The week after Easter was Spring Break for the school where I teach. I spent a good chunk of the time watching several documentaries that have been sitting in various queues for months. Among these were two on the topic of intelligent design:
They came to mind during my homeroom class on Friday because of a story on the Channel One News broadcast regarding the new Tennessee law on teaching about the origins of life. This legislation was also the subject of a Los Angeles Times editorial earlier this month. In that same day's paper, there was an opinion article arguing that the universe has no purpose. The latter topic is the true conflict in all of this.
The problem with this conflict is that all of the participants are trying to prove the unprovable. We are letting our human rationality get in the way of our intuition. We see intuition as weaker than intelligence, when in reality it is the opposite. Intuition, conscience, whatever you want to call it is the voice of God in our heart and soul. It speaks to us of what is true. We ignore it at our peril.
"I know you wonder why. Why are you here? Why are you alive? You know the answer. You’ve seen it so many times, in the eyes of a lover or a child, watching the sun disappear and the moon rise. You’ve felt it on the wind. Say it with me now. Let the word form on your lips. Love. It’s that simple, isn’t it. Love."
"So why did you come to be? The simplest answer is why not? But I suppose that won’t do. We needed to share ourselves. I’m not sure that answer is much better, but I will try to explain. You call it love. To us, it is simply our way of being."
This conflict is foolish. Our purpose is self-evident. The proponents of intelligent design choose to overthink it. The scientific secular-atheists choose to ignore it. Both do so because they fear the consequences of truly acknowledging it. If life is about universal love, what does that do to the exclusivist claims of religious, economic, political, and scientific institutional authority? Will we allow their fear of losing power and resources override what we know to be true?
"Love is why we are here. Love is the glue that binds this universe together, that gives us life. It is the magic and mystery behind our existence ... Not a lofty goal or purpose. It’s actually pretty simple, just to love, just to be who we are, for no other reason than that it’s who we are. No great cosmic justice, no heaven or hell. When we die our essence returns to the great river of life that drives this universe, no matter who we were or what we did. So why bother with this life, if it doesn’t matter? Why bother with love? Because it is who we are. To deny love is to deny ourselves."