The summer issue of the Nature Conservancy magazine contains an interesting article about the value of seaweed. Overfishing, pollution, ocean acidification, and global warming combine to make life difficult for people living in coastal areas who depend on fishing. The use of seaweed is a solution to much of this, and researchers are making significant progress in advancing seaweed as a natural resource.
Growing food in the ocean is more efficient than raising it on the land. There is no need to worry about water or fertilizer because seawater has all the nutrients needed. There are collateral benefits as well since many marine species depend on seaweed to reproduce.
Companies extract carrageenan from seaweed and use it in the production of cosmetics, foods, and medicines. More than 25,000 people are employed in farming seaweed in Tanzania, and extensive training programs are teaching local farmers how to farm seaweed in their coastal waters.
There is reason to be optimistic about the future. We are learning to use all that God has given us to radically increase our food production, and the work of farming the ocean is leading the way. Not only does seaweed provide food directly to humans, but it can be dried and used as food for cattle, sheep, and goats. Seaweed also helps the planet by reducing the carbon dioxide in the air and increasing the oxygen content.
The diversity that God has built into the creation allows us to overcome the problem of feeding a growing population while finding ways to reduce pollution. Seaweed as a natural resource demonstrates once again that creation is not a cosmic accident but designed for advanced human life.
We have had several personal experiences with a person approaching death that brought up the issue of assistance in dying. One of the cases in our family involved a loved one dying in an Asian country. The belief in that country was that life is all there is, so a person should be kept alive at all costs, no matter what. Our loved one was in enormous pain and begging to die, but his Asian wife refused to allow him to receive any drug that might shorten his life. Drugs such as morphine can relieve pain, but they can also shorten life, so she did not allow those drugs.
There is also a medical treatment called palliative sedation, which renders a person unconscious until they die. In the United States, hospice offers palliative care but does not hasten death. Individuals can use VSED, which is “voluntary stopping of eating and drinking.” The decision is difficult, and when the person loses consciousness, family members can override it.
Ten states and the District of Columbia now allow medical assistance in dying. Doctors in those states can prescribe a lethal dose of a drug if requested by the patient or their power of attorney. The states are Oregon, Washington, California, Montana, Vermont, Colorado, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maine, and New Mexico.
Several of our church friends have faced the issue of assistance in dying. Our current issue is our son Tim who is mentally incapable of deciding for himself and is in a pathetic condition. COVID-19 has activated his cerebral palsy complications and especially his muscular dystrophy, so he is bedfast and barely able to communicate. He is making no visible progress, and because of blindness, he has very little quality of life. I read to him daily over the phone. He can only eat pureed food because he can’t chew and swallow hard foods. He is cut off from friends or family because it is virtually impossible to understand his speech.
What do you do in a case like my son Tim? He is a physically strong person, so he may remain in this state for a very long time. Having a doctor inject him with a lethal dose of drugs might seem to be the merciful thing to do, but that is pure euthanasia and assumes he will never make any recovery. Who has that kind of knowledge?
We share this with you to underline the issue of assistance in dying. As our population ages and as medical care advances, this issue will only get more complex. Join us in praying that God will lead us to know how to deal with this new problem facing humanity, which is especially difficult for believers in God.
We saw the Planned Parenthood data for 2020, and it disturbs us. The organization performed 354,871 abortions, which is 9,199 more than the previous year. The government gave $618.1 million of federal tax money to Planned Parenthood in 2020. That does not include $80 million from the Cares Act, which was to help small businesses because of the pandemic. Other services which Planned Parenthood provides, including adoption, prenatal care, and help with miscarriages, declined by 40%.
Planned Parenthood also gave presentations in public schools, and in some cases, parents were not notified about the content. Because of the political situation in the United States, abortion pills may be made available through the mail.
As a Christian who works with various child-care organizations, I know of many couples in our area who want to adopt a child. As has always been true, there is a long wait time to get a child. Adopting requires laborious home studies and interviews. As the parent of three adopted children, I know the joy of having a child when you are biologically unable to conceive.
The Planned Parenthood data for 2020 is disturbing. It’s easy to oversimplify this issue, but the notion that abortion is a solution to birth control is medical nonsense. The psychological problems resulting from abortion are huge because aborting a child is infanticide. Americans are critical of other cultures that don’t protect children or even discard unwanted children, and yet our culture is doing the same thing. If you ever watch a video of an abortion, you will see that it is indeed the killing of an infant and not the removal of a blob of flesh that is simply part of the mother.
