Re: Francis Collins statement

I read Collins in my Sunday Times yesterday and enjoyed the whole article.

Two parallels with me.

1. Collins was convinced of the existence of God while walking in the
Cascades. I became aware of God witnessing a thunderstorm passing over
Snowdonia from the Berwyn mountains above Llangollen i.e 30 miles away. (For
Steve K I was taking my bike over a rough mountain track and as it was 1963
it was not a mountain bike but had 12 gears) 5 years later I became a
Christian.

2. Collins wrote " “When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of
scientific
exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found
it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness
to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no
human knew before but God knew all along."
In South Africa I was mapping a large unknown area and couldn't work it out.
One day while having drink and gazing at the scenery the geology fell into
place and I thought "so that's how you did it, God" (I could have added
600my ago)

The first is to see God in the awe and wonder of creation and the second in
the detailed complexity of creation. But neither have anything to do with
design or irreducible complexity

Michael

----- Original Message -----
From: "William Yates" <billyates@billyates.com>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 10:13 PM
Subject: Francis Collins statement

Saw this on Hugh Hewitt's blog (http://www.hughhewitt.com/) today...

 From the Times of London's profile of Francis Collins, the director of
the US National Human Genome Research Institute:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2220484,00.html

     For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict
in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.

     “When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific
exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found
it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness
to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no
human knew before but God knew all along.

     “When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1
billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information
and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going
through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at
those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of
God’s mind.”

     Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their
belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity
reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful
system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and
powerful being.”

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