive private island in the Caribbean?
No wonder the Prime Minister is desperate to avoid scrutiny and probing interviews and is so hostile towards the media.
ANDREW MILROY By email