We have frequently pointed out that a massive percentage of the pain and death people experience is directly related to their choices in life. If you don’t believe in God, what do you use for support when you hit the usual frustrations in life? My brother Jim bought into my parent’s atheistic beliefs. For much of his life, he lived as an atheist.
When my youngest brother grew frustrated with the everyday struggles of life, alcohol became his tool for coping. That caused him to be unable to help others or find meaningful companionship. When he struggled with his normal sexual drives, he did not believe that marriage was the only way those feelings could be satisfied. My brother’s marriage failed because of his alcohol use, and it also seriously affected his relationship with his two sons.
My brother Jim was fired from his first teaching job because his alcohol use affected how he dealt with his students. One of his sons and I pleaded with him to realize what alcohol was doing to him, and gradually he began to move away from his addiction. He eventually got involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, started studying the Bible, and carried on extensive conversations with me about the existence of God.
I finally convinced my brother Jim to go with me and a group of 50 Christians as we toured the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, and the Canyonlands. In addition to showing evidence that the Bible accurately describes Earth’s history as revealed in these places, we all engaged in singing hymns, praying for one another, and studying God’s Word. At the end of the trip, my brother admitted that he could not be an atheist anymore and that he saw the validity of Christianity.
What do people in our culture do to relieve the pains that come in life? The use of drugs, including alcohol, has skyrocketed in my lifetime. Developing a relationship with God and working with those of like faith to establish a realistic approach to failure and frustration is not on the radar for much of our culture. As people reject God, ridiculing the Bible, and questioning its relevance to the struggles of life, the problems they experience have grown. The ultimate result of this is a massive increase in health issues related to drug use and an enormous rise in legal problems, including prison terms. More than half of the prisoners studying our correspondence courses are in prison because they abused drugs.
Unfortunately, the use of alcohol and the destructive nature of my brother’s early atheistic beliefs had consequences on his relationships and health. He had marginal relationships with family, had few friends, and never found the kind of joy that Christians have when they follow God’s Word. In addition, his health had been compromised by his use of alcohol. On May 28, he died from all the damage alcohol had done in the past. Living the Christian way of life is essential to give the hope of eternal life and to give us the very best things that this life can bring. My brother Jim is a case history that demonstrates that fact in vivid, realistic terms.
A strange situation that exists today is human mismanagement of what God has given us. I get 20 to 30 pieces of mail daily asking for donations to feed starving children. These children are not just in Africa or India, but also in Appalachia. When you donate to one organization, you get on everyone’s mailing list. I’m glad organizations are addressing the food needs of people all over the globe, but the problem of hunger is so unnecessary.
With political circumstances depriving common people of basic food needs and selfish politicians and rulers involved in power struggles, children are dying all over the planet. The pathetic pictures of starving children hit home in the United States as the statistics show how poorly we manage God’s gifts. USA Today (May 26, 2021) published a report from the Environmental Protection Agency showing that 42.8 million tons of uneaten, wasted food ends up in landfills or combustion facilities every year. The report goes on to say that people in the United States typically waste 25% of the food they buy, amounting to a cost of $2,275 a year per person.
The problem of wasted food is not getting better even though we have ways to prevent food spoiling. Buying canned goods, freezing leftovers, dehydrating fruits, and ordering more intelligently should reduce our waste. The problem of hunger is unnecessary, yet every city in the country is reporting issues with waste.
A society will practice selfishness when it rejects the notion that God has given us what we have and expects us to share it with others. The economically deprived are the ones who suffer. The collateral damage of selfish atheism is a testimony to the validity of faith in God, but Christians should be leaders in making full use of God’s blessings.
One of the medical issues of our day is the shortage of organs for transplant. Many people die while waiting for a heart, kidney, or liver, and the problem of finding organ donors is complicated. That leads to the question of who owns your body when you die?
In the United States, there are data banks for almost every organ in our bodies. If someone needs a kidney, their surgeon can go to the kidney bank and see how many people in the database have the blood type and traits to be a donor. Often kidneys are supplied by living donors, so the kidney is moved from one person to another, with both the donor and the one receiving the new organ in the same operating room. Of course, that is not possible for many organs such as hearts.
