My view is as; Religion has been around to explain what we dont understand, an example being the greeks thought a huge chariot carried the sun across the horizon until figured otherwise. While science is farther behind then the questions religion currently answers (this is where the question comes in) where do you think the two will compromise. Is science the opposite of religion or is there a point where they both meet. I got the ideas from a book im sure many of you have read, or maybe not. But I was still curious to what you guys think. Can Science eventually prove god exists? Or are we not meant to know?
Science and Religion
- Thread starter Damorith
- Start date
B
Bandit
Guest
i know God exists because i have seen him work in my life and others. He touches me in so many ways I cannot express His fulness and greatness.Damorith said:
i think some people are expecting one of those greek chariots to fall out of the sky for proof. God is a spirit.
we cant look for physical proof of a spirit(s) except through manifestations. So I dont think science will ever prove or disprove it and neither will religion.
i have a friend who is so wrapped up in technooology that he thinks it will one day be able to seperate the spirit of a man from its body
.there really is no compromise for me and i dont see it as opposites. science and religion both make big mistakes and sometimes theories that is all they are.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
but hey..to each his own in theory.
and welcome to the boards Damorith
Awaiting_the_fifth
Where is my mind?
As a buddhist I dont believe that anything around me is actually real, form is emptiness and emptiness is form. (Im sure you've heard the sound bites before) Think what morpheus said in The Matrix.
"What is real? If you are talking about what you can see, what you can feel and smell then real is just electrical impulses interpreted by your brain."
The whole universe that we measure through science is actually just a physicality projected by ourselves onto an ultimately formless spiritual plane. We only interact with it in our minds. Because of this (and this is extrapolation on my part, no spiritual teacher has told me this) science could measure the entire universe, from the smallest particle to the hugest galaxies, from the big bang to the death of the final star, but unless spirituality is in your mind, you will never find it in a text book.
Thats the way I see it anyway.
"What is real? If you are talking about what you can see, what you can feel and smell then real is just electrical impulses interpreted by your brain."
The whole universe that we measure through science is actually just a physicality projected by ourselves onto an ultimately formless spiritual plane. We only interact with it in our minds. Because of this (and this is extrapolation on my part, no spiritual teacher has told me this) science could measure the entire universe, from the smallest particle to the hugest galaxies, from the big bang to the death of the final star, but unless spirituality is in your mind, you will never find it in a text book.
Thats the way I see it anyway.
Ciel
in essence
Perception of the world around us changes through our state of consciousness. A meditator enters a doorway where time is transcended, there is no universal motion pulling and swaying, mind is stilled in peace. and balance.
I wonder how many scientists are also meditators.
I wonder how many scientists are also meditators.
Religion: Why God did it
Science: How God did it.
Of course, science cannot quantify God, so God cannot be addressed by science - but if we consider the universe, religion has (IMO) always tried to address the "why" while science as the "how".
Whether it is the "why" and "how" of God is entirely up to a person's theological perspective, obviously.
Science: How God did it.
Of course, science cannot quantify God, so God cannot be addressed by science - but if we consider the universe, religion has (IMO) always tried to address the "why" while science as the "how".
Whether it is the "why" and "how" of God is entirely up to a person's theological perspective, obviously.
From the Islamic perspective (not arabism most believe to be Islam), `Ali, the cousin of Muhammad, who was the son of Muhammad's foster parents and who Muhammad raised basically from infancy - this same `Ali about whom all Muslims accept that Muhammad said "You are my brother in this world and the next" said that Islam can ONLY be understood through Reason (`Aql) and Scientific Knowledge (`Ilm). Likewise he (Imam `Ali) also said that if one wished to, they could think of God as a "Thing" since that would prevent them of anthropomorphizing God and attributing qualities of the creation to the Creator.
Here is the historical narration:
A man asked the Imam- ‘Can I think of Him (the creator) as a thing?’"
The Imam replied, "Yes, but not as something well understood and clearly defined with in limits. What may become a subject of your thoughts is different from Him. Nothing resembles Him and the thoughts and imaginations can not reach Him. He is different from what can become the subject of thoughts and is different from whatever that can be perceived in ones thoughts. You can think of Him as some thing but not well understood and clearly defined (under certain limits)."
So we see the problem is not with science, rather with mankinds understanding of God. God is not a man, an angel or any anthropomorphic creature. God is the force of energy that gives life to this planet and all that exists.
