Humans Archives - Page 39 of 68 - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

February 20, 2020February 18, 2020

Is Veganism a Solution to Global Warming and Animal Cruelty?

Genesis 9:1-3. Is Veganism a Solution to Global Warming?

So has this instruction, which humans have followed better than most of God’s commands, caused climate change? Should we all become vegetarians? Is veganism a solution to global warming and animal cruelty?

People have raised these questions in opposition to God, and to avoid the destruction of our planet. More than that, Peter Singer, in his book Animal Liberation, claimed that all animals are intelligent, feel emotions, and feel pain. He suggests that inflicting pain on animals is a barbaric tradition, and is unethical for modern humans. In addition to these objections, we have those who refuse to eat any animal products considering them to be unhealthy. Vegans avoid all dairy products, eggs, and any animal-based foods.

Certainly, humans are free to choose what their diet will be if they live in an area where a variety of foods are available. The reality, however, is that God designed humans to be omnivores. The statement of Genesis 9:1-3 recognizes that fact, and our bodies demonstrate it. Our teeth are made to both cut and to grind. Our digestive system is designed to handle a wide variety of foods. We are not only designed to eat many kinds of foods, but overloads of any one food type can cause problems for us. Too much plant-based sugar is not a healthy diet. Too many beans or too much honey can cause digestive issues for many of us. Many people have food allergies, especially if we eat those foods in large quantities. Having a balanced diet is critical to good health, and vegan diets can be unhealthy.

Raising animals does generate greenhouse gases, but grazing livestock causes only seven percent of the total greenhouse gases. Raising enough crops to supply the needs of all humans means deforestation and the use of pesticides, fertilizer, fungicides, and herbicides. In many places, growing food by planting crops is impossible, but animals can survive in those areas. Small-scale farmers totaling 1.3 billion people survive on animal products in places where relying solely on plant nutrients is impossible. Is veganism a solution for those people? It’s not even an option.

Any animal must indeed be able to feel pain to survive. The notion that raising animals for food is cruel and inhumane is short-sighted. Animals living in the wild can experience enormous pain. If a cow or goat escapes from its owner, it is in great danger from carnivores that do not dispatch their prey with no concern for their pain. Cattle raised with protection from carnivores, terrible weather, and disease are far better off than in the challenging environment of the wilderness. Is veganism a solution to animal cruelty or global warming? Not really.

A cow is not a human in a different body. They have no awareness of self, and instinctive drives dominate their behavior. While we anthropomorphize animal behavior (interpret what they do in human terms), the fact is that animals were created in amazing ways to survive. But animals do not have the spiritual properties that humans have.

Data from World Ark, Spring 2020 pages 12-17.

February 15, 2020February 14, 2020

Planned Parenthood Abuses

We have heard horror stories about Planned Parenthood for many years, but haven’t seen documentation of the financial abuses of this organization. Now a group called “Students for Life” has begun a campaign to make this information about Planned Parenthood abuses public. Here are some of the facts in their releases:

1) Planned Parenthood receives more than $550 million from taxpayers every year giving the organization a budget of $1.2 billion.

2) 79% of Planned Parenthood’s 548 abortion facilities are located next to college campuses and high schools.

3) The president of Planned Parenthood makes over $600,000 a year.

4) Planned Parenthood charges an average of $450 for an abortion with 320,000 abortions a year making this business earn $144 million a year.

5) Selling body parts from aborted babies is a major business for Planned Parenthood. Their Gulf Coast facility makes $120,000 a month selling hearts, livers, lungs, eyes and other body parts.

The continuation of Planned Parenthood abuses revolves around our culture’s value of human life. Infanticide is being practiced in our culture. If we can kill babies because they are considered to be a burden, why not also extinguish the lives of elderly who are also a burden? Bad information and ignoring the questions has led our nation to accept practices that are repulsive to most people. There are solutions to an unwanted pregnancy other than killing an inconvenient human being.

For more information, go to www.studentsforlife.org or write to Students For Life, PO Box 1648, Merrifield VA 22116-1648.

February 14, 2020February 13, 2020

Battle of the Splitters and Lumpers

As we have reported before, an interesting debate in the scientific community has been the battle of the splitters and lumpers.

The splitters are scientists who consider every fossil specimen they find to be a different species and give it a unique name. The famous anthropologist Louis Leakey was an example of a splitter attaching numerous new names to specimens he discovered. Later it turned out that several specimens which he had given individual names were actually just variations of the same species. In recent years, anthropologists have given individual names to variations of the Neanderthals. Subsequent DNA evidence showed that many of those forms were just racial variations of the same species.

Lumpers suggest that, in general, we see many variations in a species, but we rarely see a new species. In modern days, we have various races that can look very different but are one species. A pygmy and a seven-foot-tall NBA basketball player have vast physical differences, but they are fertile with each other and therefore are one species.