The government of Switzerland is considering a bill that would make the state the receptor of everyone when they die unless the person officially opts out. When a person dies, their organs will become a “public asset” so doctors could harvest them for transplant to alleviate the shortage. The Swiss medical establishment says that between 50 and 100 patients die in Switzerland every year because of the lack of organs for transplant.
This proposed law brings up all kinds of issues and gives a whole new dimension to the relationship between the state and the individual. Who owns your body when you die? Many times a dying person is in a coma or is pronounced brain dead. Taking their organs would certainly be a form of euthanasia. What about the person who is terminal with cancer but has organs that are unaffected by the disease?
The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:50, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven.” That same chapter tells us that we will all be changed (verse 52). The natural body is not sacred. It is the dwelling place of God’s Spirit when we are alive (1 Corinthians 3:16), and our soul is housed in it. But Genesis tells us that our body is “dust to dust.”
The body without the spirit is dead (James 2:26). I had that vividly pointed out to me as I stood beside my wife’s bed when she died. The body was lifeless, cold, and unresponsive. My wife Phyllis was gone and what was left was the house in which her spirit had lived.
The Department of Veterans Affairs released studies of 87,000 people up to six months after they tested positive for COVID compared with five million people in their database who didn’t have the virus. Those with a history of COVID had a 59% increased risk of dying prematurely within half a year after contracting the disease. People with disease problems such as heart issues, diabetes, and kidney disease are subject to COVID aftereffects.
Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly. the head of the research and developmental service at the VA St. Louis Care system said, “We are starting to see a little bit beneath that iceberg, and it’s really alarming.” I have a personal interest in this because my son Tim remains in a nursing home after having a bout with COVID that left him with multiple problems from muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy, which had both been under control before he contracted COVID. Now they are running wild and leaving him unable to stand, walk, or manage his own eating. Also, his speech is seriously compromised.
Those who maintain that COVID is an exaggerated problem are not looking at COVID aftereffects on people who have had existing conditions before contracting the virus. It would appear that, in time, other health issues will be found in the population. Anytime we allow animal viruses to get into humans, there is a high probability of severe health problems, and COVID has shown that in dramatic ways.
Health officials tell us that between September of 2019 and September of 2020, over 87,000 Americans died of drug overdoses. That is a 29% jump from the previous 12 months. As data for the current year is just beginning to be processed, it is obvious the numbers will be even higher. But this is not just a problem in the United States because every country that gathers and shares data shows equally high numbers. A pandemic is defined as a disease that spreads across several countries, affecting many people. By that definition, our current opioid problem is pandemic.
One of the efforts made by the Does God Exist? ministry is to reach out to incarcerated people. We offer eleven correspondence courses postage-paid to anyone in prison who would like to study apologetics or Bible topics. One course, titled “Freedom Steps,” is specifically designed for people struggling with substance abuse. Right now, we have over 4,000 men and women involved in these courses, and a significant number of them are in prison directly or indirectly because of drug abuse. Opioids are the most common culprit we see in these prisoners.
As we consider that the opioid problem is pandemic, we must quickly add that opioids are a valuable medical tool when used properly. The majority of people in prison because of opioids purchased them on the street, but some were on a prescription drug and became addicted.
For many years we have worked with Buck Griffith and “Kings Crossing Prison Ministries,” an outreach of the Kings Crossing Church of Christ in Corpus Christi, Texas. In 1988, they began a program called “Christians Against Substance Abuse” (CASA). Buck Griffith and Don Umphrey have built a program to help people recover from substance addiction, but recovery is a slow process with no quick fixes.
One of their successful programs is a series of classes conducted in prisons called “Newlife Behavior.” The big problem we have seen in working with prisoners and substance abuse is that people and congregations don’t stay with it. When a Christian congregation working with prison ministry has a personnel change, it becomes a “new Pharaoh didn’t know Moses” situation, and they drop the program. Jerry Stephenson in Louisville, Kentucky, calls prison ministry “the best-known secret in churches of Christ.” That is a good description of the problem.
The opioid problem is pandemic, and substance abuse, in general, is a neglected ministry in the Church. That is something we all need to address. For a registration sheet of the courses we offer, please send us your name and either an email or postal address. The 47th national Jail and Prison Ministry Workshop will be held in Louisville at the Midwest Church of Christ June 9-11. For more information, call 812-207-7156. The Kings Crossing Ministry is at www.kingscrossingprisonministries.org or phone 361-855-3372.
