Intelligent Design  8-1-22

INTRODUCTION

In trying to write this essay on Intelligent Design I find to my wonderment that this topic is so hard to adequately explain.  It is because I feel I am understating the strength of my conviction of God’s hand in creation.  The more I think, I keep adding factors for my belief, but still feel I fall short. 

I have been exposed for years to the struggles scholars of religion and science have between each other.  They mock each other.  One problem is that neither side is an expert on such a broad topic.  Many religious scholars have very little exposure to science and scientists often have no exposure to religion.  Even when they do have learning in the opposing areas, in this day of specialist they are hardly broadly knowledgeable.  Hence, I find they spend a lot of time quoting others.  I also am far from expert, and so fall in line with those I am criticizing.  However, sitting on the fence is cowardly.  I studied, trying to be independent and to create an unbiased approach, without getting caught up in controversies or opinionated advocacy.  I don’t think this is contrary to my love and passion for science, but openly recognizes what science reveals and doesn’t reveal.  Likewise, I tried to be open about what the Bible says and means, intimately to me.  Studying has been a very solitary activity for me and I keep everything to myself.  This makes it hard to be bold and not be intimidated by the opinions of others.  It is scary to think for yourself in contrast to the experts of science and the Bible.  I fear being called stupid or even worse, a heretic.  In spite of this I will try.  I believe in God as creator, over the views of science and even differ with some of the Bible scholars.

INTELLIGENT DESIGN

Intelligent Design emphasizes the concept that creation displays design that requires intelligence.  Humans understand this easily because we created a more comfortable world that is designed by our superior human intelligence.   Intelligent Design is a term that relates to my belief in God as the “starter”, the designer, and the creator.  It is related to the idea that Man discovers and the nature of what we discover is seemingly designed and intelligent.  Creation is beyond our intellect in many ways and it is reasonable to conclude everything is made by something much smarter than us.  That is God to me.  That is what I consider a valid, reasonable belief.  I have many strong, reasonable, and compelling reasons that help me feel enthusiastic and convinced of God’s hand in my existence.  

ABIOGENESES (making life from inanimate matter) -

It is reasonable to examine the creation of Life as a first revelation of God’s power of creation.  I’ve read for years of the attempts by science to come up with ideas of how life could happen.  Making amino acids using lightning is not even close to making DNA (the functional programmed template for life).  Discovering the diversity, adaptability, and durability of life shows how incredible life is, but not how it originated.  For me, theories of life from prebiotic soup, hot ocean vents, or outer space show nothing.  I find that any ideas of life by science fall far short of showing how to create and maintain even the simplest, primitive life.  The complicated molecule DNA is necessary for life, but life is not because of DNA.  Hence, DNA is lying about all over the world (even as road kill) and is not alive.  Science cannot even understand how DNA was created or it’s programming mechanisms work.  Life is beyond the scope of a master chemist or genius programmer.  Our great human mind has a hard time even defining life or coming up with any real scientific ideas of it’s start and maintenance.  So even with life how does a single cell get so organized to stay alive and reproduce?  How do single cells specialize, co-exist, and learn to cooperate to become a Man made of 32+ trillion cells?  Why is all life controlled by DNA?  Why is it the only  molecular formula that worked?  Is  DNA only on Earth and is this the true wonder of our habitable world?  The current theories of abiogenesis shows how mysterious the animation of matter really is and how creative life is.  The questions are so numerous that I seriously think when we figure out what life is, we will find God. 

COSMOS- 

In my lifetime (78 years) the discoveries about the Cosmos have been fast paced, enlightening, and unimaginable.  Hubble alone has revealed a complexity of the Cosmos that shows how backward our beliefs were.  It is hard to incorporate new things like a Big Bang Theory, black holes, supernova, the CMB, nebula, dark matter and energy, an accelerating universe, and the new size and age of the Cosmos into my mind.  What will the James Webb telescope discover?  I am overwhelmed by the majesty and wonders of the created Cosmos. The Cosmos reveals mysteries we can hardly begin to grasp.  The vagueness of scientific speculations, like the “singularity”, the multiverse, and “theories of everything” demonstrates the shortcomings of our human technology and imagination.  I sometimes feel science avoids their huge gaps of understanding.  Only the infinite God matches the seemingly infinite Cosmos.