If anyone would like more knowledge on the matter here's my address: yashuah12@yahoo.com
Shalom, Salaam, Peace...
Here is the historical narration:
A man asked the Imam- ‘Can I think of Him (the creator) as a thing?’"
The Imam replied, "Yes, but not as something well understood and clearly defined with in limits. What may become a subject of your thoughts is different from Him. Nothing resembles Him and the thoughts and imaginations can not reach Him. He is different from what can become the subject of thoughts and is different from whatever that can be perceived in ones thoughts. You can think of Him as some thing but not well understood and clearly defined (under certain limits)."
So we see the problem is not with science, rather with mankinds understanding of God. God is not a man, an angel or any anthropomorphic creature. God is the force of energy that gives life to this planet and all that exists.
If anyone would like more knowledge on the matter here's my address: yashuah12@yahoo.com
Shalom, Salaam, Peace...
B
Bandit
Guest
very nice Brian.I said:Religion: Why God did it
Science: How God did it.
Of course, science cannot quantify God, so God cannot be addressed by science - but if we consider the universe, religion has (IMO) always tried to address the "why" while science as the "how".
Whether it is the "why" and "how" of God is entirely up to a person's theological perspective, obviously.
so who gets the what & when & how much?
bruceg
Well-Known Member
Bandit said:very nice Brian.
so who gets the what & when & how much?
Well the first two are sciences... the third...well...
What: Taxonomy
When: Archaeology
How Much: Accountants
To think of religion as a way of explaining something that we cannot yet understand is basically reducing it to the level of a stop gap to fill in the pieces until 'Science' rescues us, which is a typically modernist perspective as far as science being the ultimate solution for all our problems goes. I do think though that science has an important, indeed integral, part to play in the relationship between faith and contemporary society. I believe that science is a method for better understanding the world and the universe in which God has placed us. Science has enabled us to alleviate suffering in terms of disease and in many cases can provide the solution for environmental and medical problems that wreak havoc with humanity. But ultimately, science is merely an outworking of the intelligence that God has gifted us with, therefore it is a tool for our lives, not a replacement for religion or for God. In response to your penultimate sentence regarding science's ability to prove God's existence: I tend to subscribe to the idea that if we can prove God exists then He ceases to be God.Damorith said:
R
ryan_miller80
Guest
science and religion do not disagree, science is simply too young to understand.
Last edited by a moderator:
T
truthseeker
Guest
Why is there rivalry between religion and science anyhow? Because science would try to prove there is a God? Because religion thinks that man just shouldn't seek to understand the wisdom of God?
It's like the father and the son - the son will always try to catch up to the wisdom of the father. I'm not talking about academic matters, I'm talking about spiritual matters. By the time the son catches up to the father in understanding, the father will still have bypassed the son by years of knowledge. My point is, for those who believe in God, humankind will forever be playing 'catch up' to the wisdom of God. We are just now uncovering how the world was created and the minerals that the universe, the world, and man consists of. Didn't God do all this stuff like millions of years ago? And we are just now figuring it out? Both sides have a point.
It's like the father and the son - the son will always try to catch up to the wisdom of the father. I'm not talking about academic matters, I'm talking about spiritual matters. By the time the son catches up to the father in understanding, the father will still have bypassed the son by years of knowledge. My point is, for those who believe in God, humankind will forever be playing 'catch up' to the wisdom of God. We are just now uncovering how the world was created and the minerals that the universe, the world, and man consists of. Didn't God do all this stuff like millions of years ago? And we are just now figuring it out? Both sides have a point.
Doubtfully...Damorith said:
good article that I've found at:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:V1_DevGPY7cJ:www.bswa.org/publications/topdf.php%3Fhtml%3DBuddhism_The_Only_Real_Science.html+buddhism+is+the+only+science&hl=en
I used to be a scientist. I did Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, hanging out in the same building as the later-to-be-famous Professor Stephen Hawking. I became disillusioned with such science when, as an insider, I saw how dogmatic some scientists could be. A dogma, according to the dictionary, is an arrogant declaration of an opinion. This was a fitting description of the science that I saw in the labs of Cambridge. Science had lost its sense of humility. Egotistical opinion prevailed over the impartial search for Truth. My favourite aphorism from that time was: "The eminence of a great scientist, is measured by the length of timethat they OBSTRUCT PROGRESS in their field"!
