Evidence of God

Okay, you've probably heard that well-worn illustration about how geese fly in V-formation. Well, here's a new twist about how the U.S. Air Force is starting to learn a thing or two from our geese friends. The Air Force calls it vortex surfing.

An Air Force scientist explained what they're learning from one of God's creatures: "People have been looking at how we can fly like birds since the earliest stages of aviation." So, here's how it works: The wingtips of every plane generate swirling coils of air called vortices. If an airplane is positioned in the right spot, the updraft from the vortex will help keep the airplane aloft. By surfing that vortex, we can transfer the energy that is lost by the lead aircraft and you can recapture some of that energy.

The Air Force consumes approximately 2 billion gallons of aviation fuel annually. Since the Air Mobility Command accounts for 60% of the Air Force's annual fuel bill, the savings from flying its large transports in a more efficient way could be significant. Another 5 to 15% fuel savings have been recorded for a fighter jet flying in the wake of a passenger jet.

So why hasn't anyone thought of doing this before now? The answer is avionics and incentive: The jet instrumentation needed to keep the planes in a safe, tight formation is much better than it used to be. Now, tie that to budget constraints as Congress scrutinizes military spending.

Possible Preaching Angle:

And all that was learned by following Jesus' advice to "consider the birds of the field."

In a remarkable fusion of art and science, researchers have unveiled Anauchen picasso, a newly discovered microsnail species from Southeast Asia, named in honor of the iconic artist Pablo Picasso. This tiny creature, measuring less than 5 millimeters, boasts a uniquely angular shell that evokes the geometric forms of Cubist art. The team described it as resembling "a cubist interpretation of other snails with 'normal' shell shapes."

This species is one of 46 newly documented microsnails found in Southeast Asia. One researcher wrote, “Although the shell sizes of these snails are less than 5 mm, they are real beauties! Their shells exhibit extraordinary complexity.”

The complexity is not merely aesthetic. The snail has an aperture lined with tooth-like barriers, likely serving as defense against predators. Even more unusually, some of the snails carry their shells with the opening turned either upward or downward—creating an “upside-down” orientation. These details, including the shape and orientation of the final shell whorl, were key to distinguishing between species.

Some of the species were found in recent fieldwork, while others had been overlooked in museum archives for decades, collected all the way in the 1980s. Tragically, many of the snail habitats may no longer exist due to widespread deforestation and limestone quarrying in the region—two major threats to these endemic creatures.

The naming of Anauchen picasso not only pays tribute to artistic innovation but also underscores the intricate beauty and diversity found in nature's smallest creations. This discovery highlights the intersection of art, science, and conservation, reminding us that even the tiniest organisms can inspire awe and appreciation.

Potential Preaching Angles:

When we pay close attention to God’s creation, we can rediscover wonder and joy. God is the master artist, and continually displays His glory through the details of His creation.

In October 2022 a bird with the code name B6 set a new world record. Over the course of 11 days, B6, a young Bar-tailed Godwit, flew from its hatching ground in Alaska to its wintering ground in Tasmania, covering 8,425 miles without taking a single break. For comparison, there is only one commercial aircraft that can fly that far nonstop, a Boeing 777 with a 213-foot wingspan and one of the most powerful jet engines in the world.

During its journey, B6—an animal that could perch comfortably on your shoulder—did not land, did not eat, did not drink, and did not stop flapping, sustaining an average ground speed of 30 miles per hour 24 hours a day as it winged its way to the other end of the world.

Many factors contributed to this astonishing feat of athleticism—muscle power, a high metabolic rate, and a physiological tolerance for elevated cortisol levels, among other things. B6’s odyssey is also a triumph of the remarkable mechanical properties of feathers. Feathers kept B6 warm overnight while it flew above the Pacific Ocean. Feathers repelled rain along the way. Feathers formed the flight surfaces of the wings that kept B6 aloft and drove the bird forward for nearly 250 hours without failing.

