Chapter Content
Okay, so, wow, after all that studying, you know, pouring over science and religion for like, twenty years, just comparing everything I could think of, I finally came to a decision, yeah? It was a big one. Look, I learned so much from all the religions, and I really respect them all, but, ultimately, I went with the Christian worldview. And, honestly, the reasons I chose it way back then? They still hold up today.
For me, it boiled down to two things, basically. One, the Christian worldview, it just...it answered my questions the best. Not *all* of them, mind you, because no worldview can do that. Not even science, you know? It's just impossible.
And two, and this is huge for me, the Christian worldview meshed really well with the scientific worldview. It's like, it was easy for me to be both a scientist *and* a Christian. Now, does that mean they agree on everything? Absolutely not! You bet there are disagreements, and, well, the ones that get all the attention, those are usually the big ones. But, when you look at the really fundamental stuff, the two worldviews actually line up pretty nicely.
Think of it like, you know, my wife and I. We totally have our disagreements, and some of them, let me tell you, they can be *real* doozies. But, when it comes down to the core values, the stuff that really matters? We're completely on the same page.
So, yeah, I came to this conclusion, but I kind of kept it under wraps for a while. Why, you ask? Well, first, even though I was already a public figure at that point, I was still, at heart, a total scientific monk. I really valued my privacy. Second, and this is a big one, being a scientist and a journalist, I saw objectivity as, like, this sacred thing. I worked really hard to keep a strong separation between my reporting and what I personally believed. And you know what? I still feel that way, by the way.
But then, there was this *one* morning, I think it was around 1997, that I'll never forget. I was at a table in the ABC News Times Square studio, with a bunch of experts from different fields, doing a live segment for "Good Morning America," GMA, you know? We were talking about the ethics of cloning.
So, a few months earlier, this British scientist, Sir Ian Wilmut, he had just shocked the world, right? He had done something that science always said was impossible: He cloned a mammal. Dolly the sheep. Using this technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer. They named her after Dolly Parton, the country singer, and she became just as famous, instantly.
I actually was the first American TV correspondent to interview Sir Ian Wilmut, and after that, I really followed the story closely. It was huge news, I mean, day after day, every major news outlet in the world was covering it. AP, BBC, you name it. Even the National Academy of Sciences, which is basically the Vatican of science in America, got involved. They held public forums to talk about the science and the ethics of what was happening.
And, in the middle of all this media craziness, I even managed to get into some underground groups that were promising to clone a human being. There was this one particularly, uh, *unique* cult called the Raelians. If any of these groups had actually pulled it off, it would have been historic on so many levels, scientifically, ethically, culturally.
Anyway, the GMA segment was coming to a close, the countdown clock was ticking down, getting ready to cut to commercial, and Charlie Gibson, the co-host, he asked me for my final thoughts, you know? And I blurted out something like, "Well, Charlie, I'm worried that Wilmut's cloning technique might be used to clone a human being one day. And that worries me not just as a scientist, but as a scientist who happens to believe in God."
And, instantly, I just froze. Like, *what* did I just say on national television?
I was so sure that people were going to call ABC News to complain. I thought I was going to lose all the fans I had worked so hard to get. And I knew my bosses would be furious that their science correspondent had just confessed to believing in God, yeah?
I was in a daze, I got up from my chair and started walking across the studio. And, you know what? Something incredible happened. Stagehands, cameramen, security guards, they were all coming up to me to shake my hand! They had been watching me on TV for years, and they just assumed I was an atheist, you know? Because I was a scientist. They were, like, totally shocked and thrilled to find out I actually believed in God.
I got back to my office, and my producer, Melissa Dunst, told me that the switchboard was flooded with calls about the cloning segment. I took a deep breath. I thought, "Here we go. This is the end."
But it wasn't! Melissa told me that almost all of the calls were really positive. People were so happy that I believed in God. She even said I was getting marriage proposals! Can you believe that?
So, fast forward a few years, and I left ABC News. I wanted to do other things, and, you know, become a dad. I had realized that being this jet-setting correspondent, while exciting, it really wasn't the best life for a family guy.
And one of the first things I did was write a book where I really went into this idea I had about spiritual intelligence, SQ. It was called "Can a Smart Person Believe in God?" And it was, like, my first try at putting into words what I had learned about science, atheism, and Christianity. At the end of the book, I even included the first SQ test ever.
I explained how SQ is this unique ability that humans have, it’s like a cognitive superpower. It's what lets you and me sense, even if it's not perfect, these profound truths and realities that you just can't see or prove or even imagine.
And at the time the book came out, it was, I think, 2004, medical science was just starting to really understand how important spirituality is to our well-being. They were actually finding real benefits, it was a strong rejection of the atheists who make fun of religion, you know?