To understand real science, one can go back to one of its founding fathers, the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561 - 1628). He established the framework on which science was to progress, namely "the greater force of the negative instance". This meant that, having proposed a theory to explain some natural phenomenon, then one should try one's best to disprove it! One should test the theory with challenging experiments. One must put it on trial with rigorous argument. When a flaw appears in the theory, only then does science advance. A new discovery has been made enabling the theory to be adjusted and refined. This fundamental and original methodology of science understood that it is impossible to prove anything with absolute certainty. One can only disprove with absolute certainty. For example, how can one prove the basic law of gravity that "what goes up comes down, eventually"? One may throw objects up one million times and see them fall one million times. But that still does not prove "what goes up comes down". For NASA might then 'throw' a Saturn rocket up into space to explore Mars, and that never comes down to earth again. One negative instance is enough to disprove the theory with absolute certainty.
Some misguided scientists maintain the theory that there is no rebirth, that this stream of consciousness is incapable of returning to a successive human existence. All one needs to disprove this theory, according to science, is to find one instance of rebirth, just one! Professor Ian Stevenson, as some of you would know, has already demonstrated many instances of rebirth. The theory of no rebirth has been disproved. Rebirth is now a scientific fact!
Modern science gives a low priority to any efforts to disprove its pet theories. There is too much vested interest in power, prestige and research grants. A courageous commitment to truth takes too many scientists out of their comfort zone. Scientists are, for the most part, brainwashed by their education and their in-group conferences to see the world in a very narrow, microscopic, way. The very worst scientists are those who behave like eccentric evangelists, claiming that they alone have the whole truth, and then demanding the right to impose their views on everyone else.
Ordinary people know so little about science that they can hardly even understand the jargon. Yet, if they read in a newspaper or magazine "a scientist says that?", then they automatically take it to be true. Compare this to our reaction when we read in the same journal "a politician says that?"! Why do scientists have such unchallenged credibility? Perhaps it is because the language and ritual of science has become so far removed from the common people, that scientists have become today's revered and mystical priesthood. Dressed in their ceremonial white lab coats, chanting incomprehensible mumbo jumbo about multi-dimensional fractal parallel universes, and performing magical rituals that transubstantiate metal and plastic into TV's and computers, these modern day alchemists are so awesome we'll believe anything they say. Elitist science, as once was the Pope, is now infallible.
Some know better. Much of what I learnt 30 years ago has now been proved wrong. There are, fortunately, many scientists with integrity and humility who affirm that science is, at best, a work still in progress. They know that science can only suggest a truth, but can never claim a truth. I was once told by a Buddhist G.P. that, on his first day at a medical school in Sydney, the famous Professor, head of the Medical School, began his welcoming address by stating "Half of what we are going to teach you in the next few years is wrong. Our problem is that we do not know which half it is!" Those were the words of a real scientist.
Some evangelical scientists would do well to reflect on the (amended) old saying "Scientists rush in where angels fear to tread" and stop pontificating about the nature of the mind, happiness and even Nirvana. Neurologists are especially prone to such neuroses (Neurosis: an undue adherence to unrealistic ideas of things). They are claiming that the mind, awareness and will, is now adequately explained by activity in the brain. This theory was disproved over 20 years ago by Prof. Lorber's discovery of the student at Sheffield University with and IQ of 126, a First Class degree in mathematics, but with virtually no brain (Science, Vol. 210, 12 Dec 1980)! More recently, it was disproved by Prof. Pim Van Lommel, who demonstrated the existence of consciousness activity after clinical death, i.e. when all brain activity has ceased (Lancet, Vol. 358, 15 December 2001, p 2039).
Although there may be correlation between a measurable activity in part of the brain and a mental impression, such co-occurrence doesn't always imply that one is the cause of the other. For instance, some years ago, research showed a clear correlation between cigarette smoking and the non-occurrence of Alzheimer's disease. It was not that smoking cigarettes somehow caused immunity from Alzheimer's, as much as the tobacco companies might have wished, it was only that many smokers did not live long enough to get Alzheimer's disease! Thus a co-incidence of two phenomena, even when repeated, does not mean that one phenomenon is the cause of the other. To claim that activity in the brain causes awareness, or mind, is plainly unscientific.
