Space station and God

My wife and I enjoy watching the international space station fly over. Every few weeks we'll check the Internet to find out when it will be visible in our zip code so we can watch it. It normally is so bright and large in the sky it's hard to believe that it maintains an average of 250 miles in altitude and travels 17,500 miles per hour enabling it to orbit the earth 15.5 times per day. Recently we were able to do something for the first time: we saw it twice in one evening. The first viewing lasted four minutes while the second viewing was only for one minute.

No doubt the space station is one of the greatest scientific and engineering feats man has ever accomplished. No matter where in the world one lives, they can go online and know exactly when and where it will be visible. Space shuttles are able to fly to the station and dock there while transferring supplies and personnel. Spacewalks are done to perform maintenance and repairs to the station.

For me, the operation of the international space station is one more evidence of God's existence. Non-theists would point out the fact that man's knowledge and abilities built the station and keep it functioning. While that is true, it is only due to the fine tuning of the universe that the station is able to operate as it does. If our universe was not fine-tuned as it is science and engineering alone could not predict the exact location of the space station at any moment.

The fine-tuning of the universe is one of the strongest evidences of God we have. Right now the planet earth is rotating about 1,000 miles an hour at the equator. It is also flying around the sun at over 67,000 miles per hour. In addition, we are part of the Milky Way that is flying through the universe at over 1.3 million miles per hour. Are you starting to get dizzy, yet?

What keeps us from being flung out into space? Gravity. Gravity keeps our atmosphere in place and keeps us at just the right distance from the sun. How fine-tuned is gravity. Theoretical physicist Brandon Carter, who worked with Stephen Hawking, claims that if gravity was weaker or stronger by 1 part in 10 to the 40th power life would not be possible. There are many more evidences of fine-tuning that permits life than this, but are we to believe that all of this just happened? Or does it point to a Creator? It seems to me that it would require much more faith to believe that this universe is so fine-tuned by accident than it does to believe in a Creator.

Now, go back to the figures  I gave you concerning how the earth is moving through our universe and consider that the space station travels 17,500 miles per hour and yet its travels can be pinpointed exactly as to where it will be at any second, how long it will be visible at any given time at any location throughout the world. That is only possible because of the fine-tuning of our universe.

Psalm 19:1 tells us "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Romans 1:20 reminds us "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."