Day 13 – the design of the universe
In a quiet revolution in thought and argument that hardly anyone could have foreseen only two decades ago, God is making a comeback… Now it is more respectable among philosophers than it has been for a generation to talk about the possibility of God's existence. –Time ("Modernizing the Case for God")
We don't have to travel far to begin our argument for God's existence. All it takes is a nature walk. Come with me outdoors and observe the natural world. Let’s start early in the morning when dew is on the ground and end at midnight when stars are in the sky. Everywhere we look, we encounter evidence of organization and design. We see magnificent trees, appropriate for the season of the year. We watch birds, ants, and squirrels go about their daily activities. We marvel at the beautiful symmetry of rainbows, spider webs, and daffodils. In the light of day, we bask in the sun's glow and observe its steady westward course through the sky. At nightfall, we gaze at the stars in their galaxies and the moon in its predictable phase. We return from our walk and fall quickly to sleep, our intricate involuntary nervous systems keeping us alive without our input. When we arise the next day and gaze out our bedroom window, we are more fascinated than ever before with the natural world around us.
Having made such a journey together, can we agree that the universe in which we live gives evidence of organization and design? Do you perceive with me order in the world and find it easy to do so? Doesn't it seem the height of folly to look at nature and deny such design? If you still have any doubts (which is unlikely), spend a few seconds thinking about each of the following: a rose, gravity, the human heart, autumn, tides, comets, childbirth, the eye, a diamond, breathing, sleep, a butterfly, the atom, the harvest. After this period of contemplation, you should be convinced that there is order, structure, and design in the world.
Daily Quotation
Time, April 7, 1980, 65.
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