THE CASE FOR A CREATED PLANET
by Michel Archer - Guest Writer

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1: The Criteria for Intelligence

 

The debate continues today: is our existence the result of a purposeful act of creation, or are we here because of random chance?

Deciding what we think about our origins and why we hold those opinions is important because those decisions can have life and death ramifications. For example, if a human being is just an accident anyway, why not shut off hospital life support when it gets too expensive, why not pull the trigger if we're too depressed, or slip a baby into a trash can because there is a dance to go to?

I can not cover every point this debate spans in one article, so today we'll look at just one. That point is the way in which we determine a thing is the result of an Intelligence and how that criteria is misapplied by those on the other side of the debate.

We consider something to have been the result of an Intelligence if the thing produced displays an orderly design, has structure and suggests a purpose for it's creation.

Scientists follow this criteria constantly. Years ago, radio astronomer's thought they were receiving signals from Little Green Men out in space. But when those signals lacked a structured pattern they figured out the signals were a naturally occurring phenomena produced by these things called Quasar's. But remember the determining factor: the signals lacked a pattern, no design, therefore, they concluded there was no intelligence producing them.

A couple of years ago, other astronomer's were certain we had found extra-terrestrial life on Mars because on a few pictures received from that planet there appeared to be what looked like a face. Although this quickly proved to be the work of shadows falling on the right spots, their initial excitement is understandable, because to make the appearance of a face requires a certain amount of order and design. Certainly, if those same pictures had revealed a full-blown replica of the Statue of Liberty none of us would dare chalk it up to wind erosion. Again, the construction and design would tell us an intelligent being had to have produced it. An apparently hard-working being at that.

Now apply this criteria to our own planet. Just pull a leaf off of a tree. You'll see tiny veins running through it as part of the tree's internal feeding system. Through photo-synthesis it's an oxygen making machine, it's a home for animal's, food for insects, it makes shelter for human's and when it dies it's decaying form enriches the ground it came from. Was this an accident? Take that leaf and look at it under a microscope. You'll see the orderly arrangement of cells which make up the leaf. Get a better microscope and it will only reveal more order, more design.

Environmentalists are constantly reminding us about how the earth's many system's are tied to each other. I heard one such scientist describe the natural world as a 'well-organized tapestry where everything is connected.' Order, design, patterns, construction.....life on earth is saturated with it. But wait a minute! Many of the same scientists who say that anything of an organized nature outside of planet earth indicates intelligence, will insist that millions of well-tuned organized systems on this planet do not indicate the same. I'm sorry, that doesn't work. Science cannot alter it's view of the facts to satisfy philosophical points of view.

We'll talk about this more when we specifically discuss the Theory of Evolution, but please ask yourself how your eyes could have 'just happened?' Take the survival skill's of certain animals: the woodpecker slams his head against a tree just to eat. A bird trying to 'evolve' into this would have shoved his beak through his brain, end of story. He came equipped to live how he lives. And what about cleaner fish? Those small fish that swim into the mouths of bigger fishes and live off what they eat from the big fishes teeth. It doesn't matter how many billions of years pass, a smaller fish swimming into the mouth of a bigger fish is going to be eaten, unless they were already designed with their own internal instructions.

Pick out your own examples of order on planet earth. There are plenty to go around.

So I am of the opinion that the construction, design and order to be found on this planet indicate the work of a Higher Intelligence. And if that is the case, then who is this intelligence, what is this creation about, and why are we here?

If we are Bible-believing Christians, then we need to learn the answers to these questions to save the lost around us.

 

YOU CAN REACH MICHEL ARCHER AT: Michele501@msn.com