The next day, I called my grandma. My grandma happens to be a scientist, Dr. Wendy Knowles. She studies astronomy. She loves Harriet and me, outer space, teaching and books, in that order. We often conduct scientific experiments together. Science experiments are a blast.
I love doing science experiments. I find them by googling kids’ science experiments. The last experiment I conducted with my grandma demonstrated how light bends.
An experiment on how light bends:
Step one: You will need a coin, water, and a plastic bowl that you cannot see through.
Step two: Place the coin in the bowl.
Step three: Step back until you cannot see the coin in the bowl any more.
Step four: Have someone pour water slowly into the bowl and watch from where you are standing.
What do you see? When the bowl is empty, the edge of the bowl stops you from seeing the coin. When the bowl is full, the light bends over the edge, so you can see the coin. The reason things at the bottom of a pool look close to the surface is that light bends through water.
How does this idea apply to rainbows?
My grandma also loves to find answers to important questions.
“Dr. Wendy here,” she answered her phone.
“Grandma, it’s Franklin.”
“Franklin, my favorite!”
This made me smile. “Grandma, is God real or pretend?”
“Whoa, that is a big question. Come on over, so we can discuss it”
That was all it took. I rushed out the door and across the lawn. Barking with excitement, Oso raced after me. I ran up the steps into the house that I love. Fantastic space art decorated the walls. Sunlight came through the large windows and hit the wood floors, sky-blue furniture, and dozens of leafy-green plants. A whole garden grew inside.
Soon my grandma and I sat at the kitchen table, enjoying lemonade and cookies. Oso sat on the floor, trying not to drool, but this was hard for him.
“Many people believe God is real,” she first said. “Like your mom.”
I knew this, but said, “Not everyone though, right?”
My grandma nodded, touching the gray bubble of her hair. “Some people believe God is pretend, like an imaginary character.”
“A character? Like in a story?”
Her face crinkled with a smile. “People love to imagine all kinds of stories about God. Some people believe that God is just a character in a collection of stories that people love to tell. These stories, however, have great meaning for people. They help people know how to live a good life.”
I studied my grandma’s kind, wrinkled face. “What do you think, Grandma?”
She looked to my side, at Oso. “I think we need to wipe Oso’s jowls.”
Laughing, I used the napkin to wipe Oso’s muzzle. “But what do you think about God? Do you think God is real or pretend?”
“I am a scientist. There are some questions science is not good at answering.”
“Like questions about God?” When my grandma nodded, I asked, “Why can’t science answer questions about God?”
“Science tells us about the natural world, about how things work in the natural world. Science is the best tool to tell us about the world. It give us so much: medicine, technology, transportation, our whole understanding of our world and the way it works.
“Beliefs in God and religion are spiritual matters, questions outside of the physical world. You cannot see, touch, smell, taste or hear God in the same way that we can see, touch, smell, taste a plant, animal or rock.”
“You mean no one has ever seen or heard God?”
“Some people claim to see and hear God, but they might be imagining it. To know that something is true in science, we need more than a few people observing it.”
I thought about this. “Remember when we were on vacation and that lightning storm came up? Remember how amazing it was, the three rainbows crossing over the sky?”
“Yes, I do,” my grandma smiled.
“Remember, my mom said she saw the hand of God in it?”
“That is a good example. Many people see God in nature, but a scientist sees only a natural phenomenon, one that, however beautiful, is perfectly understandable.”
“Like rainbows,” I nodded, understanding.
Rainbows happen when sunlight hits raindrops. Normally, people only see the white light of sunlight, but a beam of light has all the colors of the rainbow and when light hits the raindrop, the colors separate and appear as a magnificent rainbow.
“Exactly,” my grandmother said. “We need more than people feeling as if they see something in order to know if it is real.”
“Why?” I asked.
“What if I saw a little green dragon on your shoulder? Does that mean there is a little green dragon there?”
I laughed. “No.”
“That’s why,” she smiled. “The human mind is capable of imagining all kinds of things that are not real. Another good example is the imaginary friends of children, pretend friends. If I’m not mistaken, you used to pal around with Milo.”
Milo was my imaginary friend. I had read a book about Milo the Space Hero. I had a lot of fun pretending Milo and I were on adventures together. Still, I always knew that Milo was pretend. “That makes a lot of sense,” I said.
My grandma looked at her phone and saw that it was time for my soccer practice.
I drained the last of my lemonade and jumped up. “I’ll walk you over to the field before my class, so we can continue our discussion.”
“Thanks, Grandma.”
Oso barked, eyeing the crumbs. My grandma passed Oso a dog cookie instead, for being so good. (Except for all the drool, which Oso couldn’t help.) Oso gobbled his treat up.
Oso lead the way outside. Tall trees shaded the walkway through the park to the playing field. Oso raced ahead, chasing squirrels. Oso never caught squirrels, though once he came very close.
Mostly, he just liked to chase them.
I did have more questions. “I don’t understand why people believe in God, then?” I first asked as we walked. “If you cannot see or hear God, or you cannot know for sure that God is real?”
“Now you’re thinking! People who believe in God almost always experience God. Like your mom with the rainbows. Sometimes too, it is a strong feeling that God is helping their lives. Many people feel God’s love. It is a near universal human experience.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Throughout all of history, most people have felt that God is real, that God helps them in many important ways.”
I stopped walking. “Is that proof?”
“It is to many people, but it is not to a scientist. Feelings and beliefs do not mean that something is real to scientists. You can see why. Throughout history people have also had strong feelings and beliefs about things that turned out to be very wrong indeed.”
This made sense to me, too. “People used to believe that the sun went around the earth, but that wasn’t true,” I added as we started walking again. “The earth and all the planets revolve around the sun. The sun’s gravity holds all the planets in place.”
My grandmother nodded. “Exactly. Belief in something or feelings about something does not make it true to a scientist. Science attempts to discover the truth of the known physical world.”
I seized the point. “I want to look for the truth, and I would also like to know more about God.”
“I know someone who can help you. I’d like you to meet a colleague of mine. He teaches at the university.”
“Does he teach astronomy, like you?”
“No. He teaches Greek civilization. He knows a lot about gods.”
I could hardly wait. We reached the soccer field and I ran off to play soccer. Oso loved soccer, too but my grandmother called Oso back and put the leash on him. Oso, it turns out, was not a team player. He always hogged the ball.
During ball games especially, Oso did not play by the rules.