I wrote about how the research showed that people with a high SQ, they tended to have lower risks of all sorts of things: high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, stroke, depression, suicide, drug abuse, even criminal behavior. And there was this *huge* study, it tracked over twenty thousand adults for ten years. And the results were just amazing. People who went to church at least once a week, they lived seven years longer than those who didn't go at all. For African Americans, the difference was even bigger, like fourteen years!
And you know what? Studies like that keep coming out, so there's really no doubt about it: Living a high-SQ lifestyle is incredibly good for your health. It's as good as, or even better than, eating healthy and exercising regularly.
In my book, I talk about SQ using this analogy of a 3D movie. Remember those old 3D movies where you had to wear the red and blue glasses? If you tried to watch the movie without the glasses, all the images on the screen looked blurry, right?
Well, that's kind of how the universe looks to every animal that doesn't have a spirit. Blurry and confusing. There's no depth to it, what you see is what you get. A deer never looks up at the night sky and wonders if there's a God, you know? It just sees stars.
And it's the same thing if you only use your IQ or only use your SQ. The universe, life, it just doesn't make sense. Everything seems a little confusing, it lacks meaning, it can even be depressing.
Your IQ and your SQ, they're supposed to work together, like the lenses of those 3D glasses. Think of your IQ as the red lens and your SQ as the blue lens.
When you look at the universe through both lenses, it's not blurry anymore. You start to see depth and meaning. You can see the universe in all its grandeur, both physical and spiritual.
You start to understand deeper truths, realities that are more fascinating than anything, truths and realities that help you make sense of everyday life and why you're here.
Christianity says that it's like getting a sneak peek of how things will be after you die when your spirit reunites with God. Then, you'll get to see the entire universe, everything in reality. You'll be able to understand it all because your spirit will see it through the eyes of God.
There's this passage in the New Testament that talks about it like this: "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."
You know, it's interesting, there was this survey, big one by Reuters/Ipsos. It found that something like eighty-two percent of people around the world believe that God, or gods, or some kind of supreme being exists. Only eighteen percent say that these things *don't* exist.
And that, to me, is proof of our SQ. It's proof that we are unique as a species. It's proof that we have this spiritual awareness.
Atheists, they often make fun of spiritual awareness, but, as you can see, they are the minority. I think, they're just in denial. But, more on that later.
One of the favorite arguments atheists like to use is what they call "the god of the gaps" theory. Basically, it says that any explanation that brings in God or anything supernatural, that's superstitious. That it can't compete with a real scientific explanation. And, as science knows more, atheists claim, we won't need to use God as an explanation anymore.
You know, this idea goes all the way back to the 1800s, with these positivist philosophers. They don't just love science, like I do. They kind of worship it, like I used to.
For positivists, science is their religion and it's how humanity will be saved. They think that, eventually, science will explain everything and all the other religions will just disappear.
This anthropologist, Anthony Wallace, he wrote this super influential book where he predicted that religion would become extinct and that people would stop believing in supernatural stuff because science would explain everything.
But if you believe that, if you believe in the "god of the gaps," you're ignoring what science has actually discovered about us as humans. You're basically saying that our religious feelings are a mistake, instead of being a unique and amazing part of being human.
The thing is, the evidence just doesn't back that up.
First of all, more people are joining religions, not less, even as science keeps advancing. There was a study that said that people with no religion are actually expected to *decrease* as a percentage of the world's population. That's pretty big.
Second, as science learns more, the universe is becoming *more* mysterious, not less. Especially when you look at modern physics.
Quantum mechanics, relativity, all that stuff, it's almost supernatural. The ideas about quarks and black holes and dark matter, it's just as strange as anything you'd find in religion.
So, in the past hundred years, modern physics hasn't made the world less mysterious. It's actually made us realize how incredibly mysterious the universe really is.
Even some atheists admit it. This neuroscientist, Sam Harris, he said that he thinks the universe is "not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we *can* suppose." He also said that atheists act like they're getting rid of mystery in the world, but that there are always going to be things that we just can't explain.
So, you know, the "god of the gaps" thing might turn out to be true one day, but I wouldn't bet on it. And I definitely wouldn't bet my life on it.
So, as you've seen, and you'll see even more, our religious awareness, our SQ, it's not a mistake. God isn't just some delusion.
If you look at the scientific evidence with an open mind, and with those 3D glasses on, it all fits together with the idea that there's a lot more to life and the universe than we can understand with just our IQ. And that the God of the Bible is real.
Okay, so, after I, you know, told the world about my faith on TV, my scientific-Christian worldview was really put to the test. And I did *not* see it coming.
It started when I got invited to visit the Titanic. Yeah, *the* Titanic. The ship that was supposed to be unsinkable, that's now sitting at the bottom of the ocean.
