Bible Archives - Page 23 of 116 - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

February 12, 2022February 8, 2022

Genuine Faith Leads to Action

I remember an incident when I was giving my lecture series at Purdue University many years ago. A young man told me he couldn’t argue with any of the evidence I had presented. He meant it as a compliment, but he teared up when I asked what he was going to do with it. Finally, he said, “I am going to put it out of my thinking because I don’t want to quit the way I am living.” Isn’t that the way a lot of us are? Genuine faith leads to action.

In Deuteronomy 31:20, God says about Israel, “When I have brought them into a land which I swore to their fathers, one that flowed with milk and honey and they have eaten and filled themselves and grown fat. Then they will turn to other gods and serve them, and provoke me and break my covenant.” In Deuteronomy 32:16-21, we see that happening. A similar thing is happening in America today.

In Matthew 17:20, Jesus compares faith with the mustard seed, saying that we can move mountains if we have faith. Things have happened in my life that even people in my family don’t believe could be possible. If you don’t have faith, it is amazing what you don’t try. Even more amazing is what God causes to happen from the smallest of efforts with a little faith. Genuine faith leads to action.

In Mark 4:36-41, we read the story of a storm that was swamping the boat in which Jesus was sleeping. He quiets the sea by command, and His disciples were afraid. Jesus says, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”

Faith drives out fear. The history of the Church is full of people who did things that most of us would be afraid to try. In some cases, they died for their faith. That isn’t a bad thing. We have incredible promises from Jesus, even if our faith results in losing our lives.

Faith is essential, and genuine faith leads to action. We all have faith in something, but what is the basis of your faith?

February 10, 2022February 8, 2022

The Age of Methuselah in the Bible

A frequent challenge from atheists concerns the lifespan of early Bible characters. Genesis 5 contains the “generations of Adam” up to the time of Noah. It lists Methuselah as having lived 969 years. This chapter raises many questions, and atheists have ridiculed the idea that people ever lived that long. Anthropologists have methods for determining how old a person was when they died, and no data shows people ever living hundreds of years as we measure years today. Then what was the age of Methuselah?

It is essential to understand that this is not just a biblical peculiarity. Other ancient cultures have records of people living a very long time. The ancient Sumerian King List said that King Alulim ruled for 28,800 years, and others longer than that! However, the all-time longevity champ is a spiritual teacher in Jainism named Shreyansanatha, who was recorded to have lived 8,400,000 years. The message should be clear to us that none of these are our familiar calendar years as established by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.

There have been studies to determine how ancient people expressed time. The Hebrews used lunar cycles for reckoning time, but they have modified that because certain numbers had special significance. For example, seven indicated completeness, and six was just short of completeness. The Book of Revelation contains symbolic numbers that people have often erroneously misinterpreted.

A careful study of this subject will show that the intent of Genesis 5 is not to establish time or the chronological ages. Applying modern calendar concepts to Genesis would mean that Methuselah was killed by the flood of Noah. The message of the passage is not the age of Methuselah, but that he was a descendent of Enoch and an ancestor of Noah.

When you read any book of any culture, you have to look at who wrote it and to whom and why, and how the people it was written to would have understood it. That is especially true when considering the ages of ancient personalities.

February 8, 2022February 7, 2022

Color Vision Differences in Various Creatures

Color vision differences in various creatures result from eye design. Humans see color because we have three kinds of cones in the retina that respond to different energies of light. Our eyes have color cones sensitive to red, green, and blue. If light stimulates all three types of cones, we see it as white. When light stimulates red and green cones but not blue, we see yellow. Other combinations result in every color we can see.

Some light energies do not trigger any of our cones, yet they affect us. For example, our eyes don’t perceive ultraviolet energy, but UV rays can cause sunburn. Likewise, we can’t see infrared energy, but we can feel it as heat.

Animals have many color vision differences compared to humans. Why do deer not see the orange jackets that hunters frequently wear? A deer can’t see very much color at all. That means a hunter standing still in the woods wearing an orange camouflage outfit will be invisible to a deer but highly visible to other hunters.

