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Ep 21: The Code and the Coder: Finding God in the DNA of the Universe with Doug Ell (John 1:1)

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He was an MIT graduate who double-majored in math and physics. He earned his master's degree in theoretical mathematics. He graduated magna cum laude from law school. He drafted the first 401(k) plan in professional sports.

And for decades, Doug Ell was a convinced atheist.

He believed what he read in a high school textbook: that life started in a dirty pond by chance. He thought religion was for people who weren't smart enough to understand science.

Then, in his early 30s, he walked into a church to have his son baptized — mostly to avoid an argument with his wife. And he felt something. He sensed a peace and a joy he didn't have. But being an MIT guy, he told himself he had to find scientific evidence to believe in God.

That began a 30-year independent study, sifting through evidence the way only a trained scientist and lawyer can. And he arrived at a conviction that changed everything:

Science does not contradict God. It points directly to Him.

In this episode, Dr. Lee sits down with Doug Ell — author, attorney, and former atheist — to talk about the overwhelming scientific evidence for a Creator. They discuss the digital code of DNA, the mathematical impossibility of Darwinian evolution, and why the most dangerous myth of our modern age is the idea that science and faith are at odds.

If you are a faith-led entrepreneur who loves to understand how things work, or if you have ever felt intimidated by the scientific arguments against God, this conversation will give you the language and the confidence to stand firm in what you believe.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

  • The Code Requires a Coder: Why the 3.2 billion letters of digital code in human DNA is the most compelling evidence for an intelligent Creator.
  • The Myth of the Dirty Pond: Why top biologists know Darwin's theory doesn't work — and why it is still taught anyway.
  • Be Skeptical of Your Skepticism: Doug's challenge to intellectually sharp business leaders who are still feeling spiritually skeptical.
  • The Fear of the Lord: Why respecting God's power and design is the actual beginning of wisdom — and how it opens the door to understanding.
  • The J.K. Rowling Analogy: Why asking "Who created God?" is like Harry Potter trying to understand the author who wrote him.

Key Quotes:

  • "Science totally reaffirms not only the existence of God, but the truth of the Bible."
  • "If you find code, you know you're dealing with an intelligence. How can you have code without a coder?"
  • "If you're a skeptic, be skeptical of your skepticism."

Connect with Doug Ell:

Connect with Dr. Lee and the Regulated Roots Community:

Follow on TikTok: @leechelseacordell

Connect on LinkedIn: Dr. Lee Cordell

SPEAKER_01

Hello everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode. I am just absolutely delighted to have a wonderful guest with me here today. Doug L is not your typical voice in the faith in science conversation. He's actually a former atheist who came to God through science. He's an MIT grad who double majored in math and physics and then went on to earn his master's degree in theoretical mathematics from the University of Maryland before graduating Magnicum Lade from law school. He became a prominent attorney, drafting the first 401k plan in professional sports and representing nationally recognized corporations, unions, and pension plans. And underneath of those credentials of that career was a man on a decades-long search for truth. So after 30 years of independent study, sifting through evidence, the way that only a trained scientist and I believe a lawyer really can, he arrived at a conviction that changed everything. Science does not contradict God, it points directly to him. Oh my gosh, it's so powerful. Doug, welcome.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Dr. Lee. I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for having me as a guest.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So there are about 17 directions I want to go with this. And first and foremost, I'm a baseball mom. And so hearing about the retirement plans for professional sports players, I was like, oh my gosh, I just love that. As our son is dreaming of entering into that world. So that is such a cool, what would my kids call it? That's cool lore, right? One of those little stories you you learn about somebody and you're like, what? Wait, you did that? So I really wanted to just start off by asking you, because a lot of our audience, they're really they're intelligent people. And I know that a lot of them, their journey to God and finding God was also a very intellectual journey. So I'd love to just hear about what your relationship with God looked like along this process and what the moment was that first question that cracked that door open for you.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Like a lot of people, I've had setbacks in life. I started off in a Christian family. And although I don't think my father was very much into it, but he took me to Sunday school. When I was in high school, I read that life started in a dirty pond. It was in a high school textbook. It's a familiar theme, and it's still actually out there today, even though that it's all been discredited. But I thought at the time, being uh impressionable and rebellious teenagers like many of us are, that this religion stuff was not the smart way to go, that maybe it was made up. And I became an atheist, I think a fairly sour and had a real snotty attitude to religion. Then when I'm in my early 30s, my wife said we should get our son baptized. And that surprised me because we hadn't been going to church or anything. I guess she felt called to do it. So I said, yes, dear, who needs that fight? And we went and I felt something. I I think I sensed the presence of God. I just knew that those people had peace and the joy that I wanted, and that life really wasn't about success as some might define it. But I told myself that being an MIT guy, I had to find scientific evidence to believe in God. And that's what I've been looking for. And it's just been such a wonderful journey. It's changed my life totally. Every week I find something new and wondrous. So I'm still on that path, I'm still growing in faith, and I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh. You're you mentioned two words that I wanted to pull out the that joy and that peace. And as someone who grew up also Christian home, drifted away, came back, and believed, but also had a lot of intellectual doubts around things and just trying to understand things. The joy and the peace, when I really just said, okay, Jesus, if you're real, let's go. Just show me. I think that's been one of the most interesting occurrences along the journey, is just how often you'll be in a moment where in the past you'd be really dysregulated or really struggling. And it's like there's just a sense of peace. And you're like, oh, this is that peace that surpasses all understanding. And so I'm curious, you said like each week there's something that you'll see that kind of just further cements in that proof. What are some of the little things that, from a science perspective, you feel like really provide evidence for God? And what are some of the much bigger things?