It is becoming increasingly evident that ancient forms were not as diverse as some have assumed. A dinosaur discovered in the 1940s was given the name Nanotyrannus. The picture is an artist’s conception of what they looked like. It is now becoming clear to many scientists that the Nanotyrannus is a juvenile form of Tyrannosaurus rex. Because of their size, the diet of these two specimens was different. With reptiles who continue to grow, they can have a dramatic change in physical makeup as they age.

When we carry the battle of the splitters and lumpers to the question of human origins, the implications become extremely important. Were there many different species of humans that were infertile with each other? Or were they all one species, and the physical variations were simply adaptions to the environment and diet? The Bible indicates that all humans are one and that we all descended from a common human ancestor. The lumpers tend to agree, and the evidence continues to accumulate, verifying that we are all one.

Reference: Science News, February 1, 2020, page 15.

February 13, 2020February 12, 2020

Equality of Women in Christianity

One of the challenges that we see in the media is that Christianity treats women as second class citizens when just the opposite is true. The New Testament shows the equality of women in Christianity. People are well aware of Mary, the mother of Jesus, but a score of other women are spiritual giants in the Scriptures. The equality of women in Christianity shines through several biblical examples:

ANNA: She was an 84-year-old widow who worked in the Temple in Jerusalem. She was one of the very first witnesses of the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy about Jesus. Luke 2:36-38 tells us about her and promotes her as a leader in the testimony about Christ.

THE TWO-COIN WIDOW: When Jesus wanted to hold someone up as an example of what true giving is, He chose a widow who contributed two small copper coins to the Temple treasury. Christ denigrated the wealthy who gave for show and held up the widow as a person who gave out of love. (See Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4.)

THE WOMAN OF FAITH. This was a woman who had a major medical problem causing her to bleed for twelve years. All medical treatments had failed. Her faith in Christ was so strong that she believed she would be healed by touching the hem of His garment. Jesus called her a “daughter” and commended her faith. She is an example of real faith today. (See Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:24-34, and Luke 8:43-48.)

MARY OF BETHANY. This woman was the sister of Martha and of Lazarus, who lived in Bethany. She took an alabaster jar of costly perfume and poured it on the head of Jesus. We see her showing an example of love for Jesus and His raising of Lazarus back to life. The males present, including the disciples, complained about the waste of money. Jesus commended her, saying, “She has done a beautiful thing for me.” (See Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, and John 12:2-8.) Mary had earlier sat and listened to Jesus’ teaching while Martha was busy with household things. Martha criticized Mary, but Jesus commended Mary for having the correct priorities. (See Luke 10:38-42.)

THE WOMEN WHO FUNDED THE MINISTRY OF JESUS. Did you ever wonder how Christ could travel and teach with 12 disciples and no visible source of income? Luke 8:1-3 tells us that it was a group of women who supported the ministry of Christ from their own income.

OTHER KEY WOMEN. In John 4:4-42, we read about the Samaritan woman who broke down sexual and racial barriers. In Acts 16:13-18, we learn of a businesswoman named Lydia who believed the gospel, was baptized, and welcomed Paul and his associates into her home.

The equality of women in Christianity is unique, unlike the society of that day. Galatians 3:28 says it best, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

February 10, 2020June 24, 2020

Marriage and Health

God created man and equipped him to live on planet Earth in the best possible way. God said, “It is not good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18), and He created woman, so the two of them would be one (Genesis 2:24). Paul further emphasized the relationship between man and woman in 1 Corinthians 7. As our society moves farther from belief in God and biblical teaching, marriage is being denigrated and avoided by a large percentage of our population. What many don’t realize is that there is a connection between marriage and health.

So what evidence do we have that God’s plan is best? Consider the results of these studies that indicate that personal health is related to a person’s marital state:

1) Unmarried men are 58% more likely to have a heart attack than married men, and single women are 60% more likely to have heart attacks than married women. This data comes from a study by Turku University Hospital in Finland.
2) Studies of 19,000 married people showed a 20% lower probability of dying than unmarried people, according to the National Opinion and Research Center.
3) Studies at the University of Chicago show that single people have higher cortisol levels than married individuals. Cortisol levels are related to stress.
4) The University of Rochester reports that 83% of married people are still alive 15 years after coronary bypass surgery, while only 28% of single women with the same surgery are still alive.

A good marriage can improve your physical health as well as your emotional health. You can argue with individual studies, but similar studies continue to show a connection between marriage and health. A good marriage benefits both partners.

Data from Focus on the Family, February/March 2020, page 16.

