All things were made by him; John 1:3
"Adam Kirsch over the weekend had a thoughtful essay in the Wall Street Journal, meditating on the coming 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. His takeaway is a downer:
"Adam Kirsch over the weekend had a thoughtful essay in the Wall Street Journal, meditating on the coming 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. His takeaway is a downer:
"Astronomy doesn’t disprove religion, of course, but it does present problems for those who want to see an intelligible message in the
cosmos. In the early 17th century, the English poet John Donne observed that humanity had lost its bearings in the universe: “The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man’s wit/Can well direct him where to look for it.” The heavens, once the setting for the Earth and human beings, had become space, a void in which we wander. Blaise Pascal, one of the greatest mathematicians and theologians of that era, famously wrote that “the eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me."
Isn’t it interesting how the same data, looked at a little differently, can give a dramatically changed perspective.
As Dr. Nemati observes, the Earth is indeed rare. And as science advances, it is looking rarer and rarer. Putting aside the seeming impossibility of evolving the first life without intelligent design, on Earth or anywhere else — the conditions needed for an Earth-like planet are exceedingly tough to meet: “You’d have to look at tens of thousands of Milky Ways, at least, before you should expect to see a single Earth.” Nemati details some of the hurdles, as well as other conditions, far tougher, that must have been tuned just right with crazy precision, in order for stable planets and stars to form. The rarity of our “blue marble” suggests either near-impossible mind-blowing good luck, or, more in line with common-sense and our experience of reality, intelligent design."
EN&V
Isn’t it interesting how the same data, looked at a little differently, can give a dramatically changed perspective.
As Dr. Nemati observes, the Earth is indeed rare. And as science advances, it is looking rarer and rarer. Putting aside the seeming impossibility of evolving the first life without intelligent design, on Earth or anywhere else — the conditions needed for an Earth-like planet are exceedingly tough to meet: “You’d have to look at tens of thousands of Milky Ways, at least, before you should expect to see a single Earth.” Nemati details some of the hurdles, as well as other conditions, far tougher, that must have been tuned just right with crazy precision, in order for stable planets and stars to form. The rarity of our “blue marble” suggests either near-impossible mind-blowing good luck, or, more in line with common-sense and our experience of reality, intelligent design."
EN&V