Research shows that feather shape is largely optimized to allow the feather to twist and bend in sophisticated ways that greatly enhance flight performance. Merely being anatomically asymmetrical doesn’t mean much. What matters is that the feather is aerodynamically asymmetrical. That is, the trailing blade needs to be three times wider than the leading one. Below this ratio, the feather twists in a destabilizing rather than stabilizing way during flight.

Editor’s Note: This small bird is one example of the creative wisdom of God. This article goes on to attribute the marvel of the flight in this bird to evolution. However, the Bible says that all of creation shows the glory of intelligent design by God for those who are willing to see it (Ps. 19:1-6; Rom. 1:18-25).

In an issue of CT magazine, author Jordan Monge shares her journey from atheism to faith in Christ. She writes:

I don’t know when I first became a skeptic. It must have been around age 4, when my mother found me arguing with another child at a birthday party: “But how do you know what the Bible says is true?” By age 11, my atheism was widely known in my middle school and my Christian friends in high school avoided talking to me about religion because they anticipated that I would tear down their poorly constructed arguments. And I did.

Jordan arrived at Harvard in 2008 where she met another student, Joseph Porter, who wrote an essay for Harvard’s Christian journal defending God’s existence. Jordan critiqued the article and began a series of arguments with him. She had never met a Christian who could respond to her most basic questions, such as, “How does one understand the Bible’s contradictions?”

Joseph didn’t take the easy way out by replying “It takes faith.” Instead, he prodded Jordan on how inconsistent she was as an atheist who nonetheless believed in right and wrong as objective, universal categories.

Finding herself defenseless, Jordan took a seminar on metaphysics. By God’s providence her atheist professor assigned a paper by C. S. Lewis that resolved the Euthyphro dilemma, declaring, “God is not merely good, but goodness; goodness is not merely divine, but God.”

A Catholic friend gave her J. Budziszewski’s book Ask Me Anything, which included the Christian teaching that “love is a commitment of the will to the true good of the other person.” The Cross no longer seemed a grotesque symbol of divine sadism, but a remarkable act of love.

At the same time, Jordan had begun to read through the Bible and was confronted by her sin. She writes:

I was painfully arrogant, prone to fits of rage, unforgiving, unwaveringly selfish, and I had passed sexual boundaries that I’d promised I wouldn’t …. Yet I could do nothing to right these wrongs. The Cross looked like the answer to an incurable need. When I read the Crucifixion scene in the Book of John for the first time, I wept.

So, she plunged headlong into devouring books from many perspectives, but nothing compared to the rich tradition of Christian intellect. As she read the works of Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, and Lewis, she knew that the only reasonable course of action was to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If I wanted to continue forward in this investigation, I couldn’t let it be just an intellectual journey. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). I could know the truth only if I pursued obedience first.” I then committed my life to Christ by being baptized on Easter Sunday, 2009.

God revealed himself through Scripture, prayer, friendships, and the Christian tradition whenever I pursued him faithfully. I cannot say for certain where the journey ends, but I have committed to follow the way of Christ wherever it may lead. When confronted with the overwhelming body of evidence I encountered, when facing down the living God, it was the only rational course of action.

Editor’s Note: Jordan Monge is a writer, philosopher, and tutor. She is also a regular contributor to the magazine Fare Forward and for Christianity Today.

Every person starts as one fertilized egg, which by adulthood has turned into roughly 37 trillion cells. But those cells have a formidable challenge. These cells must copy 3.2 billion base pairs of DNA perfectly, about once every 24 hours. To speed up the process, cells start replication in multiple spots with people having tens of thousands of them throughout their genomes.

However, this poses its own challenge: How to know where to start and how to time everything. Without precision control, some DNA might get copied twice, causing cellular pandemonium. Bad things can happen if replication doesn’t start correctly. For DNA to be copied, the DNA double helix must open up, and the resulting single strands are vulnerable to breakage or the process can get stuck.

It takes a tightly coordinated dance involving dozens of proteins for the DNA-copying machinery to start replication at the right point in the cell’s life cycle. Keeping tight reins on the kickoff of DNA replication is particularly important to avoid that pandemonium.

