The Bible: Commentary and Controversy

Okay. If you read my article titled “Where We All Came From,” you know that in it I proposed the suggestion that DNA, very much like modern computer programs, is capable of receiving data, analyzing it, and making decisions based on that information. All creatures have their own version of DNA, which, of course, we know as “the building blocks of life.”

It all started, evidently, with the first “live” creature: our Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA. Imagine, if you will, a microscopic one-celled animal coming to life some four billion years ago in the hot soup of the sea, appearing like Athena, complete with DNA and a full set of 355 genes. Bingo bango bongo, all of a sudden there’s life, and a set of building blocks that will create every animal and plant on the planet for the next four billion years.

No one seems to know how that happened. In fact, scientists, biologists, and such don’t seem to care very much about how or why a tiny single cell organism should suddenly pop up with an immensely complicated and sophisticated set of world building blocks.

Yeah, well, they say – the conditions were just right; acidic ocean rich in iron, sulphur, the development of amino acids and nucleotides, and whammo! This astoundingly developed creature just popped into being.

That explanation just doesn’t make sense to me. I have trouble believing that a simple one-celled creature could accidentally develop the material that would guide the future of the entire planet and all its inhabitants. Were there other creatures wandering around DNA-less before LUCA? No one seems to know. But obviously LUCA must have either been created with DNA or DNA was inserted into a living being. Was it a gradual process, starting with tiny bits of the DNA string and finally, with LUCA, evolving into a complete set? Well, no one knows that either, which isn’t surprising, since it happened four billion or so years ago.

However it happened, I believe this event is the most reasonable proof of an external intelligence – the thing we have named “God.” You may believe, as science tells us, it was some sort of cataclysmic, random accident. I believe that escapes the bounds of reason.

If you’ve spent much time on this site, you know that I believe the Bible is a collection of stories, some rooted in real events, some not, written to instill and reinforce the fear of God in the Jews. Strangely enough, the very first part of it – genesis, the creation of the world and its first human creatures – is by modern interpretation the part that is most consistent with modern science’s explanation.

My article “Genesis: A Reconciliation” on this site details the similarity between the bible’s account of creation and the one offered by science, up to and including the creation of Adam, whom science has labeled LUCA. And that same science tells us how Eve came to be, saying the infinitesimally tiny creature “duplicated its content, then divided, forming two beings.” Not exactly plucking out a rib and using it, but close enough for me.

Let’s skip to the bottom line. To me, the suggestion that all life as we know it was dictated by a creature that arrived in the world by accident four billion years ago is far more difficult to believe than the suggestion that it was it was programmed into this tiny, senseless creature by some kind of cosmic intelligence. God? Watchmaker? Master Architect? Other worldly beings?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Of course if you believe a cosmic intelligence was the cause, then you have to begin wondering how it came to be. Hmmm. I think I’ll go take a nap.