There is strong belief among theists that the universe has a design related to its parts and the whole of it. There is also a strong belief among humanists that there is no design. Persons, both theists and humanists, also contradict those appearing in the majority of their expected context. The farther back we go in time the more likely that we are perceived as speculating about origins and developments. Today I read an article arguing that our present day bird species are descended from some of the ancient dinosaurs. The development was offered in ten steps, but the steps, at each juncture, required changes unexplained to gain the step up from the previous one – from a massive land animal to a bird weighing two pounds. We need considerably more information to flesh out the story – what used to be called links. Our scholars and researchers press on. (Affirmation that there is an order/design may depend upon definitions.) We are informed that the Big Bang, identified as a massive and exceeding fast reality of some billions of years ago, suggests that we need not advance a theory of God. What if the big bang is true and came from God? Our constant insistence on cause and effect to interpret all about us makes the presupposition of God more logical than that a massive explosion in the great cosmos gave us that we have currently. This assumption of source, so very attractive to us, is widely accented, and provides common ground for our search. By some definitions of source and design these groups win the argument: by another set of definitions those groups win the argument. We are forced to live through the conundrums and contradictions of mankind. With the same evidence considered we become intellectual/belief opposites of one another.
Mathematical accuracy nearly forces order on us. The planets will follow patterns we can reconstruct from centuries past and project future centuries. Without that accuracy we would not likely go to the moon or land a vessel on Mars. With the same evidence available to us we have liberals and conservatives, theists and atheists, rich and poor, freedom and slavery, similarities and differences in scores of contexts. At this writing the world is disordered with several wars in which the civilian citizens are registering greater life losses than the military; in great numbers of families pressing neighboring borders to escape the lawlessness of their countries while believing nations exist for the good of their citizens; in contradictory values that even lead to bizarre laws while we believe laws should serve in the guidance of people in a multicultural society should be able to find the good life; in governments so taken with graft and violations of duty that life becomes suffering to the poor and protected for the rich while we extol freedom for all, but stalled with partisanship; in the diseases and poor health habits that are increasing the threat of massive outbreaks of infection in the world while we have the resources to offer widespread health; in the breakdown of the family while affirming the sanctity of it; and, the story lengthens. Does this suggest that there is disorder? Surely it does. Human beings, not God, are authors of disorder that diminish life.
All this offers also an explanation that may be useful in the debate about order and design in any context of mankind – even to the beginning of all things to the end of them. The means for order and the cultivation of the force of design for creation is present. We human beings simply do not use in ourselves that which we demand for truth leading to proper and constructive belief and conduct. If it doesn’t pass the judgment of the best informed persons from among us we have reason to send the matter back to the drawing board. We are distracted by innocent and evil attractions from doing our duty. We are caught in the emotional moments of our lives to make judgments. We elect persons (perhaps celebrities) to governments and institutions, even for volunteer systems not designed for success, perhaps in participants ill prepared for their jobs, and may not believe in the core objectives of their groups. I have known persons taking positions for the deliberate purpose of destroying the order. The movements in history known as anarchist have sometimes achieved that context. They are at work in our times, sometimes in better patterns for acceptance, but they achieve the same purpose. They argue that they destroy in order to build. (Maybe) Christianity is affirmative. There are several routes to solutions if the population is willing to make them work. That leadership is best that takes what is available and makes something better of it. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020