I'd like to share with you three photos I took as I walked down Harris Beach in southern Oregon, and my reflections on each of them. The beach was lonely and deserted. I could imagine it on a sunny day filled with screaming kids and families and dogs, but today the fog had rolled in and the only other sign of life were a few seagulls. As I walked along, I saw a pattern in the scattered driftwood and rocks - structure and symmetry. This is what I saw:
I asked myself, "Could that have happened as a result of the wind and waves?" And of course I knew it couldn't. I could spend 70 years walking the world's oceans, and perhaps just one time would I ever find that the waves had left one rock on top of another on top of a log. "Aha," says the theoretician, "but if it could happen once, then given eons and eons of time, oodles and caboodles of time, then the chance exists that the waves and wind could theoretically leave a string of stones on top of others (except the one in the middle), on top of a piece of driftwood. Putting aside the theoretician for the moment, if I asked 100 other people walking by if the scene above was made by a person or if it happened by chance, I'm confident that all 100 would confirm that, without a doubt, someone had been there.
As I continued walking down the beach, my eye was once again captured by symmetry and structure, and once again I pulled out my camera. This is what I saw:
Our trusty theoretician might argue that all the shapes in the castle can be found individually elsewhere in sand - not very often, in fact hardly ever, but it might just be possible that the wind could carve one of those shapes in the sand somewhere on earth. And if it can happen once, then given enough time, oodles and caboodles of time, then it just might be possible that the structure above came about by wind and chance. But once again, if I asked 100 people walking by what they thought, I'm convinced that all 100 would tell me that the sandcastle was designed by someone with intelligence - someone with a lot of patience and a real gift for making castles!
As I continued walking down the beach, I wandered down by the tide pools and a splash of color caught my eye. Once again I saw form and symmetry, and out came my camera. This is what I saw:
Upon first glance, the starfish appear fairly simple, but in contrast with the first two photos where the structure and patterns are only surface deep, I know that the symmetry in the starfish is much more complex - because they are alive! They move and breathe and eat and have complex systems of circulation and reproduction and digestion. In fact they are billions of times more complex in their structure than either of the first two items I came across. Ah, but now if I ask 100 people walking by how the starfish came to be here, a majority will confidently tell me, "Well, of course, they evolved."
(And in their hearts they would be thinking, "Anyone who would think otherwise is a fool.")
So there we have it. Go figure!
I want to leave you with one final thought. Here's God's take on the whole thing. According to him, the fool is the one who says in their heart, "There is no God." (Psalm 14:1)
By Stephen Payne. If you'd like to pass this on to others, feel free.
For more of Stephen Payne's writing and photography, see www.TheCreatorsCanvas.com
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