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT-  

This term seems to be kicked around by scientist to describe the sense that the parameters of our Earthly life requires basic, defined necessities for life to exist.  Discovery coveys a sense that many of these are lucky coincidences.   “Goldilocks”, “just right”, “privileged planet”, and “fine tuning” are not terms that fit into science’s vocabulary.  Science demands that random, spontaneous, natural events explain creation.  I believe that God controls, so the mass extinctions handily occurred in a manner suitable for humans to survive, our unique “rare Earth” is designed to provide a suitable home for us, and the elements and their relative ratios made by the sun and supernova are perfect for us to be made.  Other factors display the same perfection.  The complex process of the formation of oxygen makes it somehow magically available for us to breathe.  Ozone preserves our temperature, otherwise we would be a another Venus or Mars.  Water is not only abundant on Earth, but is maintained by the seasons, the weather cycles, the sun, plate tectonics, and other subtle factors.  The balances of nature represents the extreme complexity and purpose of design by God.  It feels like every new discovery is somehow tied to the concept of being necessary for life.  The list really is endless and stands in stark contrast to the minimal list of necessities scientists require for habitable exoplanets.  The hundreds, or thousands, of conditions necessary for our life (and well-being) are truly an act of God, not luck.

GOD CREATED MAN- 

The special creation of Man is a way to explore God’s role in creation.  Man is the most intelligent species we know of on this Earth, and possibly in the whole Universe.  I believe God gave Man superior intellect so we can be more of a companion than a pet.  He did not create Man to be a robot, without will or awareness.  

With our brain we can conceptualize a God and discern and chose.

With our brain we can create and design amazing things.  

With our brain we can dominate and manipulated the world.

With our brain we are curious and seek knowledge.

With our brain we can commit and believe. 

It should be noted that human intelligence is something very complex.  We have language and can communicate so we build a cumulative data base to advance our species.  Together, not individually, we discover different ways to harness fire and to build an Atomic Bomb.  Who is Einstein without Newton, or Henry Ford without the people who developed steel, gas and tires? Luckily we can learn from each other.

Man made a computer, God made a brain.

Man programmed a worldwide internet, God programmed DNA.

Man made buildings, God made suns, planets, and moons.

Man made robots, God made living animals, plants, and Man.

Man made a watch, God created time and the materials to make a watch. 

It is the achievements of God that are truly awesome, not Man.  It is the big brain of Man that probably makes us arrogant.  Even with superior consciousness we aren’t even smart enough to figure out many fundamental things.  Being cynical of Man, science, and religious dogma is part of the driving force of my believing in God.  He is mine, and I am His.

NARRATIVE

There are a lot of reasons, as I stated above, that point to God as creator, but those reasons are just part of the story.  I think, I speculate, I imagine, I try to figure things out to satisfy me, and I come up with beliefs that are not easily clearly stated.  These are beliefs that redefine some people’s ideas of science and Christianity.  Ideas going against consensus are intimidating to make, but they do reflect some of my thoughts.  Hence, I will attempt to produce a bolder and more inventive narrative of reasons that will try to better clarify my belief in God.

Statements 

I believe that God as Creator is much more than Science or the Bible reveals.  The reality of God is outside of our ability to imagine, or even guess.  His magnificence is totally beyond our tiny mind.  The Bible does not fully explain the methods of creation used by God.  It is a book of revelation of God’s plan for Man, not explanation.  Science falls far short of finding answers to many things.  It leaves gaps and infers it will have answers, over time.  It is the absolute wonder of creation that makes God indescribable.  An awesome creation takes an awesome Creator.  My belief is that God is my Truth and Hope.  I think science and the Bible both reveal a God beyond Man’s ability to comprehend.

