This quote caught my attention tonight as I was reading an article on a Christian site I've been frequenting lately. There's a lot of thought-provoking material there, and something I read yesterday inspired me to write something else which I may post at some point, but this quote in particular has inspired me to write something for other people to read as well if they wish.
So I always wondered how people could actually believe evolution when there's so much evidence that illustrates the amazing complexity of living things down to the molecular level. The article where I saw the quote contained a reference to a fairly recent (1996) biochemical study of a bacterial flagellum in which the researcher found that the protein structure of a bacterial flagellum was "irreducibly complex," which means that if any part of it were not there, the whole structure would not work. He therefore concluded that it could not have evolved bit by bit. And what he was studying was one of the simpler sorts of living things, a lowly bacterium. If bacteria are this complex, imagine how much more complex animals are, and people even more so. The odds are against even one kind of living things evolving from nothing, so there's just no way that all of creation exists from chance mutations. There must be a Designer.
On a side note, I remember learning in grade school that most of the major scientists that lived earlier than a couple hundred years ago (before Darwin, anyway) were Christian. I think that's mostly because their love for God led these people to devote their lives to studying the natural world as a way to learn more about God. But nowadays many people study the world to learn how to possess it, dominate it, make money from it, and turn it to their own selfish uses. Actually, this describes much of advanced learning, not just science: all of business and political science, for example. One of the primary reasons for kids to go to college is to get a degree that they can use as credentials to get a better job that pays more. I don't want to rant about today's society at the moment, although I can't say that's not a reason for my own studies either, of course. My point is just that the reasons for studying now are very different from those years ago.
Back to my observations about the quote. "The universe is a poem about God." In other words, God created the universe to reflect His own glory. I know that's a jump from just saying that the universe was created by God, but it's what the article was saying. Furthermore, the universe illustrates the fact of its creation in the very fabric of its existence, and therefore people, as a part of creation, should be aware of the truth of creation. Even technologically primitive cultures have creation stories and the concept of a deity (usually multiple though). The details have been lost through the centuries, but these myths are based in the reality that the world was created, and there exists a God who did the creating. People have tried for centuries to avoid the idea of God by "proving" that God does not exist in one way or another, but they have all failed. Other people say that the existence of God can neither be proven nor disproven, which may be true in a purely logical sense, but the world is more than logic anyway. Reality is more than what can be seen, as we know from the discoveries of such previously undetectable phenomena as atoms or radio waves. There is always more to know, and the pinnacle of knowledge is God Himself.
So if people know of the existence of God, why do they deny it and put their faith in a false idea of the world? I don't really understand it, because I think the truth, however difficult, is always better than believing a lie. I know for many people it's more convenient to ignore God and follow their own worldly desires, choosing to believe that God doesn't exist. Some even feel that they've been betrayed by God, but I think it's more accurate to say that some form of organized religion that they were in contact with failed to help them in a way they needed. Other than that, I don't know, but I think that's a topic for another day.