Science claims to rely not only on clear and objective observation, but also on measurement. But what is measurement in science? To measure something, according to the pure science of Quantum Theory, is to collapse the Schroedinger Wave Equation through an act of observation. Moreover, the "un-collapsed" form of the Schroedinger Wave Equation, that is before any measurement is made, is, perhaps, science's most perfect description of the world. That description is weird! Reality, according to pure science, does not consist of well ordered matter with precise massed, energies and positions in space, all just waiting to be measured. Reality is the broadest of smudges of all possibilities, only some being more probable than others. Even basic 'measurable' qualities as 'alive' or 'dead' have been demonstrated by science to be invalid sometimes. In the notorious 'Schroedinger's Cat' thought experiment, Prof. Schroedinger's cat was ingeniously placed in a real situation where it was neither dead nor alive, where such measurements became meaningless. Reality, according to Quantum Theory, is beyond measurements. Measuring disturbs reality, it never describes it perfectly. It was Heisenberg's famous 'Uncertainty Principle' that showed the inevitable error between the real Quantum world and the measured world of pseudo-science.
Anyway, how can anyone measure the measurer, the mind? At a recent seminar on Science and Religion, at which I was a speaker, a Catholic in the audience bravely announced that whenever she looks through a telescope at the stars, she feels uncomfortable because her religion is threatened. I commented that whenever a scientist looks the other way round through a telescope, to observe the one who is watching, then they feel uncomfortable because their science is threatened by what is doing the seeing! So what is doing the seeing, what is this mind that eludes modern science?
A Grade-One teacher once asked her class "What is the biggest thing in the world?" One little girl answered "My daddy". A little boy said "An elephant", since he'd recently been to the zoo. Another girl suggested "A mountain". The six-year-old daughter of a close friend of mine replied, "My eye is the biggest thing in the world"! The class stopped. Even the teacher didn't understand her answer. So the little philosopher explained "Well, my eye can see her daddy, an elephant, and a mountain too. It can also see so much else. If all of that can fit into my eye, then my eye must be the biggest thing in the world"! Brilliant.
However, she was not quite right. The mind can see everything that one's eye can see, and it can also imagine so much more. It can also hear, smell, taste and touch, as well as think. In fact, everything that can be known can fit into the mind. Therefore, the mind must be the biggest thing in the world. Science's mistake is obvious now. The mind is not in the brain, nor in the body. The brain, the body and the rest of the world, are in the mind!
Ajahn Brahmavamso
8th February 2004
H
Hels
Guest
Science shows us the world is rational. Physics has produced some astounding mathematical formulas about the nature of the universe (theory of relativity etc.) But these mathematical formulas already existed before scientists, such as Einstein, came along to see them. Einstein didn't invent the theory of relativity, he didn't apply it to our reality - the mathematical relationship existed before he came along - he just saw it.
So what does that prove? To me, it proves that the world is rational and chance cannot produce mathematical formulas, chance cannot be rational. Only a rational mind can be rational.
As was said, science is our way of understanding the 'how.' But, if you ask me, all science can ever prove is that the world is rational and therefore 'designed.' But all that may suggest/prove is the existence of an architect, not a God. I suppose the rest is up to us.
So what does that prove? To me, it proves that the world is rational and chance cannot produce mathematical formulas, chance cannot be rational. Only a rational mind can be rational.
As was said, science is our way of understanding the 'how.' But, if you ask me, all science can ever prove is that the world is rational and therefore 'designed.' But all that may suggest/prove is the existence of an architect, not a God. I suppose the rest is up to us.
I think religion is willing to fill in the blanks where science hasn't yet based both on pragmatic outcomes and our own most deep seated yearnings.
When science comes a little closer to understanding the nature of the cosmos the mythos gets a facelift. That's why we don't believe the earth is flat, or that it was created in a literal seven days, or that it's surrounded by a dome on which sits the throne of God. But we can't blame our ancestors for these ideas. This was the science of the time and so they integrated it into their system of self-Other understanding. Medieval theology integrated the current philosophy into its understanding of God.
Dauer
When science comes a little closer to understanding the nature of the cosmos the mythos gets a facelift. That's why we don't believe the earth is flat, or that it was created in a literal seven days, or that it's surrounded by a dome on which sits the throne of God. But we can't blame our ancestors for these ideas. This was the science of the time and so they integrated it into their system of self-Other understanding. Medieval theology integrated the current philosophy into its understanding of God.
