The Story of God with Morgan Freeman (2016) s02e03 Episode Script
Proof of God
New York City.
It's changed a lot since I first came here as a young actor.
The all-night diner that we used to go to after the shows, gone.
Not a single phone booth in sight anywhere.
I came here for the same reason that most people come: to make it.
But it was a major change for a young boy from rural Mississippi.
Cities like this separate us from nature.
Most of us spend our days in climate-controlled offices and looking down at computer screens, rather than up at the stars.
Our ancestors were always in touch with the rawer elements of nature.
That's where they saw evidence of God Blowing in the wind, coming down in the warm ray of the sun.
But even in our modern world, we still share something with our ancestors.
That is the desire to find proof that God exists.
Have we cut God out of our modern lives? Or are there special moments when God breaks through and makes his presence known? I'm on a quest to understand how people find proof of God.
I'll visit a man who heard God on September the 11th.
And I felt God speak to me.
In a very still voice, I felt God saying, 'It's going to be okay.
' Discover how Muslims see God in the words of their holy book.
For Christians, God's word is Jesus, come to Earth in flesh.
For Muslims, the Koran is God come to Earth in book.
I'll talk with a Buddhist master who feels divine power inside him.
Your inner energy, you can manifest, -sort of, like the divine? -Correct.
And meet a physicist who has faith that science will lead him to God.
The more we learn about the world, it points more towards God, rather than less.
Can we all, in our own way, find proof of God? For believers around the world, prayer is an act of faith in God.
But how do we find proof of God? Often, it's in times of crisis.
Many people feel certain that God steps in to save their lives.
I'm on my way to meet a devout Christian who felt God's presence on the fateful day of September 11, 2001.
His name is Sujo John.
Sujo? Yes.
-Morgan Freeman.
-Great to meet you, sir.
-Please.
-Thank you.
You were born and raised in India.
How do you happen to be Christian? You know, my parents come from the southern part of India, where Christianity goes way back, over 2,000 years.
Tell me about the day that changed your life.
It started off as a normal day A clear, cloudless day in New York City.
Me, my wife, we both find work in the towers.
I'm on the 81st floor of the north tower, my wife on the 71st of the south.
My wife is four months pregnant with our first child, and we're looking forward to the birth of that child.
You're the north tower, and what? 8:46 in the morning, American Flight 11, flying at 440 miles an hour, this huge jet plane comes crashing into the north tower, and I hear this incredible explosion.
Fire breaks out on our floor, walls start collapsing around us, and I'm saying, 'God, if this building is gonna go down' 'I'm never gonna see my wife again.
I'm never gonna see the child that my wife is carrying.
' Someone from our floor rallies us.
He says, 'We've got to beat this fire.
' We've got to get out of this place.
' So we start crawling and fighting our way through the fire, looking for the nearest stairwell.
Thousands of people are joining us on that stairwell.
When we get to the 43rd or the 44th floor, what I see are these firemen, policemen going up, as we are going down.
We had no idea then that these men were, in a way, walking up to their death.
Can imagine.
Now we hear another explosion.
This is the second plane crashing into the second tower.
And I was going crazy, realizing for sure my wife is dead.
What's life for me if my wife is not alive? -So you did get out, you got down? -Correct.
So now you're down on the ground floor, you're in the plaza.
-Correct.
-Now what happens? I'm walking towards the south tower.
And you thought your wife was in there? Yes, I was very sure that she was there because she has to be at work at 8:40 every day.
Did you get there? No, actually the grounds are shaking violently.
The glass is shattering.
I thought it was a bomb, but this was the south tower imploding and going down.
As the building is collapsing, there's people with me and I'm huddled with them.
And I felt God speak to me.
In a very still voice, I felt God saying, 'It's going to be okay.
' You heard the voice of God? Spoke to you? I did not hear God speak to me in an audible way, but I felt God's an inner voice speak to me, and ask people to pray with me.
What happened then? We prayed for a few minutes.
And I hear this roar, with the ground shaking, I feel stuff fall on me.
There's smoke all around me, could not breathe.
When the south tower collapsed, it sort of took you with it.
You were buried in rubble and ash.
I was kind of resigned to my fate that I was going to die here.
But I realize I'm alive.
I crawled my way around, to realize that these people who had prayed with me, they did not make it.
I see a red light flashing through the soot and the smoke.
It's a flashing light, coming out of an ambulance, and part of the ambulance was crushed, but the light was still flashing.
So I'm on the streets of Manhattan.
I can't even recognize, it's like a war zone, with debris and ash and dust.
Now you are a lone survivor, so to speak.
I'm thinking about my wife.
It was just the most incredible trauma and pain to experience.
The fear of the unknown, fear about my wife.
And my cellphone rings for the very first time that day.
I see my wife's caller ID, and I'm thinking, this is not her.
It's someone else calling me, saying, 'Your wife is dead.
' But when I said hello, it's my wife, and she hears my voice, loud and clear.
But her first words were, 'Babe, are you alive?' 'Are you alive?' She thought I was dead, and I thought she was dead.
All right, so we're looking at a miracle right here.
Yes.
And it was God that preserved and saved my life.
It's proof to me that there is a God.
It seems like, if God was going to spare one, he would spare them all.
That's a great question, but life on Earth is such that no one is guaranteed a today or tomorrow.
Every human being walking on this Earth will face death.
But here's what I know from my experience.
When you walk with God and go through the storms of life, you have this peace and the presence of God.
So if you carry the presence of God, even though it might be death, it's going to be okay.
Sujo and his wife, Mary, now have three children.
He left his corporate job and dedicated his life to helping others.
His current mission in his native India, is to help save women from human trafficking.
You are using, uh just the power of life to give life to others.
Yes, I feel very blessed that God's called me into this.
I'm always excited about whatever God brings my way.
Well, it's wonderful to talk to you.
Thank you, sir.
Honour being with you.
Sujo John's survival is extraordinary.
Some say it's miraculous.
What's most remarkable to me is that Sujo felt the unmistakable presence of God, even while death and destruction were all around him.
But what about the rest of us? Is going through a horrifying experience like that the only way to feel proof of the divine? Or can we encounter God through the experiences of others? Around the world, the faithful make pilgrimage to miracle sites, places like Fatima in Portugal.
In 1917, three young shepherds claimed they were told by the Virgin Mary that a miracle would take place here on October the 13th.
A crowd gathered and on the appointed day, thousands said they saw the sun dance back and forth in the sky.
Millions of pilgrims who flock to Fatima see this miracle site as undeniable proof of God.
Being there, reinforces their belief that God can make dramatic interventions in our world.
But many believers also feel the divine guiding us in a far subtler way, in the ebb and flow of their daily lives.
I'm in New York to learn about an ancient religion from West Africa.
The Ifa faith of the Yoruba people crossed the Atlantic with slavery and is still practised today in Harlem.
Followers of Ifa believe the world is filled with divine energy, and their fates are guided by that energy.
-Hello, how are you? -Hello.
-Such a pleasure to meet you.
