The Artemis astronauts continue a mission that has given them – and us – spectacular views of the moon, Earth and deep space – and with them a sense of both scientific achievement and renewed awe at the majesty of our planet. Many astronauts who have seen Earth from space have reported having an almost spiritual experience. From the Apollo 8 crew who read the Genesis account while viewing Earth from space on Christmas Day 1968 to Jared Isaacman, the current NASA administrator, who reported that his time in space convinced him that “the heavens declare the glory of God,” human spaceflight has often mixed scientific inquiry with religious affirmation.
Nevertheless, leading science spokespeople often claim that science undermines religious faith. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, “Science Guy” Bill Nye, science writer Michael Shermer and others have published popular books arguing that science makes belief in God unlikely. “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we would expect if… there is no purpose, no design… nothing but blind, ruthless indifference,” Dawkins famously wrote.
Yet there is a large gap between that message and reality. Over the past century, several important scientific discoveries have challenged scientifically based atheism and instead supported the perspective of religiously minded astronauts.
First, scientists have discovered that the physical universe had a beginning. This finding, supported by observational astronomy and theoretical physics, contradicts the expectations of scientific atheists, who long depicted the universe as eternal and self-existent – and thus in no need of an external creator. Evidence supporting the Big Bang instead confirmed the expectations of traditional theists. Nobel laureate Arno Penzias, who helped make a major discovery supporting the Big Bang, noted the clear connection between a cosmic beginning and the concept of divine creation. “The best data we have is exactly what I would have predicted if I had done nothing other than the five books of Moses… and the Bible as a whole,” he wrote.
ARTEMIS ASTRONAUTS PREPARE FOR A Creepy 40-Minute Communications Blackout On The Far Side Of The Moon
In this photo from NASA, Artemis II commander and NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman looks out one of the Orion spacecraft’s main cabin windows toward the moon prior to the crew’s lunar flight on April 6, 2026. (NASA via access point)
Discoveries from physics and astronomy reinforce a theistic view. Physicists have determined that the fundamental laws and parameters of our universe have been “finely tuned” against all odds to make life possible. Even small changes in many independent factors – such as the strength of gravity or electromagnetic attraction, or the original arrangement of matter and energy – would make life impossible. That’s why many physicists now say we live in a “Goldilocks universe.”
Not surprisingly, many conclude that this unlikely cosmic “fine-tuning” points to a “fine-tuning.” As former Cambridge astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle argued, “A common-sense interpretation of the data suggests that a super-intelligent played with physics” to make life possible.
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Likewise, astronomers have discovered that life on our planet depends on many other ‘localized’ fine-tuning parameters. The Earth must orbit the Sun at just the right distance, with just the right axial tilt, in a right-shaped orbit, with the right planetary neighbors, including a moon of just the right size at just the right distance. The solar system itself must also be located in a narrow, life-friendly space within our Milky Way, the ‘galactic habitable zone’. The collective improbability of these and other factors makes Earth a rare, life-friendly “oasis in the great expanse of space,” as astronaut James Lovell reflected.
Developments in biology also point to design. After James Watson and Francis Crick elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, Crick developed his famous ‘sequence hypothesis’. In it he proposed that the chemical components in DNA function like letters in a written language or digital symbols in a computer code. As Microsoft founder Bill Gates explains, “DNA is like a computer program, but much, much more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.” Even Dawkins has admitted that “the machine code of genes is eerily computer-like.”
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Yet we know that software comes from programmers. In general, we know that information – whether recorded in hieroglyphs, written in a book, or encoded in radio signals – always comes from an intelligent source. Thus, the discovery of digital information in even the simplest living cell suggests the activity of a master programmer in the origin of life.
A new theater film “The Story of Everything” explores these discoveries in more detail. It challenges the popular view that science and belief in God are in conflict. This trope has led many science popularists to delve into the image of humans as cosmic beings in a vastly impersonal universe. But growing evidence for the design of life and the universe paints a decidedly different picture, one that is much closer to what many astronauts have experienced firsthand.