Today, researchers are making steps toward a full understanding of the molecular checks and balances that have evolved in order to ensure that each origin initiates DNA copying once and only once, to produce precisely one complete new genome.

Possible Preaching Angle:

3,000 years ago, King David exclaimed, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Ps. 139:14). Scientific knowledge has increased exponentially since that time and we should be even more in awe of God’s creative genius on display.

It is impossible to do justice to the wonder of the creation of the world and everything in it. You and I have to work hard to make anything. Even when you buy a piece of furniture from IKEA, with all the pieces properly designed and a booklet of instructions, you are driven to the edge of your sanity trying to follow the instructions and assemble what you bought.

All of our DIY projects require mental focus, physical dexterity, and perseverance. We struggle to make things, even though we always start with raw materials, are following instructions, and have collected the appropriate tools. But you and I have never created anything; we do not make something out of nothing. C. S. Lewis said it this way: "Creation, as it is for God, must always remain totally inconceivable to man. We only build. We always have materials to build from.”

The truth of creation should fill us with awe, humble us, and drop us to our knees. God, with nothing more than his will and his word literally spoke the universe into existence. Think of huge galaxies and little ants. Think of the body of an elephant and the translucent creatures that swim in the deep­est trenches of the sea. Think of huge towering trees and microscopic organisms. Think of the technology of the human eye and the intricate design of your hand. Genesis 1 and 2 are meant to put you in your place and insert God in his proper place in your heart and life.

Researchers reported recently that it is striking that water is the “least understood material on Earth.” In an article, researchers ask, “What could we not know about water? It’s wet! It’s clear. It comes from rain. It boils. It makes snow and it makes ice! Does our government actually spend taxpayer money to study water? Yes, water is common—in fact, it is the third most common molecule in the universe. But it is also deceptively complex.” From steam to ice, water continues to mystify. Here are several of the weird facts about water:

Why Does Ice Float?

Researchers tried to tease apart what makes water unique among liquids. It’s got anomalous properties, like expanding when cooled below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. (This) explains why lakes freeze downward, from top to bottom, rather than up. Normally frozen solids are denser than their liquid equivalents, which would mean that frozen chunks would fall to the bottom of a lake instead of staying on top. But when water freezes, it creates an open structure, mostly empty space and less dense than … liquid water, which is why water props ice up.

Why Can Insects Walk On It?

Water has an uncanny level of surface tension, allowing beings light enough, like insects, to walk or stand atop it. Since it’s these distinctive features among others that power our climate and ecosystems, water can appear to be “fine-tuned” for life according to the researchers.

How Does Water Evaporate?

The rate of evaporation of liquid water is one of the principal uncertainties in modern climate modeling. ... The addition of salts to water raises the surface tension … and so should reduce the evaporation rate. But experimental studies show little or no effect when salts are added. The exact mechanism for how water evaporates isn’t completely understood.

Possible Preaching Angle:

These researchers point out some of the weird anomalies of water, which covers 71% of the surface of our world. Although they do not acknowledge God in their research, they do admit that “water can appear to be ‘fine-tuned’ for life.” Christians would respond that without its God-given properties, lakes would freeze from the bottom up, killing all fish in them. And, although the salt in oceans should inhibit evaporation, the water in the oceans evaporates, producing rain over the land. These are some examples of “Intelligent Design” in which our wise creator fine-tuned the earth to sustain life and provide for our needs and enjoyment of life.

There seems to be a trend for artisanal products—coffee shops, bakeries, and the like. Some may not know what artisanal means, other than assuming it meant (in the case of the bakery) "misshapen and expensive." But it actually means "traditional" and "nonmechanically made." A person made it, not a machine. It may have some imperfections, but even those are proof of authenticity.

Similarly, we human beings are not the product of a factory or the process of copy-and-paste. Our distinctive physical individual­ity is intended. We have been made by the ultimate artisan. Our God has produced billions of human bodies, but we are not mass-produced. We've each been handcrafted with infinite care. David says we have been "knitted together" in our mother's womb. Now, even if you have never knitted a stitch of anything in your life, you have probably watched others. It is wonderfully hands-on with each and every stitch individually knit by hand.

