“I will be what I will be.”
--God to Moses at the Burning Bush
The announcement recently that the Higgs Boson particle, the
building block of reality, has been empirically verified seems to have come and
gone with a giant “ho-hum”.
I wonder if not for some people labeling it the “God Particle” would we
have even cared or noticed that much.
Instead of pursuing the wonder and awe that the entire
universe is literally connected and interconnected by a common particle, and then
exploring the implications and possibilities for reconciliation between people
and nature, we choose to remain embroiled in our self-created illusions of
division and strife.
Even the naming of the particle the “God Particle” seems to
be just another human attempt to single out and define in religious terms what
cannot be defined or explained.
Instead of engaging and listening to science as a means of experiencing
the reality we call God, some folks are using science to say, “We told you so.”
Personally I can’t help but wonder if still again a major
revelation is occurring from unexpected places opening up new understandings of
our place, meaning, and purpose in Creation, and we immediately begin to put it
into our various boxes. In a way I
even do so as I write these words.
To resist defining further I ask a simple question, “Are not
all particles “God Particles?”
The term "God Particle" came from the book "The God Particle / If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?," by Leon Lederman & Dick Teresi (first published in 1993 and reissued in 2006), which is in the bibliography of my free ebook on comparative mysticism.
ReplyDeleteIn his Preface Dr. Lederman, a Nobel laureate in physics, wrote:
Now as for the title, The God Particle, my coauthor, Dick Teresi, has agreed to accept the blame. I mentioned the phrase as a joke once in a speech, and he remembered it and used it as the working title of the book. "Don't worry," he said, "no publisher ever uses the working title on the final book." The title ended up offending two groups: 1) those who believe in God and 2) those who do not. We were warmly received by those in the middle.