"Father Haskell" wrote:

WhewAustralopithicus wrote:

"Father Haskell" wrote:

brother Melchizedek wrote:

"St. Jackanapes" wrote:

<snip>

Whack-A-Fundy

Squash a Liver!

50 Yard Bible Toss!

Oh goodie, a picnic. I'll bring the potato salad.

Melchy says he'll bring the goat.

FA talking to him/her self, huh ... :-)

Divine Design
"Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring
you closer to God."
-James Tour, Nanoscientist
The astronomical evidence for God must be strong when atheistic physicists admit that "the universe exploded out of nothingness,"
and agnostic astronomers claim that "supernatural forces" were so at work in the beginning that scientists are led back to "a band
of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries" (see chapter 3). But the scientific evidence for God does not end with the
Cosmological Argument. For many, the precision with which the universe exploded into being provides even more persuasive evidence
for the existence of God.
This evidence, technically known as the Teleological Argument, derives its name from the Greek word telos, which means "design." The
Teleological Argument goes like this:
1. Every design had a designer.
2. The universe has highly complex design.
3. Therefore, the universe had a Designer.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) implicitly confirmed the validity of the Teleological Argument when he marveled at the design of our solar
system. He wrote, "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an
intelligent and powerful Being."?1? Yet it was William Paley (1743-1805) who made the argument famous by his commonsense assertion
that every watch requires a watchmaker. Imagine you're walking along in the woods and you find a diamond-studded Rolex on the
ground. What do you conclude is the cause of that watch: The wind and the rain? Erosion? Some combination of natural forces? Of
course not! There's absolutely no question in your mind that some intelligent being made that watch, and that some unfortunate
individual must have accidentally dropped it there.
Scientists are now finding that the universe in which we live is like that diamond-studded Rolex, except the universe is even more
precisely designed than the watch. In fact, the universe is specifically tweaked to enable life on earth-a planet with scores of
improbable and interdependent life-supporting conditions that make it a tiny oasis in a vast and hostile universe.
These highly precise and interdependent environmental conditions (which are called "anthropic constants") make up what is known as
the "Anthropic Principle." "Anthropic" comes from a Greek word that means "human" or "man." The Anthropic Principle is just a fancy
title for the mounting evidence that has many scientists believing that the universe is extremely fine-tuned (designed) to support
human life here on earth.
In this vast and hostile universe, we earthlings are much like astronauts who can survive only in the small confines of their
spaceship. Like a spaceship, our earth supports life as it hurls through lifeless space. But also like a spaceship, a slight change
or malfunction in any one of a number of factors-in either the universe or the earth itself-could fatally alter the narrowly defined
environmental conditions we need to survive.
Apollo 13, one of the most challenging and famed missions in the history of NASA, will help drive this point home. We're going spend
the next few pages aboard Apollo 13. And as we do, we'll point out some of the anthropic constants that make our lives possible.
1 Isaac Newton, "General Scholium," in Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687) in Great Books of the Western World,
Robert M. Hutchins, ed. (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.), 369.
Geisler, N. L., & Turek, F. (2004). I don't have enough faith to be an atheist (95). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.