Being handcrafted means none of us has come about by accident. Our body is not random or arbitrary. We may know people who were not planned by their parents, which is a sensitive issue indeed. They were an "accident," a surprise, and some who are aware of their origins can struggle with long-term relational insecurity.

But when it comes to God, no one is unplanned. Every one of us is the product of God's deliberate choice. However, many people there turn out to be in the whole of human history, not one of them will have been an accident.

The Bible doesn't just affirm that we are all, in some way, the result of God's work. It says much more than that. We are the product of God's intention. He purposed our bodies. They are what he intended them to be. We can affirm, as David does, even of these imperfect bodies, that God made them as he intended.

Once, when a little girl asked Albert Einstein if scientists pray, Einstein replied in part, “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifested in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to that a man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”

Then in an interview before his 50th birthday, Einstein was asked if he believed in God. Einstein said,

I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must’ve written those books. He does not know how. He does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.

Life on Earth requires a lot of “fine tuning.” Our planet is just the right distance from the Sun to allow freezing and melting, and the planetary axis tilted just so for seasons. There is a moon for tides to circulate and cleanse shores and oceans, an atmosphere to distribute heat (otherwise the sun-side would cook as the night-side froze), and a magnetic field that contributes to our protection from harmful solar radiation.

That all these needs were met (and many more) is all a big (coincidence) for evolutionists – we just lucked out and got just what we needed.

But we didn’t need rainbows. And yet, as astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez recently noted, we’re on the only planet in the Solar System to get them. What’s needed for a rainbow is:

Suspended water droplets in the atmosphere and the direct sunlight that results from the sun being between the horizon and 42 degrees altitude. This typically occurs just after a thunderstorm has passed and small droplets are still in the atmosphere, and the sky is clearing in front of the sun. Seems like a simple setup. This must be a common phenomenon in the cosmos, right?

But it isn’t so simple. Our moon doesn’t have the atmosphere. Mars doesn’t have the moisture. Venus has too thick an atmosphere and as we head further out, the other planets don’t have liquid water. So, the only planet to have rainbows is the only one with people on it to see them. To evolutionists that’s just one more (coincidence). To God’s people, just another example of his love and care. It’s as if someone has been trying to get our attention with a pretty shiny object writ large across the sky, saying, “Look here. ... This is important!” “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Gen. 9:13).

For decades, scientist Sir Fred Hoyle pioneered research in astrophysics. He started his scientific career as a staunch atheist who saw no evidence of design in the universe. In his early years, he said, “Religion is but a desperate attempt to find an escape from the truly dreadful situation in which we find ourselves.”

But as his career went on, he discovered something that would rock his atheism—physicists call it “fine tuning.” Fine tuning refers to the discovery that many properties of the universe fall within extremely narrow and improbable ranges that turn out to be absolutely necessary for complex forms of life, or for any life at all. Hoyle’s contribution to the discovery of fine tuning began in the 1950s.

Eventually, Hoyle became convinced that some intelligence had orchestrated the precise balance of forces and factors in nature, to make the universe life permitting. He was overwhelmed by what he called “Cosmic coincidences.” As he put it in 1981:

A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces we're speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion, almost beyond question.”

Many contemporary atheists give the impression that faith and science are completely incompatible. For instance, atheist Steven Pinker says, “The findings of science imply that the belief systems of all the world's traditional religions and cultures … are factually mistaken.” In his book, The Atheist Guide to Reality, Alex Rosenberg writes, “Atheism is a demanding, rigorous, breathtaking grip on reality, one that has been vindicated beyond reasonable doubt. It’s called Science.”

But there are many other voices that would disagree with this view. For instance:

MIT professor Jing Kong, who grew up in China and became a Christian, says, "My research is only a platform for me to do God's work. His creation, the way he made this world, is very interesting. It’s amazing, really.”

