Evidence for God in Life Design Archives

November 11, 2020November 10, 2020

LGBTQ Rights, Children, and the Courts

November started with a debate about religion, LGBTQ rights, children, and the courts. It began with Pope Francis saying that “gay people are children of God and have the right to be in a family.” In the past, the Pope has said that a “family” is a man, a woman, and their children. In 2016, the Pope said, “There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.” The issue becomes critical for Catholic social service organizations that refuse to place foster children with same-sex couples.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been serving abused, neglected, and orphaned children for more than 200 years. Because of a court ruling that the Archdiocese was discriminating against gays by refusing to place children with them, they no longer are allowed to care for children in need. The Archdiocese is suing on the grounds that the government should not force them to violate their sincerely held beliefs. The suit has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This issue will impact all religious groups that are involved in caring for children. Like many court cases, the decision is going to be based on secular research information. Do children need a mother and father image to have a stable and productive life? Those of us who work with children have seen the struggles that single-parent children have. Some do very well, but they struggle. Many secular psychologists and sociologists maintain that it makes no difference, and the courts have listened to their testimony. Those of us in the “trenches” would disagree.

There are no easy solutions to this dilemma. The constitution tells us that everyone has rights that are protected by the government. The problem comes when those rights collide with someone else’s rights, such as in the conflict between LGBTQ rights, children, and the courts. The real solution to this issue is to eliminate the need for agencies to provide child-care and protection. While that is not possible, every step to educate people and lead them to God’s plan will reduce the pain for all concerned.

References: The Week 11/6/2020 and USA Today 11/3/2020.

November 8, 2020November 8, 2020

Two Human Components of Spirit and Body

Bible passages such as 1 Thessalonians 5:23 indicate that humans are both physical and spiritual. We consist of a physical nature (our bodies) and a spiritual nature (our spirit). The physical body makes sense, but how can we understand the spiritual? How can we have two human components of spirit and body?

In quantum mechanics, things like photons (light), electrons, protons, and neutrons are governed by principles that are very different from the familiar physical world. In some experiments, these subatomic particles behave like particles, but they act like waves in other experiments.

In 1924, French physicist Louis de Broglie introduced wave-particle duality. That is the idea that any matter, whatever its size, has an associated wavelength. Photons can knock electrons out of a material in the photoelectric effect used to generate electricity from light energy. That process requires light to have physical properties because only particles can move other particles. In a different experiment, photons show diffraction properties explainable only if photons are waves. Electrons produce the same effects as light, yet we can measure their mass. How can they be both particles and waves?

There is also a principle of complementarity in quantum mechanics. It tells us that the result of an observation is dependent on the focus of the observer. In other words, in experiments when our attention focuses on one variable, this precludes the simultaneous observation of its complement. Wave and particle-related properties are complementary variables. We can’t observe both at the same time.

The Bible presents the notion that body, soul, and spirit are not separate entities, but they are distinct dimensions of a person. Although we are one person, we understand that we have two human components of spirit and body. The presence of these dimensions means that we are capable of dual behavior.

Understanding quantum mechanics allows us to understand this duality. Ranjit Thuraisingham, a research scientist, describes it this way: “The science of quantum objects teaches us why we fail to discern this spiritual dimension in ourselves. In quantum objects, focusing only on one variable precludes the observation of the complementary variable. Thus, the absence of observing the spiritual is related to our focus solely on the material.”

In other words, we struggle with our spiritual nature because of our fixation with the material world in which we live. In Galatians 5:16-26, Paul distinguishes between the actions of the spirit and the flesh (body). The actions of the spirit include love, joy, and patience. The actions of the flesh are immorality, hatred, and envy. As in quantum mechanics, we can’t focus on one without losing sight of the other. When we understand the two human components of spirit and body, it becomes clear why our actions are not what they should be.

Reference: “On the Duality of Human Nature and the Behavior of Quantum Particles” by Ranjit A. Thuraisingham

November 6, 2020November 5, 2020

Emotional Mind Games

There is a psychological war going on today that is at odds with the principles Jesus taught. In Matthew 23:4-7, Jesus described religious leaders who would put emotional, moral burdens on people and do nothing to help them: “For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be carried and lay them on men’s shoulders: but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers, but all of their works they do to be seen of men…” In the same way, many people mishandle the major moral issues of our day by pressing others to correct their behavior. We call it emotional mind games.

