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The Bridge

Stories, , ,

The briefing was short in the early morning, they had to carry out the mission alone, the target was a medieval stone bridge. It was a massive, well-built bridge, with a history of several centuries, and the masters of that time did such a good job that the bridge could even now withstand an assault detachment of light tanks and troop transport trucks. That is why it had to be destroyed. The scouts had already signaled an enemy column that would cross the bridge, around noon.

Carpet bombing with a whole squadron was unnecessary, a single bomber with a reliable crew seemed sufficient. A low approach to the target, then the bombs were released exactly above the bridge.

All the bombardier had to do until the target was reached was to check the aiming device and the bomb bay lights.

He noticed them when they were almost at their destination. They were heading for the bridge, up the road, which was lined with trees on both sides, so he noticed them only at the last moment. In front was a small donkey-drawn cart, with suitcases and all sorts of travel gear thrown on it, and children sitting on top, barely moving, in silence. When they saw the bomber approaching them, they hesitated, waved, or made themselves as small as possible. The huge machine was an imposing sight to the children’s eyes, its sound, like a thousand bands playing at full power, was beautiful and at the same time terrifying.

A tall man was walking next to the cart, apparently leading the escapees, behind him in a long line were older children holding their mothers’ hands, and little ones sitting on their fathers’ necks, tired, fleeing people, there might have been one or two hundred of them.

“First Officer! People on the bridge. Civilians, refugees, women, children. I have to wait for them to get across.”

“Bombardment officer! Carry out the order, immediately!”

“First Officer! People on the bridge, I repeat civilian refugees, children on the bridge.”

“Bombardier! You risk court-martial, I hope you know that. Carry out the order immediately, drop the bombs!”

The bombardier looked into the sights, they were in just the right position. The man leading the procession looked up at the plane and slowed down. At that moment, he knew that they were all going to die, there was no point in running forward or backward. So close to freedom, all hope was gone. He closed his eyes and waited for the whistling of the falling bombs and the sound of the explosions.

“First Officer! We’ve flown past the optimal position, so there’s no point in dropping the bombs, most of them will fall near the bridge and on land. We have to fly over the bridge again.”

“Captain, you won’t get out of this alive. There are anti-aircraft batteries on the other side, camouflaged, it’s a matter of seconds before they start shooting at us.”

“Turret shooter!”

” Yes, captain!”

“Go down to the bombardier officer and force him to carry out the order!”

“Yes sir, I understand.”

The turret gunner climbed down from the firing position, took out his weapon, and cocked it.

Down on the bridge, since the expected quick death seemed to have been postponed for the time being, the leader of the escapees was the first to realize that perhaps hope was not lost after all. If the bomber had not dropped the bombs, there was a reason for that, and now they might have a few minutes to get off the bridge. He turned back and motioned to those following him to run forward, off the bridge, as fast as possible, he also urged the little donkey to run, and it seemed to understand what was going on, and it set off at a rapid pace with the cart, off the bridge.

The bombardier looked into the aiming device again, the crosshairs were exactly in the center of the bridge, an ideal position. The people running on the bridge, the little cart had already crossed, but quite a few were still on the bridge. His hand was on the bomb chamber release lever, but he had not yet released the bombs.

“Captain! Open the bomb bay!” the turret gunner stood behind him, his pistol cocked and loaded.

The bomb disposal officer glanced back, slowly took his pistol from its holster, and very carefully, signaling to the other that he had no intention of using it, placed it on the floorboard beside him. He clasped his hands behind his back and surrendered.

The gunner hesitated, knowing that the bombardier would not obey him, and that if he shot him down, the bridge would remain intact. He put his gun away and said to the bombardier, “Do as you see fit, Captain.” Then he went up to the turret to prepare for the expected anti-aircraft fire.

The first officer saw that the bridge was still standing, and he knew that the delay had probably caused them to overshoot the ideal position again. He instructed the navigator to make another turn.

The anti-aircraft guns then began to fire. The bomber responded to the attack with evasive maneuvers, and the gunners began to fire at the now clearly visible batteries.

The bombardier leaned over the aiming device again. The bridge was now clear, all the escapees were on the other side, safe. He waited until the plane had passed over the bridge, inserted a straight section between the evasive maneuvers, placed his hand on the release lever, and now finally released the bombs.

The rain of bombs rained down on the bridge, the stone bridge collapsed into the water very quickly, only a few stumps stuck out of the water, the stumps of the pillars.

“First Officer! Mission accomplished. The bridge is destroyed.”

“Navigator! Steep climb, heading for the base.”

“Bombardier officer! I’m thinking of skinning you alive, or will a court-martial suffice?”

“Yes, sir,” the bombardier replied. He looked out of the plane, and there were refugees below, some waving, some saluting, a man kneeling and praying.

The bombardier raised his hand and, although he knew no one could see it, he gestured towards the group below.

The gray puffs of smoke appeared closer and closer to the plane, the air defense tried to shoot down the fleeing plane, but the steep climb and the plane fleeing at full speed slowly left the puffs of smoke behind, and quite a few of the anti-aircraft guns also fell silent thanks to the precise work of the gunners.

A new name has been added to the list of bomber glory, the name of a bridge, which will henceforth always be painted on the side of the plane.