-I am very well.
Thank you.
Funlayo Wood is a Harvard student of African studies and an Ifa priestess in training.
And Oluwole Ifakunle is a Babalawo, or priest, of Harlem.
-How are you? -I'm well sir, how are you? -I'm fine, thank you.
-Very good.
Very good.
So, Baba, tell me about your religion.
Well, we have various deities.
We have deities like Ogun.
We have Elegua.
Elegua is the road-opener.
Ogun is the road-clearer.
And then we have Oyansa, who is the Mother of Nine.
We have Yemoja.
There's a variety of different deities.
So we all seek some proof of God.
Do you? Well, the proof of God comes to our divination and in our process of being able to connect with our deities.
Divination.
Do you mean like fortune-telling? Divination is about finding one's purpose.
You see what happens in Yoruba faith, most people are trying to connect with Gods and Goddesses and that's where we use Odu.
The way that a divination is arranged is in what we call Odu.
And so there are 256 different Odu and each one contains different information, both about energy states that are going on around us, as well as all different aspects of life.
-I can show you.
-You can? -Sure, absolutely, yes.
-It would be our pleasure.
Babalawo is taking me to his personal shrine so I can see how it works.
Guys, come on in, welcome.
-Yes, welcome.
-Thank you.
So this is my shrine over here.
This is the place where we make divination.
So calling on the divine is what we're going to do.
If I'm going to do a divination, what would I ask? Divination is performed for most important things in our lives, naming ceremonies, performed for weddings, for sicknesses.
So this is the Opon, the Opon of Ifa.
And this represents the four quadrants of the universe.
So we bring in the four quadrants of the world together so we can get a glimpse into the future.
Babalawo starts an Ifa divination for Funlayo.
Sixteen sacred palm nuts will help him read how the divine Odu energy is going to shape her future.
Call all these divinities of Africa, to see, to glimpse, the reality of this for Funlayo.
As he passes the palm nuts from one hand to the other, he counts how many remain in his original hand.
The markings he makes on the board describe the Odu that's surrounds Funlayo.
It's a binary system, so you could have ones and twos, and so there are 256 possible combinations of ones and twos that can come up.
So this is a very auspicious sign.
Talking about housing and wealth coming to her.
So she's gonna make some money! Yes, something's about to happen.
Maybe you brought me some blessings today.
You have an issue with housing? Yes, I've been looking for an apartment actually.
Just last night, I was calling a woman about an apartment that I was thinking about getting.
And so we give a praise to that place of Now, Funlayo, let me ask you, how does this prove God's existence to you? Every single time I've received a divination, the advice has been on point.
And so doing divination is that way of glancing down, glancing up, glancing side to side and just seeing what type of energy is around us.
I like to really talk about Ifa as being destiny.
You know, because if we are on our destiny in our paths, then we are going to be going in a direction that will help us to prevail and we'll be successful and victorious in our life.
Thank you for a wonderful time.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
It's my pleasure.
Your tradition of the Yoruba says the Gods show themselves on every roll of a palm nut, toss of a coin, and these ideas come into many things.
If you believe in God, you can see God in every facet of your life.
It's not evidence that you can present to a scientist, but it's evidence you feel inside.
In Ethiopia, about 100,000 Orthodox Christians, gather to witness God manifest himself in a similar way, to usher in the new year.
Historian Dr.
Cynthia Khan has travelled to Ethiopia to attend one of the country's largest religious festivals, called Meskel.
She's accompanied by Solomon Gezena, an Ethiopian religious scholar.
Look Cynthia, this place is called.
Meskel Square and this is called Demera.
This is the centrepiece of this celebration, Feast of Meskel.
What is it? Its symbolic value goes to 326 AD to Queen Helena.
Legend has it Queen Helena, the mother of Roman emperor Constantine, was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem searching for one of the most important relics in Christianity, Jesus's cross.
According to the Ethiopian legend, the cross was buried underground and Helena didn't know where.
So she prayed to God for guidance.
God told her to erect a giant bonfire.
She was told to make exactly that piece and fire it.
Then after the smoke goes up and down and indicated A big pointer to tell her where to dig.
Exactly, this shows a divine intervention.
-Yeah.
It's a proof of God.
Queen Helena followed the smoke of her bonfire to discover the location of Jesus's cross.
The replica of that bonfire, the Demera, is to Ethiopian Christians a symbol of God's intervention.
-So they light this on fire? -Yes.
Why do they light it, and then what happens after that? Yeah, there is an interesting prophecy after they light it.
When it collapses, the direction where it collapses also has a meaning.
The direction in which the Demera collapses signals a good or bad omen for the coming year in Ethiopia.
Every year, people flock to Addis Ababa to take part in the festival, to witness proof of God.
There is singing, dancing and even a re-enactment of Helena finding the cross.
But what everyone awaits is the lighting of the Demera and the revelation of its prophecy for the coming year.
So they're all gathering there now? -Look at them.
Yes, exactly.
-Yes.
Right.
He's blessing four sides of the Demera.
They light four sides? Like four sides of the world? -Exactly.
Look, look, a torch.
Look at that.
Wow, it's a little frightening.
-It's so vivid.
-Yes, all right.
All eyes are now on the burning wooden frame of the Demera.
If it topples to the west, it will be a bad omen for Ethiopia.
If it falls to the east, the country will prosper.
At east.
At east.
Yay! -North-east.
East.
-East? So what does that mean for the year in Ethiopia? Peace, love.
Ethiopia will shine.
The burning of the Demera is no miraculous apparition.
It's not the burning bush that Moses saw.
But each year the people of Ethiopia come together to witness this moment.
And together they feel the presence of God in that falling fire.
They sense an invisible hand guiding their destiny.
But other believers don't look for proof of God in the twists of fate that befall them.
They see evidence of the divine inside their bodies giving them God-like powers.
There is an inner spark in all of us.
You can see it in the eyes.
Something that says, 'I'm alive.
' We can't define what it is, but we all recognize it.
Religions call it a soul, a force that connects us to the divine.
And perhaps it is divine.
Is proof of God inside us? I've come to one of the coldest places in New York City, a cocktail bar made from ice.
-Pop this on for me.
-All right.
-Ready for the ice bar? -I'm ready.
-All right, perfect.
-Got it.
Got it.
I'm here to meet a man who claims he can harness the divine within himself.
This is Tulku Lobsang.
He's a Tibetan Buddhist Tantrayana master.
And he's meditating in a room, that's kept at just 23 degrees Fahrenheit, wearing only a thin, cotton T-shirt.
Most of us wouldn't last for more than a minute without wanting to run and put on a jacket.
Tulku Lobsang? Hello.
Uh, I mean, it's minus five degrees Celsius in here.
That's not just cold, that's freezing.
Do you mind telling me what you're doing? Ah, I'm doing one of the most sacred Buddhist Tantrayana practice, what we call inner fire, tummo.
Tummo? Yeah.
And you're not just ignoring the cold, you're literally changing your body temperature, is that right? Exactly, correct.