Honestly, I had mixed feelings about it. I was excited, of course, but also really scared because I have this huge fear of water.
I think I got it from my parents, bless their hearts. My mom hated the water, and I picked up on it as a kid. And then, one time, I was at the beach when I was, like, five. My dad and my uncle, they were great swimmers, they took me out into the deep water and started tossing me back and forth like a football. It was all fun, and I know I was safe, but it really freaked me out.
So, what was I going to do about the Titanic invitation? I hesitated, but then I said yes, and for two reasons, you know?
First, getting to be the first reporter to ever visit the Titanic, that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I just couldn't back out.
And second, I had already become known for covering dangerous and disastrous events. Let me give you a couple of examples.
So, there was this earthquake in San Francisco. It was a big one, caused a lot of damage. I was working at Good Morning America, and I flew out there to cover it.
When I got there, this geologist from the governor's office told me that they had found the spot where the earthquake started. It was in the mountains south of San Francisco, and there was this giant crack in the ground.
So, that night, I went out there with the geologist and my cameraman. My producer didn't want us to go, he thought it was too dangerous. But we drove for hours, past police checkpoints and landslides.
Finally, we found it. This huge crack in the ground. It was so dark, we had to use the headlights of our SUV to film it.
We got back to San Francisco, I dropped off the tape, and then rushed to my hotel to get ready for the show. It was close, but the footage and my commentary were so good that GMA started both of its hours with my report. That almost never happened.
Then, a couple of years later, I flew to Kuwait City to cover the Persian Gulf War. Before I left, I saw this report with Carl Sagan, my old professor. He said that the oil well fires in Kuwait were going to cause a nuclear winter. The smoke would block the sunlight and the Earth would get really cold, like what happened to the dinosaurs.
Now, Carl Sagan had become really famous and also really political. He had been trying to get the U.S. to get rid of its nuclear weapons, saying that a nuclear war would cause a nuclear winter.
I knew that what Sagan was saying about the oil fires was political, not scientific. The only winds strong enough to spread pollution around the world are high up in the atmosphere, and the smoke from the oil fires wasn't even close to reaching that height.
So, when I got to Kuwait City, I went on the air and set the record straight. I told people that the smoke would be a problem for the area, but it wouldn't cause a nuclear winter.
But that wasn't all.
A few days later, my producer met this engineer who offered to take us through the minefields to get to the oil fires. So, that night, we snuck away, and drove past all the landmines. We finally got to the oil fires at sunrise.
They were like these giant candles, burning like jet engines. You could feel the heat from far away, like standing in front of a furnace.
I wanted to get closer to film my report, but my cameraman was worried that the heat would damage his equipment.
So, I told him, "I'll memorize my lines, and when I count to three, we'll run in, film it in one take, and then get out of there, okay?"
He agreed. And that's how I got to be the first reporter to report from the oil well fires.
After the war, they put out all the fires, and there was no nuclear winter.
So, yeah, people at ABC News knew me as someone who did daring things, so the Titanic story was kind of a good fit. It's what people expected from me.
But this time, something really unexpected was about to happen.
So, my team and I flew to Canada to meet up with the captain and crew of this Russian research ship. It had these two small submarines that could go all the way to the bottom of the ocean.
The ship set off, and a day later, we were there. The captain said that we were right where the Titanic had hit an iceberg and sunk.
That night, I stood on the deck and looked up at the stars. Then I looked out at the ocean, which went on forever.
I put on my headphones and listened to the Titanic movie soundtrack, and tried to imagine what it must have been like for the people on the ship. I realized that the last thing they saw before they died was this cold, dark ocean.
I tried not to be afraid of the water.
A few days later, it was my turn. I got into one of the submarines with my diving buddy, Brian Cooke, who was a comedy writer, and our pilot, Viktor.
Inside the submarine, Brian and I laid on our stomachs and looked out of these small windows. Viktor sat between us, facing a bigger window, with all sorts of controls and lights.
It took about two and a half hours to get to the bottom. It was something I'll never forget. When Viktor turned on the lights, I saw this sandy floor that looked like the moon.
There weren't many animals living that deep. I saw these white fish and white starfish. They were white because there's no sunlight down there.
After we touched down, Viktor turned off the lights. I felt us move forward, and I pressed my face against the window, trying to see something in the dark.
Then, suddenly, this huge wall appeared in front of us. It had rivets on it. I realized that I was looking at the side of the sunken ship.
Viktor said, "Titanic."
It was one of the scariest moments of my life. But the fear quickly turned into sadness.
As our little submarine floated in front of the ship, Brian and I had a moment of silence. I even started to cry, thinking about all the people who had died there.