SPEAKER_00

One hardly knows where to start.

SPEAKER_01

I know. I'm like, that's a very open-ended question.

SPEAKER_00

So you take a look at it. I've written four books on this. There's dozens and dozens of subjects. I think the easiest one for the average person to understand is something that we all know. We just don't really appreciate how important it is. And that is DNA. Okay. We all have heard of DNA. It's accepted that all life runs on DNA. What is DNA? It is code. It is the most fantastic digital code in the universe.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And to quote Bill Gates, who knows a little bit about coding, he made a heck of a lot of money off of coding, right? He says DNA is like computer code, only far, far more advanced. It's a digital code, which just means it comes in discrete bits. You can get into the technicalities of it. There's four different groups of complex atoms that you know the body has these fantastic machines that are three-dimensional printers. They're called ribosomes. They read the code and then they print out the part that we need, the parts called a protein. You can get into the technicalities of that. We have trillions of 3D printers in our bodies to do this. We have machines that copy the code almost flawlessly. We have machines that go around our body and repair the code. Some scientists got a Nobel Prize for discovering these different kinds of machines 15 years ago. Fantastic nanotechnology. I mean, some parts go around and the DNA can get snapped in two because of chemicals or radiation, and they go around and they stick it back together, they fix things up. So, how did we get code inside us? I'm an old guy, so I remember a movie called Contact that had Jody Fisher in it. Have you ever seen that movie?

SPEAKER_01

I've heard of it. I haven't seen it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, she's a scientist, and they're looking for life from outer space. And how are they looking? They have these huge radio telescopes and they're looking for code coming from outer space. And actually, people have been doing this for about 60 years. There's a big project called SETI SETI Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. For 60 years, they've been scanning the heavens with these powerful telescopes for code. Why? Because if they find code, they know they're going to be dealing with an intelligence. If they find coded signals, they know. That's the whole premise of the SETI project is to look for code. Yet when we look for code within us, we find the most complex code in the universe. So how did human beings and how did all life get code? One can go on from there, but I find that powerful and I don't find anybody. The people just glossed over it. They don't think about it. But it's undeniable that we're made up of code. How can you have code without a colder?

SPEAKER_01

Oof. Oh my gosh, that's a mic drop moment right there. I just got chills when you said that. So I used to teach pathophysiology. And so we teach all the things that went wrong with the body. And in order to be able to have the conversation about what goes wrong, you have to have a conversation about what it's supposed to be like, right? So you've got to understand the right before you can identify the abnormal. And what was interesting to me was there were a few places where we there seemed to be a gap in information. And when I'd go look it up, because I have very intelligent students, ask, okay, Professor Lee, like how does that work? And I'd say, hold on, let's let's go to Google, let's go to our textbooks, let's go look. And it's there's just a there's a paucity of data. It's a we don't know. And what was interesting to me was that was just accepted. It was we don't know. And so we're going with what we've got. And I always found that interesting because to be able to have that mindset of we don't know, but we just accept that. And it's okay, we just trust that this is the truth that we have and we accept it. But then when we cut would come over to the faith conversation or the religious conversation, and it would be like, oh, well, we need all the data, all the proof, all the concrete evidence. And you're like, okay, I just watched us say that with the blood-brain barrier, there's no lymphatic transfer between there's no lymph structures in the brain. Oh, wait, sorry, we're actually wrong. There are lymph structures in the brain. Our lymphatic system does reach our central nervous system. Our bad. Sorry. I know we've been teaching that for 50 years, but that's wrong. And I would see things like that happen because I was in bone marrow transplant, which is a very rapidly research-changing space. And it was just interesting to me how it would be like, okay, we're going to be very flexible and very trusting in some of these areas. And then other areas, like, we need such concrete proof and data and evidence to be able to see it. And I guess I'm curious because you've going around having these conversations, writing these books, what are some of the biggest arguments that people make using science against God? And like, how do you address those?

