Wednesday, September 21, 2011

LIFE: God's Perfect Design . . .




From nothing, God created a beginning of all things and made me a home.
Formed from the dust of the Earth, I am given the breath of life.
Consciousness floating in a universe of mystery, with a brief lifetime to grasp the nature of existence,
A mind processes the wonder and magnificence of God’s creation.

I am given a vulnerable, finite, physical life on Earth.
With belief, I am rewarded an eternal spiritual life in Heaven.


The comprehension of God as creator comes with realizing the omnipotence and intellect of His creative design for life and how it came to exist. The divinity of the chef is seen with the realization that He started from nothing and planned all the factors involved to make us happen. It starts with a plan for the creation of life that, admittedly oversimplified, requires ingredients, a pot, and a recipe.

Ingredients-

The fundamental elements of life need to be made. From nothing, comes a ‘big bang’ creating a primordial soup of building blocks to matter. Given the proper energy, temperature, relative abundances (like a little more matter, than anti-matter) and gravity, things like quarks, gluons and leptons coalesce to form things like protons and neutrons, which eventually cool, condense, and recombine to form simple atoms, like helium and hydrogen. Given the proper time and gravity, clumps of matter start forming into stars. To get elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, some of these stars have to explode as supernovae, and the heavier elements are the product of nuclear fusion from that extreme explosion. Their stardust forms nebulae which in time coalesced to form new stars and planets, this time with the ingredients of life in them. Our planet Earth is lucky enough to have them all. Pass the salt please.

The Pot-

It takes some doing to make Earth a pot. For life to develop we need a stable, long-term, right sized Sun. Our planet needs to be at the proper distance from the Sun to provide the optimum temperatures and environment (water, atmosphere, etc.), with a concentric orbit (for milder, livable seasons), and a magnetic field (to eliminate harmful rays). A large moon (to stabilize our axis and provide tides) and large neighboring planets (to divert asteroids) will certainly help. Now at the proper time (age) in the dynamic and ever-changing geological history of Earth, we have a place to add our ingredients. Hopefully, our pot can provide a long term, stable environment to let our soup mix and simmer.

The Recipe-

 The ingredients formed from stardust will need additional conditions for the proper chemical reactions to occur and form the needed molecules for life. They need to be added in a proper sequence, at sufficient quantities and relative ratios, with catalysts (pH, heat, pressures, water, etc.), and no interfering substances (like oxidizing agents). Prebiotic (before life) ingredients and conditions have never been found on earth, but we are here so something must have worked, so let’s make life.

One idea (one God) to create life is to use carbon, hydrogen and oxygen to make four nucleic acid bases (guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine). These amino acids are the building blocks to make DNA and RNA, which provides the mechanisms for all the bioactivity of life. In fact, this is the only idea that seems to work for Earth. These four amino acids must now be paired up, and the pairs lined up to form long chains. The next steps are to shape the chains into double stranded helical shapes with specific lengths (chromosomes), and toss them into an environment that allows them to function (the nucleus of an organic cell). In this cell must be the parts to facilitate replication of DNA and utilize nutrients for energy to live. The chains have very specific sequences of nucleic acid bases called ‘genes’ that code the information necessary for the manufacture of many types of proteins, structures, functions and characteristics of an organism. If you look at the complex biochemical structure of the amino acids and the complex problems of making DNA and RNA, and the problems in designing functional gene sequences of DNA, it is inconceivable to imagine how these occurred randomly. Additionally, no good evidence or explanations about how these biochemicals are animated to life is given. However, life based on DNA exist on earth and now we have a living cell.

Multicellular organisms need the living cells to specialize, join together, and function together to setup a living system with complex survival abilities. The abundance and diversity of species on Earth is a testimony to the versatility, durability, adaptability, and creative power of DNA. Mutations in species caused by DNA and the fact that all life utilizes DNA, lead scientists to believe DNA is the mechanism for evolution. My personal perspective views mutation and the similarities of species as indication to how genius God’s design of DNA is, and that evolutionary theory, if true , doesn’t exclude God as creator. The Theory of Evolution has real problems with assumptions not supported by real evidence, however, the theory is not unproven, and so, remains an open issue. The immensity and grandeur of the universe is overwhelming, and the durability and diversity of all life is a masterpiece in design, but it is man that is the pinnacle of God’s creation.

Man has about 25,000 genes (a similar number as in a mustard seed) spread out on 23 pairs of chromosomes, each gene averaging 28,000 base pairs. To make man, the functions of DNA and RNA must go into overdrive. With extreme coordination and ingenuity the DNA creates an incredible human body with a superior brain that separates us dramatically from all other life forms. The brain gives us more intricate motor and communication skills, freedom from most animal instinctual behavior, and the innate ability to reason. Given the intellect to comprehend a God, believing that our unexplainable existence originates without divine input is a case of outsmarting ourselves.

Science doesn’t disprove the existence of God. The improbability and ‘fine tuning’ of astrophysics and quantum physics that are necessary for the formation of the ‘ingredients’ are unreasonable without God. The impossible ‘just right’ environmental conditions necessary for the ‘pot’ to start and maintain life is unreasonable without God. In addition, the complex, statistically impossible chemistries and biology necessary for the ‘recipe’ to work are unreasonable without God. If these were not perfected by our master chef, life wouldn’t be on the menu. The rapidly increasing body of knowledge of science reveals an existence of unfathomable complexity and mystery, and leaves me with little option but to acknowledge that creation requires God. Without God there would be no universe, no earth, no life, and no man.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

So Large, So Majestic



As I studied, every aspect of my exploration led to God. For me rational thought demanded the recognition of God’s hand in creation. The large values of numerical constants necessary in cosmology and quantum physics for the universe to exist, and the many factors that help sustain life on earth are very persuasive. Simply put, the ‘just rights’ and the ‘fine tuning’ are obvious and undeniable products of design. Everything seems to fit for our life on the planet Earth.

