The Pursuit of Parsimony [Pt.1]

[re]Genesis (TAoF.00)

The Word[less]

The primordial theater: A wordless prologue to our existence that echoes in every creation story humans continue to rewrite and retell. Whether whispered in Genesis or theorized by Nobel Peace Prize winners, humans try to define the unknowable moment when suddenly there was possibility. Our stories and answers groping toward the same impossible truth: something emerged from nothing, and WE weren't there to witness it. And yet, from this chaos, an origin story begins. Not one we wholly understand, but one we keep returning to. Today, theoretical astrophysics is trapped in the same theological habits that define religious cosmology.

What does this mean?

Scientists continue to pursue elegant narratives over research accompanied by rigorous evidence, prioritizing aesthetic simplicity over empirical evidence, which has legitimized untestable metaphysical speculation as hard research. By these standards, theoretical astrophysics becomes a fancy way to say God. The cosmic microwave background is no longer just a metric; the static transforms into a hissing lullaby remnant of creation's primal shout. Are these the mathematical words of faith? If science starts behaving like myth, how much closer can you get to theology?

There are more theories of everything than ever, and still, scientists are deep in the flood of uncertainty. And where there is uncertainty, faith is born. Faith fuels theories that lack math, logic, and experimentation, and I'm increasingly blown away by the large amounts of meritless research that gets published (probably written with AI).

When faced with uncertainty, some scientists like Rupert Sheldrake jump to panpsychist theories of atomic consciousness or some true, measurable higher power. While disputing these claims may be challenging due to a lack of evidence on both sides, we are suddenly expected to kneel at the pew with no idea what to say or when to stand, when to touch my face, my chest, my left shoulder, then my right.

I am no expert in theoretical astrophysics or, for what it's worth, any physics. Although I am intensely interested in the subject, I don't claim to fully understand what I read when I read it. Still, through my love of learning and reading what I don't understand, I feel more and more that the authors of these theories and claims are in the same boat, moving backward from scientists to natural philosophers. Each theorist with a slightly opposing view reminds me of being in freshman religion class at Jesuit High School.

Unlike 99% of my classmates, I wasn't (and still am not) Catholic. For the 99% Cathiolic kids i'd say 100% of them had no clue what a Jesuit was—so it took the class by surprise when my teacher Mr.Mulè, a Jesuit priest, made clear to the class that Jesuits do not consider the Bible to be a factual recounting of historical events but rather a book that outlines how to be the ideal man. The class was shocked. I was relieved. He said that Jesuits believe in science and evolution, a seemingly controversial point that the 99% fixated on. One classmate (I forget his name, probably something gospel-centric, Mark/Luke/John/Matthew, probably John) asked, "So evolution is real"?

At the time, my 14-year-old brain couldn't believe this was a question, "John" asked. I had no religious exposure until now; weirdly, I felt mature, like I knew some secret the other kids didn't. Santa Claus didn't exist, and my classmates around me still expected some otherworldly invisible ritual to take place, so their childish experience would be upheld. Presents lining the tree, half-eaten cookies, and the milk glass, empty.

The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I've become grateful for my religious experiences and the exposure to religious people. Ironically, the Jesuits taught me the paradox of faith. Once we were shown a four-quadrant graph meant to pinpoint your likelihood of going to heaven based on a pseudo-scientific belief in God metric. How much do you believe in God? And based on that belief, you will or will not go to heaven, or you could end up in purgatory. The goal was to convince kids that by saying God doesn't exist, God wouldn't be there for you, and heaven's doors would shut for you. However, if you have never questioned the existence of God or thought about a life without God, those holy doors would be open. After this lesson, I asked Mr.Mulè if I would go to heaven as someone who doesn't believe in God, because based on the graph we just looked at in class, I was certainly going to hell, or at least I thought I would.

I will never forget his response because, keep in mind this is my first day of religion class, he said something like "No, of course you will not go to hell. Never say you don't believe in God, stay open to God, and your Faith in God will grow". I kind of just agreed and walked off. Now I realize how impactful these vague theological teachings were. I don't believe in God, but I don't dismiss God. I've cheekily prayed in dark, desperate times for some reason that I have no way of explaining. Some irrational, almost trauma response to being told that you shouldn't close doors to the unknown just because YOU don't know.

They believe in the ambiguity of God. Ambiguity = Faith

Atom (pronounced A-dam) (TAoF.01)

Commonly, the beginning of time is known as the Big Bang, a theoretical event proposed by Georges Lemaître (1894-1966) in 1927. Lemaître, a Catholic priest and physicist, was obsessed with Einstein's theory of general relativity. After earning his PhD at the Catholic University of Louvain in 1920 and completing postdoctoral work at Cambridge and MIT, Lemaître returned to Louvain, where he developed his expanding universe theory in the mid-1920s (later in his career, Lemaître rose to monsignor, but his groundbreaking cosmological work predated this ecclesiastical honor). With no way to prove the universe's constant expansion, Lemaître waited two years until Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies were moving away from Earth at high speeds, a speed now known as "Hubble's Constant". Lemaître used this discovery as evidence to support his theory, and many scientists quickly agreed.

