I’m not going to get into the scientific debate for an Intelligent Designer; there are already lots of books out there that cover that. And besides that, I’m not a scientist. I’m simply a human being living on this planet called Earth. However, I would like to note that some people think that those of us who believe in God can’t possibly believe in science. Let me just debunk that myth. I actually think the opposite is true: science simply points back to God.
Many people have spent their lives trying to argue that there is no God. They’ll say that man wrote the Bible, so how can it possibly be accurate? They’ll argue the points that I raised at the beginning of the chapter regarding all of the evil in the world. But at the end of the day, the best they have been able to come up with to explain the origin of human beings is that an incredible series of random events took place, all by chance.
In my personal view, it stretches credulity to the breaking point to believe that the universe came into being with just the right qualities to support intelligent life, apparently out of nothing and for no reason. An uncaused effect, so to speak.
So, without getting into a debate, let me simply quote a few famous scientists and then you can come to your own conclusions.
British physicist P.C.W. Davies notes that the odds against the initial conditions of the universe being suitable for the formation of stars (a necessity for planets and life) are one chance in one followed by at least a thousand billion zeroes.1
Let me begin to write that out for you. The chance of conditions being suitable for the formation of stars is 1 in 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000… and at least a thousand billion more zeroes.
Davies also notes that if the strength of gravity were altered by only one part in 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 life could never have developed.2
Would you bet your life that the universe beat those odds by random chance?
The existence of the universe and intelligent life requires an impressive series of “coincidences” to have occurred. Stephen Hawking notes that it’s like a hoard of monkeys hammering away on keyboards eventually, by pure chance, producing one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.3
And then to take it to the next level, think of all the different specimens of plants, animals, trees, insects, etc. on earth. All by chance. Really?
Based on what I know, what I see around me, and my personal life experiences that you’ll get to read about in Part 3, I’d say it takes an amazing amount of faith to be an atheist.
1 P. C. W. Davies, Other Worlds, (London: Dent, 1980), p. 6.
2 ibid
3 Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, (New York: Bantam, 1988), pp. 123.
If you’d like a free copy of this e-book, you can download it from Apple’s iBooks or Smashwords. Click on the appropriate button below. Alternatively, email me at “ray at majoran.com” and I’d be happy to send you a PDF copy.
unOblivious
Do we see the amazing beauty in the things that God has created, the people He's brought into our lives, the situations He's put us in? Or do we live in a bubble, oblivious to His amazing wonder happening all around us? unOblivious is a 160-page photo-essay that helps answer that question.