SPEAKER_00

To me, science totally reaffirms not only the existence of God, but the truth of the Bible. People delude themselves in a variety of ways. I just went over one of the areas, which is they think that somehow the code just arose, and it arose simultaneously with all the machines to copy the code and all the machines to read the code, because they all had to start at the same time.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But people turn a blind eye to that. And very intelligent people. Harvard University had this enormous origin of life project to discover. They announced they were going to figure out how life got started. And I was actually up at Harvard Faculty Club a year ago. They had a big conference on this. And some of those professors, well, they may be pretty educated. I don't consider them wise because they won't admit there's absolutely no way. No one's got any clue how it all could have started by chance. They've invented ways to come up with to solve the problem of why does anything exist? Which is another very fundamental problem. It's been around for thousands of years.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It goes back to the ancient Greeks and beyond. Science has discovered that the universe had a beginning. That's actually in the last hundred years from a variety of things. And we know from Albert Einstein that space and matter and time all connected. Okay, so God didn't just create matter. He didn't just create space, he created time. There's a lot of nonsense theories about how the universe came to be, but the truth is you can't get something from absolutely nothing. No space, no time, no matter, no laws of physics. The truth is there, but we are blinded from seeing it. We could get into if you want, Dr. Lee, the nonsense in Darwin's theory and things like that. But the truth is there for people who have eyes to see.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And as you were speaking, I love how God nudges us. Yesterday I was in my prayer time and he was like, just open the Bible. And that's not a normal thing. Usually he'll send me a place. He was like, just open the Bible. That's what I heard. And I was like, okay. So I just randomly opened it. And I had taken notes on, I want to say it was Psalm 112 or 113. And I wrote out one of the verses, and it was the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Yes. And what I personally found as somebody who, you know, very much in the science realm, it wasn't until I started respecting God, because that word fear doesn't mean that you are afraid of Him. It means that you revere, you understand, and respect His power and His Word. And so I I thought it wasn't until I respected God enough to say, Hey, you know what? I I think I need to learn about you more. I think I need to understand you better. That was when, and I would love to hear your experience with this because that was when he was like, Oh, you want wisdom? Here you go. And all of a sudden, it was just, I was seeing him everywhere. Yeah. You you mentioned, yeah, and it was. And now it's like I the my kids laugh at me. I cry all the time. I cried a lot before, but now I'm like, that flower's so beautiful. And they're like, Are you okay? I'm like, but it's just so cool. And learning about like the the math and you as a uh an expert in math, like understanding the the calculations that and the the sequences, and like you said, with the DNA, like all of these things. It it's so mind-blowingly beautiful when you recognize like there's no way that this couldn't have been created by someone, something. And that led me into a question I wanted to ask you. You described that, like this idea of science being contrary to God as one of the most, if not the most dangerous myths of our modern age. What's the real cost of that belief? What does that do to us personally and culturally, especially as like people who would refer to themselves as scientists?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there's a it's a great question. There's a lot of people at the very highest level of our institutes of so-called higher learning that very prominent, very vocal, very nasty atheists, and they claim to be the smarter than the other people. And it lures people who are on the fence. It lured me when I was a teenager, and it leads to empty lives. It leads to lives without God. It's it's a very sad heresy. If you actually look at the history of our modern technological world, the reason technology arose in Europe was because of the Christian religion. It was only in this belief that there is a rational universe, and the great scientists, Newton, Galileo, Kepler, all of them wanted to figure out how God did it. That was the big question that gave birth to modern science. And Albert Einstein said the more I learn about science, the more I believe in God. But we've we've just lost lost our common sense as a nation. You look around, we don't need to go into all the problems of our world today, all the fake gods we have. You know, our so-called mass media makes it sound like if you've got the most money, he dies with the most toys, wins. I've known some very miserable multi-billionaires. Uh that it that sure isn't true. There's a cost out there when when people get this false idea that science and logic are contrary to God.

