Health Archives

June 1, 2019July 17, 2019

LGBTQ Lifestyles and God

LGBTQ Lifestyles and God In yesterday’s post, we said that homosexuality is perhaps the most inflammatory issue of our day. We emphasized that even though Bible passages such as Romans 1:24-28 condemn homosexual behavior, Christians must have love and compassion for everyone, including those with LGBTQ lifestyles. We concluded by saying that there are probably many causes of homosexuality, but God is not one of them. What are some possible causes and consequences?

Ellen DeGeneres is a well-known gay celebrity and advocate for LGBTQ lifestyles. She recently shared her early life publicly and told of horrible abuse by her stepfather. Many times victims are abused in infancy. Environmental issues may also be involved, and especially drugs and drug disposal. It appears that in many cases a person’s sexual orientation was not a conscious choice. The fact that fish in the Potomac River have had their sexual orientation changed because of hormone disposal by a drug company underlines how easy it is for human abuse of the environment to upset the reproductive systems of living things.

LGBTQ lifestyles are generally not healthy lifestyles. Government statistics on the life expectancy of various lifestyle choices show a dramatic shortening of life by sexual orientation. The incidence rate of HIV infection in male homosexuals cannot be denied. It is true that transgender individuals must follow a drug regime to maintain their chosen sexual identity for their entire lives, and that has adverse side effects.

Sexual activity in humans IS a choice, but feelings may not be. We reviewed Guy Hammond’s book Caring Beyond the Margins in which he explains that while he is attracted to men, he has chosen not to express that attraction in physical activity. (He is married, has children and a ministry). We are not robots. We can choose to be celibate. We can delay sexual activity until marriage. Sex outside of marriage is wrong, and rape is a travesty of sex.

God created sex as a beautiful thing that two people can treasure and share. We need to treat one another with care, compassion, concern, and support of healthy choices physically and emotionally. When we abuse those choices, there are consequences that sometimes hurt others. Pray for those who are struggling with the complex and emotional issues of LGBTQ lifestyles.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

May 31, 2019March 5, 2020

Homosexual Behavior and God

Homosexual Behavior and God Perhaps the most inflammatory issue of our day is the question of homosexuality. The reason this becomes a religious issue is that the Bible is quite clear that homosexual behavior is not acceptable to God. Passages like Romans 1:24-28 are hard to misunderstand.

Our local mayor, who lives a homosexual lifestyle, campaigned to become President of the United States. He stated, “God made me that way (gay).” I have many gay friends who are adamant that they did not choose to be gay. I do not claim to have all the answers to this explosive issue, but there are some facts and some misunderstandings from people on all sides of the issue.

It is essential to remember that Christians must love and have compassion for everyone, no matter their sexual orientation. The vitriolic treatment of homosexuals by some in the Christian community is not only uncalled for, but it is also sinful.

It is also important to realize that LGBTQ individuals are not a personal threat to you. The drug abuser is. For many years we had two neighbors who were a homosexual couple. We had another neighbor who was an alcoholic. The homosexual couple were good neighbors. They respected us and our children as well as our privacy and our property. The alcoholic damaged our property, threatened my children, and refused to help or even allow good things to be done in the neighborhood. You are much better off if your neighbors are gay than if they are drug abusers.

A third point to remember is that God does not cause homosexual behavior. With due respect to Mayor Pete (as he is known), God did not make him that way. We have published numerous articles over the years about the causes and consequences of sexual orientation. (For examples click HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE). The bottom line is that many things lead to homosexual behavior, and no one knows all of them. We will look at some potential causes tomorrow.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

May 29, 2019May 28, 2019

Amazing Human Body Works

The cover story of the June (2019) issue of Reader’s Digest lists 50 features of your amazing human body. The article gives some evolutionary guesses as to how some of those features could have developed. We thought it was especially interesting that science has not explained nine of the 50:

1-The uvula at the back of your throat.
2-Hypnic jerks that 70% of people feel right before they go to sleep.
3-The “Old Person Smell” – an odor that comes from older people that young and middle-aged people don’t have.
4-Blood types.
5-Eyelid twitching.
6-Yawning.
7-Handedness and why 90% of us are right-handed.
8-Fingerprints.
9-Mesentery – a recently discovered membrane that is two feet long and spreads out like a fan in our digestive system.