February 8, 2020February 4, 2020

Magnitude of Hate and the Love of Christ

Jesus taught many unique ideas. Perhaps the most unique and astounding are his teachings about how to deal with those who differ from you. One of the major problems with atheistic evolution is the “survival of the fittest” motivation. That philosophy justifies acting superior to those who are different from you and destroying them because they are less fit than you. People have used that excuse to justify slavery. We have to contrast the magnitude of hate and the love of Christ.

When the liberation of Auschwitz occurred on January 27, 1945, (75 years ago), the world saw the result of “survival of the fittest” when applied to humans. It is hard to comprehend that Nazis murdered 1,100,000 people at Auschwitz during World War II. Russian liberators told of battle-hardened soldiers vomiting when they saw the magnitude of human tragedy in that Nazi death camp. Can you get your mind around over a million people being slaughtered in one human-controlled camp?

Try as we can to comprehend the magnitude of hate and the love of Christ, we find that His teachings are also beyond the ability of most people to understand. Consider the words of Jesus: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Jesus not only taught this radical concept, but he lived it. When Peter took out his sword and started to defend Jesus against those who would crucify him, Jesus not only told Peter to put the sword away but healed the man Peter had attacked. (See Matthew 26:51-54, Luke 22:49-51, and John 18:10-11.)

Sadly, people who claim to be Christians will leave the Bible behind and embrace “survival of the fittest” to justify doing violence to others. As the world veers away from faith in Christ, we can only anticipate more violence and more killings. The magnitude of hate and the love of Christ are in sharp contrast. The one thing that can change the trend is to reach out to the world with the teachings of Christ. I don’t mean what human tradition has done in the name of Christianity, but what Jesus actually taught.

February 7, 2020January 31, 2020

Conversion Therapy Complexity

The January 2020 issue of Scientific American (page 10) carried an editorial titled “Time’s Up for ‘Anti-Gay Therapy.’” The article gives data on the destructive nature of attempted conversion therapy. It cites a study by the Trevor Project, a crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people, showing that 42% of young people who received conversion therapy attempted suicide. The American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association have stated that conversion therapy is useless and harmful. Much of the Scientific American editorial blames Christianity as the source of much of the destructive actions caused by conversion therapy.

It is essential to understand that no one knows all the causes of LGBTQ behavior, and in reality, there is no single cause. Some young people exhibit gay behavior as a rebellion against their parents or the Church. There is no question that abuse figures into a person’s sexual choices and behavior in some cases. In today’s society, nearly everyone has a family member or close friend who is struggling with their sexual identity. No Christian wants to hurt anyone or be a cause of pain of any kind to our fellow human beings, much less to cause someone to attempt suicide. All Christians should reject the violent and abusive techniques of conversion therapy programs cited in the Scientific American editorial.

Christians and non-Christians need to understand the issues and work together to promote healthy lifestyles for everyone. We have pointed out studies that show that many LGBTQ behaviors are unhealthy. Life expectancies of people practicing many of those behaviors are very low, and some require constant treatments with harsh drugs for a person’s entire life.

We all need to understand that there is a difference between same-sex attraction and overt gay behavior. Data concerning the demographics of STDs show clearly a higher incidence of those diseases in the LGBTQ community. We have referenced Guy Hammond’s book Caring Beyond the Margins as a good perspective on same-sex attraction without destructive gay behavior. You can read our review of that book HERE.

The Bible has much to say about heterosexual behavior and how God wants us to express our sexual desires. Counselors regularly deal with heterosexual conduct involving abstinence and self-control. There have also been past abusive practices in counseling people with heterosexual problems, including shock therapy, chemical therapies, and forced hormonal treatments. We need to work together to help everyone live as God has called us to live, and forced abusive treatment is not a way to do that. Living out God’s plan will lead to longer and more stable lives.

February 6, 2020January 31, 2020

Sex and Culture in America

In 1934, British ethnologist and social anthropologist J.D. Unwin wrote a book titled “Sex and Culture.” It was based on a study he made of 86 societies over 5,000 years of history. This is an old study, and some have blown it off because of its age, but when you look at America today, Unwin’s statements are demonstrably true. His conclusion was:

“There is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on both pre-nuptial and post-nuptial continence.” (In other words, purity before and after marriage.)

He went on to say that as long as the leaders of society “demanded sexual restraint” the society remained energetic and dominant. When the society became sexually permissive, forsaking sexual monogamy and encouraging premarital and extramarital sex and divorce, the society became less productive economically, scientifically, and artistically.

As our society throws off sexual morality, we see it starting to crumble and fulfilling Unwin’s observations. The political mess in America today shows the deteriorating nature of our country. Many of our politicians, and even religious leaders, engage in immorality. Lying is the accepted and even expected practice. Sex and culture are connected.

Consider these facts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the American Sexual Health Association:

*Nearly 20 million new sexually transmitted infections occur every year in America–half among young people aged 15-24.

*One in six Americans aged 14 to 49 is infected with herpes.

