You Are Incredible
Here is another thing I think we can agree on: technology is incredible.
How many changes can you think of that have occurred during your lifetime with technology?
My first computer was a Commodore Plus4.1 It was an oversized keyboard with a slow processor and small memory that needed to be plugged into a TV to see what it was doing. Compared to what came before it, though, it was faster, smaller, better.
Today I have a Pixel3a in my pocket with 1,000 times the speed, 60,000 times the memory, two cameras, and a built-in screen. I can use it to talk with people and can even ask it questions and get answers. Faster, smaller, better.
Incredible is one way to describe it.
Have you ever thought about what it would take to make a human-like robot?
What material would you use to build it?
Is it going to be mobile, and how will you handle that?
What power source are you going to use?
How smart are you going to make your robot?
Do you want a “dumb” robot or one that mimics human intelligence? If you wish to make a human-like robot, you’re going to need artificial intelligence.
What’s the difference between intelligence and artificial intelligence?
One difference is that it takes intelligence to create artificial intelligence. It’s called artificial because it mimics human intelligence by either being preprogrammed or allowed to adapt by machine learning dynamically. Humans learn dynamically.
It takes human ingenuity, intelligence, and imagination to make human-like robots.
All of these questions and many more would need to be answered before you could make your human-like robot.
Oh, and one more thing I would like you to do.
I want you to miniaturize your entire plan on how to make your robot down to the following sized dot:
. < Squeeze all of your plans to make your robot into that dot.
Does that seem “so extraordinary as to seem impossible” or “not credible; hard to believe; unbelievable?”
That’s how big you were when you were conceived. That’s how incredible you are!
The human egg cell is the biggest in the human body, but it is only 100 microns (or about the diameter of a human hair) in size. When fertilized by a human sperm, the complete DNA instruction book for a human containing about 3 billion bases and about 20,000 genes on 23 pairs of chromosomes fits inside of that dot.
What’s the word that would describe this? Nanotechnology comes to mind.
I recognize the intelligence that went into my Commodore Plus4. I’m amazed at how smart my Pixel3a is. Smaller, faster, better.
But this? What kind of intelligence did this?
Mr. Atheist: “There was no intelligence that created that. It’s the result of random chance and millions of years of random mutations.”
Believer: “You seem to believe in random chance a lot. Hasn’t it taken some of the most brilliant minds even to begin to understand how incredible life is?”
Mr. Atheist: “Yes, it took brilliant minds of science to discover that random chance is the cause of that nanotechnology.”
Believer: “Can our modern science and technology create human-like robots starting with only the information contained in a 100-micron speck of chemicals?”
Mr. Atheist: “Well, no. But given enough time and randomness, nature will.”
Believer: “So, given enough time and randomness, my Pixel3a would just emerge one day?”
Atheist: “No. Randomness did not create your Pixel3a. Brilliant minds of science and technology made it. But the nanotechnology that created those brilliant minds is the result of time and randomness.”
Believer: “I’m sorry, but that seems incredible to me.”
Are You Smarter Than Your Smart Phone?
I mentioned earlier that I have a Google Pixel3a “smart” phone. It’s an incredible device when you stop to think about it.
It has two cameras, but can it see?
When it takes a picture of a sunset, does it feel the wonder and the beauty?
It has a microphone, but can it hear?
When I ask it a question, does it think?
It has a speaker, but does it say what it’s thinking or what it has been programmed to say?
It has a touch screen, but can it feel?
It has memory and storage, but what does it remember?
Suppose we cracked open the case and analyzed what it’s made of. In that case, we’d see silicon, silver, circuits, and various electrical elements. We could take apart the cameras and see the photon receptors. We could look at the microphone and speaker and see how they input and output sound waves. We could put a probe on various leads and read the pulses of electricity running through the system. We’d see a power system, operating system, processing system, memory system, storage system, etc. At the end of our analysis, we would know its various chemical elements.
Would we conclude that these atoms randomly assembled themselves?
What if someone told you that it assembled itself based on the information contained in a 100-micron diameter dot of molecules? Would you think that is incredible?
What about you? You, too, are made up of trillions and trillions of atoms. You have two eyes to receive photons that hit your retina. You have two ears so that sound waves can reverberate on your eardrums. You have a mouth, vocal cords, and respiratory system that allows you to make sound waves. You have one of the most sophisticated “wet” computers between your ears that can process and interpret all of the inputs coming in. That computer can also imagine, think, create, purpose and love. It’s authentic intelligence that can dream, imagine and develop artificial intelligence.