SPEAKER_01

I'm thinking back to one of the toughest parts I think about having faith as a nurse practitioner and as a graduate level professor and somebody in research was it felt oftentimes unsafe to have those conversations. And I remember I had a lot of critical care patients, so patients who would be at the end of their lives, despite our best efforts. And I remember the rooms that there was a really strong faith system in the patient and in the families, and how those rooms felt, and how those patients to put it bluntly, how those patients died in comparison to rooms of people who did not have that presence there. And I believe that Jesus, you know, God present with everybody at that moment, but the ones that were that were respecting and honoring the presence. And at the time, that was very confronting because it was a some of my colleagues would look at those moments and be like, oh, that's just it's delusion. Like that, yes, I'm so glad that they felt better. I'm so glad that that was a more peaceful experience for them, but that's just them almost like playing pretend. And being in those rooms, like it it's hard to put into words, it felt different. And I think that's part of it is that we've done this thing in science where we have these very strong, I believe, God-given nervous systems that are able to sense this presence when we're open to it. And when you're not open to it, it's very hard to pick up. And so it's, I think you can have people who without faith who are in the same room as people with faith, and they're just having this fundamentally different experience because if you're closed off to that, then it's going to be very hard to experience it.

SPEAKER_00

There's a lot of evidence that we're not meet machines, that consciousness does not exist in the inside our human bodies. And in some of these, I don't know if you've seen it, but episodes of what's called terminal lucidity. Yeah, where someone's been in a coma or just out of it for weeks, months, whatever. And when the minister or priest comes to visit them, give them last rites or whatever, suddenly they're fully conscious and awake for a few hours before they die. It happens over and over again. It's just one of many instances, near-death experiences being another, certain brain surgeries where we're not just meat machines, we don't know at all. But there's just so much wonder as you say, you're open to it. You look at it with a sense of wonder.

SPEAKER_01

You just said we don't know at all. And I wonder, do you see that need for certainty or that craving of knowing it all as a barrier in this space?

SPEAKER_00

No, I don't see it as a barrier at all. I see it as leading to fear of the Lord, me in the sense that of respect and reverence when you just start to appreciate how complicated it is. The Gospel of John tells us in the beginning was the word, and the work the Greek word is logos, which means divine thought. God thought the universe into existence. How do you think into existence time? The whole universe runs on mathematical concepts, and that gets into quantum mechanics, which is the most mathematical subject in the physical world. There's just so much wonder and awe about how God did it. We don't I don't think we're ever going to get to the bottom of it, but all we need to ask ourselves is what's the best explanation for what we do know? What's the best explanation for code being inside us? What's the best explanation from time and space and matter all simultaneously existing? What's the best explanation for why the contents of physics are fine-tuned exactly for life? And there's a number of these kinds of questions. And even so I think would say that even if we don't know the final answers, and again, we may never know them, this journey towards wonder and awe will only lead us to God.

SPEAKER_01

I think you just started to answer my next question, and I'd love for you to expound upon it. If there's a business leader, entrepreneur listening to this right now who is intellectually sharp and still feeling spiritually skeptical, what would you say to them? Where would you tell them to start?

SPEAKER_00

That kind of person, by definition, is going to be highly intelligent and certainly has the capacity to question and figure things out for herself or himself. Okay. So I would say if you're skeptic, be skeptical of your skepticism. Okay. Ask yourself whether are your concerns valid and actually look at some of the stuff. If you start digging into the wonder of the design of life and all the different species, if you start actually reading the Bible and learning about it, it will change you. So For people who are smart running businesses, the bottom line, it's not it's not really about the money. We all work hard to support our families, and and that's wonderful. The Bible says we should work. But don't neglect your faith journey and don't be afraid of it either. I think a lot of people are afraid they're gonna come across something that's going to destroy their faith. I can assure you there's nothing in science that any Christian should be afraid of.