Andrew Goslar, Oxford professor of applied ethnobiology, claims, “My coming to faith in Christ did not rest on one single issue … It was holistic a redefining of perspectives that came together through every aspect of my life.”

Cambridge professor of experimental physics, Russell Cowburn, expresses what dozens of leading scientists agree with, “Understanding more of science didn't make God’s role smaller. It allows us to see his creative activity in more detail.”

The Pew Research Center regularly surveys Americans on human origins, but it recently re-examined its questions on evolution. When theistic evolution was presented as an option in a new single-question format, most religious groups answered about the same. But white evangelicals and Black Protestants (two of Pew’s standard categories) were twice as likely to say humans evolved in some way.

A) Humans have always existed in their present form

B) Humans have evolved; God had a role

C) Humans have evolved; God had no role

White Evangelicals: A) 38%, B) 58%, C) 4%

Black Protestants: A) 27%, B) 66%, C) 6%

Catholics: A) 13%, B) 56%, C) 30%

Unaffiliated: A) 11%, B) 24%, C) 64%

All US Adults: A) 18%, B) 48%, C) 33%

MIT professor Rosalind Picard shares how she met the Author of all knowledge:

As early as grade school, when I was a straight-A student, I identified with being smart. And I believed smart people didn’t need religion. As a result, I declared myself an atheist and dismissed people who believed in God as uneducated.

In high school, I babysat to earn money. One of my favorite families was a young couple; both the husband (a doctor) and the wife were really sharp. One night, after paying me, they invited me to church. I was stunned—people this smart actually went to church? When Sunday morning came around, I told them I had a stomachache.

Eventually, the couple tried a different tack. They said, “Going to church is not what matters most. What matters is what you believe. Have you read the Bible?” The doctor suggested starting with Proverbs. To my surprise, Proverbs was full of wisdom. I had to pause while reading and think. I then read through the entire Bible. I felt this strange sense of being spoken to. I began wondering whether there really might be a God.

During my freshman year in college, I reconnected with a friend who was a straight-A student and a star on both the basketball court and football field. I had never known anyone so smart and athletic. He then he invited me to his church.

One Sunday, the pastor got my attention when he asked, “Who is Lord of your life?” I was intrigued: I was the captain of my ship, but was it possible that God would actually be willing to lead me? In the spirit of Pascal’s wager, I decided to run an experiment, believing I had much to gain but very little to lose.

After praying, “Jesus Christ, I ask you to be Lord of my life,” my world changed dramatically. It was as if a flat, black-and-white existence suddenly turned full-color and three-dimensional. I felt joy and freedom—but also a heightened sense of responsibility and challenge.

Today, I am a professor at the top university (MIT) in my field. I work closely with people whose lives are filled with medical struggles, people whose children are not healthy. I do not have adequate answers to explain all their suffering. But I know there is a God of unfathomable greatness and love who freely enters into relationship with all who confess their sins and call upon his name.

I once thought I was too smart to believe in God. Now I know I was an arrogant fool who snubbed the greatest Mind in the cosmos—the Author of all science, mathematics, art, and everything else there is to know. Today I walk humbly, having received the most undeserved grace.

Brett McCracken writes in his book, The Wisdom Pyramid:

I live in Southern California, where climate-controlled houses and air-conditioned cars give us a measure of mastery over summer's triple-digit temperatures or winter's atmospheric river storms. But we can't escape nature completely. A mudslide washes away parts of Highway 1, making it impassable. The Santa Ana winds will blow, causing us to cough on the air that "tastes like a stubbed-out cigarette" as the poet Dana Gioia (aptly) says. Months of no rain crisp the Sonoran landscape, making it ripe for autumn wildfires. The weather doesn't ask for our opinion. Nature reminds us there is a world bigger than the one we've made.