Some animals that do not see color can see light energies that we can’t. For example, a rattlesnake can see infrared, which is a lower energy than the visible light we see. A warm-blooded animal such as a rat or mouse gives off infrared radiation. A rattlesnake can see the infrared light coming from the rat on a very dark night when there is no light visible to humans.

The National Science Foundation reported on a jumping spider (Saitis barbipes) found in Europe and North Africa with no red color sensitivity. A red ball would appear gray or black to those spiders. However, the males of these furry spiders have a bright red crown and legs. Even though potential mates cannot see the red, certain areas of the spider’s body strongly absorb ultraviolet light. Those areas appear as “spider green” to other jumping spiders.

In addition to color vision differences, some animals have specialized vision tools to help them survive. For example, a marine turtle’s eyes have polarized corneas. That polarization allows the turtle to see reflected light because it is polarized parallel to the reflecting surface. A turtle needing to locate water will simply scan the horizon to see polarized light reflected from the water’s surface. Other animals, such as birds or fish, have polaroids in a vertical orientation, enabling them to see through clouds or water without having to deal with glare.

Designing cells that can detect light is only part of the story. Making eyes that meet the peculiar needs of various animals is much more difficult. Your vision is just one more support for David’s statement, “I will praise you, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalms 139:14.)

Reference: The National Science Foundation and the journal The Science of Nature

February 7, 2022February 5, 2022

Snow Is a Blessing from God

I just spent an hour moving snow. Blowing out the driveway, digging out the mailbox, and leaving early to get to any appointment is ordinary for us during the Michigan winter months. People moan and complain about it, yet snow is a blessing from God.

Most of us know about igloos used by people in the far north to shield themselves from super cold conditions. Snow is an excellent insulator, preserving plants and small animals during the cold winter months. I am always concerned when we don’t have snow during the very cold days because my roses suffer. Small animals also are very active beneath the snow. Not only does the snow protect them from the cold, but also from predators.

Snow is a blessing from God. In Job 38:22, God refers to the storehouse of the snow. In many areas of the world, mountain snow stores water that melts in the spring and summer, supplying a constant water supply to arid and semi-arid locations. When additional layers compact the snow, it behaves as a fluid and actually flows. We call that a glacier and glacial ice can store massive quantities of water. One of the concerns about climate change is that if the glacial ice melts, the sea level will rise, threatening populations worldwide.

Snow exists only because of the unusual properties of the water molecule. The water molecule is polar instead of being linear (H – O – H), as you might expect. Both hydrogen atoms are on one side of the water molecule, with the oxygen atom on the other side. (We have discussed the polar nature of the water molecule previously on this website.) When the temperature is low enough, one molecule will attach itself to another, and because of water’s unique molecular structure, they form a lattice at many different angles.

If you haven’t looked carefully at snowflakes, please do so. Snowflakes are all hexagonal with six sides, but they are all different with unusual spacing that gives them a lower density than water. For this same reason, ice is less dense than water, and it forms on the surface of a lake and does not sink to the bottom. Usually, solid forms of materials are more dense than their liquid forms, but that is not the case with water. Otherwise, a lake would freeze solid and kill all the fish and other creatures living there.

This design of water is a testimony to God’s wisdom that we see in every corner of His creation. In Job 38:29-30, God reminds Job of His design of snow and ice by saying, “From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from heaven when the waters become hard as stone when the surface of the deep is frozen?” We have learned much about the design of water since Job’s day, but the message of creation to us is the same as it was to Job. Snow is a blessing from God.

February 5, 2022February 5, 2022

Christianity and the Origin of Science

Stephen C. Meyer and the origin of science — Stephen C. Meyer

One of the most prolific writers in the field of apologetics is Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute. His book Return of the God Hypothesis has stirred up a great deal of discussion in academic circles, and Prager University has been promoting his work on the web. One of his interesting points relates to the origin of science.