David said it best: “I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are your works…” (Psalms 139:14). In spite of all of our medical advances, we still are trying to understand how the amazing human body works. Understanding how our bodies work allows us to take better care of them. It also helps us to treat what goes wrong, which is often caused by our own abuse.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

May 28, 2019May 25, 2019

Does God Cause Disease Outbreaks?

Does God Cause Disease Outbreaks? In 1347, history’s worst disease outbreak began when the bubonic plague, or “black death,” spread across Europe. In the following years, one-third of the human race died from that disease. Five-hundred years later in 1847, a cholera outbreak threatened London. In one year, 72,000 people died. These events bring up some questions. Can we blame God for these tragedies? Does God cause disease outbreaks? Do these plagues prove that God does not exist, because a loving God would not have allowed them to happen?

An Italian doctor first presented the concept of germs in 1546, but the idea was not proven and accepted until the late nineteenth century. During those hundreds of years, there were more outbreaks of the plague, cholera, and other diseases. Very slowly, people began to realize how to prevent these deadly outbreaks. The answer was in proper disposal of sewage, prompt and proper burial of the dead, cleanliness and washing, and quarantine.

It seems obvious to us today, but it took centuries for humans to discover those secrets. Actually, they were not secrets at all. Thousands of years earlier they had been revealed in a book. Dispose of sewage properly—Deuteronomy 23:12,13. Bury the dead promptly; avoid touching dead bodies; clean and wash with water, ashes, and hyssop (which contains the antiseptic carvacrol); and quarantine—Deuteronomy 21:23; Numbers 5:2, 3; Numbers 19:1-22; Leviticus 13:45, 46. Those instructions were written in the first books of the Bible by Moses, a man trained in the customs of Egypt for 40 years.

So did Moses learn this from the Egyptians? Absolutely not! Ancient Egyptians mummified dead bodies with their bare hands and then spread the germs around to others. Even Moses admitted that there were “horrible diseases” in Egypt. (See Deuteronomy 7:15.) How did Moses have this life-saving information 3500 years ahead of his time? We think that God revealed it to him.

Does God cause disease outbreaks? Does God enjoy hurting people? The answer is NO. Think of how many lives could have been saved in those three-and-a-half millennia if people had just followed the teaching of the Bible.
— Roland Earnst © 2019

May 22, 2019May 21, 2019

Science and Technology vs. Greed and Stupidity

Science and Technology vs. Greed and Stupidity If you believe everything you read about science and technology in magazines and newspapers, you might want to question how much of it is factual. The way the media presents the stories, you might get the idea that science and technology are making such rapid advancements that in a few decades, we will solve all of the problems of humanity. There is no question that incredible advances have been made in medicine and agriculture. However, what many people don’t realize is that while some critical areas are advancing, others seem to be losing ground.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us: “An American mom today is 50% more likely to die in childbirth than her own mother was.” The primary cause seems to be that health professionals have biases causing them to overlook symptoms. Food shortages are also creating an increase in disease and death due to malnutrition. The primary cause is that there has been a 20% drop in the abundance of food production in countries that depend on their domestic food supply. Humans have reduced the population of pollinators, including wild bees, endangering crop production. Over-fishing is beginning to threaten the primary source of protein for billions of people. The human destruction of mangrove forests and coastal coral reefs has placed 300 million people at increased risk of flooding.

God has given us not only the resources to feed every human on the planet today, but also the way to live with each other to allow the maximum potential for the food and medicine to reach the people who need it. The Genesis account tells us that God gave Adam everything he needed and that by the sweat of his brow, he would be able to eat. Humans have allowed power and control to rule what we do. We have made money and possessions the focus of our activity instead of focusing on God and serving others. In the process, food has become a weapon. Instead of “taking care of the garden, dressing and keeping it” (Genesis 2:15), we have exploited and abused the good things God gave us.

