How Digital Code in DNA Proves the Existence of a Master Creator

Unlock the astonishing truth hidden within the code of life itself. Could DNA, the digital masterpiece inside every living thing, be the ultimate evidence of divine design? If you're skeptical about science and faith coexisting, this episode will challenge everything you've ever believed.Former atheist and MIT graduate Arthur Douglas Ell spent decades wrestling with the contradictions between science and spirituality—until he uncovered undeniable evidence pointing to a Creator. From the intricate design of DNA to the fine-tuned constants of the universe, Douglas reveals how recent scientific discoveries scream one thing: intelligent design is real. You’ll discover how DNA's complex digital code rivals the most advanced human computer systems, and why the laws of physics seem painstakingly calibrated for life.We break down the groundbreaking ENCODE Project’s findings, the misconceptions about the age of the universe, and how dinosaurs—yes, dinosaurs—are proof of a relatively young Earth. Douglas discusses how the Bible’s account of creation aligns with scientific evidence, and why many resist accepting the obvious. Plus, he shares pragmatic reasons why understanding these truths is vital—not just for faith, but for our moral compass and worldview today.If you've ever wondered where God fits into the universe’s grand design or whether science supports Scripture, this episode is essential listening. Douglas’s compelling journey from doubt to conviction will inspire you to see the Creator behind the cosmos—and realize that the evidence has been there all along.Perfect for skeptics, believers, and curious minds alike—don’t miss this eye-opening exploration into the science that points straight to God.About Arthur Douglas: A former attorney, MIT graduate, and scientific researcher, Douglas combines rigorous analysis with heartfelt faith, dedicated to sharing the profound evidence of divine creation.

Transcript

Host Intro And Sponsor

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hello everyone, thank you again for joining me on another episode of the Dorsey US. So today's podcast is sponsored by Audary Audio Group which inspires an update through discussions, testimonies, and teachings, equipping listeners for meaningful conversations. On today's episode we have author Douglas Hell, who is a former atheist, spent over thirty years reconciling science and God, scientific evidence for his beliefs. Doug grew up in Connecticut, graduated early from MIT, and later obtained a master's in theoretical mathematics. After law school, he became a prominent attorney, drafting the first 401k plan in professional sports and representing corporations, unless and pensions plans. As a lawyer, Douglas learned a gift through competing arguments and consider different perspective skills to now use to understand the complex relationship between science and religion. His legal training, academic science background, and independent study has given him a unique perspective on science, religion, and philosophy. Doug, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Absolutely. I have a um question for you. How do you go, if you can give us a little bit about your background and about your life, how did you go from an atheist who does not believe in God to someone who is now a Christian who does believe in God?

Big Bang And First Doubts

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Well, it's been a long journey, Dorsey. You know, I I grew up in a Christian household, but when I got to high school, I remember reading in a science book that some people thought we came from pond scum. You know, that the first life was sort of in some sort of junk in a pond. And when I read that, for some reason, it made me think, well, if that's true, then the Bible's wrong and this religion stuff is nonsense. So I considered myself an atheist in college at MIT. But when my son was born, my wife said, let's get the kid baptized. And I said, Yes, dear. I mean, I didn't need that fight. I don't know, you don't know if you're married, but uh you don't need the extra fight. So we went to get the child baptized, and I realized that those people at the church had a wonderful inner peace and serenity, and I wanted it, you know, and being a successful lawyer wasn't enough. I really wanted what they had. And so I decided to look at whether there was scientific evidence for God. Because I told myself, you know, being a math and physics double major at MIT, I shouldn't believe unless there was some evidence for it. And what I found, Dorsey, has amazed me and continues to amaze me. I mean, what I found is that it's very clear, and I cannot believe the blindness of our world, but it's very clear that life and particularly human beings were designed. And it's also very clear, I think, although many people at universities would disagree with me, that the universe was created supernaturally, and that not only that, but that the universe itself is designed for life to exist. And there's so many other areas, but when I look at the numbers and the wonder of it all, there has to be a designer, there has to be a master creator.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

You know, you you just talked on my next my next question there a little bit. My next question was gonna be, you know, when you were at MIT and when, you know, you were an atheist, what was your worldview as far as how did the world be you know, how was the world created? And what was your worldview then and how did it came to what it is now?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So you're asking how I thought the world was created. Is that it? Is that your question? I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Correct. How was it how did you yes? I might get it.

Why Smart People Resist God

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Well, I believe good question. I believe that uh in something that a lot of scientists called the Big Bang Theory, which is somehow the creation of everything from nothing. And it's not just the creation of matter, you know, it's the creation of time and space itself. Space, time, and matter are all connected in fantastic equations. I mean, that's from Albert Einstein and others. And you know, I never really thought about it much, is the truth. It's just like, well, everybody believes that, and uh, it's got to be true. When you look at that closely, and then you also there's I mean, it all falls apart. I think I've made that pretty clear in my first book, Counting to God. You know, I mean, atheists believe that there's something they can't explain. They call it a singularity, and by using a fancy word like that, they mean, well, you know, poof, there was some magic in the universe started. But there is no scientific explanation without God for why everything exists. I mean, God created everything. So I didn't have a good when I was an atheist, I guess I really didn't think about it very hard, but I've sure spent a lot of time thinking about it since then.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah. With all the ways that we have to prove the existing of God, why do you think so many people still have an unbelief of it's that's another great question.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

And it depends on the person, you know, but I can give you some reasons that I've found to be that keep people away from what I consider the obvious facts. One is, and this is kind of the way I was when I was an atheist, you don't want to be stupid, okay? You don't want to uh you know, I it's just like you don't want to believe in something that's a fairy tale. Right. That's how I viewed religion. And when I looked at it closely, that's ridiculous. But I'll I think a lot of people have this false concept that science is contrary to God, okay? That science is contrary to faith, science is contrary to religion, that science has replaced God. All of that, if you look at statistics, Dorsey, I think like at least 25% of the people in this country believe that pretty strongly. And so they don't want to be stupid in their own mind by believing something contrary to science. They think science and God are opposite. I think science takes you right to God, no stops. So that's one reason. Another reason, I think, is that a lot of people don't want there to be a God. And that's a personal thing, but a lot of people don't want to say there's a higher moral authority. A lot of people don't want there to be rules, they uh they don't want to be told that they should pray or go to church or read the Bible or, you know, do anything like that. They want to be able to be free to do whatever they want. And so they totally reject God because they think they want to be in charge. And I'll give you a third reason, which is that I think it applies to a lot of professors and a lot of people who are so-called, you know, intellectual elites, in that they like to believe they're the smartest uh people, smartest creatures in the universe. And the idea of a God that's so much smarter than they are and knows a lot more than they are, really offends them. That's kind of so those are some of the reasons, but it's a great question.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

You know, you mentioned about you know the smartest people and the elitist, the professors, even yourself, I'm sure at one point, you know, you probably thought, well, I'm so smart, you know, I can't I you know, I'm smart, I believe in this, I believe in that, you know, there is no God. How do you why is it that the smart people, you know, are the ones that don't seem to believe in God, I guess is my question.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

It's a blindness almost beyond belief, Dorsey. And I've attended conventions and meetings at the Harvard Faculty Club and other places when I lectured at MIT, and you you talk to these professors and they just think they know it all. They have such closed minds, and they're very arrogant about it. It's a horrible combination of arrogance and blindness. I can't explain it except by saying that in some way, as you point out, I was there too. You know, I mean, people like to think they know it all, and I think the facts are overwhelming if you look at it.

DNA As Digital Code

SPEAKER_01 8:59

What were some of the facts that you know, whether it be through your book or through your own learning and your own study, that you came to find and realize, hey, there is a God out there?

Design, Probability, And Proteins

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Sure. There are so many, but I'm gonna give you the one that to me is just overwhelming, undeniable proof of the existence of a God. Okay, and you interrupt me if this get-off course or gets too technical, but I think I can keep it pretty straightforward, and that is we have found that all of life runs on advanced digital code. Now, let me break that down a little bit. What's a digital code? A digital code is just a way of transferring information by discrete units. Okay, so you and I are talking to each other right now over the internet. The internet is a system of digital code. Everything we're doing is being broken down into tiny bits of information that our computers can talk to each other and it's transmitted electronically. Another form of digital code is writing. Okay, if you read, you know that there are discrete letters, there's spaces, there's special symbols. Those are individual units that convey a message when they're in the right order and so forth. So you have digital codes. Okay, now the digital code in all life is called DNA, which is a term that pretty much everybody's heard, but people don't really realize what it is. Okay, DNA is a four-unit digital code. So there are four complex design groups of atoms that are in DNA, and the order of these atoms tells how to build you, how to build me, how to build every living creature on Earth. All life runs on advanced digital code. Now, in 2011, there is a scientific group called the ENCODE Project, ENCO-DE project. That's 400 scientists worldwide. And these are the best of the best of the best, okay? And they were charged with figuring out what's in the human DNA code. So 400 scientists looking at the digital code and human beings. They found that almost all of it is fully functional. There's no junk to speak of. There's a lot of it we don't know exactly what it does because it's so advanced. By the way, Bill Gates, you know, the founder of Microsoft, a pretty good person at coding, said that DNA is like human computer code, only far, far more advanced than anything we've ever built. I mean, so anybody who really looks at DNA realizes it is fantastically complicated computer code. By the way, we have 3.2 billion letters of code in almost every one of our 30 trillion with a T cells. And that's enough information to put. If you had a very thick book with two columns of writing on each thin page, and it was several inches thick, and then you stacked a thousand of them on top of each other, you'd have that's about how much information you and I have in just about every one of our cells. It's a fantastic amount of computer information. So they found that this code in human beings has at least two levels of information, meaning there's code within code. It is designed incredible. They also found facts like every human being has four million switches in this code to turn things on and off. You know, to tell you when to turn you when you wake up, but so much more. This code is used by our bodies, it tells us when to we need to build apart, human parts called a protein generally. So what we have in our bodies, and we actually have trillions of these things, we have 3D printers. I don't know if you're familiar with a 3D printer, but I mean they're fantastic machines. You put in computer code and it'll create like a hammer, a screwdriver, you know, a block, depending on what materials it has. But it creates something out of code. All life has e-printers. So the printers read the code and it tells them what to print. Then it also tells the human beings how to put the parts together, and that is pretty complicated. It tells us when to build a new part, it tells uh and how to operate the part, and that's the four million switches to turn things on and off. And if you look at it mathematically, and I get into this a little bit in my books, I think it's obvious why people don't see it. I can't explain, but you can't get working computer code by chance.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah, you can't.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Okay, the odds of getting even like a hundred letters in the right sequence are much less than picking the right grain of sand out of a pile of sand as big as the known universe. I mean, the mathematics when you just get ridiculous. So, how does everything have fantastic computer code? It goes on and on from there, and maybe I'm talking too much about this, but there's no explanation without God for how every living creature has advanced computer code in it.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

And, you know, my mind's a little blown by what you just said there because I didn't know all of that, you know, before you just said that. So how do how do how does God, you know, out in the universe, how did he create that? And how did he create all that code and the DN, you know, the shells and everything that he is able to create every human being that is boom?

God Outside Time And Creation

SPEAKER_00 14:45

We don't know. God is not in this universe, God is outside this universe and he's outside space and time, and he created everything. And I think you have to go to the Bible. Okay, you go to the beginning of Genesis, first chapter, God created everything in six days, which I believe six literal 24-hour days, and then he told us to rest on the seventh day. And you know, the intelligence of God is so far above anything human beings can even conceive. How he did it, only God knows. God only knows. But the fact is it's there. That's the fact. It is there, it is amazing. You know, so cell phones are something that run on digital code. Now, if you want to get your cell phone to do something new, you have to add new coding, and that's basically download an app. People don't think about this, but an app is digital code. You put new digital code into your cell phone, you can do something new, right? Every single kind of creature has new digital code. Code that makes it special. Scientists have found this out too. So it's like when God built a new creature, he put in some special code just for that creature. For example, human beings have at least 54 sections of complex computer code, digital code, just to build some of the parts in our brains. Again, I get carried away by this, forgive me, but I think it's so obvious that human beings were created.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah, you know, another question, you know, people may ask, and you know, even atheists may ask, where did God come from? You know, how how the how God formed? What will your answer to that be?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah, and you know, another way to say it is who created God?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Right.

Seven Wonders And Fine Tuning

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Okay, and we know in our universe that everything that um that you know one thing comes from another. But here's the point: God is not in our universe. When you say one thing was created by another, that means something came in time before something else. God is outside time, which is a mind-blowing concept, but he created space and time. So we don't know what's going on outside of time. We don't know where things come from. I think of our universe as a fishbowl. Okay, so we're in a fishbowl and it's called the universe. Now it sure is a pretty darn big fishbowl, for sure, but God is outside of it. God created this fishbowl. And how things work outside the fishbowl, we don't know. We can only know what's outside the fishbowl from what God tells us. And for that, you have to look to the Bible. So God being outside, God just is. You know, if you go to the Bible, I think it's in the book of Exodus, you know, Moses walks up to the burning bush, and God says, you know, go set my people free. Go, you know, tell Pharaoh to let everybody go. And God says, Who shall I say has sent me? What is your name? And God says, I am who I am. Tell them I am has sent you. Okay, so in other words, God is existence. God is why, God just is. He is. He's not past, he's he's everywhere, everything. And I think it's a hard concept to get our brains around that something can be outside of space and time because we don't know anything outside space and time, right? But right, God just is, his name is I Am, but usually translated as Yahweh, as you know. And we don't God just is. We can't see outside the fishbowl and see how things are connected. How, what's going on outside of space and time? We don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Can you tell us a little bit more about the book that you've written? And in your workbook, you discussed the seven wonders of science. Which of those seven wonders of science had the most profound impact on your faith, journey?

Teaching Origins In Schools

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yes, that's in my first book, thanks, Counting to God. I think the most profound impact was this discovery that life runs on digital code. That is just undeniable. And as a person who grew up with math, the evidence of design is beyond belief. But there's other ones. The fact that the universe was created, that it hasn't existed forever, well, that leads you immediately to how did the universe get created? And there's no scientific explanation for that without God. Another fact is that in my seven points, is that the laws of physics, when you look at them, and the way the laws of physics are set up, it's very clearly designed for life to exist. This universe is not some accidental universe, but if you look at things like the speed of light, the strength of gravity, it's all exactly set right for life to exist. I'll give you an example. This strength of gravity, excuse me, is fine-tuned, set exactly right, to about one in a number with 60 zeros. And to give you your odds of getting a number exactly right if it has 60 zeros on it, are like picking the right grain of sand out of a pile of sand that goes to the nearest stars. Okay. Now, the person who discovered this is named Stephen Hawking, a noted atheist. But he showed this is true. And he also said it's true that a lot of other things are set. And so I can't explain his blindness when he was one of the persons who found this out. So the universe is uh designed for it. Also, it turns out our Earth is very special. There's absolutely no way life began without God. This this pawn nonsense has been disproven, even though it's in hundreds of high school textbooks as a possible way for life. There's a lot there, but I think that having digital code, complex, more advanced than a human being could write inside of all life shows there has to be a God.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Do you think it can be, and I know there's a probably legal implications to this, because of, you know, people say, well, it's separation of certain states, and we can't teach religion or we can't teach the Bible in schools. But do you think that there should be options to teach students to the creation story alongside the Big Bang Theory in schools?

Making The Case With Gentleness

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Absolutely. I don't see why students can't be given both theories. And I think our court system has really messed up this separation of church and state. It was not entitled to kick religion out of popular life. It was just to say that the church leaders can't run the country. But it's been twisted by courts. I think the current Supreme Court is getting a little bit better at that. But why can't this evidence for creator be in high school textbooks? Why can't this argument? Why can't you have both sides of the argument? Why do you have to just have the atheist argument? And I think that's wrong. And courts have said you can't put in the other side of the argument. And I think that's just clearly, clearly wrong. I think people should be given the facts. And if they can't get them in schools, then they should go to church or talk to people who know these facts. And I think seminaries and churches.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

As an attorney, if you had to defend your faith, let's say to an atheist, how would you how and had to convince the atheist about your faith and that God exists? How would you do it?

Young Earth Claims And Dating

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Well, you know, one of the first Peter chapter 3, verse 15, always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is within you, but do so with gentleness and respect. And I believe that's the way to proceed. So I don't try to browbeat atheists, but if they ask me, I'm not afraid to explain all of this. The digital code, okay? The nonsense of these theories that life started by chance. And I go into that in my book, Counting to God, in particular. And also I've got a new graphic novel out called The God Proofs, which is aimed at teenagers and even younger. Uh, it's getting great reviews. Graphic novel is like a cartoon book. You know, an illustrator put together some wonderful pictures and it goes into these things. But how do you get digital code? How do you get something from nothing? Why is the universe designed for life? The things you and I are talking about right now. Uh if someone asks me and wants to know, I am delighted to explain. But I'm not gonna browbeat an atheist. A lot of people, yeah, if they're set in their ways, then you gotta leave them be.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Right. And we mentioned your one book. Is there another book that you have that's out or that you're thinking about writing?

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Well, I want to rewrite my first book because I no longer believe this is gonna sound crazy, but there's over a hundred scientific facts on this. I don't the universe is not billions of years old. It started about 7,500 years old, and it's been running downhill ever since. The computer code that builds all life is not getting better, it's not evolving up, it's evolving down because there's mistakes every generation. I want to fix that. And it took me 10 years to write counting to God, so it's probably going to take me a while to redo it. But I also have my graphic novel, The God Proofs. And then uh about a year and a half ago, I wrote a novel called Rise Above about a person, a wealthy person who comes to faith in part through science. And I really enjoy it. My books lose money, that's fine. That's good, but I just enjoy writing and uh putting the word out there.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Yeah. Now you mentioned in that in that last answer there that you used to believe that the universe was billions of years old, but now you changed your mind to believe in that it's only about 7,000 years old. How do you I mean, and we know, you know, even myself, I've heard, you know, from you know, different sides of the argument as far as, you know, you know, is it this old or that old? How do you come to that conclusion that it's actually not Billingly years old, but it's only six thousand.

Dinosaurs, Flood, And History

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Yeah, and whether it's six thousand or seven thousand five hundred gets into a debate on the Septuagint that we probably shouldn't go to today. But let me suggest two resources. There's a website called creation.com, and if you go to that website and put in search for age of the earth, you will come up with a list of over 100 scientific facts that support a recent universe. The a lot of this dating stuff, you know, you hear carbon dating, radiometric dating, it's based on flawed assumptions. And I have my website, counting to God.com. I have a blog post that gets into the games that people play there. But the truth is that during Noah's flood, God changed the laws of physics. Okay, and he probably tweaked the strong magnetic force within atoms and the universe and the solar system. So he changed the levels of radioactivity, and that throws all the measurements off that they have. But there are facts that show that those measurements can't be true. I'll give you one that I I I've always liked dinosaurs growing up. So they have found dinosaur flesh, dinosaur skin, dinosaur DNA. These dinosaurs didn't die out 65 million years ago. You know, the levels of uh have you been to the Grand Canyon? I have not. Okay, but you've probably seen the pictures, right? Magnificent pictures. You know, and if you look around, there are these layers in the earth, okay? And what people who believe in billions of years will tell you those layers were somehow put down over millions of years, you know, like this layer is 50 million years after that layer and so forth. And it's nonsense. You look around the Grand Canyon, those lines are straight. There's no millions of years of erosion. They have found fossils that are partially in one layer and partly in the other, mostly tree trunks. How can that be if one layer is 50 million years older than the other? There's a lot from astronomy, the amount of salt in the sea, the size of river deltas, that goes back and shows that Noah's flood was a real event. That's where you get fossils, okay? And there's a lot of scientific evidence there. I I've given some examples in my blogs. If people go to counting to God.com, my website, and sign up for my blog, they can read about them.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

You know, you mentioned I was gonna actually ask you, you know, I had it in my head to ask about the dinosaurs, and you know, the scientists, they go out there and they find, you know, the dinosaur bones and everything of that nature, and then they'll come up with, you know, oh, this dinosaur lived, you know, 50 million years ago. How do they, you know, with science and math, how do they come up with that number if the world, you know, obviously, like I said, it's different, you know, there's different versions and different beliefs, but how do they come up with that number of it's that many years old?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

They date the rocks wrong. They use these, measure the amounts of certain radioactivity in the rocks, and they use the wrong system figuring out how old it is. And basically, they date the fossils by the rocks and they date the rocks by the fossils. They've got it all in their heads wrong. There have been a number of published scientific studies that show that these dating by radioactivity methods are wrong. But the popular scientists, and you read about this millions of billions of years stuff in the paper all the time, and I think it's one of the main reasons people think science is contrary to the Bible. It's just wrong. It's a complicated explanation. I did a blog post, I called it the dating game, and it's pretty simple to read about how they mess up the assumptions here.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

The other one which I'm sure my listeners will want to ask me is where do you think the dinosaurs came from, and where did you when do you think they were, you know, you think they died off from the earth?

Closing Encouragement And CTAs

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Yeah, great question. Well, dinosaurs were created during the week of creation. There were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark, but he didn't have full, you know, he had uh uh teenage dinosaurs on the Ark. And but you know, if you look at it, the evidence is amazing. There are Roman records of dinosaurs. There are, they called them dragons. If you look around the world, there are dragon stories in just about every culture. Okay, why did Leonardo da Vinci painted a picture of a dinosaur? There is a um stegosaurus carved on a temple in Thailand. I saw it. There's a bronosaurus carved by Indians thousands of years ago, carved in stone in the Midwest. There are the Roman stories, Marco Polo saw a dinosaur. Alexander the Great writes about his troops fighting a dinosaur. They haven't survived. They, you know, uh climate change, but uh, why are we finding these fossils that have their blood and DNA in them? They didn't die off millions of years ago. And these dinosaurs we know now to be, they were drawn correctly. One of them's got a special distinctive uh tail. And it's a picture of a fight that people saw where two dinosaurs fought for over an hour. Uh and that's on something in 1400s, I think, that was built. The dinosaurs are in the human record. You know, two Roman historians wrote 300 years apart that the largest dinosaurs were in India. If you look at this stuff, it just gets pretty amazing. But I tell you, I saw that stegosaurus carved on the temple in Thailand. And it looked like it had a muzzle on it. It looked like it was domesticated. There's pictures of dinosaurs on caves. That's incredible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Well, Doug, Doug, thank you so much for coming to show today. We greatly appreciate having you.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

I really appreciate your having me, Dorsey.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Can you uh give us a word of encouragement or a word of um inspiration to my audience?

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Don't lose faith. God is real.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Amen. Amen. Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for coming on the show and for listening. We greatly appreciate having you. Please go and follow the Odori Audio Group, Spotify, and Apple Podcast. Please share a review or reach out at info at org. And please go and follow my podcast at www.dorcyrosso.com and go check out Doug's books. I will have the links on my website and on my show notes. And until next time, God bless. Bye bye.