It is a remarkable fact that of all the institutions, it would be the stock market that would honor Jesus Christ by closing for trading on Good Friday! When did the tradition begin, and why? I do not know, but it would be worth investigating….

People will call upon the name of the Lord for help in the most curious situations. Prayers and the seeking of God’s favor happens in places you would least expect. For example, consider this common humorous (but somewhat true) observation:

Question: What’s the difference between praying in a church versus praying in a casino?

Answer: When you pray in a casino, you really mean it!

But sincerity in prayer does not necessarily imply the existence of the Person one prays to. So the question I’ve pondered is this: Was there really a Jesus and did He rise from the dead?

The evidential trail is very very sketchy, but what if scientists conclude that humanity is young, just as Christ’s genealogy indicates in Luke chapter 3? This would lend credence to the idea that the Bible was inspired by the Intelligent Designer himself. As renowned physicist and priest John Polkinghorne asserted, Christianity, unlike other religions, makes bold claims about human history.

Renowned Cornell Geneticist John Sanford makes the compelling case that humanity is indeed young in the book Genetic Entropy.

Consider a block of ice sitting outside on a hot day. It cannot have been there for very long. The laws of thermodynamics and entropy dictate the appearance of that block of ice must have been recent. In comparable manner, with respect to genetic entropy and the 4th law of thermodynamics, the appearance of humanity on the Earth must have been a recent event. Sanford argues a nearly invincible case that humanity is young. And unlike theories of mindless Darwinism, Sanford’s thesis is testable, and I believe will be continually vindicated as inexpensive DNA sequencing technologies like Solexa enter the market place…

And what other evidence may there be that Christ was the Intelligent Designer? Physicist Frank Tipler was an atheist some 25 years ago. He began to have doubts about his atheism around the time he published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature in 1983. He defended the idea of unitarity in quantum cosmology, which implies teleology, and the evidence for teleology in physics eventually compelled Tipler to become a theist. The prestigious scientific journal Nature hailed Barrow and Tipler’s book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle in 1987, which was the groundwork for Tipler’s lifelong search for the Intelligent Designer.

Tipler then began to investigate the idea of an Eternal, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Ultimate Observer which is proceeds from the Universal Wave Function derived from Schrodinger’s Equation. He then pondered whether the Ultimate Observer of physics was not only the living God, but the God who became incarnated into human form, born of virgin, died on the cross on Good Friday, and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.

See the book: Physics of Christianity.

For starters, Tipler observes that the Shroud of Turin has DNA on it consistent with an XX male, which would suggest a virgin birth! He has some other really cool ideas for examining the rocks near the tomb of Jesus for traces of specific kinds of sub-atomic events. He details his research in Physics of Christianity..

I’m skeptical of his ideas, but what do we have to lose by trying? For sure there is no salvation in Darwin, but if humanity is young as claimed by Christ’s genealogy in Luke chapter 3, and if Christ died and rose from the dead, then perhaps there is good news for Christians after all!