SPEAKER_01

That is beautiful. I've never thought about that, but I think you're right. If you've got somewhat of a tenuous faith, wow, I'm just having a whole moment. You're just you're making a lot of conversations over the last 10 years make a lot of sense in a way that I hadn't thought about it. That is really scary, right? It's really scary to do research because a lot of times there's something that we're afraid of on the other side of that. And I've always thought of people being afraid that they would find out that it was true because that would shift everything. But I think you're right. There is this fear of what if I get really deep into it and I find out that it's not true. And then, like, if I hold it in skepticism, it's still in this could be, couldn't be place. And that uncertainty feels more comfortable than potentially finding out that God isn't real, he doesn't exist, this is a bunch of hogwash, and it is just science. I'm actually just wondering now if a lot of people that is, it's like this false, almost like this hard shell. It's like this false bravado of I'm gonna just lean on this because I'm actually afraid that's not true. Wow. Yeah. And it is, I think it there's a scary piece to this. There's a scary piece of, okay, I'm going to lean into this and understand this better. And it does make you realize how small you are. It does make you realize how dependent and vulnerable you are. It does make you realize how little. And I think if those are things that already feel scary to you, that I can see why somebody would avoid asking these questions.

SPEAKER_00

I would encourage people to ask questions and don't be afraid to pursue them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because I think you also you have to pray for faith. I think faith is a gift. Okay. St. Paul tells us we fight against powers and principalities we cannot see.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Spiritual warfare is real. The devil is real. I know maybe that sounds medieval and superstitious, but we see it in our world today, evil.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And we have to pray for the gift of faith.

SPEAKER_01

One of my favorite prayers that I prayed in the beginning was part of my struggle on my faith journey was understanding. Things didn't make sense to me. And I thought, okay, if God has designed me as somebody who really likes to understand things, then and I'm learning God is not a mean God, right? God wouldn't play a trick on me like that and be like, hey, I'm gonna design you as this very highly intelligent, constantly asking questions, loving to understand exactly how things work. He wouldn't design you like that and then hide things from you. That would be cruel, right? Now, he may keep you from knowing things that are not your business to know, right? There might be things that you want to know that aren't necessary for that. And I started praying for understanding. I said, God, please give me your understanding. Please help me see this from your perspective. Please give me your wisdom. I have these questions, and it's not that I need to understand them the way that I need to understand them. I want to understand them the way that you want me to understand them. And that was like a light switch went off. All of a sudden, he was like, Oh, okay, now you're in my will, not yours. Now you want what I want for you, not what you want for you. So here you go. And it was just revelation after revelation after revelation, all of these things clicking and making sense. And I felt, I don't know if you've seen those memes where they've got the they're doing the serial killer montage and they've got all the pictures on the wall and the string attaching everything. That's really how it felt for a good six months to a year of just oh my gosh, I prayed for this. In addition to also immersing myself in the word, in addition to also surrounding myself with people who had very strong faith. I think that those are two things that sometimes in our intelligence, we forget that there are other people who might know more than we do and who could be really good resources for us. And we also forget that there's this amazing book that was written by God through humans that has all of the answers in it. And I do want to mention this too to anyone who's tried to read the Bible before and is have really struggled with it. One of the things that I started doing was I started praying for inspiration beforehand and saying, God, please show me what you want me to see in this. And it really changed my understanding of what was on the page. I don't know what your experience was going from atheism, and you said that you when you were a kid, you were raised in a Christian home. What was your experience with the Bible before and after?

SPEAKER_00

I guess when I was a kid I didn't think too much about it. I had a superficial kind of faith. And being a real kid, I'm still an ADD adult. I never really tried to focus on the facts. But it's there. I think God is the ultimate gentleman. If you say leave me alone, God will leave you alone.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And and I think we have eternal souls. That's the Christian religion. Uh for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believed in him would not perish but have eternal life. That message is in the scripture many times. And I think if we don't want God in our life, then when we die, we won't have God, and that's called hell. God doesn't send people to help, but you choose it. There are consequences to how we live our short mortal lives here. And I believe this, maybe it's a little off topic here, but I think you do have to ask for faith and realize what's out at stake out there. Um not just for yourself, but for your family, if you have children, you want to set them on the right path to be sure.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I think you're absolutely correct. There's the Holy Spirit coming into our hearts because Jesus says that. He says, It's better that I leave so that my spirit can come upon you. And he calls that spirit, the Greek word for that is advocate. It's this advocate that lives inside of you that advocates for you to help you be in the will of God, to help you, to benefit you, both on the planet, right, in this earthly realm and in eternity and in the kingdom heaven. And the idea that we have to continually ask for, at least on a daily basis, but like for me, it's become moment to moment, day through each day, like through the day. But we have to ask for God to strengthen that that faith and that trust and that willingness to respect him and believe in how he has designed things, how he's created things. I think you're absolutely right. And that can I think that can feel weird to people to start. I've heard this from a lot of my very intelligent friends. They're like, but like, I don't know how to pray. And I'm like, okay, the same way you and I are sitting here having a conversation, you can talk to him and he will talk to you back. Like now he's gonna say what he wants to say in his own timing, in his own way. So you can't expect it to be the same way as you and me here, but a lot of times that is what happens. There's a I say something out and something immediately comes back.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But I agree with you, and I think it's also as you are living and praying for that faith and starting to live that out, like talking about it to other people as well, because there's a lot of people I find in those communities that 95% of people are not Christian and they meet somebody who is, that's like a whoa, okay, hold on. Explain to me how you believe this, explain to me how this makes sense to you. And I see a lot of evangelization like happen in those spaces when you've got somebody because it's confronting. Being in the space that you're in now, what are some of the common questions that people ask you around the connection between science and your Christian faith?

