Last night I read a chapter called “Microbial Growth” for Microbiology. This chapter goes into great detail to explain what kinds of environment each of the different kind of microbes need to grow. I learned that while it is a common thought to assume that oxygen in necessary for life, it is actually poisonous for many microbes, which are called obligate anaerobes (see picture below for example). However, there is a process that neutralizes oxygen by combining it with hydrogen atoms that have been stripped from organic compounds, which forms water. My book describes this process as very beneficial, because it not only eliminates a potentially toxic gas, but it also yields a great deal of energy in the process, “a very neat solution, all in all.”
Now… I am sorry if I lost any of you, but all that to say – I think that God is the coolest, most amazing being in the universe. What my science book describes as “a neat solution” and passes off as a wonderful coincidence is one of the many amazing facts of nature that remind me how great God is. The more I study science the more I believe that God is real. He just has to be. How could this crazy and intricate world exist without some kind of intelligence behind it? The world is so interconnected that if even one or two minor details were messed up, much of the rest of the world would quickly find its way to ruin. A God who orchestrates a process that eliminates danger in order for a microbe to thrive is pretty amazing. He cares about microbes. He cares that if it were exposed to oxygen it would stop growing. Crazy.
Perhaps I won’t understand everything I read in my science classes this semester, but I will understand that the world we live in is beautiful and it is held together by something even harder to grasp than Microbiology.
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