Tag Archives: science and God

Reality and the Monarch Butterfly

Journey of Faith, Science, , ,

This week I have another amazing animal story, this time about the Monarch butterfly. Monarchs are gorgeous, and found in most parts of the United States and Canada.

Scientists didn’t know where Monarchs went in the winter. We now know Monarchs from the Eastern United States and Canada spend the winter in Mexico. They migrate thousands of miles, and often know exactly what tree they are looking for, just as salmon return to the stream of their birth, and loggerhead turtles return to lay their eggs on the beach where they were hatched.

All of these species, and some other species like birds, have this impossible-to-obtain-by-chance technology built in. They know the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field (birds can “see” it with their eyes), and they can feel the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field (birds have this technology in their beaks). They have the ability to process this information, and to adjust to changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. We humans have learned how to do this only recently, using sophisticated measuring instruments and complex computer programs. All of these animals, including tiny Monarchs, have this technology built in, and are born knowing how to use it.

Complex technology in unrelated species proves the existence of God. Clearly a common designer placed it there for a purpose. As I have shown before, it is mathematically impossible to get technology this complex by any chance-based process, such as Darwin’s theory of natural selection acting on random mutations and gradually, slowly, with very small steps, each one of which has some survival advantage, improving species.

What really shocks me about Monarch butterflies is that, in this migration of thousands of miles, no butterfly has ever made the round trip. Monarchs typically return to the same tree where their great-great-grandfathers were hatched. There are at least four generations involved. Each generation goes from egg to caterpillar to butterfly. The fourth generation, the generation that spends the winter in Mexico, typically lives about 6 months, the other three generations each live about two months.

It appears Monarchs have built-in technology that stores memories – information – from their great-great-grandfathers. This technology is way beyond human understanding. We don’t know how to begin to modify life to do this. It is absolutely stunning technology.

Two key points: First, this four-generation migration pattern, apparently using technology to remember what your great-great-grandfather did, and different life spans for different generations, absolutely shatters Darwin’s theory. It couldn’t have arisen from gradual, small changes.

Second, is it possible the Monarch Butterfly gives us a glimpse of God? We don’t know how our brains store memories. The popular perception is that memories are electrically coded into our brains, much like computer memories have information stored in them. Maybe so, but with Monarchs I wonder whether there might be more, whether memory is stored in the “cloud,” so to speak, meaning outside our space-time reality. We don’t understand consciousness. To me, the thousands of similar near-death experiences, with bright lights, fantastically beautiful colors and sounds, meeting deceased relatives, and often meeting Jesus, prove we have eternal souls. So I ask you whether, just possibly, the Monarch Butterfly is giving us a glimpse of something eternal, of a new reality.

Thanks for reading!

Ell’s Law

Atheist Pseudo-Science, Science, , ,

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately as to how I’m going to earn my Nobel Prize. I’m not getting any younger. I’ve decided I need my own “law.” That seems to be how you make it really big science-wise – to have a law or principle either named after you or always associated with you. There’s Hubble’s Law, Newton’s Law of Gravitation, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and so on. And of course Murphy’s Law. So, to get me started on the road to Nobel, I propose Ell’s Law:

Whenever there are competing explanations for natural phenomena and one suggests, however slightly, the existence of God, the other will become the accepted “scientific” explanation, regardless of whether there is any evidence to support it.

Let’s look at Ell’s Law in operation, starting with Cosmology. The night sky is dark. Did the universe have a beginning, or do we infer there’s a lot of totally undetected dust in the heavens blocking the light from those infinite and eternal stars way out there? You guessed it! – the answer must be dust! Hubble discovers the universe is expanding, and the speed of receding galaxies is proportional to their distance from us. Do we now conclude the universe had a beginning? Nope, applying Ell’s Law, scientists invent the “Steady State” theory, where the universe is still constant and eternal and somehow matter is created in the voids to build new galaxies. This violates a basic rule of science – the First Law of Thermodynamics, the conservation of matter/energy – but, under Ell’s Law, we don’t worry about that. In 1965 we discover radiation from the Big Bang, and other evidence, absolutely confirming that our universe had a beginning. Do we now infer the existence of God? Of course not! Applying Ell’s Law, scientists conclude our universe was created by another universe, which was somehow created by a third universe, and so on, to infinity and beyond, to avoid having to come up with a “First Cause” for a first universe. We discover the constants and laws of physics are exquisitely fine-tuned for the existence of life. Do we infer a designer? Nope! Applying Ell’s Law, we just tweak our model of an infinite number of universes (together called a “multiverse”) to imagine that somehow the laws and constants of physics (and even the number of dimensions actually) can change from one to another. We have absolutely no idea how this occurs, and of course absolutely no idea how we can ever detect evidence of other universes, but, under Ell’s Law, you don’t need evidence!

