May 16, 20244 min read

What Einstein Said About Intelligent Design (Post 1 of 6 - The Signature of God)

Updated: May 19, 2024

What Is in this post:

The Incomprehensible Thing: The Quotable Einstein
Patterns in the Universe
The Cosmic Stick Man
Beautiful Patterns in Astronomy

The Incomprehensible Thing: The Quotable Einstein

The world's most famous scientist, Albert Einstein, said some pretty evocative things about the Bible and Science.

Though Einstein reportedly "lost his religion" at age 12, he never lost his religious feeling about the apparent order of the universe.

“If something is in me that can be called religious,” Einstein wrote in a 1954 letter, “then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as science can reveal it.”

The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility…The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.”

Albert Einstein wrote his famous quote in 1936 (1).

Here are other quotations Einstein made

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium (1941) ch. 13

At any rate, I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice.

often quoted as: ‘God does not play dice’; letter to Max Born, 4 December 1926

I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details."

The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2000 p.202

As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene....No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word.

Patterns in the Universe

Under an electron microscope, using magnification at 10,000 times normal, we can still recognize patterns, just on the smallest of levels.

That small of a view surprises us that we can still see comprehensible shapes.

Moving outward, we can look at the earth from 400 kilometers in space, we notice something as well.

We see patterns. Structures from space appear on the surface on the planet (for one example) that seem familiar to the branch and root system of a tree. There are many others.

There are recurring patterns visible. They reveal the mathematical origin of complex shapes, and the many forms they can take from the microscopic to the cosmic.

From Magnitudes, ABC Science.

Then we looked further still. From the microscopic to the telescopic, and what did we see? More of the same.

A galaxy looks like a whirlpool.

Upon constructing a 3D map of galaxies based upon accumulated red shift data, which produced distances from the earth, Dr Margaret Joan Geller stated:

We were all speechless with awe when we saw the pattern traced by the thousand galaxies in our first slice of the universe.

After mapping the positions of thousands of galaxies in our neighborhood of the universe, they saw an unexpected pattern emerge: a stick figure.

The below image became famous because of the Center for Astrophysics's Stick Man. This “stick man” indicates the position of the Coma cluster where there is a large collection of galaxies (2).

In a redshift plot, all the galaxies get spread out in along the line of sight, and in this particular map end up looking like a stick man ( galaxies clustered to form a central body that stretched for millions of light-years, a knobby head, two arched legs, and outstretched arms. The “Stickman” drew immediate international attention (3).

Here is a look 20 years later, after more data is added (4).

The little stick man is now projected as a larger version of himself in a running position.

Beautiful Patterns in Astronomy

In the heavens are stars, lots of them. In fact, stars are the most abundant object in the universe. And they have been grouped into patterns. Why? Why are they not in equidistant positions across the sky?

When they group together they form patterns that are recognizable. Some are constellations and some are asterisms (small patterns inside constellations).

Some of the most famous - the Big Dipper and the Southern Cross - are asterisms, each a pat of a larger group of stars. Some look like cups, lions, horses, whales, and the like.

Stars form patterns that men can recognize.

There is order and beauty in nature, especially in the heavens that men can understand.

Now with telescopes and other long distance options like infrared and x ray telescopes, men can see that even in deep space, we see patterns in the heavens.

The order and beauty of nature teach the same lessons of design. We see patterns in space that show us that same design.

Here are some examples below.