SPEAKER_00

There's so many. One question that keeps coming up is who created God? Okay, which an atheist will say, That's kind of got you there. But they don't actually. You have to think about that a little. The problem with that question is it doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because in our universe, yes, things are created because we live in a universe where we live in time. God is outside of time, God created time. We don't know what's outside our fish gold of a universe. And I use that term fish gold deliberately. Think of the fish in a bowl. Maybe the fish sees a little bit what's outside. We can't see outside our universe. We only know what's out there from what God tells us in the Bible, what Jesus tells us. But God is outside of time. So asking who created God makes no sense.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Actually. I think that may be hard for people to swallow, but I think if they follow it through logically, they'll get there. Another question I come up on is what about Darwin's theory? And all the top biologists know that Darwin's theory doesn't work.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

They really do. And they got conferences, the Royal Society had a conference, and the basic, simple reason why it doesn't work is what we've learned about our human bodies is this code is just too complex. Okay. And you can get really mathematical about this, and a lot of people have, but it's the basic concept is really simple. The code and the machinery in our body runs on a lot of information. We live in an information age. There is enormous information in the DNA coding of human beings. It's almost entirely fully functional, all 3.2 billion letters in almost every one of our cells. It has at least two layers of information. That's a finding of 400 scientists, top scientists worldwide. You can't get information by Darwin's method of picking the best mistakes and keeping the best mistakes. And you can simulate this by computers. But I'm asked often why people still cite Darwin's theory, and the reason is if you don't want to believe in God, you have to think Darwin was right. You have no option.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And now that Darwin's theory has collapsed, that we know it can't produce the information, people are in total denial about that. So that's another subject I talk about sometimes.

SPEAKER_01

The Who Created God, there's a famous comedian, Pete Holmes. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's been on a faith journey, and it's really cool to watch his comedy transform. And he has two famous bits about uh that it's ridiculous to be an atheist and it's ridiculous to be a Christian, and also like the only option is to be a ridiculous Christian. He talks about that. And he also just recently put out something where he was using the example of Harry Potter, and he's it Harry Potter in his universe trying to understand J.K. Rowling, he doesn't have the knowledge and the information necessary to understand J.K. Rowling fully, because he lives in a book that was created by this author. And so he can't understand the context of this author's life or this author's existence. And that really drove it home for me thinking about it like that, because I went, oh my gosh, okay, yes, if I'm a character in a book, I've got this whole existence, there's this whole reality, and I'm asking questions about J.K. Rowling, like it's that meta-level of, okay, can I just accept that I'm a character in the book? Can I just accept that I'm not gonna know everything while I'm here? And that is actually a freeing. That is a an expansive decision, not a restrictive decision.

SPEAKER_00

That's a great analogy. I think Russian cosmonaut went up there and said, I don't see God. If you weren't poking around backstage, of what you expect to find Shakespeare. God's not out there sitting on some distant planet, he's outside the universe. And it's and it's mind-boggling.

SPEAKER_01

I'm glad you brought that up because Artemis too just recently did its whole journey. And I know that, and actually, I haven't fact-checked this, but I do know that at least one of the astronauts who went there was very Christian, and I love it. He's very, very bold and public with his faith. And he was talking about just how what a shining, beautiful example it was of God's existence and how good He is. And I I believe that one of the other astronauts who was on the trip was not Christian and because of the experience, has said, I actually think God Jesus is real now after having that experience. And I'm starting to see this happen more and more. We're seeing people who are very intelligent, very skilled, experts in their fields. This is happening in sports a lot. My son loves it. We just watched the NFL draft, and he's watching all of the players that are getting down on one knee and thanking God before they walk out. And he's like from a, I want to be really clear. It's not, oh, you believe in God and you're gonna become a super successful, you know, whatever. God has plans for all of us. But I think what's really interesting is we're starting to see more and more people in positions of influence and leadership and who have created really beautiful things go, yeah, that's because of God. And I think it is confronting, especially the more public it's getting, because, like you said, and not going too deep into it, because we could probably talk for six hours about that, but a lot of what we're fed in the world is not godly. It's not about respecting him and revering him and believing he exists and praying for faith and all of those things. It's a lot of what can I do in my own power, or what can I do by getting ahead of other people and or using their power to help me instead of no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do what God leads me to do and trust and have faith.

