Oh to be molded by Him, our very breath...
YOU WERE CREATED
Is life on earth pure happenstance, meaningless, and the result of indifferent, blind chance? Or is it the metaphysical, purposeful result of a master Creator?
When we examine masterpieces like Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” or Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, do we think those kinds of creations suddenly popped into existence from complete nothingness or do we recognize that their existence can only be explained by someone greater than themselves (i.e. a “designer/creator”)?
Additionally, do you really think you have no special significance and you are nothing more than brain chemistry and physiological processes wrapped in a cocoon of skin and bone? Or do you actually have a soul, a purpose, desires, feelings, emotions, and a meaningful existence? Does your life count for something or can we end your life with no further thought than ending the life of a garden spider or a common house fly?
Many scientists, evolutionists, and post modern secular humanists espouse that humanity is insignificant and nugatorily unimportant. In fact, Bill Nye the “Science Guy” has gone so far as to say, “I’m insignificant. I’m just a speck of sand. And the earth is another speck. The sun is another speck and the galaxy another speck. I’m just a speck, on a speck, orbiting a speck among other specks in the middle of specklessness. I suck!”
In complete agreement with Bill, in his book titled Out of Eden, Richard Dawkins declares, “In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in [any of] it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no god. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares.”
But those two last statements seem to fly in the face of common sense. Even Senior Astronomer and Director of the SETI Research Center, Seth Shostak (who is NOT a Christian!) has declared, “Unless there is something very, very special – miraculous if you will – about our solar system, about our planet Earth; unless there’s something extraordinarily unusual about it, then what happened here must have also happened many, many times in the history of the Universe.” Which is precisely why he and other SETI enthusiasts have been searching the Universe for Extra-Terrestrial Life since 1960 but have found NONE.
And interestingly enough, Astronomy, Science, and Space Exploration on a whole have all substantiated that the “life” that exists here on Earth is INDEED unique, special, and ubiquitously absent in the rest of the universe. In fact for any kind of life to exist AT ALL, it is indeed quite extraordinary and highly implausible without very, very specific parameters and safeguards being implemented ON PURPOSE…….in other words, they just don’t happen by chance. By way of example, our own solar system contains around (70) planets and moons and yet only (7) of them have any kind of atmosphere at all, let alone the type of one uniquely qualified to potentially sustain life at any level.
Consider this, we are supposed to believe that after the “Big Bang” hundreds of BILLIONS or even TRILLIONS of galactic, planetary objects hurled through the vast expanse of the universe without any rhyme or reason whatsoever, and yet somehow mysteriously collected themselves into “galaxies” and “solar systems” (like our own) and also somehow aligned just perfectly in relation to each other so that complex life could immerge. Wow … talk about faith!
Our earth is so PRECISELY situated in our solar system that if it were just 5% closer to the Sun we would turn into an unlivable greenhouse reaching temperatures similar to Venus (900°F), and if we were just 20% further away from the Sun we’d freeze into a sterile, uninhabitable block of ice like our neighbor Mars. These kinds of fixed parameters just don’t occur through random chance and blind processes like galactic explosions – order simply doesn’t come from chaos (Cf. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) disorder and more chaos do.
Scientists have now determined that many factors have to occur for complex life to exist anywhere in the Universe:
⦁ There has to be a terrestrial planet that supports life through a Carbon-Cycle (e.g. recycles and distributes needed nutrients, regulates the interior planetary temperature, mixes chemical elements essential for living organisms, shapes continents, etc).
⦁ There has to be an abundant supply of liquid water (just try and find that one element alone in the rest of the Universe!).
⦁ The planet has to exist in a “Circumstellar Habitable Zone” in its own solar system as well as a “Galactic Habitable Zone” somewhere in the Universe. The correct Circumstellar Zone allows for water to exist in three necessary forms (solid, liquid, and vapor).
⦁ You need some kind of stabilizing moon (think gravitational force – but not too strong and not too weak).
⦁ You need a precise atmosphere rich in Nitrogen and Oxygen (but not too much Oxygen or the planet turns into an inferno!).
⦁ You need the right kind of planetary neighbors (e.g. Jupiter is large enough to shield a large portion of asteroid bodies from entering our Solar System and gravitational force from ALL of the other planets lure stellar objects away from our home).
⦁ You need an energy source like the Sun (but not too close and not too far away as previously stated).
⦁ You need a magnetic field from liquid iron (i.e. the Earth’s Core) for protection from harmful Solar Winds.
⦁ And there are many others…
In addition to all of these other factors, the earth itself is perfectly situated within the “Orion Spur” of our Milky Way Galaxy so as to lend itself as the perfect platform for scientific discovery and observation within the Universe itself! Almost like one could say, “We were placed there on purpose.”
Commensurate with that our planet also has a very, very rare, TRANSPARENT atmosphere which again allows for observation and scientific discovery that our own planetary neighbors do not enjoy or possess. We truly have a “Window to the Heavens” ripe for examination and galactic discovery.
Another “rarity” unique to our planet is the naturally occurring solar events known as LUNAR and SOLAR Eclipses. Events without which scientists and astronomers would never have been able to study the Sun’s atmosphere, and subsequently make discoveries like the periodical element Helium (the 2nd most abundant element in existence).
By perfect design the Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon, but it is also 400 times farther away from the earth making both planetary objects precisely situated in relation to each other and the earth, so as to allow for these two solar phenomenons to occur and for the earth itself to be the perfect platform from which to observe it! And of course humanity itself is perched upon this “stage” as it were, almost as if on purpose … like the designer Himself is saying, “Watch this.”
In the Universe itself, of the entire Electromagnetic Spectrum (Radio – Microwave – Infrared – Visible – Ultraviolet – Xray – Gamma – Invisible – Lethal) naturally occurring throughout its entirety, only about 1% of the spectrum is actually useful for complex life (Visible). This equates to one trillionth of a trillionth in the known Universe. And it just so happens to be the kind of energy and light spectrum that is produced in abundance by our Sun. Additionally, it is the very spectrum that most easily penetrates our atmosphere while the other harmful spectrums do not. This is clearly so far beyond coincidence it is staggering.
Because of all of this, one could say that the chances of finding complex life within the Universe are incredibly rare and downright impossible! In fact, of the roughly (861) exoplanets known as of March 2013, not one of them has even just a handful of the features necessary to make them habitable and life sustaining like the Earth does. This means the Universe, our Solar System, and the Earth itself are highly fine-tuned and intricately designed.
Therefore, an objective analysis of all of these factors unequivocally shows that the earth is truly UNCOMMON in the Universe and UNIQUELY SPECIAL; and that simply doesn’t happen by chance through unguided, random processes like the “Big Bang” or Darwinian Evolution. It makes no sense whatsoever to declare, “It just happened.” Instead, it is far more intellectually honest to recognize that all of this points directly to an uncaused first Cause, Designer, and Creator as its genesis.
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