With the power of the visualization and then generate inner heat.
In meditation, you make this happen? -Correct.
-All right.
I'm from Mississippi.
I hate the cold.
-Yes.
-My nose is running already.
-So, I tell you what I'm gonna do.
-Yeah? I'm gonna go outside where it's warmer Yes.
And you let me know when you're ready to come out.
Okay, I continue practising then.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Tummo, a 900-year-old form of Buddhist meditation, has long fascinated scientists.
Studies have shown that monks practising tummo can control their autonomic nervous system, and raise their body temperature.
Buddhists with Lobsang's training can raise their core temperature to a low fever, about 101 degrees Fahrenheit.
They can also endure extreme cold, up to 20 degrees below zero for hours, something that would give most of us hypothermia.
So how do you feel? It's good.
-Good? -Yeah.
This isn't just like a party trick? That is the method of to discover your hidden nature or you call a Buddha nature.
The Buddha taught his followers meditation as one of the tools to obtain enlightenment, the goal of Buddhism.
During the meditation, followers are supposed to open their minds and keep their thoughts away from all material necessity.
Tummo is an advanced form of meditation, in which practitioners try to connect to their real inner power.
I'm curious to know whether Tulku Lobsang finds proof of the divine in his practice.
Oh my goodness! Golly! So, you do this this is part of tummo? Correct.
This is part of tummo, yes.
But tummo is not only this exercise.
Most important, tummo use the power of mind.
This is how you get into a state where you isolate your inner energy, your inner power? Correct.
With the power of exercise, with the holding the breath, and with the concentration -and you open all of your channels.
-Huh? And then all energy flowing, and then inner fire come in, and then bliss come in, and then you experience 'non-conceptional' state of mind, what Buddhists call Non-conceptual? Yeah, 'non-conceptual' state of mind means mind without any thought.
That's what we call Buddha nature.
The non-conceptual state of mind reminds of me of Pentecostal Christians, who surrender themselves to the Holy Spirit to speak in an unintelligible language.
It reminds me of the Masong in Thailand, who are possessed by the Taoist Gods during the Nine Emperor Gods Festival.
People in both of these faiths find proof of a higher power in these rituals.
What Buddhists hope to find in their most elevated moments is not God, but their Buddha nature.
So in Buddhism, you don't use the term or the idea of the divine.
We don't believe this kind of -traditional, maybe God -Yeah? Or this God, but we believe we all have a Buddha nature.
We all want to be happy.
Nobody wants suffering.
Mm-hmm.
The Buddha nature, is that sort of like the divine is inside? -Correct.
-That it is where it is.
That's correct.
That's correct.
Okay, well, now, see that resonates with me also.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-I believe that the divine is what's within us.
Correct, that's it.
But what you are saying, I think, is that through tummo Yes.
You can pretty much get in touch with, you can express your inner energy.
You can manifest, sort of, like the divine? Correct.
Ah, thank you very much for all this.
It's really, really amazing.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
But do you mind if we go get a cup of hot chocolate or something? -It's all right with you? -That's perfect to me.
All right, let's go.
That was more than impressive.
That was a Buddhist Tantrayana master who has learned through years of practice to tap into a source of power within himself.
He doesn't think of himself as special.
He says it's his Buddha nature, a divine power that we all have.
We just have to find it.
I like that idea.
That there is proof of God in all of us, if we're willing to look for it.
Buddhists believe tummo can help them harness a divine inner power.
In South-western Africa, there is an ancient people who believe they find proof of God by harnessing the power of ancestor spirits and using it to cure the sick.
Namibian academic, Ndapelwei Feni Nakanyete, has been travelling for days to reach a remote village in Namibia where this rare healing ceremony is about to take place.
Hello! Hello.
Welcome to the village.
Thank you so much.
Leon Semhow is a member of the San Tribe.
The San are one of the oldest communities on Earth.
It's estimated that they've been performing their traditional healing trance dance for 20,000 years.
I understand that San people have quite a complex religion.
So these people, it's not going to church.
They just know that there's God.
Our people also connect to their ancestors, people that die a long time ago.
Some of them will come back as a bad spirit and some of them will come back as a good spirit, that is help them chasing the bad spirit away.
So you mean that there is a God -that protects the San people.
-Yeah.
And then there are ancestors that heal the people.
Yeah, exactly.
We have people that we call healers.
And those connect to their ancestors who die a long time ago.
The San see physical pain and illness as proof that evil spirits have invaded their bodies.
Village healers use a trance dance to summon good spirits that they believe will cure the sick.
This is the jarub song, and if you're doing the healing songs, you have to start with this song.
Wherever you see people doing this, it's when someone is sick.
Among those hoping for relief on this night is Busa Klam Kumta.
She's been suffering from leg pains for days.
The singing, clapping and dancing will send the San healer, a village elder named Kunta Boo, into a trance state.
That's when the good spirits of his ancestors will possess him so he can heal Busa.
So the more he likes the song, the quicker he will trance? -Yeah, yeah.
-Interesting.
For the San, when the healer enters the trance, they get a glimpse into the world of the divine.
He's now in trance and he's healing people.
Touching a person is the only way you can heal.
Meaning he is connected to their ancestor, and the ancestor live in him on where to touch -Yeah.
-And where to heal.
-And what to do.
-And what to do.
Yeah.
This is real.
It's not just singing and doing something else.
He is healing people.
The dance won't end and the healer won't be himself until he's chased away the evil spirits.
The next morning, Feni has returned to the village to see if the spirits did in fact help Busa.
I have never, ever in my life seen something like that before.
Busa, you were one of the people that were healed last night.
How are you doing today? I was actually suffering from back pains and my legs.
But this morning, when I was doing everything, it was feeling very good.
Your legs are now fine.
Your back pain is gone.
And I hope it doesn't come back anymore.
The Sans see proof of the divine in the healing power of their medicine men, and perhaps on some level the healing works because of that belief in a divine connection.
Which raises an interesting question.
To find proof, do we need faith? For many religions, channelling the divine is their proof of God.
But for another faith, the proof is in God's words.
I have always had a thirst for knowledge.
Still read everything I can get my hands on.
This instinct to learn about our world and try to understand it is universal.
Civilization itself is based on our drive for knowledge.
But does that knowledge bring us closer to proof of God? The answer to that may depend on whether you believe the words we write come from our minds or from God.
All of the world's major religions have a sacred text.
The Sikhs have a book called the Guru Granth Sahib.
The Jewish faith has the Torah.
Both offer divine wisdom to their followers.
I'm at the Islamic Tenter in Washington DC to see how the words of the Koran are more than holy wisdom for the Muslim faithful.
They are proof of God.
Dr.
Amir Hussein is a scholar of the Islamic tradition.
Amir? -Mr.
Freeman, honoured to see you, sir.
-Thank you.
How are you? -I'm very well indeed.
It's nice to see you.
This is rather elaborate.
So the first thing that occurred to me when I walked in here was, 'I wonder what that chandelier weighs?' It's huge.
