An intelligent design

When I think about life and what it really means, my first thought was to consult a dictionary. I was surprised to find that there were 25 definitions of life! The first one, and the one which I tend to think of as the meaning of life is:1

'The condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.'2

So how does this answer your question of "Life - by intelligent design or accident?" Well, I am not a religious person and back when I was at school I spent hours debating with people over all sorts of theories about evolution and creation. How did we get here in the first place? I really don't know. I don't think we will ever know, not in my lifetime anyway. 3

In my own opinion, life was definitely created by intelligent design rather than accident. If the word life basically means to be alive, then to be alive and keep life going we have to be able breathe and to reproduce. Plants, animals and humans can all reproduce. Something really clever and intelligent had to happen to find a way for all living things to keep their species going. If you really sit and think about the human body and how amazing and complex it is, then I think it is just too clever to have been an accident. 4

Think of all the things the human body is able to do, from the tiny things we don't give a second thought to, to those which are simply awe inspiring. Something or someone had to be really smart to think on such a deep level when they created us. They thought of the tiny necessities we would need, from eyelashes to protect our eyes; nails to protect our nail-beds; the ability to breathe without even thinking about it. We have so many organs inside us which all have functions to keep us alive; hearts that continuously beat, lungs which continuously expand. When you sit and really think about it the human body is the most amazing thing on earth. Whoever and however it was created, a lot of thought and planning went into the process. All of the abilities and consequences were thought about thoroughly.5

Humans were going to be clumsy, our creator knew that. We were going to fall over or have accidents. From time to time we were going to break our bodies, from simple cuts to crushed bones. Of course medicine plays a big part in the recovery, but so does the body itself. When we cut ourselves, our body has a clever way of healing again. When we have major surgery, a doctor can only do so much to help the repair, after that the body is on it's own. But the majority of the time it can and will heal itself. Apart from being amazingly clever in repairing itself, think of all the other things it can do from it's design.6

The design of the human body allows us to have senses. When it was created, the creator must have thought long and hard about what we will need to be able to do to survive. We were given sight to see the world around us; not only to enjoy it but to make us aware of dangers. The same goes for hearing; listen to beautiful sounds but be aware of not so good ones as well. We have the ability to touch and identify different textures. We have the ability to taste; tastes we enjoy and those which we can tell straightaway are bad for us. We were given emotions so that we can feel; imagine if we felt the same thing all of the time? But someone was too clever to let that happen; they wanted us to know when we were happy or sad; we were given the ability to laugh and cry, to express ourselves. And when you look even deeper at those things, like crying for example, even more thought was put into the process. Our creators thought of tears, and also found tears had another purpose, to cleanse our eyes of foreign objects, as well as an aid to our emotional senses.7

Perhaps the one common factor which all living species share is the need to survive. Animals, plants, human beings, all of us share this. We all have the ability to protect ourselves from danger and to identify it. The human body has another amazing thing which we know as the fight or flight syndrome. When we sense danger our bodies release adrenalin, extra blood is delivered to us so we can run, our senses become even more alert so we can pick up on all around us. As we go through life, no matter which species we are, we all eat to grow, have an awareness of danger to survive, drink to stay hydrated, repair ourselves if we are injured, and reproduce to keep our species going. 8

If we looked deep inside ourselves we would find minuscule cells in our blood, every one of them having a purpose and function. There are juices to help things move and secrete, enzymes to break things down, tiny hairs to move things along our tracts. Then there are bigger objects, tubes connecting parts of us together, bones creating our skeletons. We were given external features to make us attractive to one another. Being attracted to one another and given hormones to make us sexual beings gives us the ability to reproduce and keep our species alive. 9

From the clever design to fit one part into another so the act can take place, to the creation of tiny eggs and sperms to create another life. This is definitely a very clever creators design. Their design goes right down to genetics, the chromosomes in our blood, determining whether we would be male or female. Making us have unique reproduction systems and organs, different hormones to separate our physical attributes. Then of course once a new conception has occurred, the female body has a whole new set of abilities to prepare it for motherhood, to feed and nurture a baby. That very clever creator really did think everything through. 10

Finally, as human beings we have that wonderful organ called our brain. It provides us with the ability to do so many other wonderful things. We can think and plan, make judgements, stay balanced and focused, we can understand and find logic in things and express what we think and feel. 11

Possibly one of our most important abilities is to create, not just in the sense that we have wonderful imaginations to write and draw, but like the great creator of life we all have the ability invent some truly miraculous creations.