# Merry Christmas to the apparition of the Higgs boson God particle



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

When people turn their heads either towards the uttermost outer space or to the innermost inner space, sooner or later somebody will start about God. Mostly this happens in the period leading up to Christmas. This God of course is the cold & merciless deadish God of Spinoza. But why? Why do scientists still need this religious aura? Is it purely for the money, for financing their scientific projects? Or is it because the innermost, most hidden drive of their searchings still happens to be religiously motivated: they are searching for the Holy Grail & the Lost Ark...


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I believe the only one who actually refers to it as the "god particle" is the media who need a stupid spin to make physics palatable to the public. Scientists actually originally referred to it as the "goddamn particle", but that would not have been so palatable to our sensitive Christian public.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Couchie said:


> I believe the only one who actually refers to it as the "god particle" is the media who need a stupid spin to make physics palatable to the public. .


I think it was actually Leon Lederman - or, more likely, his publisher - this book is from 1998:












TxllxT said:


> ... Why do scientists still need this religious aura? ...


There are many scientists who are religious and can quite happily live with both thought systems; there are many scientists who aren't religious and therefore live happily with just one. There are very few (though there must be one or two, I am sure) who need the patina of religion to add something they must feel is otherwise lacking.

As to the motives of the last group, it could be 
(a) they secretly want to be religious but have one or more, past or present, pressures which force them to deny it
(b) they believe that, by ading a religious spin, they will "build a bridge" between two communities they see as being at odds (but actually aren't, or at least don't have to be, I believe)
(c) they believe there is something missing form their theory, or something inadequately explained by it, whixh requires a grander cause
(d) they are deliberately being provocative
(e) they want to sell books, media copy, appear on tv, in the papers etc etc


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

I was just looking on BBC's Newsnight and counting the 'Holy Grail's and 'excitement' in & around CERN. Enthusiasm has _en thou_, 'in God' inside. Quite funny to see those extremist factfinders of physics being converted...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Having worked with Lederman and hundreds of particle physicists, I can say that in my experience God was almost never discussed in relation to physics or science. I was aware of only one particle physicist who was religious (although, of course, I did not know everyone's religious views and there probably were others I knew who believed in God). 

There is a fascinating book, The Physics of Immortality, by the theorist, Frank Tipler. The book suggests that new physics theories give great support to the truth of Christianity. There are long appendices with page after page of quantum cosmology. I did know one Christian who read the book, and he somehow viewed it favorably. The problem was that the book was very explicit about how physics and Christianity "matched". Some examples:

- Being resurrected into Heaven was equivalent to computers simulating every possible consciousness. We will all be in Heaven eventually because our consciousness will exist as a simulation at the end of time. Tipler made it clear that in order for that to happen, sentient beings had to take the right steps to allow such computers to exist. 

- God was defined as a quantum state existing at the "end of time". This quantum state is very technical and most definitely does not exist now.

I doubt more than a small few Christians believe Tipler's views remotely match their own.

I don't know why Lederman used that title since the Higgs particle (the so called God particle) is nowhere near special enough to deserve such a designation. It simply (if that's the right term) gives mass to the particles that have mass. A true God-like particle would have to do much more. But that's just my opinion.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> Having worked with Lederman and hundreds of particle physicists, I can say that in my experience God was almost never discussed in relation to physics or science. I was aware of only one particle physicist who was religious (although, of course, I did not know everyone's religious views and there probably were others I knew who believed in God).
> 
> There is a fascinating book, The Physics of Immortality, by the theorist, Frank Tipler. The book suggests that new physics theories give great support to the truth of Christianity. There are long appendices with page after page of quantum cosmology. I did know one Christian who read the book, and he somehow viewed it favorably. The problem was that the book was very explicit about how physics and Christianity "matched". Some examples:
> 
> ...


I totally agree with this.


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