There's a verse in the Koran about God is the light of the -Heavens and the Earth.
-Right.
-Now, up there.
-Yes.
What are we looking at? What you see are verses from the Koran.
So right here up in the light, this Malhar, Al-Rahman, Al-Raheem literally, 'in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.
' Al-Rahman, the merciful.
-Al-Raheem, the compassionate.
-Compassionate.
So those are two of the names of God.
So, then calligraphy, has a special place and meaning? Absolutely.
To make beauty out of those letters, out of those words, is really important for Muslims.
You know, through the words that God speaks.
For Christians, God's word is the Bible, but God's word really is Jesus.
You know, God come to Earth in flesh.
For Muslims, the Koran is God come to Earth in book.
So the very words of the Koran are the words of God.
Proof of God is the Koran.
-Is the Koran.
-The fact that it exists.
Absolutely.
That it exists, that God reveals God's self to human beings in these words.
And in these words in Arabic.
Eighty percent of Muslims don't use Arabic as their day-to-day language, but the words of the Koran are always in Arabic.
In the mosque courtyard, Amir shows me verses that every Muslim knows, ones that explain how God shows himself in the Koran.
So these are the very first words of the Koran, the first versus revealed to the prophet.
Is that right there? Saying Bismillah, Al-Rahman, Al-Raheem, 'in the name of God', the merciful, the compassionate.
' 'Recite in the name of your Lord.
' And then here, 'Recite your Lord is the most generous' 'who taught by the pen.
' 'Taught the human being what the human being did not know.
' That's the crucial importance here, that God teaches us, but God teaches us with God's pen, and that's why the pen, the writing, the calligraphy, is so important for Muslims.
We have, very fortunately, one of the great calligraphers in the Islamic world, the best American calligrapher, Mohamed Zakariya, who's with us here.
Let's come down and meet him.
Brother Mohamed I want to introduce you to Mr.
Morgan Freeman.
-How do you do, sir? What a delight.
-Salaam.
You're an American? Paleface.
-Pale.
-California boy.
You won't get paler than me.
But you've taken up this very interesting art.
See, I was a machinist, I was a precisionist.
When we're doing calligraphy, we're talking about making a line by eye that is within half a thousandth of an inch, deviation from good and bad.
And so I saw these calligraphies, and they were kind of an inspiration to me at the time.
And I converted to Islam.
Is it possible to see your studio, where you work? Absolutely, I invite you.
It would seem to me that that takes enormous concentration to make a line and take a breath and continue that line without showing you where I took the breath.
The thing is, as your pen is moving, you can actually forget what you're doing.
There's a rhythm, the whole thing flows and it becomes visual music in a sense.
Okay, so what does that part mean? -What does it say? -Yeah.
'Whoever does a work' 'based on what he knows from his knowledge,' 'God causes him to inherit a knowledge that he didn't know he had.
' And so that's a famous one.
Ah yes, I love that.
It's one of the few lines that I've ever written that I really think -that has that flow.
-Has that flow, that life.
Yeah.
Otherwise, it's just writing.
It just sits there, you know? It's the difference between, well, you know, a good hot dog and a great hot dog.
Right, that is not just good, Mohamed, this is awesome.
For Muslims, the Koran is the holy revelation of God's word.
And so the very existence of the words of the Koran is proof of God.
Drawing these words has become a high form of art, a way to invoke the presence of God and all who gaze at them.
No matter which language you speak.
For most of recorded history our knowledge was connected to religion.
But today, religion often seems at odds with another way of understanding the world science.
Some even see science as supplanting faith.
Physicists discovered the 'God particle, ' so do we still need God? I'm meeting with theoretical physicist Art Leween at the New York Botanical Garden.
He thinks science doesn't replace God, instead, it leads us to him.
So, you're a theoretical physicist, Art.
Why'd you want to meet me in this place? Well, I thought it would help us talk about God.
Huh? Well, let me show you this Wait, wait, wait, wait.
How does plant life and a theoretical physicist get us to God? Let me show you this leaf.
Okay, so it's beautiful.
Yeah, it is.
And there's something about looking at nature, that makes us sense awe and wonder, something beyond ourselves.
Any of us can look at this and we sense something of the beauty of nature.
And I think that beauty points us towards God.
Well, you know, there's a widespread sense that as scientists discover more and more about the natural world, they're kind of taking away the wonder and taking away the awe.
Right.
I mean, if you can explain it, then you don't need God creating it, right? Yeah, well I think it's the other way around.
-Huh? So I think the more we learn about the world, it points more towards God, rather than less.
But as a physicist you deal in photons and equations.
Where's the God in that? Well, I do think mathematics is as beautiful as any nature scene that you see around you, possibly some are even more beautiful.
Let me give you an example.
So this is the Dirac equation.
That's the Dirac equation? That's right.
And so Paul Dirac, -a very famous mathematical physicist -Mmhmm.
was thinking about what happens when very small things, described by quantum mechanics, go very fast, described by Einstein's relativity.
You put these things together and you get this equation.
And what's amazing about this equation is that it predicted the existence of antimatter well before we saw it in nature.
So the mathematics, as it were, forced the natural world to have antimatter.
And it was by It's amazing and this piece, this really beautiful little equation, has the discovered antimatter in it, right there.
Dirac's mathematical insight, revealed hidden aspects of the universe and helped us understand the Big Bang, its moment of creation.
Okay, so Dirac did this? Yeah.
What do you want to do? Well, I want to discover an equation like this that maybe describes what life is.
So if you do find this equation, do you think that would be proof of God? It's important to remember what God is.
God is not a thing out there in the universe that we look for.
It's the other way around.
God is the reason why there is a universe.
So that means I can't prove God the way I can prove something scientifically.
But let me give you an example.
When I married my wife, if I say to her, 'Look, I don't believe that you love me until you give me evidence to the contrary.
' So instead, what I have to do, is I have to take a step of faith and believe that she loves me.
As I get to know my wife better, our love grows, and my confidence that she loves me grows.
In the same way, as I get to know God better, my confidence that God exists grows.
That was a fascinating conversation.
Too many people think of science and faith as two opposing world views, each trying to tear the other one down.
But nothing can be further from the truth.
Art believes that you can find God in scientific knowledge.
The deeper he goes, the more he sees signs of God.
I mean, after all, the very fact that we were here asking these questions is miraculous.
Hmm? So why not take that leap of faith? We've spent thousands of years searching for proof of God.
Some feel his presence guiding them through life.
Others believe they can channel the divine through their bodies or see him in the intricate wonder of the universe.
So much in our world has changed from the world our ancestors lived in.
When we first began to think about God and began to look for proof of him.
But how much has changed really? Yes, we have vast amounts of scientific knowledge, and it's tempting to think that we may one day try to use that knowledge to prove or disprove God.
But we're still all just sitting here, surrounded by creation, amazed at its complexity, its scope, its beauty.
We will always yearn to make sense of the seemingly chance events that guide the course of our lives, and we will still, I believe, be faced with the gap between knowledge and doubt, a place where we will always be able to find God.