SPEAKER_00

You mentioned that I wrote the first 401k plan in professional sports.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That was for me, that was for the NFL. For 30 years, I was the lead lawyer for all their pension, disability, 401k, and some other very complex plans that we set up. But like any other part of our society, yeah, there's players that are religious and there's a lot of art. It is wonderful to see the athletes when they cry.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's beautiful to see people, I think in spaces that don't traditionally honor that bold public declaration of faith, to do it and say, this is a huge part of why I'm here. And so I'm not, I'm not gonna deny him in these moments of public recognition. I'm actually gonna humble myself and elevate him. And I think that that's really beautiful. And also I think it it is confronting. The word that's the word that just keeps coming up for people who don't believe that, because it's like, okay, but well, if it's just one person, if it's just Fernando Mendoza, if it's just Caleb Downs, if it's just, oh, who's the pitcher for the Indians that I'm or the guardians I'm thinking of, Patrick Messik, if it's just one of them, but it's a lot. And there's a lot of, like you said, scientists too that are starting to go, or astronauts on on international television saying these things. And so I have been feeling very inspired and excited about how much I'm seeing people really start to acknowledge and respect God in that way and say, no, he's he is the reason that all of this is happening.

SPEAKER_00

I'd like to think that we are at a turning point to use the the name of Charlie Kirk saying that there's studies showing that faith in young people is on the upswing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because if you look for the evidence, our world has found the evidence for God. And they did some study in in England that young men in particular, it's not a huge upswing, but it's starting. I think if we just ask people to look at the evidence and then to look within their lives and see whether it does change their lives or not, like it did mine, and I know it changed your life. I think that's the direction we gotta look for.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, I love the idea of just it's what you said earlier. Just go ask questions, just keep an open mind. And because here's the thing if he's not real, like I I am not postulating he's not real, but let's just hold that question for a moment. If he's not real and you pray and nothing happens, okay, right? Are you in any different space than you were 10 minutes before that, right? Or 10 days before that. But if you open yourself up to that and you say, you know what, I'm gonna respect and honor the fact that you could be real. And I do, and if you are, I do want to get to know you better. I do want to understand you more. I think that just being willing to be open to that is that's all you really need. And it doesn't have to be you're 90% willing, just be 5% willing. Just and I found that a lot of times when I was at the beginning of my journey, I would bring that skepticism to God. I would be really frustrated with him at times. I yelled at him a few times, and I'm like, I don't, I have no idea what you're doing. But if you are real and you are doing things, could you help me? Can you just help me understand a little bit? And again, not my will but yours. And also like it would be really helpful to get this a little bit. And I always found that he would just give me just a little bit enough of a nudge that it was like, okay, all right. If you are starting to open your eyes and open your heart and try to see him, then he's gonna he wants to be in a relationship with you. So if you start showing interest, he's gonna show interest back.

SPEAKER_00

The most astounding thing about the Christian religion is not that that God exists because in the ancient world everybody was religious, but the most astounding thing is that the message that God loves us and cares for us and wants a relationship with us. Yeah, that is a very Christian belief and a wonderful truth.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, I love that you brought that in because that that also, if people say, Well, what about all these other religions? I'm like, I always go to the story of Abraham and Isaac because people without understanding the context of that time, think that that's oh my gosh, God asked him to sacrifice his only son, and like why was he willing to do it? No, you don't understand. The gods at the time demanded sacrifices, child sacrifice was not a weird thing back then, and so Abraham would have understood that that would have made sense to him. So God didn't ask him to do that and get set up in this way because he was planning to punish him, or he's a horrible god. That was this is me showing you I'm different from every other God because I'm going to put this sheep in the place of your son. And it's it foreshadowed Jesus and his crucifixion and God being willing to sacrifice. God says, I don't want you, Abraham, to sacrifice your son, I'm gonna sacrifice mine right for you.

