It is reasonable to believe in God. Pt 4

In a previous post I argued for the existence of God based on the Teleological Argument.  Specifically, I used the argument for the Fine-Tuning (and therefore purpose or design) of the Universe.  But we may also use the Teleological argument in another way.

Life is Good, But It is Complicated

Similarly, to the Fine-Tuning Argument, one can also determine life could only arise because of the intelligence of some designer.  Not only can we determine the universe would be inhospitable to life without the intervention of intelligence, but life itself is so complicated as to need an intelligence creating it as well.  This is because even the most basic forms of life contain a lot of information.

If you went hiking on a mountain one day, and came across a pattern of rocks arranged in such a way as to spell, “welcome to the mountains,” what would you conclude?  There are only two options to explain this phenomenon, impersonal causation and personal causation.  In other words, either something natural caused the rocks to be arranged this way, or a person caused the rocks to be arranged this way.  Clearly, this is a product of intelligence.  Messages are a sign of intelligence.  Messages assume there is a a sender!  Even if no one receives the message an intelligence must send and compile the information.  Information cannot be the product of natural processes.
Life contains similar information.  The genetic code of DNA is like a novel.  “DNA has specified complexity in its message.” “Significantly, the nucleotide sequences in the coding regions of DNA have, by all accounts, a high information content--that is, they are both highly specified and complex, just like meaningful English sentences or functional lines of code in computer software (http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_dnaotherdesigns.htm).”  The code of DNA is very complicated, is arranged in a very specific way.

There is no such thing as simple life.  Even the simplest form of life contains a lot of information.  Even the amoeba has as much information in its DNA as 1,000 sets of the Encyclopedia!  If a simple message such as “welcome to the mountains” needs intelligence behind it, why would we not conclude that the equivalent of 1,000 encyclopedias of information needs intelligence?  “Mind or intelligent design is a necessary cause of an informative system, one can detect the past action of an intelligent cause from the presence of an information-intensive effect, even if the cause itself cannot be directly observed.”  All other forms of information are recognized as the product of intelligence, the information of life is no different.  The complexity of life can only be explained as the product of an intelligence, and this intelligence is much like God. 

Again, this is not conclusive evidence for the existence of God, but is instead another link in our chain, making the belief in God a viable option.

Next, The Moral Argument for the Existence of God