Anyone out there? Anyone? Anyone?

A couple of weeks ago I came across yet another recent article about our sophisticated radio telescopes seeking to hear from life on other planets in other galaxies.

The idea is that in a universe so vast, we must not be the only inhabitants. The reasoning is that since earth’s life is relatively young (as compared with other planets and galaxies), other “alien civilizations” not only have developed (by chance), but are far enough advanced as to be sending out signals, trying to reach us and anyone else who might be listening.

There have been many attempts to calculate the possible number of inhabitable planets, all of which is speculative, depending upon the variables plugged into the equation. But one thing that the speculators always assume is that if and when a signal does come from somewhere in deep space, it will be a purposeful pattern designed to communicate information from one intelligent race of beings to another.

Now, I’ve always loved science, and admire every attempt to explore our world. But what seems strange in all of these efforts is that we are bypassing all of the information encoded in the patterns of our own planet. The double helix of DNA and the genome of the simplest protein have, at their foundation, deeply complex patterns which require that information not only be present, but also communicated to cells and their parts and even to other parts of living organisms.

So, using the logic (and the very name) of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), if we were to obtain such amazing data from outer space, it would confirm that life “out there” was intelligent, and would be worth hearing and pursuing. After all, the pattern programmed into language has communication as its very goal, and humans know that by nature. Babies begin very early to decode messages of all sorts from their world, and soon are encoding messages of their own, beginning with babbling and cries.

All that to say that even the casual observation of the cells in a leaf or the laws of heredity or the patterns of any known language should “tip us off” that we are, indeed, not alone in the Universe. The deluge of information coming from any aspect or discipline of science should be enough to have us at least hypothesize, “Wait, if there is information, there is communication, and therefore, there may (or must) be a Communicator.”

It is no accident that one of the names of God’s Son is “Logos,” or “Word” (John 1:1-3), and that is one reason that the Creation made by Him, reveals the glory of God (Psalm 19). The evidences from that Creation render each of us “without excuse” if we choose not to worship the Creator (Romans 1:18-20).

Will it not be one of the eternal ironies that so many who spent their lives in complex searches for intelligence in deep space missed the simplicity of opening a Bible?

“. . . the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light. . .”
John 3:19


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