A headline in the Los Angeles Times that sums it up well: "We may live in a post-truth era, but nature does not." Perhaps that's one of the reasons I've always loved nature—God's beautiful and terrifying creation. In a world where man thinks he is the measure of all things, nature begs to differ. There is a givenness to nature that is sanity in an insane world. It is there to sustain our lives, to be enjoyed, but also to challenge us, to put us in our place, and to impart to us wisdom—if we are willing to listen.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Scripture is our supreme and only infallible source of knowledge of God. But Scripture itself tells us that wisdom can be found in God's creation (Psa. 19:1-6; Rom. 1:19-20). Nature’s glory is not an end unto itself. It’s not a god to worship. It’s a prism and amplifier of God’s glory. It’s a theater, a canvas, a cathedral, but God is always at center stage.

In CT magazine, writer Dikkon Eberhart shares his personal testimony of progression from theological drifter to Orthodox Jew to a born-again experience with Jesus Christ:

I grew up in the Episcopal Church. But in my high teens and young twenties I drifted. At seminary in Berkeley, California, during the 1970s—I created my own religion. I called it Godianity. Certainly, I believed in the existence of God, hence the name of my religion. But I didn’t know much about that Son of God fellow, and the little I did know seemed impossibly weird.

Then something happened. I married a Jew who was an atheist. Then my wife became pregnant and nine months later, our first daughter squirmed in her mother’s arms. Here’s the sudden realization of an atheist: Such a perfect and beautiful creature must be the gift of God, not the product of some random swirl of atoms. My wife’s atheism bit the dust. Her new God belief was Jewish. My Godianity should have taken notice. “Listen up!” it ought to have heard. “You’re in trouble, too.”

That trouble came five years later. Our daughter and I were swinging in a hammock under a tree on a windy day. Normally an eager chatterer, our daughter fell silent and then said, “Daddy, I know there’s a God.” I was enchanted. “How, sweetie?” She pointed at the tree and its leaves. “You can’t see God. He’s like the wind. You can’t see the wind, but the wind makes the leaves move. You can’t see God, but you know he’s there, because he makes the people move, like the leaves.”

My heart swelled with love for this perceptive child, but then she crushed me. She continued, “Daddy, what do we believe?” Really, what she was asking was, “Mommy’s kind of Jewish. You’re kind of Christian. So what am I?” And despite my three advanced religious degrees and seminary employment, I couldn’t answer.

In that instant, I shucked my Godianity. Right away, my wife and I retreated into an urgent executive session. She was a Jew who was no longer an atheist. We resolved, we shall raise our children as Jews. And we did—as Reform Jews. Yet I still teetered on uneven ground, conscious of being an outsider. Then something else happened. During services on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, God spoke to me: “If you should desire to come to me, my door is open to you.” Right away, I knew I needed to become a Jew myself, and three years later my conversion was complete.

For some time, my wife and I had noticed something: While Reform Judaism respects Torah, many Reform Jews themselves were selective in their adherence to its strictures. But we objected. We wanted a faith that wasn’t in the habit of accommodating itself to the surrounding culture.

Across our rural road, there happened to be a small Baptist church. Some of our neighbors had invited us to visit, in case we Jews should ever want to know more about Christ. We realized that—oddly—these neighbors seemed concerned for our souls.

More than a year later, desperate for direction, I crossed the road to the church one Sunday morning. That day, the pastor was preaching from 1 Timothy. I was astonished to hear a Baptist preacher using Old Testament references within his message—and with accurate Hebrew nuance. The pastor and I began meeting each week and my wife frequented the women’s Bible study. She and I began devouring book after book, faster and faster, thrilled by each new discovery of seemingly impossible truths that were actually true.

Even as a Jew, I knew the Passion story. But it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, that story might be real—and if it were, then everything would need to change. Our Torah-based lives would be as dead and ineffectual as Godianity. Instead, we would give our souls to the personal love of the Incarnation, the God-man who dwelt among us. We realized that the Old Testament begged for the climax of the New Testament.

It took nine months, an appropriate duration for re-birth, before I committed myself to Jesus. My wife did the same three months later. Our younger two children followed soon thereafter. When God spoke to me in the synagogue all those years ago, inviting me through his open doorway, I had assumed he was summoning me into Judaism. Little did I know he was actually calling me to Christ.

