Well, i'm not particularly educated regarding this, but here's my impression of CERN.
These days, science is a pretty big deal. Mainstream opinion is that its not God that shaped the modern world, its science. Science is the great giver, the giver of light and warmth and prosperity. Its all very romanticized. I used to buy into it a lot.
Thus, science has its proponents. Its priests, if you will. How far is a priest willing to go to defend their faith, to what ends would they go for their faith?
With all that in mind, many of the wealthy think they owe their wealth not to God, but to scientific advancement. It is also credited for the saving of a lot of human life through higher standard of living, medical research and application, deepening and widening our view of the cosmos, and giving us an unprecedented view of the smallest bits of nature, the particles that make up matter.
Here's an important equation:
F = MA
F = Force, M = Mass, A = Acceleration.
The measure of the force of an impact of any object(be it a ball, a building, a car, a person, a particle) is equivalent to the mass of the object, times the acceleration of that object. In this case, acceleration isn't the speed of the object, but how fast the speed of that object is increasing.
Why is this relevant?
You see, a lot of particle physics is theoretical. The truth is that finding exotic particles that are theorized in particle physics isn't easy. These exotic particles require exotic conditions in order to be observed. Some particles that have been theorized might have only existed for milliseconds after the big bang.
So, the key to finding these particles on earth, is to recreate the conditions of the big bang.
Sure. Easy as pie.
A very large, ridiculously expensive, and mind-boggingly intricate pie.
The particle
accelerator's function can be summed in a few words: Accelerate particles, smash them together, measure what comes out. Of course, these events that happen once the particles collide happen faster than the human eye can register. So they have very complex machines dedicated to the task.
People have raised objections to the operations of CERN, some citing it as an unnecessary danger to public health; like miniature black holes, end of the universe, etc.
From a spiritual level, I think its simple. All things exist by the grace of God. Is it evil? I don't know, but I'm usually not prone to conspiracy thinking. Is it good? Depends. Is it being used to glorify god? No, not by the mainstream view. Can it be viewed that way by religious people working there? Sure. The big bang theory was first postulated by a catholic priest. But it does bring other questions to mind for me. Are we reaching too far? When will enough be enough? We know that morally speaking, without God there is know moral framework for reality. Everything is pointless, empty of meaning. What does that mean with scientific advancement? We know that with Moral Law, there are limits that when crossed lead to 'much weeping and gnashing of teeth'. - Luke 13:28
Morally speaking, is this grasp at a complete model of the physics of the universe something to be considered perverse? We should ask ourselves, what drives the need for these things? Maybe hubris, a bit of pride, and a lot of ignorance.
The modern mainstream intellectual traditions hold no regard for God's law, for love and salvation. I don't think the danger here is opening up portals to shiva-land. I think the danger is one of the blind leading the blind off of a cliff into a burning pit.
Some videos, if you'd like to know more about CERN:
