Intelligent Design and Herbal Medicine

Cells, the basic units of all living things, are incredibly complex. They are far more complex than science had supposed just a few decades ago. Cells are not blobs of protoplasm. They are mechanical either, even though they appear to be filled with numerous structures that act like tiny machines. The DNA contains complex information similar to the programs in computers.

As someone who believes in a Supreme Creator, part of the reason I am an herbalist is that I was led to understand that this Creator had placed herbs on the earth to heal the various afflictions mankind can experience. I also came to believe that the living medicines (herbs) that the Creator had made were superior to the chemical medicines human beings create. My belief that life is the result of a Supreme Intelligence has led me to draw different conclusions about the nature of health and disease than those popularly promoted in our society. For example, I don't think we "catch" diseases; I think we earn them. I see symptoms as intelligent coping mechanisms for stresses the body is trying to deal with, not as errors in function that need to be corrected with chemicals.

Most importantly, I don't believe that plants heal because of the chemicals they contain.  While those chemicals are obviously interacting with our own body chemistry, there is something going on that's much deeper than that. I believe that the life energy in plants communicates with the life energy within our body to help the body rebalance itself. 

So, in this special class, I'm going to talk about the growing body of scientific evidence that points toward the theory of Intelligent Design. This is not a religious concept; it's a scientific rationale that says that the evidence suggests that life could only be created by intelligent, rather than random, processes.

I'll start by talking about some serious issues with the more popular theory about the origins of life, Darwin's theory of evolution. Here are a couple of the things we'll discuss. First, contrary to what people are led to believe, science has found no way to synthesize the basic chemicals used in cells—lipids, amino acids, sugars, and nucleotides. Second, even if science could create an environment where these substances arose naturally, how do you assemble them into cellular structures? Science can'd do it, so why is it rational to believe that it could happen by accident with no intelligent direction?

We'll also talk about the issue of information. The information stored in DNA is very specific, and the odds of such information being compiled randomly defy all mathematical possibilities. And, even if a strand of DNA could come together by random connections, it would be worthless without the cellular structures that are able to read the code and use it to assemble cellular structures. 

Why is this important? 

There is a growing tendency in herbalism to rely on "evidence-based" information, which is primarily information based on a pharmacological and chemical approach to healing. This approach discards the traditional "energetic" approach to plants, which is more experiential. It is also based on the notion that life is more than chemistry, that living things have a spiritual nature, not just a physical one. Recognizing the complexity of life and realizing that it points to a Supreme Intelligence behind it all will help us preserve the idea that plants are not just healing on a physical level. As living things, they also have a "spirit" or life energy, which I believe is vital to actual healing and not just symptomatic relief.

I hope you'll join me as I discuss the scientific theory of intelligent design and why I believe in using living plants as our tools for healing instead of isolated chemicals.

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