Letters From Grandpa #258
LETTERS FROM GRANDPA # 258 Dearest grandchild,
Today’s letter will deal with an ancient Greek legend known as Panspermia. Wikipedia states: “Panspermia (from Ancient Greek rv (pan), meaning ‘all’, and onéppia (sperma), meaning 'seed') is the hypothesis that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets, planetoids, and also by spacecraft carrying unintended contamination by microorganisms.”
As incredible as it seems, famous scientists now resort to “Panspermia” in an effort to explain the origin of life without God. None other than Francis Crick in his book Life Itself postulates that some form of primordial life was shipped to the earth billions of years ago in spaceships. This, of course, doesn’t solve the mystery of how life began, it merely moves it to outer space where it cannot be tested. There is obviously a difference between a statement made by a scientist, and a scientific statement. Panspermia is not science regardless of who proposes it!
I am indebted to Gary Bates in an article published in Creation Magazine (September 2003) for much the following information.
Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the double helix structure of DNA in 1953 and were awarded a Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1962. Both Watson and Crick are avowed atheists. Crick even said that his atheism helped motivate him in making the famous DNA discovery. In 1961 he resigned as a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, when they proposed to build a chapel. He apparently wanted nothing to pollute the purity of his atheism. These famous scientists used the 50" anniversary of their discovery to try and dispel the idea of a Creator.
Creation Magazine also used the same anniversary to publish a detailed article on the wonders of DNA. Bates observes in that issue that the DNA molecule has often been described as the most efficient information storage system in the entire universe. The immensity of complex, coded and precisely sequenced information written on the DNA is absolutely staggering. (The human code is spelled out in over 3 billion letters) Bates insisted that the evidence from DNA speaks of intelligent, information bearing design. When life began this coding would have had to be present. Thus the “simple cell” is not simple at all. In one of his more lucid moments Crick admitted: “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going”.
Crick, however, stubbornly clings to his atheism. He once bragged: “People like myself get along perfectly well with no religious views”. Bates reminds us, however, that atheism is itself a belief system. Crick even “believes” in Panspermia as a possible explanation to how life began on earth. Yet he “believes” this without a shred of scientific evidence to support his “belief”. Just as a drowning man will grasp at a straw, these atheistic scientists are willing to grasp at anything, or anyone, but God. Michael Denton, in his best selling book Evolution a Theory in Crisis notes: “Nothing illustrates more clearly just how intractable a problem the origin of life has become than the fact that world authorities can seriously toy with the idea of panspermia”. Again, in one of his more lucid moments Crick stated: “Every time I write a paper on the origin of life, I swear I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts...”
Bates concludes his excellent article by stating: “Everywhere we look, life possesses the hallmark of design and purposes of its creator. Unfortunately for some, they are so blinded by their worldview that they are incapable, or unwilling, to consider the most obvious and sensible explanation”.
Sadly, Panspermia is a religion without reason, value, or hope. It cannot tell you where you came from, what you are doing here, or where you are going when you die. It has never cared for an orphan or dried the tear of a widow. If offers no guidance to the youth and no hope for the aged.
William E. H. Lecky was an Irish philosopher and historian who died in 1903. (That’s the same year that your Great Grandpa H.B. Mouton was born) Here is what Lecky said about Jesus in Volume 2 of his History of European Morals (pages 8,9). “It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has show itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but also the strongest incentive to its practice; and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists”.
The civilized world divides times into B.C. (Before Christ), and (A.D.) The year of our Lord. There is plenty of evidence for Jesus, but no evidence for “Panspermia”.
I love you,
Grandpa Boyce