Evidence for God in Life Design Archives

August 22, 2021August 21, 2021

What Happens When We Die?

Life has a way of forcing all of us to consider what happens when we die. In the past two months, two of my closest friends, my brother. and my son died. When death strikes that close to you, a logical set of questions arise. Where are they now? Will I ever see them again? Do they know what is going on here on Earth? Are they in heaven or hell?

“Every person has a soul that will live forever, either in God’s presence or absence.” According to recent polling, 79% of all Americans agree with that statement. If you don’t believe that humans have a soul, you need to look at the evidence. Dr. Timothy Gordon has written a book titled “A Traveler’s Guide to the Afterlife” that makes a thorough study of what the Bible says about eight subject areas:

1) The death and the mortality of humans.
2) The immortality of the soul
3) The intermediate state of the dead
4) The second coming of Christ
5) The resurrection of the body
6) The day of judgment and rewards
7) Hell and eternal destruction
8) Heaven and eternal life

Tim Gordon is a retired Navy Commander with a doctorate in Christian apologetics. He knows Hebrew and Greek and is very familiar with millennial views. He serves as an adjunct instructor for the Biblical Studies Center in Boise, Idaho.

There has been very little teaching on what happens when we die, and this book is biblically accurate. There is a 77 page listing of scriptures dealing with the afterlife, and the scriptures are written out–not just listed. In addition, there are crossword puzzles, word search puzzles, and extensive documentation of what people have said about this subject.

This book fills a huge gap in the preaching and teaching about life after death over the years. We highly recommend it to Christians, and especially to preachers and teachers.

This book is available on Amazon for $9.99 in paperback and $3.99 for the Kindle edition (ISBN 9781082882593).

August 20, 2021August 20, 2021

Upside-Down Beetle Walking Underwater

The insect world continually surprises scientists who sometimes see an insect do something that no one had noticed or paid attention to before. For example, most of us have witnessed water striders that use surface tension to skate along the top of quiet pools of water. However, recently a researcher in Australia noticed a beetle walking on the water surface, but upside down from below. The upside-down beetle is a species of water scavenger beetle (Hyrophilidae) and the first beetle in which a scientist has documented this behavior.

Some snails can slide along the underside of the water surface on a layer of mucus. However, these beetles seem to have a unique method of walking upside down in the water. They can even stop and pause or change directions as if walking on a solid surface. This gives the beetle some advantage to avoid predators.

This behavior was noticed and documented by behavioral biologist John Gould of the University of Newcastle in Australia. The picture is of another water scavenger beetle in Ohio. However, you can see a video taken by Gould on YouTube at THIS LINK.

Apparently, the beetle traps an air bubble against its upturned belly, allowing it to press against the water-air boundary. The beetle’s feet must have some way of getting traction to enable movement. Robotics experts have learned from the ability of water striders to walk on the water’s surface. Therefore, it seems likely they will find some uses for walking upside down under liquid surfaces.

Gould said that “the findings about the upside-down beetle highlight how often we ignore or miss the amazing things the smallest animals are doing every day, and describing the natural history of the small is just as important as describing the natural history of any large mammal or bird.” In addition, the upside-down beetle reminds us that we can learn by studying God’s creation and the design He built into every living thing.

Reference: Science News, July 31, 2021, and Ethology.

August 19, 2021August 18, 2021

The Design of Death

It may sound strange to talk about death in a positive way. The truth is that the design of death is part of the creation. The second law of thermodynamics, in simple terms, says that in a closed system, things move toward a condition of disorder. That principle is built into the fabric of the physical universe. It allows the diffusion of resources, the circulation of air, the transfer of energy from one form to another, and multiple other physical processes. It also means that our human bodies are in a constant movement toward decay.

The Bible contains a statement of this law in Isaiah 51:6: “Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell in the earth shall die in a like manner.” Thus, the design of death applies to the universe and everything in it.

Is our death just a piece of collateral damage to the second law? For those who are Christians, death is not the ultimate tragedy. My son Tim lived his whole life with multiple handicaps, including muscular dystrophy, blindness, cerebral palsy, and schizophrenia. Despite those handicaps, his life was full. When COVID-19 took away his ability to swallow, talk, sit up, stand or walk, he could still hear and communicate with me. For him to be unable to die would have been insanely cruel. Isaiah 57:1-2 describes this well: “For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness.”