It's changed a lot since I first came here as a young actor.
The all-night diner that we used to go to after the shows, gone.
Not a single phone booth in sight anywhere.
I came here for the same reason that most people come: to make it.
But it was a major change for a young boy from rural Mississippi.
Cities like this separate us from nature.
Most of us spend our days in climate-controlled offices and looking down at computer screens, rather than up at the stars.
Our ancestors were always in touch with the rawer elements of nature.
That's where they saw evidence of God Blowing in the wind, coming down in the warm ray of the sun.
But even in our modern world, we still share something with our ancestors.
That is the desire to find proof that God exists.
Have we cut God out of our modern lives? Or are there special moments when God breaks through and makes his presence known? I'm on a quest to understand how people find proof of God.
I'll visit a man who heard God on September the 11th.
And I felt God speak to me.
In a very still voice, I felt God saying, 'It's going to be okay.
' Discover how Muslims see God in the words of their holy book.
For Christians, God's word is Jesus, come to Earth in flesh.
For Muslims, the Koran is God come to Earth in book.
I'll talk with a Buddhist master who feels divine power inside him.
Your inner energy, you can manifest, -sort of, like the divine? -Correct.
And meet a physicist who has faith that science will lead him to God.
The more we learn about the world, it points more towards God, rather than less.
Can we all, in our own way, find proof of God? For believers around the world, prayer is an act of faith in God.
But how do we find proof of God? Often, it's in times of crisis.
Many people feel certain that God steps in to save their lives.
I'm on my way to meet a devout Christian who felt God's presence on the fateful day of September 11, 2001.
His name is Sujo John.
Sujo? Yes.
-Morgan Freeman.
-Great to meet you, sir.
-Please.
-Thank you.
You were born and raised in India.
How do you happen to be Christian? You know, my parents come from the southern part of India, where Christianity goes way back, over 2,000 years.
Tell me about the day that changed your life.
It started off as a normal day A clear, cloudless day in New York City.
Me, my wife, we both find work in the towers.
I'm on the 81st floor of the north tower, my wife on the 71st of the south.
My wife is four months pregnant with our first child, and we're looking forward to the birth of that child.
You're the north tower, and what? 8:46 in the morning, American Flight 11, flying at 440 miles an hour, this huge jet plane comes crashing into the north tower, and I hear this incredible explosion.
Fire breaks out on our floor, walls start collapsing around us, and I'm saying, 'God, if this building is gonna go down' 'I'm never gonna see my wife again.
I'm never gonna see the child that my wife is carrying.
' Someone from our floor rallies us.
He says, 'We've got to beat this fire.
' We've got to get out of this place.
' So we start crawling and fighting our way through the fire, looking for the nearest stairwell.
Thousands of people are joining us on that stairwell.
When we get to the 43rd or the 44th floor, what I see are these firemen, policemen going up, as we are going down.
We had no idea then that these men were, in a way, walking up to their death.
Can imagine.
Now we hear another explosion.
This is the second plane crashing into the second tower.
And I was going crazy, realizing for sure my wife is dead.
What's life for me if my wife is not alive? -So you did get out, you got down? -Correct.
So now you're down on the ground floor, you're in the plaza.
-Correct.
-Now what happens? I'm walking towards the south tower.
And you thought your wife was in there? Yes, I was very sure that she was there because she has to be at work at 8:40 every day.
Did you get there? No, actually the grounds are shaking violently.
The glass is shattering.
I thought it was a bomb, but this was the south tower imploding and going down.
As the building is collapsing, there's people with me and I'm huddled with them.
And I felt God speak to me.
In a very still voice, I felt God saying, 'It's going to be okay.
' You heard the voice of God? Spoke to you? I did not hear God speak to me in an audible way, but I felt God's an inner voice speak to me, and ask people to pray with me.
What happened then? We prayed for a few minutes.
And I hear this roar, with the ground shaking, I feel stuff fall on me.
There's smoke all around me, could not breathe.
When the south tower collapsed, it sort of took you with it.
You were buried in rubble and ash.
I was kind of resigned to my fate that I was going to die here.
But I realize I'm alive.
I crawled my way around, to realize that these people who had prayed with me, they did not make it.
I see a red light flashing through the soot and the smoke.
It's a flashing light, coming out of an ambulance, and part of the ambulance was crushed, but the light was still flashing.
So I'm on the streets of Manhattan.
I can't even recognize, it's like a war zone, with debris and ash and dust.
Now you are a lone survivor, so to speak.
I'm thinking about my wife.
It was just the most incredible trauma and pain to experience.
The fear of the unknown, fear about my wife.
And my cellphone rings for the very first time that day.
I see my wife's caller ID, and I'm thinking, this is not her.
It's someone else calling me, saying, 'Your wife is dead.
' But when I said hello, it's my wife, and she hears my voice, loud and clear.
But her first words were, 'Babe, are you alive?' 'Are you alive?' She thought I was dead, and I thought she was dead.
All right, so we're looking at a miracle right here.
Yes.
And it was God that preserved and saved my life.
It's proof to me that there is a God.
It seems like, if God was going to spare one, he would spare them all.
That's a great question, but life on Earth is such that no one is guaranteed a today or tomorrow.
Every human being walking on this Earth will face death.
But here's what I know from my experience.
When you walk with God and go through the storms of life, you have this peace and the presence of God.
So if you carry the presence of God, even though it might be death, it's going to be okay.
Sujo and his wife, Mary, now have three children.
He left his corporate job and dedicated his life to helping others.
His current mission in his native India, is to help save women from human trafficking.
You are using, uh just the power of life to give life to others.
Yes, I feel very blessed that God's called me into this.
I'm always excited about whatever God brings my way.
Well, it's wonderful to talk to you.
Thank you, sir.
Honour being with you.
Sujo John's survival is extraordinary.
Some say it's miraculous.
What's most remarkable to me is that Sujo felt the unmistakable presence of God, even while death and destruction were all around him.
But what about the rest of us? Is going through a horrifying experience like that the only way to feel proof of the divine? Or can we encounter God through the experiences of others? Around the world, the faithful make pilgrimage to miracle sites, places like Fatima in Portugal.
In 1917, three young shepherds claimed they were told by the Virgin Mary that a miracle would take place here on October the 13th.
A crowd gathered and on the appointed day, thousands said they saw the sun dance back and forth in the sky.
Millions of pilgrims who flock to Fatima see this miracle site as undeniable proof of God.
Being there, reinforces their belief that God can make dramatic interventions in our world.
But many believers also feel the divine guiding us in a far subtler way, in the ebb and flow of their daily lives.
I'm in New York to learn about an ancient religion from West Africa.
The Ifa faith of the Yoruba people crossed the Atlantic with slavery and is still practised today in Harlem.
Followers of Ifa believe the world is filled with divine energy, and their fates are guided by that energy.
-Hello, how are you? -Hello.
-Such a pleasure to meet you.
-I am very well.
Thank you.
