I’m a complete and utter fan of The Science Channel’s series Through The Wormhole hosted by Morgan Freeman. The entire way they present their material is completely engrossing to me and Morgan Freeman is the perfect host. The same way that Jack Palance (Ripley’s Believe It Or Not), Carl Sagan (Cosmos), and Leonard Nimoy (In Search Of) completely became their shows, is how Morgan Freeman has become.
The topics they tackle are sometimes controversial (“Is There a Superior Race”), sometimes mind blowing (“Is Time Travel Possible”), sometimes educational (“Can we break the speed of light“), and other times just everything rolled into one (“Did We Invent God”).
It was that episode, Did We Invent God, where my conservative Christian neighbor (aka “brutha from another mutha”) happened to be visiting. We stopped talking about SEC vs. Big 10 football and started watching. Here is a synopsis of the episode:
Did God invent humanity? Or did we invent God? Pioneering scientists are trekking across new frontiers of neuroscience that may at last provide an answer to this ancient mystery. Neuroscientists are recreating out of body experiences in virtual reality laboratories to uncover what happens to the brain during profoundly spiritual journeys.
Yet, most of us do not need to leave our bodies to sense the divine. Psychologists are working to figure out why we sense a hidden supernatural plane in the world around us. Their work suggests that belief in the spiritual takes hold a young age, never leaves us, and is essential to how our highly developed brains see the world.
This supernatural sense might be something more than just a byproduct of an intelligent mind, because a groundbreaking experiment with chimpanzees suggests that belief in God is unique to humans.
But what causes some to see the hand of God in humanity and the world around us, where others see randomness and chance? One psychologist believes she knows why, because her work is showing that our emotional states physically change how we see patterns of events in the world.Our experience of God may be exclusively confined to our brains. But since our brains are where we experience reality, does imagining God make God real? One neuroscientist is trying to find the answer by peering into the human mind, and seeing what God really looks like!
At the end of the episode, mind you we did not even speak to each other while watching the entire episode, my neighbor looked at me and said:
That makes me love God even more. Great and educational television.
I asked him why does this episode make you love God more? The entire point of view is from scientists. His reply:
Man, even they saw something you see? There is something there that many of us feel brother. They starting to prove it scientifically. This is awesome!
I’m not going to focus on that or the actual ideas brought up in the episode. I was struck at how this episode affected my conservative Christian friend. He was positively giddy. Kept saying over and over “Science is seeing something!”. My friend’s reaction and the fact he is still talking about it a week later proves to me that Through The Wormhole has found some magic. Magic that many people are seeing and feeling as well. Like it or not, it is compelling television that gets you thinking. Whether you want to or not.
I’m not complex. Don’t have time for all that. And all that complex stuff bad for the stomach. Just color me simple and plain with a twist.