SPEAKER_00

No place where Isaac went to sacrifice his son is basically where Jesus was crucified. So Jesus, the Lamb God came there. Another interesting sort of nerdy point is that when you work through the chronology of the Bible, Isaac wasn't a little kid, he was in his early, he was in his 30s, and he probably knew he was to be set they were gonna do what God wanted.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But it's a fantastic story. There's so many powerful stories in the Bible.

SPEAKER_01

And I think the last thing I'll say, and I'd love to hear your knowledge on this as well, because I'm sure you have a lot, is that's been one of my favorite things about reading the Bible. Is just there's connection after connection after connection. And you talk about the code with the DNA and like how the mitochondria and the ribosomes and the you know, all of these things had to be created at the same time because you don't create a 3D printer without something that needs printed. You don't you don't create something that's printed without a 3D printer, like evolutionarily, like one wouldn't come before the other, they'd have to show up simultaneously, right?

SPEAKER_00

They have to.

SPEAKER_01

So it's very much the same way in the Bible. You look at there's a story that happened 1500 years before another one. That okay, if I am planning this outside of time, that's the only thing that actually makes sense of these two stories happening in the way that they do, is if a creator outside of time decided that these things were gonna happen. And that is the you talked about quantum mechanics, that is the trippy part, I think, is you just start seeing these things and going, oh wow, okay. This this is so far beyond my human understanding that it's beautiful. And also it's said in a way that allows me to understand that this is beyond my understanding.

SPEAKER_00

There's so many wondrous connections in the Bible. Personally, I can't prove it, but I think Jerusalem was where the Garden of Eden was because mankind fell when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Jesus died on a tree.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Of course, the Middle East, I think, is buried under two miles of sedimentary rock from the flood of Noah, which was a real event, and there's huge evidence for that. But so many connections in the Bible, if you're open to them and start looking for them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. If you love asking questions and as you said, like nerding out the way the way that I do, and I think you do too. If you want a lifelong learning experience, not just emotionally and spiritually, but also practically and historically and scientifically, I think that this will keep you busy for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, it's such a joy. Such a joy. So much to learn. And yeah, the connections and the wonder of the Bible. Incredible.

SPEAKER_01

Doug, let me ask you, uh you said you wrote four books, and so we'll make sure that we've got your website linked in the show notes. Is there one in particular that you think our audience would benefit from starting with?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I think I would suggest my most recent book, The God Proofs, which is a graphic novel.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, very cool.

SPEAKER_00

So which, as a lot of people don't know, but a graphic novel, it's a cartoon book, okay? And I wrote it to illustrate. It's really picking up, I think, on changing lives. It's good to give to young kids, but it's great for adults too. It explains DNA and the evidence for God. It's only about an hour read, it's pretty easy. And I have a website, thegottproofs.com.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

We've created five short videos there. It's published by the Discovery Institute. I've assigned them all the rights. That's the number one intelligent design organization in the world. If I could just give you one more website if people want to find out more about me, and sign up for my blog. I just put a new post out there this morning. My first book was called Counting to God, reflecting my nerdy mathematical nature there and my journey. And countingtogod.com is my website. You can sign up for my blog, and you can watch the video of me lecturing at MIT when I published that book in 2014, and a lot of fun stuff on it. And there's so many other websites, though, that one can get into if one wants to look at different aspects of the history of religion, the history of the Christian faith, the scientific evidence for God, and so on. So it's a wondrous journey. And I I thank you for letting me be on your program here.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, it's been, I think we both use this word at the beginning. It's been an absolute delight. This is such a great conversation. I'm really excited to just go dive into all of your resources. And I'm excited to grab your book because I think that'll be really good for our kids too, because our kids are very smart and they have a lot of questions. And sometimes I'm like, hold on, let's go, let's go look this up, which has been great for us as parents because it's really strengthened our understanding as well. I love the idea of kids who are at the stage that they can understand it and parents reading that together and being able to strengthen that because I know that was something that was missing for me. It sounds like for you and your journey, there was a space of time where that didn't really happen. And I feel like that's going to bridge that gap of I don't get it, so I don't believe it. And I think that some kids and some humans, like we just need it explained at a higher level, at a more scientific level. So thank you for the work you're doing. It's truly beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

You're welcome. Thanks again for having me.

SPEAKER_01

Of course. All right, we will see you all next week. And in the meantime, invitation, go check out thegodproofs.com, um, countingtegod.com, and go follow Doug because, as you can tell, wealth of knowledge.