ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon
The following commentary was published by The Daily News-Record, the daily newspaper of Harrisonburg, Virginia, on November 4, 2024 (website link below).
Connecting with Nature Helps Us Find God
Years ago, when
then-delegate Steve Landes represented my district, he would send out an annual
survey so residents could let him know which issues were most important to
them. In the beginning, the survey included the environment, but that topic
disappeared after several years.
I asked why and was told
people didn’t express much interest in it; the environment was apparently
unimportant to most folks as compared to other concerns, such as jobs creation,
cutting wasteful government spending, etc.
Certainly, such issues are
important, but what folks were not recognizing is that the
environment should be at the very top of the list due to our dependence upon
it. Without the proper functioning of our natural world, humans cannot survive,
which is why both the biblical and evolutionary description of man’s appearance
on Earth informs us he didn’t arrive until an environment that could support
him was in place.
It's natural to take for
granted something that’s always been there, as if it will always remain so.
However, those folks who have visited space and returned to Earth or continued
on to the Moon recognize the uniqueness of our planet.
According to NASA
astronaut, Mike Massimino: “I thought at one point, if you could be up in
heaven, this is how you would see the planet. And then I dwelled on that and
said, no, it’s more beautiful than that. This is what heaven must look like. I
think of our planet as a paradise. We are very lucky to be here.”
We certainly are
lucky. The Earth, described by Apollo-era astronaut Edgar Mitchell as a “sparkling
blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly
swirling veils of white…in a thick sea of black mystery [the void of space]” is,
indeed, special. No other planet in our solar system (or perhaps even the
universe) could support us of its own accord, which begs the question, “How did
we get so lucky?”
Perhaps this situation
should give us pause: Could our favored status point to the existence of God?
Existing on the one planet
in our Solar System that supports life can’t prove the existence of a greater
being. However, over a decade ago, I experienced an epiphany that seems to
prove the existence of a creator: Some aspects of man’s presence on the Earth
are completely out of sync with the natural world, presenting an evolutionary
paradox that can’t be explained by science.
Due to my scientific background,
I was keenly interested in investigating this new awareness that God must
exist. If correct, the Bible and the holy works of the major religions of the
world—if truly the Word of God—would need to support my realization, and they
did.
I found that the evidence
for the reality of God is the natural world itself, but not because it’s
majestic, complex, or unexplainable. Rather, once you grasp how logically and
sensibly it functions and how humans are disjunct from it, the nature revelation
becomes obvious.
If you wish to learn more about the nature revelation that God exists, and how the Bible declares it and evolution confirms it, my treatise will be available at this blog site beginning November 7, 2024. I will be publishing one section per day.
