I. The Question
Skeptic:
Bring me a beaker of God.
Set Him beneath a lens.
Calibrate your instruments—
zero the scale,
sterilize the doubt—
and show me residue.
I want a double-blind trial,
a peer-reviewed divinity,
a footnote in Nature
that does not tremble
when touched.
Chart His mass.
Graph His mercy.
If He split the sea,
where is the salinity report?
If He shaped the stars,
produce the blueprint
signed in cosmic ink.
I am not cruel—
only careful.
I have watched too many claims
evaporate in the heat of scrutiny.
So bring me data.
Bring me God
in replicable form.
Believer:
You ask for a beaker of God
while standing in the laboratory
of His breath.
You want a signature—
but the equations are signed.
You want residue—
but the residue is everything.
The constants hold
like vows:
gravity faithful to mass,
light loyal to speed.
Electrons whirl
in disciplined choirs.
Planets keep appointments
without reminder.
You ask for evidence.
I gesture to order.
II. The Scale
Skeptic:
Order is not a person.
A pattern is not a mind.
Snowflakes are intricate—
no sculptor kneels in every cloud.
Given time and matter,
complexity blooms.
Selection edits chaos.
The cosmos tries again and again
until something stands.
Chance, plus necessity,
equals cathedral.
No architect required.
Believer:
And yet you speak of laws
as if law needs no lawgiver.
Why should matter obey?
Why should mathematics—
that silent, invisible grammar—
fit the universe so well?
Why does π thread circles
from soap bubbles
to spiral galaxies?
Why does the same equation
balance the fall of an apple
and the fall of a star?
You say snowflakes form
without a sculptor—
but who authored
the angles of water?
You trust the script
while denying the playwright.
III. The Microscope
Skeptic:
Under the microscope
I see cells dividing—
no angels pushing membranes,
no fingers knitting DNA.
Life is chemistry
patiently repeating itself.
Mutation writes
and selection erases.
We are accidents
that learned to speak.
Believer:
Accidents do not compose sonnets
about their own origins.
Within a single cell
are libraries without dust—
letters sequenced with grammar,
proofread by proteins,
copied with astonishing care.
Information hums
at the root of flesh.
Code implies meaning.
Meaning implies mind.
You call it chemistry—
I call it a sentence
still being spoken.
IV. The Telescope
Skeptic:
The telescope shows indifference.
Stars explode
without consulting our prayers.
Black holes swallow light
with perfect impartiality.
If there is a God,
He is either distant
or silent.
The cosmos is vast—
we are a footnote
in a margin of dust.
Believer:
Vast, yes—
but not voiceless.
The background radiation
whispers of a beginning.
Time itself
has a horizon.
There was a moment
when nothing measurable
measured nothing—
and then expansion,
inflation,
a flare of possibility.
A universe that begins
invites a cause.
You see indifference—
I see generosity:
four forces balanced
like a table
that does not wobble.
Change one constant
by a hair’s width
and there are no stars,
no carbon,
no you asking questions.
You call it fine-tuned coincidence.
I call it intention
written in fire.
V. The Human Heart
Skeptic:
If intention governs,
why suffering?
Why tectonic cruelty,
viral indifference,
children swallowed
by random catastrophe?
What experiment explains
a silent heaven?
Believer:
Freedom explains some of it—
the terrible dignity
of choice.
As for earthquakes and illness—
a world that can cradle life
must also shift and strain.
The same plates that raise mountains
sometimes tremble.
But even in suffering
I see a clue:
we name it wrong.
We protest injustice
as if we know
a standard beyond survival.
Why should evolution
gift us conscience
that condemns our own advantage?
Why do we hunger
for a goodness
no genome guarantees?
Your outrage
is a compass—
it points somewhere.
VI. The Method
Skeptic:
Science asks how.
Religion answers why.
When you blur them,
you weaken both.
The method requires
natural causes—
testable, revisable,
falsifiable.
God is none of these.
Believer:
The method is a tool,
not a totality.
A ruler measures length,
not love.
A scale weighs matter,
not meaning.
Science maps the machinery—
a magnificent map—
but maps do not negate
the landscape’s author.
I do not insert God
to plug each gap.
I see Him
in the existence of a world
that can be mapped at all.
The reliability of reason,
the uniformity of nature,
the comprehensibility of cosmos—
these are not trivial gifts.
Science is not my rival.
It is my witness.
VII. The Impasse
Skeptic:
You interpret upward;
I interpret outward.
You see design;
I see emergence.
We stand before the same stars
and draft different conclusions.
Believer:
Yes.
The evidence is shared—
the inference divides.
You require God
to step into the lab coat
and submit to your protocol.
I believe the protocol
already rests
within His palm.
VIII. The Quiet
Skeptic:
Then we are left
where we began—
with questions.
Believer:
And with wonder.
Together:
Between microscope and prayer,
between formula and psalm,
we search.
One asks for proof
that fits inside a page.
One sees proof
spilling from every page.
The atom spins.
The galaxies wheel.
The mind considers its own considering.
Call it chance.
Call it necessity.
Call it God.
The experiment continues.