VICE News –
On the morning of Wednesday, July 4, a team of scientists over at the Cern nuclear research center on the France-Switzerland border announced—via a presentation in Comic Sans—that they had probably (really probably; they’re “99.999 percent” sure) discovered the “God Particle.” It took them a while and a lot of money—close to £1billion—but they have finally done it; one day the Large Hadron Collider fired up just right, gave God one almighty handjob and out he jizzed the much sought after Higgs boson.
The Higgs is called the “God Particle” because of its elusive nature and its ability to pretty much explain why the universe is the way it is. I say “pretty much” because there are no certainties in science. The Higgs helps scientists figure out what happened during the Big Bang, way back at the beginning of time, by going some way to explaining why particles have mass and therefore also giving reason as to why gravity exists. (This is all according to the Standard Model, by the way. If you wanna bring your String theory sass to this party, leave it in the comments below, ya fucken’ string-cheese).
So, if we now understand the origins of the universe thanks to this new cosmo-spunk, where does that leave God? Is there room for a creator in Standard Model theory? Is Allah dead? Did Cern kill him? Was he shot by Cern? What does this mean for religion? Is it worried? Or does it—like most times it’s faced with any semblance of a logical argument—simply not give a shit?
We spoke to some of it to find out. Here are the gatekeepers of the spiritual world reacting to the discovery of the Higgs boson. Not a lot of it made much sense, but it was entertaining.