Dauer
Postmaster
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 2,312
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 0
Damorith did you go back in time and speak with the Greeks to understand how they all felt about that? There was a point when people used to tell me the moon is made out of Cheese, but up until the age of 10 I realised that it was made out something different. Not even science has all the questions, sometimes even science's most fundamental understandings of things can turn out to be totally wrong and up until present this happens all the time. Even science is a philosophy
The only difference is it needs material proof to varify it as solid undisputed fact. But what science doesn't tell you is, the mind has the ability to go beyond that
C
Conscience
Guest
Yes, science can in fact prove that God exist. But, it cannot prove who God is. He [God] is the only one that could do that. As for how science proves God. Well, doesnt life follow a creative pattern? OK, how about this: When looking at a building, how do you know the builder exists? Doesnt the fact that there is a building prove the fact that there is a builder? You surely dont need to see the builder to beleive he exist, the building is enough proof for any working mind to understand the obvious.
OK, the batteries in my laptop is dying out, so Im gonna stop here. Next time, I talk more about the obvious, and how the body as well as all life, follow a creative pattern. It takes SO MUCH more faith to believe in evolution, than to accept what God has already told us. Why do people still chose to believe evolution, and it has NEVER even been proven?
OK, the batteries in my laptop is dying out, so Im gonna stop here. Next time, I talk more about the obvious, and how the body as well as all life, follow a creative pattern. It takes SO MUCH more faith to believe in evolution, than to accept what God has already told us. Why do people still chose to believe evolution, and it has NEVER even been proven?
are you comparing the universe to a building? Okay. Let's say someone lives inside a building and the building has no windows. They were born there. Nobody has ever been outside of the building. Nothing comes form outside the building (very big building.) So how do they know how it got there? They don't since they're a part of that world, the world of the building, they have no objective way to state anything beyond it.
What's more, in the real example, we don't even know if or how reality operates outside of our universe. In the building example we're on the outside. We know what it looks like beyond the building. But inside the universe we don't. It's a flawed analogy. First it assumes the world is created based on a "revelatory" document and then attempts to prove it.
What's more, in the real example, we don't even know if or how reality operates outside of our universe. In the building example we're on the outside. We know what it looks like beyond the building. But inside the universe we don't. It's a flawed analogy. First it assumes the world is created based on a "revelatory" document and then attempts to prove it.
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
Ah, memes! Gotta love 'em!
Damorith said:
Salaam
Here I want to explain the relation between science and Islam as one of the heavenly religions ...
[96:1-5] Read! In the name of your Lord who created - Created the human from something which clings. Read! And your Lord is Most Bountiful - He who taught (the use of) the Pen, Taught the human that which he knew not.
These five verses make up the first passage revealed from the Qur'an to mankind through the Prophet Muhammad (saas). It is interesting that of all the things which Allah chose to begin His revelation with is related to the actions of reading and writing, especially the latter. The ability to write and store information is described by Professor Carl Sagan in his book COSMOS: "Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic." [21]
[2:269] He [Allah] grants wisdom to whom He pleases; and he to whom wisdom is granted indeed receives a benefit overflowing. But none will grasp the Message except men of understanding.
[20:114] High above all is Allah, the King, the Truth. Do not be in haste with the Qur'an before its revelation to you is completed, but say, "O my Sustainer! Increase my knowledge."
[3:190-191] Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day - there are indeed signs for men of understanding; Men who remember Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the creation of the heavens and the earth (with the thought) "Our Lord! Not for nothing have You created (all) this. Glory to You! Give us salvation from the suffering of the Fire."
These verses are a clear demonstration that 'science' and 'religion' were NOT meant to be fundamentally incompatible with each other by Allah. In fact, verses [3:190-191] strongly imply that "contemplating" the world around us is an integral part of faith.
[29:20] Say: Travel through the earth and see how Allah originated creation; so will Allah produce the second creation (of the Afterlife): for Allah has power over all things.
There are also references in the Qur'an describing the value (in the sight of Allah) of a knowledgeable person as opposed to an ignorant person. They are not equal:
[39:9] ...Say: Are those equal, those who know and those who do not know? It is those who are endued with understanding that remember (Allah's Message).
[58:11] ...Allah will raise up to (suitable) ranks (and degrees) those of you who believe and who have been granted knowledge.