For a Christian, death removes us from evil and brings us into peace. I look forward to freedom from politics, pollution, illness, global warming, and pain. In 2 Peter 1:15, Peter talks about his death using the Greek term “exodos,” which means to depart. It is the word from which we get the name of the book of Exodus that describes Israel’s departure from Egyptian bondage.

So far in 2021, I have lost my son, my brother, and three of my close friends to death. They were all Christians, so I am happy for them. I take to heart 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14, which tells me not to grieve “as others do who have no hope.” Psalms 116:15 tells us, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” The word “saint” here refers to “one set apart” as members of God’s family of believers–Christians.

When I was an atheist, death offered me no future. As a Christian, I see death as an entrance into a far better existence than I have now. We have an instinctive desire to live, and any change we make can be scary. That is especially true of departing this life. Paul said in Philippians 1:21-23, “To live is Christ and to die is gain,” Death can be beautiful, and the design of death is a reality for the world in which we live.

August 17, 2021August 16, 2021

Cruel Deaths of Animals

One of our regular readers has raised a good point about our discussion of why predators are essential to the survival of life on Earth. He said, “Your article reasoned why there must be predators: ‘to keep nature in balance.’ But that doesn’t answer the question. It was ‘why must animals undergo such cruel deaths?’”

The question of “cruel deaths” raises many issues and assumptions. We tend to assign human values to animals and assume they have the same feelings and emotions we have. This complicates the question and causes responses that are not consistent with the evidence.

The phrase “cruel deaths” is the real issue in this discussion. Has God designed anything in animals that reduces the pain animals perceive in being killed? First, we need to understand that there is a difference in the physiology of different kinds of animals. All animals have a nociception response to pain. You have a quick response when you touch something hot. It is essentially a reflex response to pain. It is obvious that to avoid a negative sensation, animals must know when something is injuring them.

The real issue is pain that comes about by some other means. Only primates, including humans, have a neocortex area in their brain in which we can realize the sensation of pain. The neocortex receives signals from group C nerve fibers, allowing pain sensations to travel from an affected area to the brain. In humans, nerve fibers connect 83% of the body’s extremities to the neocortex area. On the other hand, fish have only 5% of the group C nerve fibers, and they are smaller in diameter, meaning that there is a low nerve conduction velocity. The bottom line is that animals do not feel pain as humans do. Another interesting fact is that animals have an instinctive drive to eat food containing analgesics (pain-killing substances).

We have to understand that it is a delicate balance to design an animal with the necessary nociception response to pain required for survival without having a neocortex response to pain. We can’t imagine the pain of having our stomach torn open by a predator, but even for humans losing a lot of blood, leading to death may not be a painful experience.

It is easy for humans to criticize the Creator’s design of an animal until we try to design one ourselves. What God has done is to build living things, so they do not suffer in the way humans do. We must be careful to avoid anthropomorphizing animals—thinking of them in human terms—suggesting cruel deaths.

Data for the above came from a variety of websites in a search for “animals and pain.”

August 16, 2021August 12, 2021

Dangerous Chemicals Cause Human Suffering

The problem of human suffering has been at the center of debates over the existence of God for hundreds of years. However, in recent years, increasing evidence has come to light that, to a large extent, dangerous chemicals cause human suffering.

In April 2021, a federal appeals court ordered the EPA to ban chlorpyrifos from food. Mounting evidence indicates that it and other organophosphate pesticides are related to a host of human ills, especially in children.

The federal agency regulating nuclear waste recently proposed putting “very low level” nuclear waste into unlicensed landfills. We know that nuclear radiation increases the risk of cancer, birth defects, immune disorders, and a host of other health issues.

The state of Washington decided to get rid of toxic firefighting foam by shipping it to an out-of-state incinerator. Burning the foam releases poly-fluoroalkyl substances, which can stay in the human body for decades and are related to cancer.

The federal government plans to reopen the Homestead Detention Center in Homestead, Florida, to detain migrant children. That center is near a military superfund site saturated with contaminants linked to cancer, kidney failure, blood disorders, and developmental damage. Dangerous chemicals cause human suffering.

The list goes on and on of decisions that can ultimately bring pain and suffering to humans. We can’t blame God for what we do to ourselves by selfishness, bad judgment, greed, and abuse of God’s gifts.

References: Earthjustice Quarterly Magazine for Summer 2021 and “Pesticides are Killing Our Soils” in Scientific American August 2021.