Why it was necessary to fly to the target three times was not included in the mission report.

And no member of the crew objected to this.

The deployment was described in later reports as a routine, uneventful mission that ended in complete success with no casualties.

Nyíregyháza, June 4, 2024

The Paradox of Intelligent Design

Philosophy, Physics, Spiritual, , , , , ,

What have led me to believe in intelligent design? As a person, personal experiences, as a scientist, the unsolved mysteries of science gave me the evidences.

In recent years, the most interesting topic and field of science that has strengthened my faith the most, is the one that deals with the fine-tuning of the Universe. The most briefly I could summarize this is that there are laws in the Universe that seem to have been created and are just like that to support the emergence and survival of intelligent life. The properties of space and time, the size of the Universe, interactions and their special and strange manifestations, but most of all the constants of physics are the ones that have become the focus of increasing interest in recent years. Precisely because it has been discovered that the slightest change in any of the components makes the existence of intelligent life impossible, and in fact, some changes would not allow even the simplest life, but there are also such small differences that simply would not allow the existence of the Universe.

For example, see three-dimensional space. It’s incredible, but in any other space, there can be no stable planetary systems, that is, a world with a number of dimensions other than three would have to be redesigned in every detail, and I can’t even say now whether it could support life even if it were redesigned.

And I could list countless signs of fine-tuning, about which, fortunately, exhaustive knowledge is now available in more and more books. So I don’t want to list them now, they provided just enough evidence for me to believe that the world is tuned to intelligent life, to an amazingly improbable degree.

Just a few examples of the most important finely tuned properties: the ratio between expansion and gravity, the proton-neutron mass ratio, the nuclear efficiency, the weak interaction, the tunneling effect, the Pauli exclusion principle, the special properties of water, the ratio of gravitational and electromagnetic forces, the zero value of entropy at the birth of the Universe, quantumness, and I could list more.

I must mention the most astonishing and convincing feature, which cannot be attributed to anything other than fine-tuning, to intelligent design: this feature is the stability of the Solar System. And if that were not enough, this stability can be observed throughout the Universe. A stable arrangement is an extremely unlikely configuration for systems operating under the influence of gravity, under the influence of each other’s attraction. Chaotic behavior is much, much more likely. In the case of the Solar System, a very small modification of the orbit of Mercury would lead to chaotic behavior of the entire system. And yet the Solar System is stable, which cannot even be proven by mathematical means; the best proof is experience itself.

science

And if we accept that such luck cannot exist solely due to chance, then the other possibility remains: design. This requires an intelligent designer, whether he is the God of believers or a powerful intelligence that is hidden somewhere unknowable to us, this is undecidable. For a believer, the natural choice is God, who also plays the role of the Intelligent Designer and who created the conditions necessary for intelligent life during Creation. He also created intelligent life in the image of man, but for this to survive in the long term, that fine-tuning is also needed. Agnostics do not call the creator and implementer of fine-tuning God, but an Intelligent Designer, thereby leaving open some philosophical and religious questions.

For me, there is no doubt that our world is well designed by God, the Creator. However, there are still some problematic issues that I have called the paradox of intelligent design.

One is the question of evolution and its justification. In the beginning, there was only hydrogen and helium. Then stars and galaxies were born, in these the chemical elements were created, from which planets were born, and one of the planets became the birthplace of intelligent life. My question is: why didn’t the Creator create the world in its present form? Is evolution necessary for survival? Of course, the world may have actually been created in its present state, but then why does it contain so many traces and memories of evolution? For a person who believes in the Bible’s creation story, this is of course not a problem. However, I believe that the Bible speaks to the soul, while the mind adheres to the facts of science, and if science also points in the direction of an Intelligent Designer, we must examine this path as well.

The other part of the paradox is moral, philosophical, and I feel this is much more important now, because the events of my individual life and history, as well as the current increasingly hopeless situation in the world, make this problem glaring.

We have accepted that the world is incredibly finely tuned, attributing it to the existence and work of an Intelligent Designer. And what do we see? In contrast to the perfection of the Universe, life on earth is full of suffering, disease, and all sorts of evil.

We can say that Adam and Eve are to blame, or the free will we were given, or selfishness, greed, envy.

In a perfectly fine-tuned Universe, are suffering, pain, and unhappiness necessary?

The most difficult book in the Bible for me to accept, the book of Job, is about this very thing. And I accept that I have no basis whatsoever for asking questions about whether the world could be better. But God created me in His own image, and I ask Him to forgive me and to forgive me for having Job’s doubts. And I know that “my Redeemer lives, and at the last day I will stand upon the earth,” but now I am here in a finely tuned world, among suffering people, and because of their suffering I suffer too. And this is incomprehensible to me; the paradox of Intelligent Design is insoluble to me.

A Universe entirely designed to support intelligent life, and the wildlife and human civilization that currently exist on Earth, which is a world of suffering, pain, unhappiness, and unanswered questions.

Is this really what this world is about, and can we only be happy in that other world that the Savior prepared for us with his sacrifice?

Is there another answer that we are here in this world to discover, we intelligent beings?

‎‎Nyíregyháza, June 7, 2025 – September 4, 2025