Heißer Blitz! Scientists: God Probably Invisible!

Although revved up to a measly 7 trillion electron volts (half what $10 billion is supposed to have bought), the Geneva-based Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest particle smasher, will nonetheless be attempting this year to scare up that elusive “God Particle”, aka The Higgs Boson.

The idea is to watch a couple of protons collide at the speed of light like opposing Porsches on the Autobahn and give us a taste of a whole “new class of unanticipated subatomic curiosities” or in layman’s terms the existence of extra dimensions. Given a little more juice (and money) the smasher will deliver a recreation of the Big Bang, or in layman’s terms the creation of the Universe.

Some scientists say that failing to find the Higgs Boson would “actually be more intriguing than finding it”. Nicholas Hadley, a member of the research team for the LHC's Compact Muon Solenoid detector, told reporters "If we don't see it, we will be very excited, because it means that there's something very brand-new.”

So there you have it. I don’t know about you but, for me, failing to find my glasses is not more intriguing than finding them. Give me $10 billion and my glasses back and I’ll pretty much confirm that God is invisible.

Let’s not jump onto theological bandwagons so quickly. Trying to figure out whether it took 14 or 1000 trillion electron volts to create the Universe is an enlightened pursuit, something that humans have the capacity to do when they are not fighting and blowing themselves up, starving, dying, begging for spare change, or exploiting those who are starving, dying, and begging for spare change. I don’t know how many trillions of electron volts it will take to sneak up on human faith. That of course doesn’t really con-CERN our plucky scientists. They’re hunting for God. We all know faith exists among the faithful.

Dr. C.G. Jung, the great 20th century psychoanalyst, founder of analytic psychology, and considered the first modern psychologist to state that the human psyche is "by nature religious", was once asked by a reporter whether he believed in God. His answer was “I have known Him”.

I think that’s a pretty good answer. It suggests that our friends in Switzerland are just trying to get a peek and just know God for a trillionth of a second, even if invisibility is their measure.

All I can say is that some of us have known him for longer than that.

For the inspiring article about what the LHC is up to these days, take a look at http://tinyurl.com/5s229ca