Funlayo Wood is a Harvard student of African studies and an Ifa priestess in training.
And Oluwole Ifakunle is a Babalawo, or priest, of Harlem.
-How are you? -I'm well sir, how are you? -I'm fine, thank you.
-Very good.
Very good.
So, Baba, tell me about your religion.
Well, we have various deities.
We have deities like Ogun.
We have Elegua.
Elegua is the road-opener.
Ogun is the road-clearer.
And then we have Oyansa, who is the Mother of Nine.
We have Yemoja.
There's a variety of different deities.
So we all seek some proof of God.
Do you? Well, the proof of God comes to our divination and in our process of being able to connect with our deities.
Divination.
Do you mean like fortune-telling? Divination is about finding one's purpose.
You see what happens in Yoruba faith, most people are trying to connect with Gods and Goddesses and that's where we use Odu.
The way that a divination is arranged is in what we call Odu.
And so there are 256 different Odu and each one contains different information, both about energy states that are going on around us, as well as all different aspects of life.
-I can show you.
-You can? -Sure, absolutely, yes.
-It would be our pleasure.
Babalawo is taking me to his personal shrine so I can see how it works.
Guys, come on in, welcome.
-Yes, welcome.
-Thank you.
So this is my shrine over here.
This is the place where we make divination.
So calling on the divine is what we're going to do.
If I'm going to do a divination, what would I ask? Divination is performed for most important things in our lives, naming ceremonies, performed for weddings, for sicknesses.
So this is the Opon, the Opon of Ifa.
And this represents the four quadrants of the universe.
So we bring in the four quadrants of the world together so we can get a glimpse into the future.
Babalawo starts an Ifa divination for Funlayo.
Sixteen sacred palm nuts will help him read how the divine Odu energy is going to shape her future.
Call all these divinities of Africa, to see, to glimpse, the reality of this for Funlayo.
As he passes the palm nuts from one hand to the other, he counts how many remain in his original hand.
The markings he makes on the board describe the Odu that's surrounds Funlayo.
It's a binary system, so you could have ones and twos, and so there are 256 possible combinations of ones and twos that can come up.
So this is a very auspicious sign.
Talking about housing and wealth coming to her.
So she's gonna make some money! Yes, something's about to happen.
Maybe you brought me some blessings today.
You have an issue with housing? Yes, I've been looking for an apartment actually.
Just last night, I was calling a woman about an apartment that I was thinking about getting.
And so we give a praise to that place of Now, Funlayo, let me ask you, how does this prove God's existence to you? Every single time I've received a divination, the advice has been on point.
And so doing divination is that way of glancing down, glancing up, glancing side to side and just seeing what type of energy is around us.
I like to really talk about Ifa as being destiny.
You know, because if we are on our destiny in our paths, then we are going to be going in a direction that will help us to prevail and we'll be successful and victorious in our life.
Thank you for a wonderful time.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
It's my pleasure.
Your tradition of the Yoruba says the Gods show themselves on every roll of a palm nut, toss of a coin, and these ideas come into many things.
If you believe in God, you can see God in every facet of your life.
It's not evidence that you can present to a scientist, but it's evidence you feel inside.
In Ethiopia, about 100,000 Orthodox Christians, gather to witness God manifest himself in a similar way, to usher in the new year.
Historian Dr.
Cynthia Khan has travelled to Ethiopia to attend one of the country's largest religious festivals, called Meskel.
She's accompanied by Solomon Gezena, an Ethiopian religious scholar.
Look Cynthia, this place is called.
Meskel Square and this is called Demera.
This is the centrepiece of this celebration, Feast of Meskel.
What is it? Its symbolic value goes to 326 AD to Queen Helena.
Legend has it Queen Helena, the mother of Roman emperor Constantine, was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem searching for one of the most important relics in Christianity, Jesus's cross.
According to the Ethiopian legend, the cross was buried underground and Helena didn't know where.
So she prayed to God for guidance.
God told her to erect a giant bonfire.
She was told to make exactly that piece and fire it.
Then after the smoke goes up and down and indicated A big pointer to tell her where to dig.
Exactly, this shows a divine intervention.
-Yeah.
It's a proof of God.
Queen Helena followed the smoke of her bonfire to discover the location of Jesus's cross.
The replica of that bonfire, the Demera, is to Ethiopian Christians a symbol of God's intervention.
-So they light this on fire? -Yes.
Why do they light it, and then what happens after that? Yeah, there is an interesting prophecy after they light it.
When it collapses, the direction where it collapses also has a meaning.
The direction in which the Demera collapses signals a good or bad omen for the coming year in Ethiopia.
Every year, people flock to Addis Ababa to take part in the festival, to witness proof of God.
There is singing, dancing and even a re-enactment of Helena finding the cross.
But what everyone awaits is the lighting of the Demera and the revelation of its prophecy for the coming year.
So they're all gathering there now? -Look at them.
Yes, exactly.
-Yes.
Right.
He's blessing four sides of the Demera.
They light four sides? Like four sides of the world? -Exactly.
Look, look, a torch.
Look at that.
Wow, it's a little frightening.
-It's so vivid.
-Yes, all right.
All eyes are now on the burning wooden frame of the Demera.
If it topples to the west, it will be a bad omen for Ethiopia.
If it falls to the east, the country will prosper.
At east.
At east.
Yay! -North-east.
East.
-East? So what does that mean for the year in Ethiopia? Peace, love.
Ethiopia will shine.
The burning of the Demera is no miraculous apparition.
It's not the burning bush that Moses saw.
But each year the people of Ethiopia come together to witness this moment.
And together they feel the presence of God in that falling fire.
They sense an invisible hand guiding their destiny.
But other believers don't look for proof of God in the twists of fate that befall them.
They see evidence of the divine inside their bodies giving them God-like powers.
There is an inner spark in all of us.
You can see it in the eyes.
Something that says, 'I'm alive.
' We can't define what it is, but we all recognize it.
Religions call it a soul, a force that connects us to the divine.
And perhaps it is divine.
Is proof of God inside us? I've come to one of the coldest places in New York City, a cocktail bar made from ice.
-Pop this on for me.
-All right.
-Ready for the ice bar? -I'm ready.
-All right, perfect.
-Got it.
Got it.
I'm here to meet a man who claims he can harness the divine within himself.
This is Tulku Lobsang.
He's a Tibetan Buddhist Tantrayana master.
And he's meditating in a room, that's kept at just 23 degrees Fahrenheit, wearing only a thin, cotton T-shirt.
Most of us wouldn't last for more than a minute without wanting to run and put on a jacket.
Tulku Lobsang? Hello.
Uh, I mean, it's minus five degrees Celsius in here.
That's not just cold, that's freezing.
Do you mind telling me what you're doing? Ah, I'm doing one of the most sacred Buddhist Tantrayana practice, what we call inner fire, tummo.
Tummo? Yeah.
And you're not just ignoring the cold, you're literally changing your body temperature, is that right? Exactly, correct.
With the power of the visualization and then generate inner heat.