Stephen Meyer points out that science began in western Europe, and he attributes that to the tenants of Christianity. However, all cultures have made significant contributions to human progress and technology. For example, the Chinese perfected the use of gunpowder and rockets. Islam contributed to the field of mathematics and applications of math to astronomy. The Incas and various Central and South American native populations made significant progress in agriculture, irrigation, and land use. Egyptian and African cultures built marvelous pyramids and employed incredible engineering techniques to build great memorials.

In all of these cases, there was no advancement of science as occurred in western Europe. The science of western Europe culminated in enormous progress in chemistry, physics, biology, and medicine. It resulted in industrialization and the high standard of living that we enjoy in America today. While ignorance, greed, and selfishness may have contaminated that progress in modern times, the origin of science is in the belief system of Christianity.

The biblical concept of the natural world shows us that it is intelligible. If you believe there is design and order in nature that we can understand, we can study that design and use it. The great heroes of western science saw that there was order and planning in what they were investigating. The “Scientists and God” column in our quarterly journal contains quotes from the great minds in western science expressing that the universe is orderly because the Creator made it that way, and we can understand it. The Christian system was the basis of their work. The Bible condemns witchcraft, spiritualism, sorcery, and multiple gods and goddesses fighting each other, resulting in chaos.

The orderliness of the universe is based on laws such as the laws of thermodynamics. Fixed laws guide the fields of astrophysics, geology, and oceanography. The whole basis of Darwin’s understanding of biology was that there is an order to life that depends on the environments in which living things find themselves.

Webster defines science as “knowledge,” and modern knowledge has come from the biblical beliefs of a creation that can be understood and has order and design. The origin of science did not come from a chaotic belief system that embraced mysticism and spirits.

February 3, 2022February 2, 2022

The Biblical Description of God

It is amazing to see the level of ignorance of the nature of God displayed in the media and cartoons and by prominent entertainment figures. It is no wonder young people are turned off by religion. People need to see the Biblical description of God.

It’s easy to see the poor understanding of God in statements about where God is, when He does things, if He is dead, what sex God is, what race God is, what politics God has, what nation God supports, or who created God. A good part of this comes from religious systems outside of Christianity that portray God in nationalistic, racial, or pantheistic terms.

The biblical description of God is radically different from what you may hear. The biblical concept of God is not physical in any way. God created time and space, so He must be outside of time and space. Jeremiah 23:23-24 talks about God “filling heaven (space) and Earth.” Acts 17:28 describes God as an entity “in whom we live and move and have our being.” In 2 Peter 3:8, Psalms 90:4, and Palms 102:27, we read that God is outside of time. Numerous passages talk about things that God did before time began. (See Proverbs 8:22-23, John 1:1-3, Revelation 1:8, etc.)

God has created our three-dimensional world from an existence outside of the three dimensions in which we live. It is no longer possible for skeptics to deny the existence of dimensions beyond our familiar X, Y, and Z cartesian coordinates. Quantum mechanics clearly shows dimensions beyond our own, and theories like string theory propose up to eleven spatial dimensions. The only way we can even remotely comprehend these dimensions is to study their properties.

That is precisely what we see in the biblical description of God. The Bible explains God by His properties. For example, the Bible says God is light (1 John 1:5), God is the Word (John 1:1), God is unseen (1 John 4:12), God is not a man (Numbers 23:19), God is not flesh and blood (Matthew 16:17), God is love (1 John 4:8 & 16), and God is spirit (John 4:24).

In the same way that the Bible gives properties of God, it also gives properties of heaven and hell. Hell is not a hole in the ground or a big cave with little men in red suits running around jabbing people. The Bible symbolically describes hell as darkness and flaming sulfur (brimstone). Hell is a spiritual condition separated from God and all of His properties. Unfortunately, cartoon pictures of hell are steeped in ignorance and often mock the concept of spiritual responsibility.

How would you describe what you see to a man who has been blind from birth? How would you explain color? How can you talk about music to a person totally deaf from birth? This is the kind of problem the Bible writers have in describing God, heaven, hell, and the whole concept of spiritual awareness.

