Exploring Intelligent Design in the Church.

Recently I purchased a book by Lee Strobel entitled The Case for a Creator. The book features various interviews with scientists in various fields: biology, biochemistry, astronomy, cosmology, etc... What struck me is the great amount of scientific evidence for the existence and action of a Creator. Perhaps Christians have been going about it all wrong, trying to get Intelligent Design to be taught within public schools. Frankly, most of the evidence is quite recent, and quite above the heads of most high schoolers. In fact I was having trouble comprehending the cosmological evidence. What it comes down to, however, is that there is a great deal of evidence out there that makes the most logical sense in the context of creation by an Agency outside of nature.

One of the most convincing arguments is found in the Big Bang theory, and another has to do with all the fine-tuning there is in physics for the existence of life, but the arguments most appealing to me have to do with how suitable the Earth is for us. There are so many various ways that the Earth is completely ideal for the sustaining of life, and how many things that could have been different that would have simply made life impossible. Obviously the naturalists just say that we got lucky, or that all the happy coincidences just came together here, so enjoy it--or exploit it--while you're alive in your pitiful, meaningless existence.

When it comes down to it, the intelligent design debate is about interpretation. How do you, or I, or any given scientist interpret the data, the evidence. Naturalists and Evolutionists will simply refuse to grant intelligent design because they a priori dismiss anything supernatural. If you start off saying that God is impossible, you will have to invent hypotheses and theories in order to account for the Big Bang evidence, or the evidence from the complexity of cells, of the genetic information packed in DNA, or the astronomical improbability of having a terrestrial planet 93 million miles from a medium sized yellow star in the safest position within a spiral galaxy (hundreds of light years away from black holes, supernovae, high concentrations of cosmic rays, etc...), a planet with the right balance of air to sustain life, covered with water that not only permits life by regulates the temperature of the whole planet: a planet, furthermore with an appropriate tilt of the axis and rotation period that allows with seasons, night and day within a span of hours that neither superheats or supercools one side of the planet.... Each of these aspects could very well be different: completely and radically more hostile and devastating to life. Yet all these ideal conditions coincidence: the number of individual conditions is staggering. Given only ONE condition awry, and life would be impossible as we know it. Impossible for probably any life outside of bacterial existence.

I believe the scientific evidence overwhelmingly points to a Creator who literally thought of everything in order to make a world that not only supports life, but enables an astonishing diversity of life, filled with beauty, depth, meaning, and purpose. It is mind boggling thinking that there are people who not only are unimpressed by the countless ways our world is balanced and life-friendly, but also refuse to acknowledge that all of this is a gift from God. People like Betrand Russell have long lamented our pitiful existence and embraced a meaningless nihilism and though they don't believe in hell either, they fashion their own lives in such a way that they only know hell: that of their own despair and alienation.

Intelligent Design does need to be taught. In the churches. Adults need to learn these things.