Sunday, January 6, 2008

FACTS & OPINIONS

Here are a few things I know. I will be using some gargantuan numbers. While no one has actually counted these things, these are modest and best estimates based on the latest scientific research. You have one hundred trillion cells in your body. Each of these cells contains membranes that separate one chemical process from another. Very modestly, there are at least one hundred electrical or chemical processes going on at each moment in these one hundred trillion cells. That means that at this moment, as you read these words, ten quadrillion processes are going on within the individual cells of your body. A quadrillion is a billion millions. Walking the earth at the present time are a bit over six billion people. That means that you have one million six hundred thousand biological processes taking place at this very moment for each of the six billion people on this planet. And those are just the processes that happen within the cells. Another myriad of processes is happening between the cells, because all of these processes are coordinated and synchronized to bring about your moment to moment survival.


Now who is coordinating and supervising all this activity? I asked this question of a friend of mine of a materialist, scientific bent. These startling numbers barely aroused her. She said, "the genes" and promptly returned to sleep. Now before you doze off and return to that perpetual slumber that we in modern society call wakeful consciousness, let me share with you a few facts about 'the genes'. In each of the one hundred trillion cells of your body lie three billion base pairs of nucleotides that make up all your coded gene sequences. That means that you have a total of three sextillion nucleotides. Here is something to help you wrap your mind around that number. An individual nucleotide is a tiny piece of a kind of nucleic acid. How tiny? Well, they are too tiny to be seen no matter what instrumentation one uses. You can imagine their size if you realize that over three billion are encased in the nucleus of each microscopic cell in our bodies. Now if you were able to disentangle each of these three billion nucleotides from the nucleus of every one of your one hundred trillion cells and arrange them in one impossibly thin strand; that strand would stretch from here to the sun (93,000,000 miles) and back!



So, are these three sextillion sequenced nucleotides coordinating and synchronizing the ten quadrillion biological processes happening within the one hundred trillion cells in our bodies? Absolutely not! These nucleotides sit passively (not that surprising when you consider that they are matter) encased in the nucear membrane of each cell. When a certain sequence of nucleotides, of genetic information, is needed, a protein molecule miraculously finds its way through a tiny passage way in the nuclear membrane and then, even more miraculously, finds the exact spot among the three billion tiny nucleotides where the exact sequence is located. Then, that molecule is, amazingly, joined by several other molecules which also find this exact location and they combine to make an RNA molecule which presses up against the needed sequence and copies it. Then the RNA molecule with the copied sequence miraculously finds its way out of the nuclear membrane and arrives, miraculously, at the exact spot in the cytoplasm where the protein is manufactured from the code. (How this manufacturing takes place is even more amazing and mysterious). But all that the gene sequence does is it allows itself to be copied. That's it! That is all the genes do! They allow themselves to be copied. They are not coordinating. They are not supervising. They are not thinking about your welfare. They are microscopic pieces of nucleic acid. They are sitting enfolded in the nucleus of your cells and the only thing they do is allow themselves to be copied, and they don't even willfully do that. That is done merely in response to an enzyme. So, not meaning to disturb your slumber, I must ask again, if we eliminate the genes, who or what is coordinating all this activity? Of your three sextillion nucleotides, forming thirty thousand genetic sequences, who decides which precise ones are needed at each moment and causes those precise parts of the code to be revealed and copied? I'll give you one hint. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, evolutionary biologists and the whole cadre of 'clear eyed realists' don't have the foggiest idea.


I attempt to answer that question, as best I can, in a number of the other posts. For now, let's consider a few more facts. At the current measure, ninety-four per cent of the universe is invisible. This is not my nutty observation. This is astrophysicists' nutty observation. Oh, and by the way, they measured it. Because even though it cannot be seen, this invisible universe has an effect on gravity. Now if you are not part of the universe don't pay any attention to the following. But if you are a part of the universe, please listen carefully! The visible part of you, in other words, everything that you can see and everything that you learn in biology, and everything that Richard Dawkins is talking about, is only a small part of you. The rest is invisible.


Why is that strange? The self can't be seen; consciousness can't be seen; your entire experience of your life can't be seen by anyone other than yourself. Love can't be seen; ambition can't be seen; passion can't be seen; and intelligence can't be seen. They can, of course, be experienced, but they can not be observed directly by others, only inferred from the way they effect your body and your behavior. So at the same time that evolutionary biologists and organic chemists are merrily eliminating the notion of a soul, a self and a consciousness from our vocabulary, based on the evidence that they have never seen these things, astrophysicists are announcing to the world that ninety four per cent of it is invisible.


The tragedy of September 11 was greatly exacerbated because the police department was not communicating with the fire department. In fact, the whole episode might have been averted if the FBI had communicated with the CIA. Could the spiritual tragedy now being wrought by these insular evolutionists likewise be averted if they would lift their eyes from their microscopes and listen to, or even consider, the information that is being discovered by their colleagues, the astrophysicists? Because of their scientific training, we cannot reasonably expect biologists to give any credence to the spiritual experiences that people have been relating since the beginning of language, and writing since the beginning of writing. But how can they ignore, not the conjectures, but the measurements of their scientific brethren?


What evolutionists and biologists have discovered is a small part, and the least subtle, least causal part, of the tip of creation. They have discovered a tip of the tip. Based on these few crumbs of knowledge, they have pretended to have unraveled the mysteries of life. They have replaced awe with a feigned omniscience and gratitude with a mocking arrogance toward any one that still has a shred of reverence and humility as they contemplate creation; in fact toward anyone who would contemplate their existence at all, since contemplation itself has become obsolete because everything has now been seemingly discovered. What has actually been discovered is simply how some of this amazing equipment works. What has not even begun to be discovered is who or what is operating this equipment and who or what put it here. If this distinction is clearly understood, then the more levels of complexity that are revealed through our research, the more our awe and wonder at the Creator is enhanced, not diminished, by these discoveries.



Thanks for reading. Your comments are most welcome.

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