Here’s the shirt I’m talking about. It depicts Maxwell’s Equations sandwiched between the phrases, “And God said,” and “And there was light.”
I can see two possible perspectives here. I’ll enclose them, along with my own opinion, in the following spoiler box so that I don’t unduly influence your opinion. I’m interested to hear some other thoughts here, whether you agree with one of the perspectives I identify or have an entirely different one.
[SPOILER] Perspective #1: The wearer of this t-shirt is being facetious with the use of “God” and in fact believes in no such thing; rather, he believes that the only thing governing natural laws are the laws of physics.
Perspective #2: The wearer of this t-shirt does believe in God, but has personally reconciled the belief in a higher power with the teachings of science.
Personally, I lean towards perspective #1, but I’m hesitant to wear a shirt like this because I think a lot of people would mistakenly presume that I hold viewpoint #2.
[/SPOILER]
I guess I wouldn’t think about it at all. I always liked the t-shirt, have seen it around for years. (But I went with element tees for myself, since I don’t understand those equations.)
Oh, come to think of it, my brother had that shirt at one time, I do believe. He’s a very sciencey guy, now works at one of the Lawrence labs. He also served a mission and is very religious, so I guess #2. One could say the same for my husband, who is a physics geek.
I sometimes wear such a T-shirt, and my personal beliefs are best described by option #2. But I know people who believe #1 or silenius’s #3 and also sometimes wear such T-shirts.
If you’re going to be mistaken for a religious person, isn’t it better to be mistaken for the kind that accepts the findings of science than it is to be mistaken for the other kind? Or are my prejudices showing here?
What do you think might happen if someone did mistake you for someone who believes #2? In my experience, people who don’t believe science and religion to be inherently conflicting also tend not to go around witnessing for their religion.
I think whatever perspective you interpret it as, you’re overthinking it. It doesn’t seem like the artist’s intent was to be philosophically deep, although I suppose it’s not impossible for consumers to mistake it for such.
Anne Neville, I don’t necessarily think something would “happen” per se, but I’ve shied away from wearing inflammatory and/or so-called “witty” shirts in recent years. I used to wear all kinds of shirts from places like T-Shirt Hell, Busted Tees, Snorg Tees, etc. but I got tired of all the bad puns and lame jokes, and I decided I didn’t want people prematurely making a decision about me based on the admittedly un-funny joke on my chest. What I’m getting at here is I think first impressions are really worth a lot, and I don’t want to blow them with people before even meeting them because of a shirt.
I’d probably think perspective #2, mostly because I personally have quite a number of friends who are both religious (to varying degrees) and scientifically-minded.
Really, though, my absolute first thought was to giggle at it, and then my second thought was, “I just laughed at a physics joke, oh dear.” I imagine that the reactions one actually wearing it would fall more into the dichotomy of “Heh, Maxwell’s equations, kinda funny,” on the one hand and “God said…uh, science stuff?” on the other. I don’t imagine anyone well-read enough to recognize what it is would adversely judge you for it.
I see it more as a cultural reference than an attempt to broadcast personal religious beliefs. One doesn’t have to have a strong opinion on the Bible in order to reference a line from it.
I like geeky shirts. I have one that says “Schrodinger’s cat is dead” on one side, and “Schrodinger’s cat is not dead” on the other. And one that says “There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don’t.”
My first impression (when I first saw that shirt) was that it was mocking science; that science exists only within a context of religion, that it’s really all about God, after all.
shrug That would presumably be the designer of that particular version of the shirt, but it was not a new joke when I was in college in '92. It was just one of a whole array of geeky/Berkeley joke t-shirts you could buy off the street, it’s probably been around for 40 years.