*One in four teenage girls in the U.S. has at least one STD. Every eight seconds, a teenage girl contracts an STD.

*Chlamydia is running at roughly 2 million treated cases a year. Since it doesn’t show any symptoms in most people, the figure is actually much higher.

*Undiagnosed STDs cause 20,000 women a year to become infertile.

*Gonorrhea infections are at 800,000 new cases a year.

*From 1900 to 2000 the divorce rate in America increased by 700%.

*Every year over 400,000 American teenagers become pregnant–most out of wedlock. In 1960 5% of American babies were born out of wedlock. Today that number is over 40%.

*Half of all American children born today will live with a divorced or never married parent by age 18.

Critics of the Bible maintain that the biblical teaching about sexual conduct is out of date and unwise. Promiscuity and casual sex are promoted in movies, television, and music. Our population seems to have been lulled into the notion that sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are no longer an issue because medical science can cure anything.

Unwin was surprised by his findings concerning sex and culture. He did not take a religious stance and “offered no opinion about rightness or wrongness” of sexual mores. However, we want to say that following biblical morality is not only the best for individuals, it is also the best for society.

February 5, 2020January 29, 2020

Greatest Computer Ever Made

What would the business world pay for the greatest computer ever made? It’s a computer that can absorb, store, and retrieve one billion gigabytes of data and has 125,000,000,000,000,000 units of memory (1.25e for our computer jocks). It can run on 1/500,000th of the energy required to run the most energy-efficient laptop computers and weighs less than three pounds. In reality, you are the proud possessor of such a computer. It’s your brain.

The computer in your head controls all of the organs in our body, the skeletal and muscular systems, and the central nervous system with its 90,000 miles (145,000 km) of nerve connections. The computer in your head is divided into two sections with the left brain and right brain doing different things. They are joined by a membrane called the corpus callosum, which separates the two halves of the brain and yet allows them to interact with one another. If the corpus callosum is severed, you essentially have two individuals produced, and they can still function.

We all know that many things can mess up our home computers. Spilling a foreign liquid on them, applying the wrong voltage and current, overheating them, having some outside person hack into them, or physically changing them by adding or removing parts can all cause terrible consequences. In the same way, our brains can be damaged by the same disrupters. Pollution, foreign liquids, alien chemicals, or outside physical damage can cause terrible consequences to the human brain. The result can be physical problems, mental problems, and emotional difficulties.

In spite of all that, we are amazed by discoveries of how the brain works, what it can do, and how we can help it. When we look at our smartphones, tablets, and computers, we are amazed at their design and complexity. We marvel at the intelligent minds that created them. The computer in our head was also designed by an Intelligence far beyond that of any human engineer. Indeed we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalms 139:14). We all possess the greatest computer ever made. Let us use it wisely, protect it, and allow it to tell us of the wisdom of God.

February 3, 2020January 28, 2020

Fruits of Social Darwinism

Calvin Fields wrote an interesting book titled From Desperation to Peace of Mind, which we will be reviewing soon. The book is a goldmine of quotes that most of us are not familiar with. One of the areas involves the fruits of Social Darwinism, and they relate to the social issues of our day. Here are some examples for your consideration:

Philosopher Herbert Spencer was the founder of Social Darwinism, which said that “poverty and wealth are inevitable as they represent the biological rules which govern society.” He used The Origin of Species as a rationale to justify the excesses of 19th-century capitalism. Andrew Carnegie, who liked the idea that evolution justifies injustice, invited Spencer to come to Pittsburgh to see his theories applied to the steel industry. Spencer’s response to what he saw was that “six months residence here would justify suicide.” Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton “was all in favor of interfering with human evolution and supported the idea of breeding (humans) from the best and sterilizing those whose inheritance did not meet with his approval.” (Those quotes are from The Language of Genes by Steve Jones, Anchor Books.)

Ernst Haeckel used Galton’s ideas as justification for establishing the Monist League in Germany before the First World War. After the war, thousands of Germans joined the league and dedicated themselves to the advancement of doctrines declaring the superiority of a select group of white Europeans. This idea contributed to Hitler’s “Final Solution” to class distinctions in Germany.

Roger Lewin wrote, “Racism as we would characterize it today, was explicit in the writings of virtually all the major anthropologists of the first decades (of the 20th century) simply because it was the generally accepted world view.” (Roger Lewin in Bones of Contention, Simon & Schuster.)

It is essential to look at the logical implications of what we view humans to be. Darwin’s The Origin of Species was applied by others to justify injustice and mistreatment of people. Those are the fruits of Social Darwinism. The biblical view that we are all uniquely created in the image of God has significant implications for how we should treat others.

From Desperation to Peace of Mind by Calvin Fields book was printed by Xulon Press, ISBN 978-1-5456-7503-8. These references are all from pages 100-101.