For life, all the world is a garden of Eden.
We exist because we can . . .
Our world was designed for us.
 
I am captured by specific topics of science that deal with creation and stirred my interest and imagination throughout my life. These topics laid the foundations for my belief in God. I was a medical technologist by profession, but my heart loved all sciences, first and especially, cosmology.
We see through a window in our galaxy.
The hidden universe is exposed and we find our thoughts were too restricted.
Suddenly, things are larger and we are smaller.
Is this our lesson from God?
 
In my generation, modern science exposed a universe much different from what we previously thought. Visions of galaxies, supernovae, nebulae, the cosmic background radiation, etc. increased our knowledge by giant steps. The accumulated knowledge of Man accelerated and expanded like the universe. The view of our universe changed, from trillions of stars to trillions of galaxies, from a finite steady state to an expanding universe created from a ‘big bang,’ from the Theory of Relativity to the theories of everything, and from the mysteries of the sun and planets to the mysteries of black holes, dark matter and energy. Primitive man looked to the heavens and a panorama of lights filled his mind with wonder. We look to the heavens and see more. The wonder remains but is more wondrous than before. The grandeur of the universe displays the creation by a wonderful and omnipotent God.
We drift insignificantly in space and wonder why the neighborhood is so large?
Maybe we really are significant and our landlord really cares?  
The specialness of our home makes it seem so!!

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Vision Of Creation

"Seeing you will see and not perceive" Matthew 13:14

The unexplained mysteries of the universe cry out for the intellect of Man to find answers. The more we know the more complex the mystery, and many times we revise what we think we knew. The world of absolute truths is invisible to the mind searching for concrete, conclusive evidence. We are forced to rely on theories and beliefs to find peace with our ignorance. In my attempts to find meaning in my life, I have searched the world of science and religion. My intellectual journey has brought me to a strong belief in God as my creator, and with my study of the Word of God, I have found a faith in Jesus Christ as my savior. I have found that when you believe in God, it is a precursor to the need to seek out the purpose of His creation. The foundation of reasonably accepting God’s role in creation was a mind process to me. It starts with the beginning.

In an instant, with a burst of energy, the newly formed masses accelerated outwards at incredible speed. The clock was started as creation marched forward through space. Soon the universe lit up as photons of light illuminated the darkness. The spectacle of God’s creation was on display, awaiting the eyes of Man to see.
The mysterious photon is of little significance without the creation of eyes. The photon lifts us from a blind species living in darkness, isolated from much of our environment that surrounds us. Even as it is hard to reconcile the existence of a photon, except to provide light to see, it is equally as hard for me to understand the complex creation of the eye, except for the purpose to see the wonder of God’s creation. The visions of the wonders of God’s creation are not the only revelation of the eyes, but many of the wonders of scientific discovery are revealed by our sight and the enhanced "eyes" we have developed. These are most apparent by the very large of cosmology and the telescope, and the very small of the microscopic world in biology and tools of quantum physics. The scientific process of observation is the foundation of much of our theories in physics and other sciences. Suffice it to say that without our sight much of our observable discoveries would not exist and we would be left "in the dark".

The belief of non-believers of God is that creation occurred by random, spontaneous means, from natural forces, and exist without a divine purpose. With so much of our life dependent on sight, it is hard to believe the formation of the photons (light) as having no purpose and are another lucky, accidental coincidence for the eyes of Man. The concept of purpose of the photon in relationship with the other fundamental forces (electromagnetism, weak and strong interactions, gravity) and particles (the Standard Model) of quantum physics is mysterious and confusing, but by it’s very complexity infers a strong purpose as part of creation. Also, the idea of the speed of light ( c ) as a constant in our universe and a purposeful tool of astrophysics (Einstein’s Theory of Relativity- E=mc2), and the photon as a controversial wave or particle phenomenum with no mass, adds to the mystery and the concept of purpose of the photon. The creation of light ("Let there be Light") certainly does not seem arbitrary and with no purpose. Perhaps even harder to explain without purpose is the eye. It is easy to know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but why light would exist without eyesight, especially eyesight backed by a reasoning mind, defies explanation. To me this represents a special relationship between light and vision that gives purpose to each. The animal and even the plant kingdom have photo-sensing abilities. Indeed, many types of eyes exist in the animal kingdom. Man has not explained or revealed good explanations or evidence for the evolution of the eye. To me it rationally goes like this. How do you create the genetic code for the components in the brain to interpret sight without having simultaneous genetic codes for all the physical components of an eye? Show me the steps, and also the evidence of these steps. Have them occur randomly and without purpose (survival?) and let me decide rationally of your possibility as compared to the belief of a purposeful creation by God so we can "see" the wonder of His creation. Of course this is a simplification of the problems in explaining the evolution of the eye (note: I am not necessarily an opponent of evolution). The anatomical and mental structures involved in sight are as complex as the physics of the photon. Putting these together is one of the factors that led to my belief in God’s role in creation.