A chimera is a living organism made up of parts from different organisms. You have heard myths about a half-woman, half-fish mermaid, and a human torso and head on a horse’s body and legs. Those would be chimeras if they actually existed. Now scientists have created a human-macaque chimera.
Scientists at the Salk Institute in California injected human stem cells into macaque embryos. They allowed the embryos to grow for only 20 days before destroying them. The stated purpose for creating a human-macaque chimera is to find a way to grow human organs for transplant and to develop new drugs.
This reminds us of a science fiction story of chimeras turning into monsters that threaten human beings. The term “chimera” (kye-MER-uh) comes from an animal in Greek mythology with a lion’s head and body, a goat’s head protruding from its back, and a tail with the head of a snake. Imagine what a human-macaque chimera might be like.
This experiment raises bioethical questions. Just because researchers can do this, should they do it, and what kind of research should they carry on? Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist involved in this research, says that chimeras have “the potential to radically humanize the biology of laboratory animals.”
The morals and beliefs of the scientists doing the research become a significant issue in situations like this. We need people with Christian values involved in making these decisions to ensure that everything is done to relieve human pain and suffering, not to create half-human creatures. God has provided the blueprint in DNA, but it is up to humans to decide how to use it. Whether it is for good or evil is an old biblical question.
The current ignorance about vaccines is amazing. We see statements every day, frequently in religious publications, that are simply not true. There is nothing in a vaccine that could contain a microchip, for example. There is a fundamental distrust of the government and the scientific establishment that fuels ideas like this one. There are always hucksters who will seize upon this distrust and use it to try to make money. Refusing vaccines is not new.
In 1776 Edward Jenner noticed that milkmaids frequently had cowpox, which is a virus found in cows. The milkmaids didn’t get smallpox, which was killing 30% of the population at the time. Doctors tried various attempts to stop the epidemic, but Jenner’s treatment of giving people cowpox shots was the only one that worked. But many people were refusing vaccines for a variety of religious reasons.
In America in 1809, Massachusetts passed a mandatory vaccination law. In England in 1853, the government passed a U.K. Vaccination Act. It required parents to have infants vaccinated by three months, or the parents would be arrested. This precipitated the “Anti-Vaccination League of London,” and in 1879, the “Anti-Vaccination Society of America” was formed.
In America from 1920 through the 1970s, scientists developed vaccines for diphtheria, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella. Some of those diseases, such as polio, were stopped in your author’s lifetime. I can remember iron lungs and classmates dying with polio and how we all celebrated when scientists produced the polio vaccine.
That all changed in 1982 when a documentary aired called “DPT: Vaccine Roulette.” It claimed that children had suffered brain damage from the diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus shot. It turned out that the cases used in the documentary were unrelated to the vaccines, but the media never reported that. Parents formed “The National Vaccine Information Center,” which is an organization to encourage refusing vaccines.
We must point out that there can be allergies or reactions to any drug. When I was a kid, doctors used sulfa-drugs to fight infections, and I had a severe reaction to one of those drugs. The drug was never removed from the market because I was a rare exception, and the drug benefited many others. My atheist parents did not attach any religious significance to my allergy but withheld further treatments. Some people are very allergic to peanuts, but I have not heard of an anti-peanut league.
In 1998, the National Vaccine Information Center secured a report from Andrew Wakefield, a gastroenterologist claiming that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine caused autism. Since I have a grandson who is autistic, I was very interested in that report. It turned out that Wakefield falsified data, and there was no connection. I took the time to check out the claim, but in 2000 Wakefield’s study reached the U.S. and was immediately seized upon by anti-vaccine groups as more evidence for refusing vaccines.
So why are we reporting on this in DoesGodExist.today? First, Christians are to serve others and do the best we can to promote well-being in all of those created in God’s image. That means we need to check out the stories and make sure the data supports what people are saying. We can not trust the news media, and TV programs promote hoaxes of all kinds, from Bigfoot to UFOs to miracle health substances.
Secondly, Christians should embrace anything that relieves suffering and avoids the pain of disease. Jesus had naysayers in His day. He would cure someone by a miracle, and His opponents would try to explain it away rather than admit He was God’s Son. Don’t blindly embrace the claims of anyone, but check out the facts. Vaccines are not made from aborted babies, and they do not contain fetal cells. Vaccines save thousands of lives, even though occasionally someone will have an adverse reaction to them.