In meditation, you make this happen? -Correct.
-All right.
I'm from Mississippi.
I hate the cold.
-Yes.
-My nose is running already.
-So, I tell you what I'm gonna do.
-Yeah? I'm gonna go outside where it's warmer Yes.
And you let me know when you're ready to come out.
Okay, I continue practising then.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Tummo, a 900-year-old form of Buddhist meditation, has long fascinated scientists.
Studies have shown that monks practising tummo can control their autonomic nervous system, and raise their body temperature.
Buddhists with Lobsang's training can raise their core temperature to a low fever, about 101 degrees Fahrenheit.
They can also endure extreme cold, up to 20 degrees below zero for hours, something that would give most of us hypothermia.
So how do you feel? It's good.
-Good? -Yeah.
This isn't just like a party trick? That is the method of to discover your hidden nature or you call a Buddha nature.
The Buddha taught his followers meditation as one of the tools to obtain enlightenment, the goal of Buddhism.
During the meditation, followers are supposed to open their minds and keep their thoughts away from all material necessity.
Tummo is an advanced form of meditation, in which practitioners try to connect to their real inner power.
I'm curious to know whether Tulku Lobsang finds proof of the divine in his practice.
Oh my goodness! Golly! So, you do this this is part of tummo? Correct.
This is part of tummo, yes.
But tummo is not only this exercise.
Most important, tummo use the power of mind.
This is how you get into a state where you isolate your inner energy, your inner power? Correct.
With the power of exercise, with the holding the breath, and with the concentration -and you open all of your channels.
-Huh? And then all energy flowing, and then inner fire come in, and then bliss come in, and then you experience 'non-conceptional' state of mind, what Buddhists call Non-conceptual? Yeah, 'non-conceptual' state of mind means mind without any thought.
That's what we call Buddha nature.
The non-conceptual state of mind reminds of me of Pentecostal Christians, who surrender themselves to the Holy Spirit to speak in an unintelligible language.
It reminds me of the Masong in Thailand, who are possessed by the Taoist Gods during the Nine Emperor Gods Festival.
People in both of these faiths find proof of a higher power in these rituals.
What Buddhists hope to find in their most elevated moments is not God, but their Buddha nature.
So in Buddhism, you don't use the term or the idea of the divine.
We don't believe this kind of -traditional, maybe God -Yeah? Or this God, but we believe we all have a Buddha nature.
We all want to be happy.
Nobody wants suffering.
Mm-hmm.
The Buddha nature, is that sort of like the divine is inside? -Correct.
-That it is where it is.
That's correct.
That's correct.
Okay, well, now, see that resonates with me also.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-I believe that the divine is what's within us.
Correct, that's it.
But what you are saying, I think, is that through tummo Yes.
You can pretty much get in touch with, you can express your inner energy.
You can manifest, sort of, like the divine? Correct.
Ah, thank you very much for all this.
It's really, really amazing.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
But do you mind if we go get a cup of hot chocolate or something? -It's all right with you? -That's perfect to me.
All right, let's go.
That was more than impressive.
That was a Buddhist Tantrayana master who has learned through years of practice to tap into a source of power within himself.
He doesn't think of himself as special.
He says it's his Buddha nature, a divine power that we all have.
We just have to find it.
I like that idea.
That there is proof of God in all of us, if we're willing to look for it.
Buddhists believe tummo can help them harness a divine inner power.
In South-western Africa, there is an ancient people who believe they find proof of God by harnessing the power of ancestor spirits and using it to cure the sick.
Namibian academic, Ndapelwei Feni Nakanyete, has been travelling for days to reach a remote village in Namibia where this rare healing ceremony is about to take place.
Hello! Hello.
Welcome to the village.
Thank you so much.
Leon Semhow is a member of the San Tribe.
The San are one of the oldest communities on Earth.
It's estimated that they've been performing their traditional healing trance dance for 20,000 years.
I understand that San people have quite a complex religion.
So these people, it's not going to church.
They just know that there's God.
Our people also connect to their ancestors, people that die a long time ago.
Some of them will come back as a bad spirit and some of them will come back as a good spirit, that is help them chasing the bad spirit away.
So you mean that there is a God -that protects the San people.
-Yeah.
And then there are ancestors that heal the people.
Yeah, exactly.
We have people that we call healers.
And those connect to their ancestors who die a long time ago.
The San see physical pain and illness as proof that evil spirits have invaded their bodies.
Village healers use a trance dance to summon good spirits that they believe will cure the sick.
This is the jarub song, and if you're doing the healing songs, you have to start with this song.
Wherever you see people doing this, it's when someone is sick.
Among those hoping for relief on this night is Busa Klam Kumta.
She's been suffering from leg pains for days.
The singing, clapping and dancing will send the San healer, a village elder named Kunta Boo, into a trance state.
That's when the good spirits of his ancestors will possess him so he can heal Busa.
So the more he likes the song, the quicker he will trance? -Yeah, yeah.
-Interesting.
For the San, when the healer enters the trance, they get a glimpse into the world of the divine.
He's now in trance and he's healing people.
Touching a person is the only way you can heal.
Meaning he is connected to their ancestor, and the ancestor live in him on where to touch -Yeah.
-And where to heal.
-And what to do.
-And what to do.
Yeah.
This is real.
It's not just singing and doing something else.
He is healing people.
The dance won't end and the healer won't be himself until he's chased away the evil spirits.
The next morning, Feni has returned to the village to see if the spirits did in fact help Busa.
I have never, ever in my life seen something like that before.
Busa, you were one of the people that were healed last night.
How are you doing today? I was actually suffering from back pains and my legs.
But this morning, when I was doing everything, it was feeling very good.
Your legs are now fine.
Your back pain is gone.
And I hope it doesn't come back anymore.
The Sans see proof of the divine in the healing power of their medicine men, and perhaps on some level the healing works because of that belief in a divine connection.
Which raises an interesting question.
To find proof, do we need faith? For many religions, channelling the divine is their proof of God.
But for another faith, the proof is in God's words.
I have always had a thirst for knowledge.
Still read everything I can get my hands on.
This instinct to learn about our world and try to understand it is universal.
Civilization itself is based on our drive for knowledge.
But does that knowledge bring us closer to proof of God? The answer to that may depend on whether you believe the words we write come from our minds or from God.
All of the world's major religions have a sacred text.
The Sikhs have a book called the Guru Granth Sahib.
The Jewish faith has the Torah.
Both offer divine wisdom to their followers.
I'm at the Islamic Tenter in Washington DC to see how the words of the Koran are more than holy wisdom for the Muslim faithful.
They are proof of God.
Dr.
Amir Hussein is a scholar of the Islamic tradition.
Amir? -Mr.
Freeman, honoured to see you, sir.
-Thank you.
How are you? -I'm very well indeed.
It's nice to see you.
This is rather elaborate.
So the first thing that occurred to me when I walked in here was, 'I wonder what that chandelier weighs?' It's huge.
There's a verse in the Koran about God is the light of the -Heavens and the Earth.