You are a system of intertwined systems: central nervous system, circulatory system, respiratory system, digestive system, reproductive system, etc.
If one or more of those systems fail you are only a few minutes away from dying.
What good is a circulatory system if you can’t breathe? What good is a respiratory system if your heart stops beating? What good is either of them if your brain or central nervous system can’t coordinate them?
What good is a respiratory system if there is no oxygen in the atmosphere? How is a primarily water-based system supposed to work if there is no water on the planet where you live? What good does a digestive system do if there is no food on that planet?
Your smartphone and you are made up of atoms. So far, there is no smartphone as incredible as you. But you know technology always gets smaller, faster, better. One day there may well be a device that can mimic human intelligence. Maybe even achieve consciousness.
Would it believe it was the result of a random arrangement of atoms, or would it believe it was created?
The Unknown God
One of my favorite sermons in the Bible is about the Unknown God.
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:22-31)
The Athenians were just like us. They worshipped everything. And to cover their bases, they set up an idol TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
You may laugh at them for that, but how many today worship science, power, popularity, money, nature, pleasure, drugs, sports, etc. Look around you and see what shrines humans have created in our world before you laugh too much.
What they didn’t know:
God as Creator and Lord. They had a god for this and a god for that. But their gods were too small. If they were living today, maybe they’d make a temple to random chance or quantum fluctuations. They didn’t know the God who made it all.
How big God is. They thought they could build him a temple, but he made everything. Do you know how big the universe is? What makes you think you can build him a house or put a likeness of him on your shelf if he made that?
How much they needed God. They thought God needed them. They made their temples, made their idols, and offered their sacrifices. They thought they were doing the gods a favor. They didn’t know how much they depended on God since He’s the one who gives to all life, breath, and all things. He’s why you’re living on a planet that has air, water, food, and all the things we need for life. Most of us have only one “I"dol. We think we’re God and don’t need anything.
They didn’t know you have to search for God. It was easier to find a god in Athens than a man since they had so many temples and idols. Most people spend their whole lives looking for anything but God. God wants us to search for him and find him. In him, we live and move and have our being. He’s as close as your heartbeat, as close as your breath. He only seems far away because men don’t know him. He wants humans to find him by faith and make contact with him (Hebrews 11:6).
They didn’t know the connection between humans and the Divine Nature. One of their poets said, “For we are also His offspring.” They made idols of silver, gold, and stone. Their idols had eyes, ears, and mouths but could not see, hear or speak. Artificial intelligence tries to mimic human intelligence. Artificial means made or produced by human skill. Who shaped and devised that 100-micron diameter dot of molecules that would grow up to see, hear, speak and search for the God who gave them the spark of the Divine?
Out of the cradle onto dry land here it is standing: atoms with consciousness; matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea, wonders at wondering: I a universe of atoms an atom in the Universe.
Richard Feynman
They didn’t know God’s command to repent and that there is a great day coming. The times of ignorance (not knowing) about God are over. He has commanded all men everywhere to repent.
He also wants everyone to know that there is a day coming in which he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ.
The assurance of that day is the resurrection of Christ.
Those two things are some of the incredible claims of Christianity I’ll be writing more about later. It’s going to get SciFi real quick.
You can no longer say that you didn’t know about the unknown God or his desire to be found. There is a great day coming, are you ready?
There is, beyond the azure blue, a God concealed from human sight.
He tinted skies with heavenly hue and framed the worlds with his great might.
There is a God; he is alive; in him, we live, and we survive.
From dust our God created man; he is our God, the great I AM.
A.W. Discus
Do You Believe You Are Incredible?
There will never be another person like you on the earth. The mathematical odds of getting the same DNA sequence (except for identical twins) pretty much assure that.
Do you believe that somehow that 100-micron diameter speck of chemicals that turned into you came from random chance and is going back to nothing?
Or, do you believe you are a walking testimony to the miracle of life?
You’re allowed a short amount of time in the universe to decide whether you want to know Him or not.
You decide whether you will search for Him and make contact by faith or makeup idols in His place.
Do you believe that you are incredible?
Kevin Huddleston