For the next hour, Viktor took us around the wreckage. We explored the front of the ship, and then flew over the debris field. I could see shoes, suitcases, champagne bottles, everything that had fallen out of the ship, half buried in the sand.
As we got to the end of the debris field, I saw the back of the Titanic and one of its propellers. It looked like we were going to crash into it, and we were going too fast. I later learned that our submarine had gotten caught in an underwater current.
A second later, we hit the propeller. I felt the crash, and pieces of rust fell on our submarine.
Brian and I looked at each other, like, "What just happened? What's going on?" But we didn't say anything. Viktor was looking at the controls. We didn't want to bother him.
I kept looking out the window, but I couldn't see much. I also kept looking at Brian, who seemed nervous.
"I told you I didn't want to go to the stern," he said. He had told me that before we went down, but I had forgotten.
I remembered a story that the captain had told us, about a man who panicked in a disabled submarine. He tried to open the hatch, and the ocean water flooded in and killed him.
So, I moved my foot, so I could tackle Brian if he tried to open the hatch.
Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Thirty.
I could hear the engine trying to get us unstuck. Viktor was trying to rock us back and forth, but it wasn't working.
He was also talking to people on the hydrophone. It was in Russian, so I didn't know what he was saying.
The voices sounded strange, like they were coming from another world. It was all really scary, and Viktor looked worried.
A voice in my head said, "This is how it's going to end for you." Even now, I can still hear those words.
I started thinking about all the dangerous stories I had covered. All the earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes. The mudslides, oil spills, and wars.
I thought about the cold weather at the North and South Pole, being arrested in Egypt, being stranded in the Philippines.
I had survived all of them. But now.
"This is how it's going to end for you."
Suddenly, my scientific side kicked in. I started trying to think of solutions. I've always believed that there's a solution to every problem.
But it wasn't easy. I couldn't just call someone to come and tow us out.
I knew that the other submarine was in the water, but I didn't know where it was. And even if it could get to us, how could it pull us out without getting stuck itself?
I decided that there was no way out. I started figuring out how much oxygen we had left. Maybe eight to ten hours. Then we would suffocate.
That's when I thought of my wife, and I felt really sad. I would never see her again. I couldn't believe it.
Then I thought about all the people who had died on the Titanic. Soon, I would be joining them and becoming a memory.
Then my spiritual side took over. I wondered if it was really true that death was just a step, a change from one kind of life to another.
My scientific side broke in again.
Maybe the change was like melting ice, where water goes from a solid to a liquid but stays the same. Or maybe it was like when matter turns into energy. Or maybe it was like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
Life after death, it wasn't impossible. There are a lot of things in nature that are similar to the idea of an afterlife.
Then, something happened that's hard to explain. The space inside the submarine felt different. Like something invisible had come inside. At the same time, I felt this amazing peace.
Soon after that, everything got quiet. The engine stopped roaring. Suddenly, it felt like we were floating.
Brian and I looked at each other, like, "Could it be?" A moment later, I looked at Viktor. "Okay?" I asked.
He turned to me, smiled, and said, "No problem!"
Somehow, Viktor had managed to get us unstuck. I found out later that he was a pilot, used to dealing with emergencies.
A few months later, my wife and I were reading the Bible when we came across this psalm:
"Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me."
As a scientist and journalist, I've always tried to be accurate when I talk about my experiences. And that includes what happened on that submarine, twenty years ago. I don't understand it completely, and I'll let you decide what you think.
But I know one thing: I'll never see that psalm as just words again.
Down there in the ocean, stuck in that little submarine, I think I might have experienced what that psalm talks about, God's presence and peace, right when I thought I was going to die.
You know, people use the word "faith" a lot. But if you ask them what it really means, a lot of them can't explain it. That's true for scientists and Christians, by the way.
Christians, they quote verses from the Bible, saying that faith can move mountains. But they have a hard time explaining it, other than saying that it's a special kind of trust.
And scientists, they talk about faith like it's a bad word. They think science is about evidence, and faith is just superstition.
They think faith is always just blind faith. Like,
FAITH = BLIND FAITH
It seems like a lot of scientists don't want to see the difference between blind faith and faith that's based on evidence. Or that science itself is based on both kinds of faith.
I got really interested in faith when my wife and I read this verse in the Bible where Jesus says to a sick woman, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over."
I was shocked by that. It seemed to say that faith isn't just about believing in something that seems impossible.
It's saying that faith is a force of nature, like electricity or gravity. It's something that's really important to God, but when it's used on Earth, it can cause real, physical changes.
So, I decided to figure out what faith really is. To use my scientific knowledge to explain how this ability works.
That was thirty years ago. And now, I'm going to tell you what I learned. You'll see that faith that's based on evidence is powerful, essential, and important. In fact, it's the most powerful thing in the universe.