Sometimes, I don’t think of God as a magician, but as a divine genius.  It is a way to envision a God that is more real and reasonable in the face of the physical presence, complexity, and design of everything we see around us.  This perspective makes more sense to explain some things.  It proposes that God may have created or used time, the natural forces of nature, evolution, and many other things, utilizing everything perfectly for creation.  It is along the lines of attributing DNA and genetics as something God created to implement as tools for the maintenance of life.  This concept is definitely speculative and admit-tingly may be stretching things too far.  It is not a wish to modify the Bible to conform to science or vice versus.  We really don’t know how God made things.  God said “Let there be light” and we have photons, eyes, and a brain so we can see and discover.  Did God create or use photons?  Maybe God’s intellect is the real source of miracles?  Someday I trust I will know and understand how God works. 

From a spiritual realm God created a physical universe.  Our reality is physical .  We live, experience, multiply, and die within a physical timeline. Elaborate physical creations from matter demonstrate and validate the creativity and purposeful intent of God to make things.  Things don’t just happen.  A  Heavenly Father made us an unique physical home.  All of Earth is essentially a Garden of Eden that is created just for us.  Maybe it takes trillions upon trillions of planets to get one just right to sustain us.  Ours may be the only one of a kind.  The physical specialness of the creation of Man is apparent in the Bible.  For me, the possibility of the extension of our physical existence to a spiritual eternity is a reflection of our specialness to God.  Belief in this spiritual realm is a “leap of faith”, taken by me that is in addition to my recognition of God as creator.  Maybe the gift of consciousness and revelation by God is why I can be made aware of this?

Questions

I will start questions with human intellect.  Humans use our mind to try to figure out our reality.  The thing so exciting about science is how it tries to discover our reality with reason.  Reality is important to me because my perceived truth about reality is useful to define purpose and meaning in my life.  Science could not convey truth to me, but strangely God did.  Why are humans so much smarter than other animals, and how did it happen so fast?  Dinosaurs had 165 million years and fish even longer but they never “evolved” much in the intelligence game.  So why humans?  Neither the Bible or science explains our superior brains.  A human biological brain stands in stark contrast to our man-made computers as far as design or complexity.  How do neurons, synapse, and neurotransmitters relate to microchips and electronics?  No artificial intelligent robot by man even comes close to comparing to any of God’s created animals.  A recent video I saw describes how we have underestimated the “ridiculous” complexity of neurons in mice, but that complexity exceeds ridiculous in humans.  The questions about our special brain are strong reasons to believe in God.  

The questions on “origins” are very problematic.  I hardly think science ever explains origins on anything.  The description “In the beginning” in the Bible is also vague in nature.  The concepts of Inflation Theory, the Big Bang, String Theory, Time, and Gravity may easily be overzealous scientific presumptions.  On the other hand, Sampson’s hair, the Tower of Babel, and Jacob’s Ladder are also hard to reconcile with reason.  The six days of creation depicted in the Bible scientifically also seems a translational defecit.  Not knowing is hard and makes committing to a belief difficult.  So unanswerable questions accumulate.  Even so, I discern and commit, as my most reasonable solution, to belief in origins as being the product of a superior intellect, God.  This is far more credible and superior to the “science” theories for me. 

Over time I have increasingly come to a feeling that new discoveries by science are God showing me how He is in control.  How did this happen?  It is because I seem to be inundated with new discoveries of science that are so wondrous, mysterious, and complex that I came to feel God is revealing things directly to me.  I think of these as things only He could create.  I hear so many times that these new discoveries are part of why we exist.  For example, we would have no galaxies, suns, or planets without Dark Matter.  I’ve also heard we would have no galaxies without Black Holes, Inflation, and more Matter than Antimatter.  Also, no life without Supernova, Water, DNA, and the Sun.  This is a long story but I read that the newly discovered cosmic rays of Supernova may be the cause of speciation on Earth.   Also, even fungus and viruses are necessary for life.  I appears that nothing can exist without the genius of God.  I see God as a purposeful designer who personally creates for me.  God is leading my new discoveries of science to further “proclaim the glory of God”.

