Science and Religion

A few weeks ago, BSM showed me the moon and then asked, "Why the moon doesn't fall down?" I began to explain orbital mechanics to him, but after about a sentence and a half, I realized that unless I'm willing to explain that we live on a spherical planet, this isn't going to work. And no, I am not willing to explain to a three-year-old that we live on a spherical planet: before he learns about planets, he needs to be less confused by the Atlas that we occasionally read. (I think we started reading the Atlas because BSM wanted to know where the yaks were. He went through a very brief stage where he was completely obsessed with yaks. No idea why.)*

Since BSM still wanted an answer about the moon, though, I told him that Hashem makes it stay there and doesn't let it fall. Which, while true, is a total cop-out, as far as I'm concerned.

I told our neighbor, who is getting a Ph.D. in physics, what BSM wanted to know, and the neighbor asked BSM why we don't fall to the moon. BSM remained confused, and I was even more convinced that explaining orbital mechanics properly would be a mistake.

Since then, BSM has asked me a few more times why the moon doesn't fall, and I even entertained the insane possibility of explaining that technically the moon is falling: it's just that its fall is so long that the moon can't land. (This is actually a fun and accurate way of explaining satellite orbits: you throw ["launch"] the thing and it tries to fall, but the Earth curves away before it can land, so it keeps trying to fall, but the Earth keeps curving...) Thankfully, I immediately realized that not only does that still requires the whole "spherical planet" explanation, but it will probably also freak him out.

I'm actually quite happy with the answer I've settled on, and BSM seems pretty pleased with it, too: "The moon doesn't fall because Hashem keeps it up there, in a stable orbit." This kind of sums up why I'm not bothered by this "Science vs. Religion conundrum" I keep hearing about: I see no contradiction between the two. The world works because G-d makes it work according to the laws of physics. Done.

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*As I'm writing this, I think that I probably could explain spherical planets to BSM. He kind of understands the Atlas, so there's no reason he'd have any more trouble understanding a Globe. All I have to do is buy a globe, show him Israel and America (and the Himalayas, because yaks) a couple of times, and then add a tennis ball for the moon.