Now let’s apply Ell’s Law to biology. We discover an incredible molecule called DNA that contains the information for all life. Apply Ell’s Law, and we conclude it arose by accident. We discover an amazing genetic code that all life uses to build proteins from the DNA code, and amazing machines to process DNA. Obviously, created by accident! We don’t have a mildly plausible explanation for the origin of life (and believe me, Harvard and others threw a lot of money at the problem), but, no problem, we ignore that and keep printing high school textbooks suggesting the “scientific” explanation that life was created by accident. We find all species contain massive amounts of unique DNA coding (orphan genes). Evidence of design? Not a chance! Just apply Ell’s Law, and you will conclude it all arose because of accidental mutations and natural selection, even if that’s mathematically absurd.

I could go on, but I think you get my point. Ell’s Law is one of the most powerful laws in science. It also applies in quantum physics and planetary formation. I’m going to start work on my acceptance speech.

Thanks for reading.

Is it “Smart” to Believe?

Journey of Faith, Science, ,

If you’re reading this, you probably know that millions of people think belief is outdated and that science is in conflict with religion. Atheists claim that “smart” people move past the old superstitions to some sort of materialistic philosophy. Like many other Atheist claims, when you look at the facts, it’s blatantly false.

A recent article claims that, of the 10 people on Earth with the highest IQs, at least 8 are Theists and at least 6 of those are Christians.  I don’t know whether these really are the 10 smartest people on Earth, but it is a very impressive group.

Before 150 years ago, basically all educated persons were Theists – they believed in God. Many were Deists rather than Christians, they believed that God created the universe and life and then left us to sort it out on our own, but they were overwhelmingly believers. People then studied science to learn how God worked – how he made the universe, the Earth, and life. Now we’ve got a small but vocal group of Atheist scientists who want us to think that all of this design, all the wonders of the universe and every species on Earth, happened by chance. The basic message of my book is that science actually strongly supports belief in God, and I give seven areas where that is true. Each area, by itself, is very strong evidence for the existence of God.

So I would answer “yes,” it is smart to believe.

Thanks for reading.

My Mission Trip to MIT

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Some people go to Africa, others to Asia.  I went to MIT, and I was nervous.  I was there to nail seven scientific challenges on the door of the church of atheism.   But just days before, at the request of student atheists, MIT agreed to ban mention of God and prayer from its commencement ceremonies.

Forty-three short years ago I received my Bachelor’s degree from MIT. During that time, I took seven semesters of16 math courses along the way and also majored in physics.  I was back to talk about my book – “Counting to God:  A Personal Journey Through Science to Belief”.  MIT set me up in one of their modern lecture rooms, and my friend who is head of the Physics Department agreed to introduce me.  But would anybody show up?  Would people try to disrupt the talk?  I was nervous.

I’m told the count was 118 people; not bad considering commencement was the week before and the campus was quiet.  It was a mix of students, faculty, and the general Cambridge community including some folks from Harvard.  The talk went well; I saw nods of understanding and light bulbs coming on with smiles as I “counted” through seven wonders of modern science:  the creation of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, the origin of life, the technology of life, the puzzles of macroevolution, the special qualities of Earth, and the non-material nature of the universe as revealed by quantum physics.  A video of my talk and my slides should be available soon on countingtogod.com.  I hope you get to see them and let me know how you think it went.  My friend the Physics professor, who hosts dozens of events each year, told me he received at least five emails later thanking him for sponsoring the talk, and that he couldn’t remember the last time he got that kind of email.

Why did I go to MIT?  I went to spread the word that science and religion are not opposites.  I went to show the objective basis for belief, that math and science facts support belief in God.  I went to expose Scientism, the belief that science can or will explain everything without God, as just a system of belief.  I went to spread the word that modern science strongly supports belief in God.  That’s why I wrote my book, and that’s why I’m writing this blog.

More next week.  Thanks for reading.