Hi. My name is Doug.
Hello. My name is Doug Stephenson.
34, married, 2 kids. Systems analyst for a mid-sized insurance firm in Northern Virginia. Raised in a starchy baptist church in Lubbock Texas. Had plenty o’ potluck dinners growing up – and stern prohibitions against gambling and sex. Was taught that the Bible was the infallible WORD of GOD, brothers and sisters can I hear a big AMEN???
Hey, if religion floats your boat, I’m fine w/ that. Plus you get lots of really nice little old ladies who bake you casseroles when your wife’s in the hospital.
But when some ‘creation scientist’ starts insisting that the earth is 6000 years old and Adam and Eve marched naked through the garden of eden on July 4, 4004 BC, well that’s pretty much where I get off the bus.
(Oh yeah, and what else…. the big bang is a global conspiracy foisted upon us by atheistic scientists… the whole entire grand canyon was created in 40 days and 40 nights by Noah’s flood…. the speed of light is constantly changing and the stars are really a lot closer than most people think…. yeah, whatever. Like I said, whatever floats your boat.)
When I was in college I watched a really cool TV series by Carl Sagan. He was describing earth, the “pale blue dot” in the vastness of space. I suddenly saw how utterly small and insignificant we are here on planet earth. One lonely planet in billions of light years of emptiness. It was almost, I dare say, a religious experience.
Never again was I going to believe that the whole friggin’ universe was created just for us so we could converse with snakes about eating forbidden fruit from magic trees.
Then my wife gave birth to our son. That was a spiritual experience of a different kind. I can’t even explain it. The wonder of it all. Whether we came from apes, or if it all started with a big bang, there was something mysterious about what happened to me that day. I don’t know how special planet earth is, but I know how special Jonathan is and how special my family is.
Is love just a chemical in your brain? Or is it something more than that?
I just couldn’t help but feel like maybe the universe isn’t quite as cold and lonely as Carl Sagan said it was.
And watching Jonathan grow up (he’s 2½ now), seeing how damn smart that kid is and how fast his little mind is growing and the questions he asks all the time, I just couldn’t chalk all this up to sheer accident anymore.
So there I was, with a dilemma. Science is science, but my gut keeps telling me there’s more to our existence than just math and molecules. Maybe there’s more to life on planet earth than “survival of the fittest.” (BTW however true it might be, evolution is kind of a depressing theory if you stop and think about it.)
I started surfing the web, looking for answers.
I stumbled upon an email series called “Where Did The Universe Come From” by Perry Marshall and I think you might like it too. It deals with everything from Einstein’s take on the Big Bang, to DNA, to a radical 21st century take on Evolution.
And for once I don’t feel like I have to slice my brain in half. Maybe the world is big enough for faith and science to get along after all.
You can sign up for Perry’s email series here.
Enjoy.
Doug Stephenson