CHAPTER 28
Dad and I did talk. Lots.
Over the next month, we became friends again.
Of course, other things happened too. Rawling tried to resign, but his resignation wasn’t accepted. The surviving koalas were allowed to live. Harrington and the ex-director were both scheduled to be sent back to Earth when the next shuttle headed back.
And, oh yeah, Ashley and I spent a lot of time hanging out together.
In fact, things were just settling back to normal—as normal as anything might be for humans living under the dome on Mars—when an earthquake hit.
Well, not an earthquake. This was Mars. I guess you’d have to call it a marsquake.
Whatever it was, it was scary. Although it happened at least 200 miles away, it still rocked the dome.
What was even scarier was the fact that it might not have been an accident.
But all this is going to fill another journal… .
SCIENCE AND GOD
You’ve probably noticed that the question of God’s existence comes up in Robot Wars.
It’s no accident, of course. I think this is one of the most important questions that we need to decide for ourselves. If God created the universe and there is more to life than what we can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch, that means we have to think of our own lives as more than just the time we spend on Earth.
On the other hand, if this universe was not created and God does not exist, then that might really change how you view your existence and how you live.
Sometimes science is presented in such a way that it suggests there is no God. To make any decision, it helps to know as much about the situation as possible. As you decide for yourself, I’d like to show in the Robot Wars series that many, many people—including famous scientists—don’t see science this way.
As you might guess, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering about science and God, and I’ve spent a lot of time reading about what scientists have learned and concluded. Because of this, I wrote a nonfiction book called Who Made The Moon? and you can find information about it at www.whomadethemoon.com. If you ever read it, you’ll see why science does not need to keep anyone away from God.
With that in mind, I’ve added a little bit more to this book—a couple of essays about the science in journals one and two of Robot Wars, based on what you can find in Who Made The Moon?
Sigmund Brouwer
whomadethemoon.com
JOURNAL ONE
DOES GOD REALLY EXIST?
Q: Why do science and faith seem so far apart?
A: Much of this happened because of how the church in Rome treated a scientist named Galileo in the early 1700s. Galileo supported a new theory that the earth revolved around the sun. But the church insisted the Bible said otherwise. So the pope punished Galileo—he even threatened to have Galileo killed unless he began to teach again that the sun revolved around the earth. After that, many “religious” people thought scientists wanted to attack religion, and scientists became antireligion.
But Galileo, who deeply believed in God, became known as one of the greatest scientists of all time. He predicted that a new invention, the telescope, would prove the church wrong—as it did. He wanted to save them from embarrassment, but they wouldn’t listen.
Q: Can you believe in God and trust in science?
A: It seems that today we have two choices: accept God through faith, choosing to believe what the Bible says (that God exists and loves us individually) or believe what science claims to prove (that there is no God).
But over the last 50 years, science has admitted that every discovery leads to more questions than answers. A century ago, many scientists believed they were on the verge of knowing all the answers regarding how we arrived on Earth. Now scientists say that the more they discover, the more they discover they don’t know.
For example, if the force of gravity were slightly more, the universe would collapse on itself, like a balloon with the air sucked out of it. If the force of gravity were slightly less, it would have drifted apart as gases instead of forming solids. If the force that held protons and electrons together were the slightest bit weaker, hydrogen would not exist, and therefore water would not exist, and therefore life would not exist. At all levels, it seems that coincidence after coincidence after coincidence has made human life possible in a lonely, cold universe.
Many scientists now believe that the 15-billion-year construction of the universe has had one goal: producing human life. Science is proving that the odds of human life being produced by chance are like winning the same 10-million-dollar lottery every week for the next year. That’s a big win!
It’s true that belief in God truly takes a leap of faith, yet every year we see further proof that science—and reason—no longer stand in the way of a belief in God as the Creator of this universe.
JOURNAL TWO
THE HOW AND WHY OF LIFE
Q: How did we come to be, and why do we exist?
A: As a human being, you’Re made up of one trillion cells.
How much is one trillion? To hold one trillion oranges, you’d need a box that’s 250 miles long, 250 miles wide, and 250 miles high!
Even more amazingly, all these cells work together. Some cells grow hair; some grow teeth. Some cells don’t begin to work until you become a teenager. Other cells wait until you’re middle-aged. You have blood cells, heart muscle cells, liver cells, eye cells, brain neuron cells, and more.
Most amazing, all one trillion cells are the result of the one cell created when you were conceived. As Tyce’s mom explained to him, the DNA in this first cell contains every bit of information needed for your body to grow.
Q: What exactly is DNA?
A: Deoxyribonucleic acid. It’s life’s building block. DNA is shaped like a spiral staircase. In a human, the DNA ladder in one cell contains three billion “rungs.” (If DNA rungs were the size of a real ladder’s, those three billion rungs would circle the entire Earth—twice. Wow. Think about that!)
Because of its shape, DNA is able to replicate itself perfectly. When a cell needs to make a copy of itself, the DNA “ladder” unzips down the middle to form two halves. The result is two exact copies of the original. That’s how one cell at conception can pass on the exact copy of its DNA to all trillion cells of a human.
Each different cell is able to specialize because it activates a different section of the DNA “ladder.” These sections are called genes. Some genes trigger a cell to become hair cells. Other genes trigger a cell to become blood cells. And so on.
In one way, this method is extremely simple. After scientists discovered the double helix shape of DNA and everything else about it, they were able to run many experiments, including the ones mentioned by Tyce’s mother.
In another way, DNA is incredible. The information stored in the DNA of just one cell would fill the hard drives of a million computers. The microscopic chemical reactions resulting from the DNA coding happen millions of times a day in your body.
DNA is so incredible that many scientists find it very difficult to believe that life was the result of accidental evolution. Like Tyce’s mom, these scientists cannot help but look to God as our Creator.
Q: So what does all this have to do with believing in God? A: Life itself is a humbling mystery. Think of it this way: We survive because of sunlight and water and dirt. Our bodies are nourished by carbohydrates from bread, which comes from wheat, which draws from sunlight and moisture and soil. Our bodies are strengthened by protein from the meat of animals, which feed upon plants. All of this is made possible by the water that falls from the skies and collects in rivers and lakes.
Sunlight, water, and dirt.
We forget how incredible it is because we see it and live it every day and give it little thought. We plunk down a few dollars for our hamburgers at a drive-through; we pick up milk from the grocery store; the sun throws off heat from 93 million miles away; the earth remains in its fixed distance from the sun—not t
oo close, not too far, held by gravity that we can predict but not explain.
If you think of life this way, it’s not hard to believe that such a world with such mystery exists because of the unseen hand of a Creator.
All of this leads to a much bigger question: why?
Although learning how we’re on this earth is fascinating, learning why we’re really here is the most wonderful purpose given to us as humans. Hope you enjoy the journey!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sigmund Brouwer and his wife, recording artist Cindy Morgan, and their daughters split living between Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, and Nashville, Tennessee. He has written several series of juvenile fiction and eight novels. Sigmund loves sports and plays golf and hockey. He also enjoys visiting schools to talk about books. He welcomes visitors to his Web site at www.coolreading.com.
Death Trap Page 14