August 14, 2021August 12, 2021

Experimenting on Human Subjects

One of the challenges of medical science is how to test a new drug or procedure on humans. If people are nothing more than animals, science can justify experimenting on human subjects for the common good. For example, German and Japanese scientists conducted experiments on World War II prisoners against their will. After the war, international courts prosecuted German doctors and scientists for war crimes related to human experimentation. Japanese researchers did not face trial because the U.S. agreed not to prosecute in exchange for access to their data.

Out of the prosecution of German researchers came what is called “The Nuremberg Code.” It involves ten statements describing the ethical standards for experimenting on human subjects in research. In simple terms, the ten statements are:

Participants must give consent without stress or force.
The research must be able to show benefits for the good of society.
Findings should justify the experiment.
Research should avoid mental suffering and physical harm.
No one should be killed or injured.
Risks should not outweigh the benefits.
The research should protect participants from injury or death.
The researcher must be qualified to do the research.
Participants should be able to stop participating at any time.
The researcher must be prepared to stop the study at any time.

A classic example of how far things can go in today’s world, even in the United States, is the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro.” That study continued from 1932 to 1972. The United States Public Health Service recruited 600 African American men with syphilis offering them free meals and burial stipends for the right to their bodies after they died. Unfortunately, no medical treatment was made available to those men, and they were subjected to painful spinal taps. You can imagine what they went through with 40 years of untreated syphilis raging in their bodies.

Looking at what happened in this terrible event brings to mind the struggles in America today. In the past, society considered blacks to be less human than whites. For that reason, causing them pain and premature death to benefit the scientific establishment was deemed to be acceptable. The “black lives matter” movement of today is rooted in this kind of history.

More to the point is that science ignored the teachings of the Bible. The Bible tells us that humans are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), and the body is the temple of God’s Spirit, and defiling the temple invites God’s wrath (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). That means not caring for every person is a rebellion against God. Experimenting on human subjects in the Tuskegee experiment can only be justified if you view blacks as less than human. It also requires embracing the notion that survival of the fittest means it is acceptable to sacrifice the less fit to benefit the fit. Many people today do not accept the Christian view that all humans are special because we are created in the image of God. We can see the result of that in the chaos tearing at the fabric of society.

For more on the history of the Tuskegee study see “Who Dares to Speak Up” in the July/August 2021 issue of American Scientist, pages 238 -242.

August 13, 2021August 12, 2021

Glasswing Butterflies – Practically Invisible

We often overlook how hard it is to maintain the balance between different kinds of life in the natural world. For example, if an animal is too successful at avoiding predators and reproducing, it will eat up all of its available food. If it is not successful enough, it will become extinct because predators will wipe it out. Then the predators will be short of food. The design of life which allows animals and plants to exist in balance with their environment is amazing.

One design factor that protects many animals is camouflage. An excellent example of that is an insect known as glasswing butterflies (Greta oto) which have transparent wings. One scientist said that “transparency is the ultimate form of camouflage” because the insect can blend into any background, but transparency is “really hard to do.” Glasswings live in the rainforests of Central and South America.

Most living things are visible because they reflect light. However, microscopic studies of glasswing butterflies show that the wing material has low absorption, low reflection, and low scattering of light. Microscopic nanopillars on the wing’s surface are designed to minimize light reflection and smooth the refraction index gradient between the wing surface and the air. The result is a practically invisible wing except for the dark brown borders tinted with red or orange.

If you believe that natural selection is the sole cause of this design, why don’t all butterflies have transparent wings? This feature obviously favors the survival of the butterfly. Most butterflies have colorful, eye-catching wing patterns that make them visible while giving us an appreciation for the role of beauty in the creation.

From an evolutionary standpoint, there should be no butterflies left with colorful wings, but glasswing butterflies are the exception, not the rule. God has designed creatures to survive in all kinds of environments.

Reference: Science News, July 31, 2021, page 32.

August 12, 2021August 12, 2021

The Transgender Craze

The transgender craze is a dangerous movement sweeping much of the western world. It shows up especially in a sudden spike among teenage girls identifying as transgender. According to journalist and author Abagail Shrier, there are top girl’s schools where up to 30% of the girls in the 7th grade identify themselves as “trans.” This transgender craze is social contagion in action. Consider the following facts:

1) America in 2007 had one pediatric gender clinic. Today there are hundreds.
2) Testosterone is readily available to adolescents from Planned Parenthood and Kaiser without a therapist’s note.
3) In Washington state, a 13-year-old can begin “gender affirming therapy” without her parents’ consent.
4) In Oregon, a 15-year-old can undergo an elective double mastectomy without her parents’ permission.
5) Gender dysphoria (the feeling of severe discomfort in a person’s biological gender) is rare, afflicting .01% of the population, most of whom are male.
6) 70% of gender dysphoria victims naturally outgrow their affliction when left alone.
7) Doctors use puberty blockers to shut down part of the pituitary gland stopping the release of hormones that lead to sexual maturity. Lupron, used initially to chemically castrate sex offenders, is the most commonly used drug. However, the FDA has never approved it for halting healthy puberty.
8) Puberty blockers negatively affect bone density as well as sexual maturation and should not be used for more than two years.
9) The number of girls seeking treatment at the United Kingdom’s National Gender Clinic has increased by 4,400% in the past decade.
10) The Equality Act before the U.S. Congress would make it illegal to distinguish between biological men and women, creating problems for schools, sports, employers, prisons, churches and non-profits, and the security of women.

The media tries to hide the above facts considering this a conservative political issue rather than a medical one. Referring to Genesis 1:27, Jesus said, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female.” That is a biological fact. The transgender craze sweeping our culture today is causing massive pain and future disaster for many young men and women.

Data from Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier, and “Gender Ideology Run Amok” in the June/July issue of Imprimis magazine from Hillsdale College.

August 11, 2021August 15, 2021

Missile Defense Systems and Dragonfly Brains

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have been studying the brains of insects to learn how to build computers that can intercept incoming missiles. Dragonflies successfully capture up to 95% of the prey they pursue – which is usually mosquitoes. The dragonfly doesn’t just aim its body at the mosquito, but rather it points its body at where the mosquito is going to be. You can see the connection between missile defense systems and dragonfly brains.

Dragonflies have specialized eyes that send data to their brains at the equivalent of 200 frames per second, which is several times faster than the human eye. The human brain has many more neurons than the dragonfly–86 billion as opposed to the 250,000. The larger number of neurons in human brains allows us to have cognition and do many things. However, dragonflies are designed to do one thing—to catch their food—and do it fast.

Dragonflies respond to a maneuver by their prey in 50 milliseconds (ms). That requires the eye to detect and transmit information to the brain in 10 ms. The brain has to calculate the dragonfly’s counter-maneuver in 35 ms to leave 5 ms for flight muscles to activate and take the dragonfly to where the mosquito will be. In-flight, the dragonfly must continually monitor the mosquito’s path and recalculate the trajectory. The speed of the process means there is time for only three or four neuron layers to act. Missile defense systems and dragonfly brains must act quickly.

Other insects have neurons designed for specific functions. For example, monarch butterflies have a navigational system that depends on the position of the Sun. Since the Sun’s position changes from morning to afternoon, the butterflies must have a designed system that allows them to always travel in the right direction. In addition to that, they need an instinct that tells them when to start their journey. Ants and bees also have neuron structures that allow them to return to their nest or hive no matter how far they get from it in their search for food.

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and Janelia Research Campus are studying these insect brains with the idea of building computers that will allow interception of missiles, prevent cars from colliding, and serve other practical purposes that require focus and speed. Proverbs 6:6 tells us to “go to the ant … consider its ways and be wise.” The design we see in even the simplest of God’s creatures radiates purpose and intelligence beyond that of mechanical chance.

Reference: IEEE Spectrum

August 10, 2021August 9, 2021

Human Precursors in the Fossil Record

Bible skeptics claim that God did not uniquely create humans because scientists find human precursors in the fossil record. Instead, they say that Darwinian evolution can explain all human traits, and we are just more advanced animals.

The Bible defines humans in terms of spiritual characteristics, not physical attributes. Our capacity to create art and music, worship, show empathy, and display guilt indicates that we are unique. Our use of language and symbolism and our ability to be taught to think define humans from a biblical perspective. The critical factors are not brain size, the shape of the mandible, or standing erect.

Skeptics often use the fossil remains of Neanderthals to show that there are human precursors in the fossil record leading to human evolution. We have maintained that the properties of the Neanderthals are racial variations and not a different species from humans. Paleontologists have found Neanderthal fossils buried with religious artifacts. Scientists recently used computerized tomography (CT) scans to study Neanderthal specimens. Their findings suggest that the hearing and speaking organs of Neanderthals should give them language and communication abilities “…as efficient and complex as modern human speech,”

The descendants of Adam and Eve had the genetic code to enable them to adapt to whatever climate and conditions they encountered. So, while the racial variations were striking, the fact is that they were clearly human.

Reference: World Archaeology Magazine # 107 page 9.