-Right.
-Now, up there.
-Yes.
What are we looking at? What you see are verses from the Koran.
So right here up in the light, this Malhar, Al-Rahman, Al-Raheem literally, 'in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.
' Al-Rahman, the merciful.
-Al-Raheem, the compassionate.
-Compassionate.
So those are two of the names of God.
So, then calligraphy, has a special place and meaning? Absolutely.
To make beauty out of those letters, out of those words, is really important for Muslims.
You know, through the words that God speaks.
For Christians, God's word is the Bible, but God's word really is Jesus.
You know, God come to Earth in flesh.
For Muslims, the Koran is God come to Earth in book.
So the very words of the Koran are the words of God.
Proof of God is the Koran.
-Is the Koran.
-The fact that it exists.
Absolutely.
That it exists, that God reveals God's self to human beings in these words.
And in these words in Arabic.
Eighty percent of Muslims don't use Arabic as their day-to-day language, but the words of the Koran are always in Arabic.
In the mosque courtyard, Amir shows me verses that every Muslim knows, ones that explain how God shows himself in the Koran.
So these are the very first words of the Koran, the first versus revealed to the prophet.
Is that right there? Saying Bismillah, Al-Rahman, Al-Raheem, 'in the name of God', the merciful, the compassionate.
' 'Recite in the name of your Lord.
' And then here, 'Recite your Lord is the most generous' 'who taught by the pen.
' 'Taught the human being what the human being did not know.
' That's the crucial importance here, that God teaches us, but God teaches us with God's pen, and that's why the pen, the writing, the calligraphy, is so important for Muslims.
We have, very fortunately, one of the great calligraphers in the Islamic world, the best American calligrapher, Mohamed Zakariya, who's with us here.
Let's come down and meet him.
Brother Mohamed I want to introduce you to Mr.
Morgan Freeman.
-How do you do, sir? What a delight.
-Salaam.
You're an American? Paleface.
-Pale.
-California boy.
You won't get paler than me.
But you've taken up this very interesting art.
See, I was a machinist, I was a precisionist.
When we're doing calligraphy, we're talking about making a line by eye that is within half a thousandth of an inch, deviation from good and bad.
And so I saw these calligraphies, and they were kind of an inspiration to me at the time.
And I converted to Islam.
Is it possible to see your studio, where you work? Absolutely, I invite you.
It would seem to me that that takes enormous concentration to make a line and take a breath and continue that line without showing you where I took the breath.
The thing is, as your pen is moving, you can actually forget what you're doing.
There's a rhythm, the whole thing flows and it becomes visual music in a sense.
Okay, so what does that part mean? -What does it say? -Yeah.
'Whoever does a work' 'based on what he knows from his knowledge,' 'God causes him to inherit a knowledge that he didn't know he had.
' And so that's a famous one.
Ah yes, I love that.
It's one of the few lines that I've ever written that I really think -that has that flow.
-Has that flow, that life.
Yeah.
Otherwise, it's just writing.
It just sits there, you know? It's the difference between, well, you know, a good hot dog and a great hot dog.
Right, that is not just good, Mohamed, this is awesome.
For Muslims, the Koran is the holy revelation of God's word.
And so the very existence of the words of the Koran is proof of God.
Drawing these words has become a high form of art, a way to invoke the presence of God and all who gaze at them.
No matter which language you speak.
For most of recorded history our knowledge was connected to religion.
But today, religion often seems at odds with another way of understanding the world science.
Some even see science as supplanting faith.
Physicists discovered the 'God particle, ' so do we still need God? I'm meeting with theoretical physicist Art Leween at the New York Botanical Garden.
He thinks science doesn't replace God, instead, it leads us to him.
So, you're a theoretical physicist, Art.
Why'd you want to meet me in this place? Well, I thought it would help us talk about God.
Huh? Well, let me show you this Wait, wait, wait, wait.
How does plant life and a theoretical physicist get us to God? Let me show you this leaf.
Okay, so it's beautiful.
Yeah, it is.
And there's something about looking at nature, that makes us sense awe and wonder, something beyond ourselves.
Any of us can look at this and we sense something of the beauty of nature.
And I think that beauty points us towards God.
Well, you know, there's a widespread sense that as scientists discover more and more about the natural world, they're kind of taking away the wonder and taking away the awe.
Right.
I mean, if you can explain it, then you don't need God creating it, right? Yeah, well I think it's the other way around.
-Huh? So I think the more we learn about the world, it points more towards God, rather than less.
But as a physicist you deal in photons and equations.
Where's the God in that? Well, I do think mathematics is as beautiful as any nature scene that you see around you, possibly some are even more beautiful.
Let me give you an example.
So this is the Dirac equation.
That's the Dirac equation? That's right.
And so Paul Dirac, -a very famous mathematical physicist -Mmhmm.
was thinking about what happens when very small things, described by quantum mechanics, go very fast, described by Einstein's relativity.
You put these things together and you get this equation.
And what's amazing about this equation is that it predicted the existence of antimatter well before we saw it in nature.
So the mathematics, as it were, forced the natural world to have antimatter.
And it was by It's amazing and this piece, this really beautiful little equation, has the discovered antimatter in it, right there.
Dirac's mathematical insight, revealed hidden aspects of the universe and helped us understand the Big Bang, its moment of creation.
Okay, so Dirac did this? Yeah.
What do you want to do? Well, I want to discover an equation like this that maybe describes what life is.
So if you do find this equation, do you think that would be proof of God? It's important to remember what God is.
God is not a thing out there in the universe that we look for.
It's the other way around.
God is the reason why there is a universe.
So that means I can't prove God the way I can prove something scientifically.
But let me give you an example.
When I married my wife, if I say to her, 'Look, I don't believe that you love me until you give me evidence to the contrary.
' So instead, what I have to do, is I have to take a step of faith and believe that she loves me.
As I get to know my wife better, our love grows, and my confidence that she loves me grows.
In the same way, as I get to know God better, my confidence that God exists grows.
That was a fascinating conversation.
Too many people think of science and faith as two opposing world views, each trying to tear the other one down.
But nothing can be further from the truth.
Art believes that you can find God in scientific knowledge.
The deeper he goes, the more he sees signs of God.
I mean, after all, the very fact that we were here asking these questions is miraculous.
Hmm? So why not take that leap of faith? We've spent thousands of years searching for proof of God.
Some feel his presence guiding them through life.
Others believe they can channel the divine through their bodies or see him in the intricate wonder of the universe.
So much in our world has changed from the world our ancestors lived in.
When we first began to think about God and began to look for proof of him.
But how much has changed really? Yes, we have vast amounts of scientific knowledge, and it's tempting to think that we may one day try to use that knowledge to prove or disprove God.
But we're still all just sitting here, surrounded by creation, amazed at its complexity, its scope, its beauty.
We will always yearn to make sense of the seemingly chance events that guide the course of our lives, and we will still, I believe, be faced with the gap between knowledge and doubt, a place where we will always be able to find God.