If you reject God, that is your prerogative, but at least do so on the level He claims to exist. Don’t reject God based on your own concept or the false concept of someone else. Instead, examine the biblical description of God. For more on this, go to our doesgodexist.org website and read the two booklets titled “A Help In Understanding What God Is” and “Who Created God?”

January 31, 2022January 29, 2022

The Burden of Alzheimer’s Disease

One of the great scourges today is Alzheimer’s. At present, over six million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s. That is 1 in 9 people age 65 and older and 11.3% of the senior population. Since 2000, deaths from Alzheimer’s have increased by 145%. The burden of Alzheimer’s disease affects many of us in various ways – financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

Medical science is still looking for the causes of Alzheimer’s. There is a genetic connection, and Alzheimer’s also seems to be a product of environmental factors. God does not cause it, and so far, it appears to be untreatable. One of the blessings of Alzheimer’s is that the afflicted person is not aware of what is happening to them. In most cases, they do not recognize family or friends or what has taken place, good or bad, in the past.

I have seen that when we apply Christian principles, people with Alzheimer’s respond positively. First Thessalonians 5: 14 tells us to “comfort the feebleminded, support the weak and be patient with all men.” Alzheimer’s patients respond to kindness and love. As Christians, we have the unique perspective of putting the past behind us and accepting people where they are – not where they were 25 years ago.

If your view of life is “survival of the fittest,” you will have very little empathy for someone living with Alzheimer’s. That person is no longer among the fittest and may be a burden. On the other hand, if your view is that all humans have value and God will bless us for serving those in need, the burden of Alzheimer’s disease becomes an opportunity.

Matthew 25:21-40 finds Jesus talking about the blessing of serving others. Verse 36 speaks of Christians reaching out to help someone who is sick or in prison. Alzheimer’s is a kind of prison and is certainly a sickness. The need for us to bring love, care, and relief applies as much to an Alzheimer’s patient as to anyone else.

Data from Alzheimer’s Association (alz.org) 1-800-272-3900.

January 29, 2022January 26, 2022

Christianity Brings Freedom from Ceremonial Laws

People must decide how to live and how to treat one another. The atheistic evolutionary system suggests that the only governing law is “survival of the fittest.” Writers like Ayn Rand espoused the idea that if we do what benefits us personally, the world will become a utopia. From a biblical standpoint, there are three systems of laws that answer the question of how we should live, and Christianity brings freedom from ceremonial laws.

Christianity is not a set of “thou shalt not” rules, but misconceptions abound because people don’t understand the difference between the Old and New testaments. The Old Testament emphasized ceremonial laws. Leviticus describes a rigid set of laws to follow. (See the first 13 verses of chapter 1.)

In the New Testament, Galatians 3:10-25 refers to this system as a “curse” because breaking one ceremonial law invalidates the whole system. Many people believe those ceremonial laws are binding today. However, Colossians 2:13-17 points out that Christ did away with the ceremonial laws. The New Testament does urge Christians to pray while allowing tremendous freedom as to how and when. Only communion and baptism could be considered ceremonial activities.

The second kind of law we all have to deal with is civil law. Deuteronomy 24 is an example of applying laws of that kind at the time of Moses. Civil laws have changed as culture has changed. Romans 13:1-7 tells Christians to obey civil law, but those laws can sometimes conflict with the third kind of law, which is moral law.

The moral laws of the Old Testament were all repeated in the New Testament, but Christ gave us a way to successfully follow laws that benefit humans. The teachings of Christ deal with attitudes. Rather than just saying “do not murder,” Christ says “do not be angry” (Matthew 5:22). Rather than saying “do not commit adultery,” Christ says not to look on a person with sexual intent (Matthew 5:28).

Christianity brings freedom in many ways. That includes freedom from ceremony, power struggles, violence, racism, and gender issues. Christian faith also frees us from arranged marriages, religious taxes, and spending money on extravagant buildings, idols, or shrines. Yet, tragically, some have encumbered people with ceremonial laws and destructive civil laws in the name of Christianity. Jesus said, “You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32).

