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The Summit Lecture Series: Intelligent Design with Sean McDowell, part 4

The Summit Lecture Series: Intelligent Design with Sean McDowell, part 4

Last updated on: September 30, 2014 at 12:18 pm by Christian Podcast Central

The Summit Lecture Series: Intelligent Design with Sean McDowell, part 4 2014-09-30T12:18:22-08:00 Christian Podcast Central

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To purchase the entire DVD set of the Summit Lecture Series, visit www.summit.org.

Imagine that you are out for a morning jog along a wooded path, and you come across what appears to be an abandoned cabin. As you approach the cabin, you hear your favorite song – “Beat It”, by Michael Jackson. Intrigued, you further explore and open the front door and are welcomed by the aroma of your favorite meal cooking. As you enter, you see boots that are just your size and a jacket that’s exactly your size. The entertainment center is filled with your favorite video games and the shelves are filled with your favorite books. The refrigerator is packed with all the food, snacks and drinks that you enjoy.

Upon noticing all this, it would be easy to deduce that 1) someone had been there before you; and 2) they were expecting your arrival (or someone has been creepily stalking you).
This place had been explicitly prepared for you, for your liking and for your survival, so to speak.

You see, scientists have discovered that the universe is actually just like this cabin. It’s fine tuned, exquisitely, just for human life.

As Freeman Dyson (a non-Christian scientist, mind you) put it:

“As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked to our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must, in some sense, have known that we were coming.”

This is known as the “Fine Tuning Argument”

Think about it like this: As you get in the shower in the morning, you adjust the hot and cold water so that neither is too powerful for your liking, but that they are fine tuned just right.

Well, the laws of physics seem to be adjusted so that they are just right to allow the emergence and sustenance of complex life, including human life.

So, if life exists on the “razor’s edge”, the slightest, most minuscule change would make the universe inhospitable for life.

Or, as non-Christian, acclaimed scientist, Paul Davies put it:

“The cliche that life is balanced on a knife edge is a staggering understatement in this case. No knife in the universe can have an edge that fine.”

You see, the universe is not static. It is ever expanding and a speed that if the mass was any heavier, the universe would collapse back unto itself. If the mass were any lighter, it would expand too quickly and it wouldn’t be capable of sustaining life.

So the distance and the speed at which it expands has to be precisely fine tuned.
In the words of Mark Whorton:

“If the balance between gravity and the expansion rate were altered by one part in one million, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion, there would be no galaxies, stars, planets, or life.”

In other words, if the mass of the universe were altered by the equivalent of a single grain of sand, the universe would not be hospitable for life.

For more encouraging and educational videos and podcasts, visit the E-Squared Media Network at www.e2medianetwork.com.

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