The first source of Islam is the Qur'an - and we have seen some verses above on the subject of knowledge. The second source is the life of Prophet Muhammad (saas). Here are a few of the Prophet's sayings on the subject of knowledge:
"Upon a person whom Allah desires good, He bestows the knowledge of faith." - from the hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim"
"A person who follows a path for acquiring knowledge, Allah will make easy the passage to Paradise for him." - from the collection of Muslim "
"A Muslim is never satiated in his quest for good (knowledge) till it ends in Paradise." - from the collection of Tirmidhi "
Modern scientific theory today finds itself quite close to the Qur'an. There are at least two reasons behind this observation. The first is the lack of inconsistencies between the Qur'an and observable natural phenomena. Science has not been able to produce theories or experiments that fundamentally contradict the Qur'an. Had our science done so, either our understanding of the Qur'an or of the world would have been to blame: the Qur'an itself is true for all times. The second reason for the remarkable harmony between the Qur'an and science is the presence in the Qur'an itself of very clear and positive encouragement to contemplate and investigate the world around us. As the verses quoted above indicate, Allah has not forbidden man to question, and in fact, it seems He wants us to do so
Salaam
Thank you for this nice example ,I'm agree with you ....
We are still in the dawn of the scientific age and every increase of light reveals more brightly the handiwork of an intelligent Creator. In the 90 years since Darwin we have made stupendous discoveries; with a spirit of scientific humanity and of faith grounded in knowledge we are approaching even nearer to an awareness of God. For myself I count seven reasons for my faith.
First: By unwavering mathematical law we can prove that our universe was designed and executed by a great engineering Intelligence. Suppose you put ten coins, marked from one to ten, into your pocket and give them a good shuffle. Now try to take them out in sequence from one to ten, pulling back the coin each time and shaking them all again. Mathematically we know that your chance of first drawing number one is one in ten; of drawing one and two in succession, one in 100; of drawing one, two and three in succession, one in a thousand, and so on; your chance of drawing them all, from one to number ten in succession, would reach the unbelievable figure of one chance in ten thousand million. By the same reasoning, so many exacting conditions are necessary for life on earth that they could not possibly exist in proper relationship by chance. The earth rotates on its axis at one thousand miles an hour; if it turned at one hundred miles an hour, our days and nights would be ten times as long as now, and the hot sun would then burn up our vegetation during each long day, while in the long night any surviving sprout would freeze. Again, the sun, source of our life, has a surface temperature of 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and our earth is, just far enough away so that this 'eternal fire" warms us just enough and not too much! If the sun gave off only one-half its present radiation, we would freeze, and if it gave half as much more, we would roast. The slant of the earth, tilted at an angle of 23 degrees, gives us our season; if it had not been so tilted, vapors from the ocean would move north and south, piling up for us continents of ice. If our moon was, say, only 50 thousand miles away instead of its actual distance, our tides would be so enormous that twice a day all continents would be submerged; even the mountains would soon be eroded away. If the crust of the earth had been only ten feet thicker, there would be no oxygen without which animal life must die. Had the ocean been a few feet deeper, carbon dioxide and oxygen would have been absorbed and no vegetable life could exist. Or if our atmosphere had been thinner, some of the meteors, now burned in space by the million every day would be striking all parts of the earth, starting fires everywhere. Because of these, and host of other examples, there is not one chance in millions that life on our planet is an accident.
Second: The resourcefulness of life to accomplish its purpose is a manifestation of all-pervading Intelligence. What life itself is no man has fathomed. It has neither weight nor dimensions, but it does have force; a growing root will crack a rock. Life has conquered water, land and air, mastering the element, compelling them to dissolve and reform their combinations. Life, the sculptor, shapes all living things; an artist, it designs every leaf of every tree, and colours every flower. Life is a musician and has each bird to sing its love songs, the insects to call each other in the music of their multitudinous sounds. Life is a sublime chemist, giving taste to fruits and spices, and perfume to the rose changing water and carbonic acid into sugar and wood and, in so doing, releasing oxygen that animals may have the breath of life. Behold an almost invisible drop of protoplasm, transparent and jelly-like, capable of motion, drawing energy from the sun. This single cell, this transparent mist-like droplet, holds within itself the germ of life, and has the power to distribute this life to every living thing, great and small. The powers of this droplet are greater than our vegetation and animals and people, for all life came from it. Nature did not create life; fire-blistered rocks and a saltless sea could not meet the necessary requirements. Who, then, has put it here?