University of Oxford professor of astrophysics Pedro Ferreira is puzzled, as most physicists are, about the origins and basic elements of the universe.

In fact, we’re at a complete loss at how to explain some of the most fundamental but baffling observations of how our Universe behaves. There is a tremendous, even cosmic, chasm between the physics we know and love, and some of the phenomena that we observe, but simply can’t make head nor tail of. We have no idea how to bridge this chasm – yet we are proceeding, to construct ever more expensive experiments and observatories in the hope that we will.

I’ve spent most of my adult life staring at the cosmic chasm – the abyss between what we know and what we don’t. And while our knowledge of the Universe has improved dramatically in that time, our ignorance has become only more focused. We’re no closer to answering the big questions about dark matter, dark energy and the origins of the Universe than when I started out. This isn’t for lack of trying, and a titanic effort is now underway to try and figure out all these mysterious aspects of the Universe. But there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed, and we might end up never really grasping how the Universe works.

Every bird is covered with feathers, and almost every feather on an individual bird is different, specialized in length, shape and structure to match whatever function is needed at that position. Feathers around the head are all quite specialized, with tiny feathers around the eyes, feathers modified into bristles at the base of the bill, and longer feathers on the throat.

Among the most specialized are the feathers that cover the ear opening. These must allow sound to pass through but also protect against debris and create a streamlined surface over the ear for air to flow across as smoothly and quietly as possible.

Small songbirds generally have about two thousand feathers, fewer in summer and more in winter. Larger birds like crows mostly have larger feathers, not more.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Think of it, 2,000 feathers on a bird and nearly every feather designed by God with a purpose in mind. With such a display of purpose in a single bird feather, is there any doubt that God has a purpose in mind for his people.

In his book, The Sentient Machine, Amir Husain writes:

Today I find myself drawn to the important observation that the universe around us is clearly a consequence of computation. A seed, for example, encodes the information necessary to produce a tree. With DNA as the software and cells and proteins as the hardware, the biological process is a computational one. We find these types of algorithmic outcomes everywhere we look in the universe.

Patterns like the Fibonacci sequence, for example, unlock designs across our cosmos. Everything from flower petals to the curving shells of a mollusk, to spiral galaxies, to hurricanes, adheres to this mathematical formula. Is this by chance?

There seems to be a mathematical seed at the heart of the cosmos that through the power of computation, has been magnified into the universe as we know it, just as a tree is a magnified seed.

At some point in my early adolescence, I tried to imagine a future where all of science fused together. All the deductions completed and all the building blocks of science synthesized into a great pyramid of knowledge. At the very top of this pyramid however, I realized that I was still missing a block that tied it all together. That block is the ultimate question, “What is this all for?’”

He then concludes with a chilling realization, that even with all of our advancements, “we still don’t know the purpose for our existence."

Possible Preaching Angle:

As a Christian, we would argue, that just as a computer program begins in the mind of a computer scientist, the mathematical patterns that govern our universe are testimony to a Programmer. And just as a computer program must run on hardware, that is itself manufactured by an intelligent being, the universe itself bears witness to a supernatural Creator.

A recent survey polled people with an average age of 38. Eighty percent had college degrees. The results revealed a lot of ignorance about origin of life research and the success of life creating life from nonliving matter (also called abiogenesis).

More than 41 percent thought that researchers had created “complex life forms from scratch,” such as frogs, using simple chemicals and conditions that “approximate Earth’s early atmosphere.” Remarkably, more than 72 percent of respondents thought origin of life researchers had created “simple life forms from scratch,” such as bacteria.

To put it kindly, the respondents’ great expectations about the accomplishments of origin of life researchers are wrong. Wildly so.

Researchers have not created a frog or a bacterium from simple chemicals in the lab under early Earth conditions. They haven’t created a functional membrane, or flagella or cilia, or any of dozens of molecular machines, or the DNA required for even the simplest living bacterium.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The mystery of life is explained in the profound phrase “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well” (Ps. 139:14). We can only understand the origin of life when we turn our minds to our Creator God who is the Source of life.