What's up with strong Christians being behind many of the biggest breakthroughs in Physics?

Well, knowing that Christians in one denomination or another won most Nobel Prizes than any other group, it says to me that the necessity for invention is common amongst scientists of that caliber.

Really, we are being asked about Christians in science a lot because the common lie is that Christians cannot handle science, an ideology coming from atheists, typically. Instead of being smarter about it, atheists tend to hold on to a false idea if they think it makes them seem better or even mentally superior. They love the lie too much to let go of it.

Today’s scientists stand on the shoulders of giants who preceded them, many of whom were theists / Christians. Sir Isaac Newton, for example, promoted brilliant analytical thinking that advanced science (though he had some unorthodox Christian beliefs). George Mendel was a Catholic priest. It was a Lutheran prince, Duke Albrecht of Prussia, who subsidized the publication of Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus (1543); Andreas Osiander, a Lutheran theologian, arranged for the printing and wrote its preface; Joachim Rhaeticus, a Lutheran mathematician and professor at the Reformer Melanchthon’s Wittenberg University, supervised the printing; and Erasmus Reinhold, another Wittenberg professor, supported Copernicus’s teaching in his astronomic tables. Tycho Brahe and Johann Kepler, brilliant astronomers, were devout Lutherns. Kepler accepted the Bible, believing that the universe itself was an expression of the Being of God. Johann Fabricius, a Lutheran layman, first observed sunspots and the rotation of the sun; Samuel Dorffel, a Lutheran pastor, first demonstrated that comets may more in a parabola. Isaac Beeckman, a scientist and strict Calvinist, was an early defender of the atomistic philosophy.

In England the Puritan movement produced the Royal Society of London, seven of its 10 scientist founders forming its nucleus. William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood was a Christian member of the Royal Society. Of course, the Royal Society was open to all scientists, whether or not they were Puritan or Catholic or held no religious beliefs. In 1663, 62 per cent of the members of the Royal Society were clearly Puritan by origin, at a time when Puritans were only a small minority in England. And 90 per cent of the foreign members of the Academie des Sciences in Paris between 1666 and 1883 were Protestants. Yet in the same period Protestants made up only 40 per cent of the population of Western Europe outside France.

In recent times, Prof. Frank Russell Stannard, OBE - Physicist

Michael Pole - Physicist

Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, KBE - Physicist

Rev. Prof. Alister McGrath - Biophysicist

Dr. John C Lennox - Mathematician

Dr. Francis S Collins - Gene pioneer

Prof. Norman C Nevin, OBE - Medial geneticist

Prof. John Bryant - Molecular biologist

Dr. Denis Alexander - Immunologist

Dr. Christopher Southgate - Biochemist

Prof. Sir John Houghton, CBE - Physicist

Prof. Sir Ghillean Prance - Botanist

Prof. Bob White - Geophysicist

Prof. Colin Humphreys, CBE - Materials scientist

Rev. Dr. Rodney Holder - Astrophysicist

The above all contributed a chapter each to the book "God,The Big Bang & Bunsen Burning Issues" Ed. by Nigel Bovey (Authentic Media 2008. They all believe God created the heavens and the earth and have no problems with current theories about them being billions of years old.

Another British theoretical physicist to add to that list, Prof. Edgar Andrews, expert in large molecules, BSc, PhD, DSc, FinstP, FIMMM, CEng, CPhys. He wrote" Who Made God? Searching for a theory of everything" (EP Books 2009).

Also, Prof. Tom McLeish, Prof. of Physics, applications of physics to biology, wrote "Faith & Wisdom in Science" (Oxford University Press 2014).

They are just a tiny few of the ones in Britain. We'd be here till the middle of next month if I tried to list theistic scientists from all over the world! There is nothing incompatible with being a good scientists and a physicist and also being a strong Christian. It shouldn't surprise us though many anti-theistic people try to give the impression such a combination cannot exist. I don't pay any attention to them.

God is full of surprises.

Well, if a "strong christian" produces any kind of evidence proving their religion is true, that would be one thing. But christians doing scientific analysis of the natural world and reaching provable conclusions is something entirely different than that.

This list surprised even me,

- Yes, because you are monumentally ignorant. There are a few million "breakthroughs" and 5 or 6 were by fundies.

We is a Bunch of smart fellas !!

In a world where the vast majority of people are theists, it is not surprising that most of the people in most groups are theists.

The same for Christians in Christian majority countries.

It should be noted that none of the scientists used any part of religion in their scientific discoveries. It could be argued that a great many discoveries were made "in spite of" and "in opposition to" religious beliefs, not because of them.

Why are you surprised?

It's obvious that it can't be a coincidence, since the probability of anything occurring by chance is nearly impossible. The only answer is that God is guiding them to the correct answer, just as he helped his faithful believers discover guns and nuclear warheads to rid the world of non-believers.

Christians must be smarter than everybody else