Intelligent Design @ AMERICAN DIGEST

December 6, 2008

Intelligent Design

True colors of solar corona Taken by Miloslav Druckmüller

Intelligent Design

Whose Will decreed This slash of sea
Would frame This sun in gleams of green?
What Plan determines stone's decline,
Or shapes in stars, or shadow's sheen,

Or that we track, as clever beasts,
The passing haze of comet's fall,
And are the glaze of Thought on flesh
That sees the need of Plan at all?

I know, I know... no Plan at all
Is thought by some to be the plan,
And yet what is this sheen of thought
That seeks to measure more than man?

Look out beyond the far Deep Field,
Beyond the limits of our sight.
It cannot be that All that is,
Is only night on deeper night.

But if that should be All that is,
And All as purposeless as stone,
The Heart still sings the body's chants,
And moves the Light within the bone.

Perhaps this pattern that we know
As time at slant between two lights,
Is but some dance to entertain
What lies beyond our Shaded sight.

Yet what dark mind could find a gleam
Of pleasure from such turns,
Instead of reading evil
In a countenance of burns?

The Countenance of comets,
That the sky at night assumes,
Mutes all equations memorized
On the Continent of Tombs.

To stand Once within a meadow,
And feel the hands of wind,
Is ample compensation
For the Gift the years rescind.

At length our modern marvels
Are but Blots of haze on slate,
That we note with brief attention
As we step between the Gates,

And dance, to some faint music,
Along the path of day's retreat,
Our ancient, ageless minuet
That rounds this sleep with sleep.

Posted by Vanderleun at December 6, 2008 10:19 PM | TrackBack

great stuff, thanks for posting it.

i have long found it funny that my friends - who think i'm irrational because i BELIEVE in G-d - themselves BELIEVE in the B-g B-ng, which they cannot themselves explain; they accept it as an article of faith.

Ditto their BELIEF in Str-ng Th--ry and so on.

i think G-d is a much more elegant and simple explanation for the true colors of the sun, the incredible beauty of nebulae, the miracle of simple kindness.

G-d passes Occam's Razor while so much of postmodern science does not.

another one of my favorite lines of attack is asking my atheist friends about the sun, the moon and the earth - how perfect they are together: a full solar eclipse is only possible because their sizes and their distances are JUST SO.

what are the odds of that? and that this should occur where feeling, thinking life can observe it!

then i point out to them that the entire solar system is perfect: the giant planets absorbing eons of comet hits and giant asteroids, each planet spinning in its designated slot so that Earth might remain in the one single solitary SWEET SPOT: not too warm, not too hot - just right..

a recent study revealed that children intuit the existence of G-d, and are not taught it.

it's the creature in us - we know there's a Creator.

that this Creator has a plan and awareness of us - of each of us - is where the possibility of FAITH breaks down for so many people. They see what WE have done to each other over the centuries - OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS! - and they argue that no OMNIPOTENT CREATOR would allow this.

they are wrong.

The Creator made "space" for us within which we have choice: we can choose good or evil. G-d had to withdraw Himself from this space to allow this, and like a good parent He allows us to err in order that we might learn.

The fact that not all of us do learn, or that we learn - but at high cost - is not His fault.

The immortality of the soul and the transient nature of our lives on this side, in this domain, in this dominion, is what makes all of the troubles we experience - that WE create - worthwhile, and not pointless.

that's why as believers we are not nihilists.

and this is why so many postmodernists ARE nihilists.

and this is another thing (in addition to hatred for America and so on) that they have in common with jihadists - whose twisted faith-system hates life, hates Life and opposes the G-d who loves life.

Posted by: reliapundit at December 7, 2008 7:22 AM

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Man is intelligence, and intelligence is the transcending of forms and the realization of the invisible Essence; to say human intelligence is to say absoluteness and transcendence. --Schuon

Posted by: Gagdad Bob at December 7, 2008 8:09 AM

Webutante:

mr youse needn't be so spry
concernin questions arty

each has his tastes but as for i
i likes a certain party

gimme the he-man's solid bliss
for youse ideas i'll match youse

a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues

e e cummings

Posted by: Rob De Witt at December 7, 2008 10:18 AM

Man, I'm impressed...We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep...

However, the kind of existential wonder you deftly describe does not depend upon an anthropomorphic creator. In fact, to me it's all the more wondrous if it doesn't (doesn't depend on it, that is, which isn't the same as excluding it). The distinction between agnosticism and atheism (and theism) is the difference between humility and overweening confidence.

Posted by: Novalis at December 7, 2008 1:22 PM