CONCLUSION

I write to explore and clarify things for myself.  My ideas are from a collection of facts in my head, gathered after a lifetime pursuit of knowledge.  My past writings are handwritten and personal in nature.  Always for myself and essentially not read by anybody else.  Because of this I now realize much of my writings are hard to understand.  I can’t explain all the detail and complexity that goes into my thoughts without writing a book.  However, the deeper insights from my studies are from details and are a basis for my beliefs.  The following are a couple examples of what I mean by how the deeper details influence me.

 

I was making a statement about water in one of my videos on God’s extreme design for life and got caught up in details.   My videos were made from notes, unscripted, and very amateur, and I got carried away describing detailed characteristics of water.  It involved trying to briefly discuss the unique chemical and solubility properties from it molecular structure, it’s utility for biological functions, it’s formation and prevalence in the Cosmos, Earth and Human body, among other things.  Needless to say, it was over long, boring, and still incomplete.  It was dropped from my videos.  However, my belief is validated by such details.  I wanted to include how the water is distributed and maintained on Earth, and how hydrogen was formed from the early Big Bang, and oxygen by nuclear fusion in suns, and both distributed in stardust from Supernova.  It really is the details that showed me that water is not by luck, but by an intricate design from God.  The same complexity easily exist with the details in understanding how Carbon, rare elements, and the Iron Core of the Sun and Earth were formed,  made available, and utilized for life to exist.  I do not have the ability to express my impressions of these wonders of God.

Evolution is another example of how details influence me.  I have seen videos and read many articles on evolution, especially of Man.  Science’s origin stories are so vague and ambiguous to me.  The fossil records, carbon dating, genetic studies, evolutionary trees, etc. are very inconclusive to me.  There are so many controversies that it becomes very confusing.  The conviction that God has created Homo sapiens, specifically, is also not easy.  Things would be easier if the Bible was clearer.  However, the origin of the human species is hard to accept from an evolutionary process to me.  Humans hardly seem possible because we are so extremely unique and complex from all other animals.   Survival is not by natural selection for Man to me.  It seems more like we survived because of a series of lucky, timely, and fortunate events.  I can imagine Man as created as we are by God.  I saw the hominid skulls, bird-like reptiles, and genetic trees and am still convinced that God is creator.  It is disturbing to see Darwin’s evolution of Monkeys to Apes to Man diagrams and realize science so strongly supports their theory that people turn from God.

I have written so much on science and God and tried to make it clear why I believe in God as the Creator.  I think I spent so much effort with this essay  because I want it to help people who won’t accept or consider belief in God, using science or reason as an excuse, like I did.  It is helpful because believing in “A God” helps when evaluating a belief for “The God” of the Bible.  The search for the God of salvation starts with the Bible for Christians.  To accept a God who personally cares for you does not have concrete evidences and is “a narrow road”.  This topic is complex and I feel involves a person’s personal journey to God.  If I personally wasted a large part of my life wondering and studying, I will feel the vanity of my life.  However, I pray that God leads me and I can serve Him in someway.  I will attempt to examine my pathway to Christianity in my next essay ( “I Believe” ).

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This topic is a major part of my life’s energy, passion, time, and mental efforts.  I have hundreds of writings, a blog, and a video series on the topic.  Essentially nobody views these, but they were my way to record my thoughts.  I once had a hope my son would read them.  This essay stands alone but I am including links to them.  They are dated and repetitious and I think are best read and watched only if you are interested in more detail.

This is a link to my blog.  It was first published on the internet in 2011.  It was started as science and religion but as time passed it became a jumble of many old miscellaneous writings I typed to preserve and formalize.  To access my 5 essays on Intelligent Design, scroll down on the right side to “Blog Archive”, start on year 2011 and then 2015.

http://scienceofgodscreation.blogspot.com/

This is the link to my 15 video series.  It was started enthusiastically, but for some reason I could not start chapter 6 (it’s been over 4 years).  I just made notes, stuck a black board behind me, and started talking.  They are very amateurish.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLArZojo6WU_jX9mSOAOBYMBuHI_R2tR1p

 

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