The world continues to reject the teachings of Jesus, replacing them with selfishness, greed, and a moral code that teaches “survival of the fittest.” The result is that we all reap the consequences of what we have sown. Bringing people to believe in God and Jesus Christ not only has meaning in terms of what lies beyond this life, but it also is at the root of the quality of life we and our descendants will have in the future. Science and technology can’t solve all of our problems as long as greed and stupidity get in the way.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

May 1, 2019April 30, 2019

Understanding Pain

The May 2019 issue of Smithsonian Magazine (page 48-) carried an article titled “A Mystery in the Family” by Matthew Shaer. The article describes a family in Italy in which the family members feel almost no pain. It also shows how far we are from understanding pain.

The entire Italian family seemed to share a lack of sensitivity to pain. It wasn’t that they couldn’t feel pain at all. When scientists injected capsaicin (the chemical that gives chili peppers their heat) into a family member’s arm, they felt the burning sensation, but only for a matter of seconds.

Our bodies are designed with the ability to feel pain, and we need it to avoid damage from our environment. When you touch a hot pan handle, you feel pain, so you put it down quickly. This is good pain and is essential to our survival. Studies show that one in five Americans suffers from chronic pain which is defined as pain that is unrelated to a recent injury and which lasts more than six months. The recent attention to opioid addiction is undoubtedly connected in some ways to how chronic pain affects us. Researchers are proposing that chronic pain results from our lifestyles. Eating more processed food, getting less exercise, and environmental pollution may all contribute to chronic pain.

Pain is different from our senses of smell, taste, or sight because there is not just one section of the brain responsible for the experience. There may be half a dozen or more areas of the brain involved. Doctors prescribe opioids to relieve the pain. Understanding pain and how we experience it could help us find a better way to relieve chronic pain.

One has to wonder if we have not brought the chronic pain issue onto ourselves. Those of us who have done some world-wide traveling have seen that pain is perceived and handled in various ways in different cultures. People walking on hot coals or running knives through their hands seems to be nothing exceptional in some areas of the world. When I was in the army, a young man assigned to our unit had grown up on the north slopes of Alaska. His view of what was cold in Wisconsin in January was not the same as the rest of us. In the Smithsonian article, an Italian family member showed up on a very cold day with a bitter wind blowing in a short-sleeved dress with her ankles bare. The young man in our army unit used to walk from the barracks to the mess hall in a T-shirt while the rest of us wore heavy parkas.

God’s design of the human body is so complex that it can be disturbed by a variety of external causes. God didn’t design us to have chronic pain. Understanding pain, how it works, and how to relieve it is essential. We need to survive what happens to us without being immobilized by aching that never seems to stop.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

April 29, 2019April 23, 2019

Biblical Protein

I always enjoy hearing a skeptic berate the Bible on some point that he or she considers absurd because the skeptic always comes out of such a tirade looking very foolish. Sometimes it is not immediately obvious why the biblical statement is sound, but it always is. One such tirade involved what you might call biblical protein.

Some time ago, an article appeared in one of the atheist journals ridiculing the idea that men such as John the Baptist and Samson could live on a diet of locusts. The question is whether eating locusts and honey is unwise nutritionally and medically (not to mention aesthetically). I never had an answer to that allegation until I came across an article concerning medical research on the subject.

It turns out that the protein content of all insects, especially locusts, is very high. Locusts and grasshoppers have over three times as much protein as chicken and fish and over four times as much as pork and lamb. Beef is more than three times lower in protein than locusts. Among insects, the protein content of locusts is very high. For example, locust protein content is three times as rich as ant protein.

So that seems to settle the question of biblical protein. From a nutritional standpoint, I would have to say there was great wisdom in eating locusts. I cannot comment on the flavor, but for the time being, I suspect McDonald’s will stick with hamburgers.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

April 26, 2019April 23, 2019

God’s Toilet Rules

God's Toilet Rules There are many commandments and teachings of God that people have only come to understand in modern times. Among those are God’s toilet rules for disposal of waste.

In the Roman world, residents used chamber pots. When the pot was full, they emptied it in the streets and alleys. In Pompeii, the sidewalks were raised with high curbs along the streets so that pedestrians could cross on stepping stones and avoid having to walk in human excrement.

Even in America the disposal of waste was an issue. An epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia, which was the nation’s capital at the time, was related to cesspits which eventually contaminated the aquifers that supplied drinking water.

Among the laws of hygiene for ancient Israel were rules for disposal of excrement. In Deuteronomy 23:12-13 we read “Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover your excrement.”