Third: Animal wisdom speaks irresistibly of a good Creator who infused instinct into otherwise helpless little creatures. The young salmon spends years at sea, then comes back to his own river; and travels up the very side of the river into which flows The tributary where he was born. What brings him back so precisely? If you transfer him to another tributary he will know at once that he is off his course and he will fight his way down and back to the main stream and then turn up against the current to finish his destiny more accurately. Even more difficult to solve is the mystery of eels. These amazing creatures migrate at maturity from all ponds and rivers everywhere - those from Europe across thousands of miles of oceans - all bound for the same abysmal deeps near Bermuda. There they breed and die. The little ones, with no apparent means of knowing anything except that they are in a wilderness of water nevertheless find their way back not only to the very shore from which their parent came but thence to the rivers, lakes or little ponds - so that each body of water is always populated with eels. No American eel has ever been caught in Europe, no European eel in American waters. Nature has even delayed the maturity of the European eel by a year or more to make up for its longer journey. Where does the directing iruptilse originate? A wasp will overpower a grasshopper, dig a hole in the earth, sting the grasshopper in exactly the right place so that he does not die but becomes unconscious and lives on as a form of preserved meat. Then the wasp will lay her eggs handily so that her children when they hatch can nibble without killing the insect on which they feed, to them dead meat would be fatal. The mother then flies way and dies; she never sees her young. Surely the wasp must have done all this right the first time and every time, or else there would be no wasp. Such mysterious techniques cannot be explained by adaptation; they were bestowed.
Fourth: Man has something more than animal instinct - the power of reason. No other animal has ever left a record of its ability to count ten or even to understand the meaning of ten. Where instinct is like a single note of a flute, beautiful but limited, the human brain contains all the notes of all the instruments in the orchestra. No need to belabour this fourth point; thanks to the human reason we can contemplate the possibility that we are what we are only because we have received a spark of Universal Intelligence.
Fifth: Provision for all living is revealed in phenomena which we know today but which Darwin did not know - such as the wonders of genes. So unspeakably tiny are these genes that, if all of them responsible for all living people in the world could be put in one place, there would be less than a thimbleful. Yet these ultra- microscopic genes and their companions, the chromosomes, inhabit every living cell and are the absolute keys to all human, animal and vegetable characteristics. A thimble is a small place in which to put all the individual characteristics of two thousand million human beings. However; the facts are beyond question. Well then, how do genes lock up all the normal heredity of a multitude of ancestors and preserve the psychology of each in such an infinitely small space? Here evolution really begins - at the cell, the entity which holds and carries genes. How a few million atoms, locked up as an ultra-microscopic gene, can absolutely rule all on earth is an example of profound cunning and provision that could emanate only from a Creative Intelligence - no other hypothesis will serve.
Sixth: By the economy of nature, we are forced to realize that only infinite wisdom could have foreseen and prepared with such astute husbandry. Many years ago a species of cactus was planted in Australia as a protective fence. Having no insect enemies in Australia the cactus soon began a prodigious growth; the alarming abundance persisted until the plants covered an area as long and wide as England, crowding inhabitants out of the towns and villages, and destroying their farms. Seeking a defense, the entomologists scoured the world; finally they turned up an insect which exclusively feeds on cactus, and would eat nothing else. It would breed freely too; and it had no enemies in Australia. So animal soon conquered vegetable and today the cactus pest has retreated, and with it all but a small protective residue of the insects, enough to hold the cactus in check for ever. Such checks and balances have been universally provided. Why have not fast-breeding insects dominated the earth? Because they have no lungs such as man possesses; they breathe through tubes. But when insects grow large, their tubes do not grow in ratio to the increasing size of the body. Hence there has never been an insect of great size; this limitation on growth has held them all in check. If this physical check had not been provided, man could not exist. Imagine meeting a hornet as big as a lion!
Seventh: The fact that man can conceive the idea of God is in itself a unique proof. The conception of god rises from a divine faculty of man, unshared with the rest of our world - the faculty we call imagination. By its power, man and man alone can fmd the evidence of things unseen. The vista that power opens up is unbounded; indeed, as man is perfected, imagination becomes a spiritual reality.