Lemaître then took his theory one step further; he claimed that if all galaxies move away from Earth, there must be a start, or an explosion point containing the "primordial atom" that once held the entire universe (God). The Big Bang represented a beautiful moment of improbable and yet possible creation. A scientific answer for the unknown wrapped up with a bow. Unlike Lemaître, Einstein believed a universe built on probability felt too much like chaos masquerading as order. When Lemaître first presented his 1927 paper proposing an expanding universe, Einstein disagreed strongly with the physical interpretation, saying it was "abominable" (Lambert). A major point of contention between the two was the similarity to theological singular points of creation, which to Eistien seemed highly improbable. In 2025, physicists increasingly admit that Einstein might have been onto something. The Big Bang has lost its accepted narrative and become a probable, repeatable, most likely repeated already, event. This tension between the rational and the religious that Einstein embodied remains unresolved and metastasized through the field. A desert wanderer finds the mirage of fresh water that tastes like terminal dehydration.

Quantum entanglement is "the idea that particles of the same origin, which were once connected, always stay connected" (NASA, 2025). Einstein did not like this phenomenon, calling it "spooky" since it disagreed with a core tenet of his theory of special relativity that nothing can move faster than the speed of light. Entangled particles can have the same origin point, but stay connected no matter when or where in time and space they separate. Einstein's "spooky" description is observationally accurate; to his knowledge and experience, nothing could explain how something could move faster than the speed of light. Is it moving faster than the speed of light?

Scientists are still working on the measurement problem. We know that entangled particles can be measured only once the wave function collapses (Hossenfelder, 2020), like the reaffirmation of faith through mundane miracles and natural phenomena that can only be measured by the observer with faith. Some quantum-theological phenomenon occurs when you need God the most. In The Emperor's New Mind, Roger Penrose explains determinism in quantum physics, the idea that everything since the Big Bang has been encoded and pre-determined from that holy point. Scientific Calvinism.

In a letter to Ernst Strauss, Eisnstien asked, "What I'm really interested in is whether God could have made the world in a different way" (Kuznetosov, B. G., 1977).

How does science rely on faith?

Faith requires the unknown, and often, scientific theories become truth-fact, sweeping assumptions, and unproven math acting like holy texts. With a deep connection to the Catholic Church, Lemaître's theory feels like a direct rip of Genesis, an explainable starting point with a story, meaning, and most importantly, US. The paradox of beginnings is defining what came before, and if God doesn't play dice with the universe, does he play blackjack?

God probably gets embarrassingly drunk while playing poker or craps at the "cosmocino," losing primordial chips without a care in the world–a gambling addict with nothing to lose, constantly rerolling with faith that eventually he might land triple sixes, but what magic ritual will God perform to ensure the predestined outcome of each dice roll? We can't find the cosmic casino, even with NASA's James Webb Telescope (JWST), which has helped scientists learn more about our beginnings in the last five years than in the previous thirty. Learn more = uncover new unknowns and ask new questions.

Scientists expected the early universe to be chaotic, sparse, and immature. Instead, JWST found well-formed galaxies where only gas and remnants from the Big Bang were supposed to be. These findings forced the hand of existing cosmological models, forcing theorists to return to the drawing board. What does that tell us? We hoped the universe looked a certain way and fit our equations, but we were wrong. How could fully developed galaxies form so quickly after the Big Bang? Galaxies at the edge of the observable universe are known as Little Red Dots because, through JWST, they appear as tiny red dots made up of dust and gas, glowing red due to the red-shifted light, with wavelengths stretched thin, they appear red. These small galaxies defy our understanding of planet formation, galaxy formation, and the start of our universe. But scientists rewrite the scripture instead of abandoning the search for definitions and theories of everything. Adjust the constants. Tweak the models. Revising becomes a liturgy masking a simple truth: We (they (the scientists)) do not know that much.

We will always continue to alter the math, changing our cosmological and theological theories about our fantastical beginning, not because we know, but because we have faith that beauty equals truth. And why? Because, like religion, science craves parsimony. Humans want the simplest story to be true. We want one neat god. One bang. One theory of everything. It is not about what is right. Theories of everything rely on what is narratively irresistible to the theorist. JWST didn't just show us new (old) galaxies. It showed us our assumptions stretched thin.

Our Faith becomes redshifted.

When science meets surprise, it does not collapse. Instead, science contorts, re-ritualizes, and survives through faith in ambiguity.