We tend to romanticize what life was like in early times without thinking about how complicated it was to take care of waste. The smells in Pompeii and other ancient cities must have been pretty revolting. However, the bigger problem was disease spawned by using the simplest method of getting rid of waste by throwing it out the window. Following God’s toilet rules may have taken time and energy, but it was essential for the health and well being of ancient Israel.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

Data from Archaeology Magazine, May/June 2019.

April 11, 2019April 9, 2019

Tardigrades – Water Bears – Indestructible Life

Imagine an animal that can survive without water, can withstand 300-degree temperatures, can live without oxygen, can survive the vacuum of space, can survive almost any amount and kind of radiation, and can hibernate for decades. This is not science fiction; it is an animal phylum known as tardigrades, often called “water bears.” There are as many as 1,200 species of tardigrades, and they live all over the Earth.

In 2007 scientists put two species of tardigrades in containers and launched them into orbit and opened them up to cold, airless space with no protection from the punishing radiation of the Sun and stars. When they returned the tardigrades to Earth, they were alive, and they are still producing offspring that are also alive and reproducing.

These animals are microscopic, about half a millimeter long when fully grown. Under a microscope, they look like a combination of a chubby bear and a single-eyed alien. They have legs but no circulatory system or skeleton. In extreme environmental conditions, they curl up and enter a survival mode called cryptobiosis. When conditions improve, they revive and resume their normal life processes. They eat algae and aquatic plants.

Scientists have studied the tardigrade genome and found ways to improve crop survival in bad weather. The United States government has allotted five million dollars to scientists attempting to find ways to protect vaccines and human blood using what they learn from the genome of tardigrades. Other uses include preserving organs for transplant and producing a sunscreen that protects against ultraviolet rays as well as reducing radiation damage in cancer treatment methods.

The development of life on Earth has not been a hit-or-miss process. As science looks at smaller and smaller things that our technology allows us to see, we realize that there is a whole world of carefully designed microscopic plants and animals that form the base of the animals we CAN see. Every time we look into the world around us, we see that a wonder-working hand guided by an intelligence far beyond our own has gone before and provided for our well-being. Thanks to technology, we realize that now more than ever before.

Data from an Associated Press article titled Ultimate Survivors by Beth Borenstein, April 2, 2019. For more on tardigrades click HERE.

April 3, 2019April 2, 2019

Happiness Secret Is Simple and Easy

A research team at Iowa State University led by Professor Douglas Gentile discovered the happiness secret. It has nothing to do with money or power or fame or anything else that people are always striving to gain. Actually, an ancient book had the secret all along.

The researchers divided a group of Iowa State students into four groups. Each group was told to look at people they saw as they walked around the campus. They told one group to wish others well and really mean it. The researchers called this “loving-kindness.” A second group was told to think about how they might be connected to the people they saw, such as sharing a class. This was called the “interconnectedness” group.

They instructed the third group to look at people and think about how much better off they are than the people they are looking at. This was the “downward social comparison” group. The idea was that seeing how much better off you are than someone else could make you feel happy. The fourth group was the control group. Their task was to walk around in the same way and just notice the outward appearance of people. They were supposed to look at things like clothing and accessories.

All of the students in each group were questioned before and after the 12-minute test to determine their happiness, stress, and anxiety. Can you guess which group had the most significant increase in happiness? It wasn’t the “downward social comparison” group. They came out on the bottom. The group that increased their happiness the most was those who practiced “loving-kindness.” The happiness secret is simple!

Whom do you suppose set the example for practicing loving-kindness? If you answered “Jesus Christ,” you are exactly right. Jesus not only felt love and compassion for those He met, but He also demonstrated it by His actions. Jesus said, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” He gave us the happiness secret!

Professor Gentile concluded, “Walking around and offering kindness to others in the world reduces anxiety and increases happiness and feelings of social connections…It’s a simple strategy that doesn’t take a lot of time that you can incorporate into your daily activities.”

I suggest that we begin to practice the happiness secret today!

The research report has the long title, “Caring for Others Cares for the Self: An Experimental Test of Brief Downward Social Comparison, Loving-kindness, and Interconnectedness Contemplations.” It was published in the Journal of Happiness at THIS LINK.