January 25, 2022January 24, 2022

The Question of Euthanasia

Technological advances bring new issues for society to face. Near the top of the list is the question of euthanasia. Medical advances now allow people to live a very long time with health issues that would have resulted in early death in the past.

On January 7, 2022, Victor Escobar became the first person in Colombia without a terminal illness to legally end his life by injection. The country removed the penalty for euthanasia in 1997, but only for people considered to have less than six months to live. In Escobar’s case, he had several physical problems, including two strokes, obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, diabetes, and pain. However, he was not considered terminal by the medical profession.

Escobar’s case was the first in Latin America, and it got attention because the Catholic Church issued a statement. The church said that “any action or omission with the intention of provoking death to overcome pain constitutes homicide.”

The question of euthanasia is fundamental to Christians. In 1 Corinthians 3:16, we read that the body is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Passages such as 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 make it clear that the body has a special relationship to God’s Spirit. The other issue involved in euthanasia is what constitutes justification for killing a person. Is mental or spiritual pain a valid justification? There is a “slippery slope” concern in euthanasia where a correctable or temporary mental problem can be used to justify taking a life.

Many states in the U.S. have legalized so-called “death with dignity,” and organizations are working to make it nationwide. Several other countries have enacted such laws, and in a few cases, a physician has euthanized a patient without their permission.

While we can understand Escobar’s situation and the growing push to make euthanasia an accepted part of life’s journey, human life is not the same as animal life. Euthanizing a dog is not the same as killing a human. I have known Christians with chronic conditions who used their pain to minister to others, heal old emotional wounds, bring peace, and correct previous mistakes.

Rather than treating humans as highly evolved animals with no more value than a frog, we need to work to relieve all pain. The same technology that allows people to live despite a chronic illness should also be able to ease the pain caused by the condition. In addition, we can provide alternatives to ending life by caring for all people on their spiritual journey. The question of euthanasia should lead us toward allowing God to determine when the end of life should be.

Reference: liveaction.org

January 24, 2022January 23, 2022

The Whole Earth Sings

One of the fun units in physics is the study of vibrations and resonance. A simple demonstration of sympathetic vibration is an apparatus that consists of a tuning fork mounted on a wooden box. If you place near it a second box with a tuning fork of the same frequency, you can hear the effect called “resonance” or “sympathetic vibration.” Striking the tuning fork on one box will cause the tuning fork on the second box to start “singing” without being touched. A second tuning fork with a different vibration frequency will not respond. The amazing thing is that the whole earth sings.

When building a guitar or violin, a craftsman has to be very careful not to allow any part of the instrument’s box to naturally vibrate at the same frequency as the strings. If it does, that frequency will be louder than all other frequencies, and the sound will be distorted.

This effect is not confined to tuning forks and musical instruments. Resonance is all around us and in us. For example, your inner ear has hairs of varying lengths and thicknesses, resulting in specific vibration frequencies. If a sound at that frequency reaches your ear, the hair will vibrate and signal the brain to identify the pitch. Not having some of those hairs produces tone-deafness.

Taking a fine glass goblet and running a moistened finger around the edge will produce a tone at a specific frequency. That is the natural frequency of the goblet. You can produce a sound at the resonant frequency of a glass that will cause it to shatter, but probably not with any human voice.

Amazingly, researchers have found that everything in the natural world has a resonant frequency. For example, recent research on the Matterhorn near Zermatt, Switzerland, shows that it vibrates with a resonant frequency. The mountain actually vibrates about once every two seconds (.42 cycles per second.). Our ears hear sound frequencies between about 20 and 20,000 cycles per second, so we need instruments to detect the Matterhorn’s frequency.

You could say that the whole earth sings. Interestingly, the Bible refers to mountains, and even stars, singing. (See Isaiah 44:23, 49:13 and Job 38:7). Isaiah and Job certainly didn’t understand their statements to refer to mountain resonance. However, our understanding of what happens in nature gives new meaning to this poetry describing how the whole earth sings praise to God.

Reference: National Science Foundation research report for January 19, 2022