Galatians 6:1-2 describes how Christians should act: “If a man is overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual should restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering yourself lest you should also be tempted. Bear you one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Years ago, I knew a religious leader whose son had engaged in a sexual act that resulted in a pregnancy. The religious leader had been a prominent opponent of abortion, but when he learned of the pregnancy, he encouraged the young woman to have an abortion, and he paid for it. This kind of hypocrisy reflects the lack of empathy in our culture today. I would blame it on our society’s drift away from God and from what Jesus taught.

There is a cemetery in Rome known as the Flaminio Cemetery. A religious group in Rome secretly obtains the remains of fetuses from abortion clinics and hospitals. They bury these aborted babies in a place they call the Flaminio Cemetery. At each grave, they place a cross with the name of the mother who terminated her pregnancy. The idea is to use emotional mind games to shame the women who gave up their children.

While we oppose abortion, we also know from experience how difficult the decision can be. We regularly receive letters from women who are struggling with guilt feelings years after having had an abortion. When Jesus dealt with the woman taken in adultery, he did not condone what she had done.,However, He said to the religious people who were ready to punish her, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her” (John 8:3-12).

We tend to rate sin. The wrong I do is a minor offense, but your sin is a major one. We must stop the emotional mind games and follow the example of Jesus. He told the woman, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.” We will accomplish much more with empathy and compassion, working to provide alternatives to destructive behaviors instead of trying to shame people into rejecting sinful choices.

Reference: The Week, October 30, 2020, page 15.

November 4, 2020November 3, 2020

The Forgotten Virus – HIV

With so much concern about the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, the forgotten virus is Human Immunodeficiency Virus, causing AIDS.

In 1981, the Center For Disease Control established the term “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome” or AIDS. The disease was initially found among gay men and had been transferred to humans from monkeys. AIDS spread rapidly and caused many deaths. In 1885, Dr. Mathilde Krim and the National AIDS Research Foundation merged to form amfAR to battle AIDS. In 1995 the FDA approved a protease inhibiter, a new class of drugs that reduced the AIDS fatalities. By 2006 mother to child HIV transmission in the United States had declined to less than 2%. All that is progress, but not a cure.

Doctors are still treating AIDS cases with medicines that are a means of control. The disease continues to be a worldwide pandemic. In 2019, 1.7 million people became newly infected with HIV. Today, 38 million people are living with HIV. There were 770,000 deaths due to AIDS in 2019, and HIV rates are rising. Stem-cell transplant is making strides toward a cure, but research is slow and expensive. The organization amfAR has invested $550 million in programs aiming for a cure.

The story of AIDS is very similar to the story of COVID-19. Both were contracted initially as a result of human activity with animals. A virus may be inactive in an animal and very active in a human. Lifestyle is a major issue in both HIV and COVID-19. If humans would follow the instructions God has given us in His Word, neither of these viruses would be active in human populations. In both cases, a total cure is unlikely, especially for those of us with limited incomes.

The forgotten virus, HIV, doesn’t make headlines in the media, but it continues to be an issue for millions of people. That fact should send a message that applies to the world we live in today. We should learn from our previous mistakes and understand that. We should not have to go through one pandemic after another before realizing that God’s rules for relationships of all kinds have a purpose. We should recognize the truth of Jeremiah’s prayer: “I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.”

Data from amfAR letter of 10/20.

November 2, 2020November 1, 2020

Ants Adapting Tool Use

Scientists are always studying the methods animals use to obtain food. Foraging often involves more than finding food in the open or running it down. Sometimes it requires the use of tools and adapting the way they use tools. Crows can use a tool to pry the lid off a milk bottle, and seagulls can crack open clam shells by dropping them on rocks from high elevations. In a recent study, biologists observed ants adapting tool use to obtain food.

Researchers found that black imported fire ants (Solenopsis richteri) can use sand to adapt their method of reaching a food source. Researchers filled small containers with sugar water, a favorite food for the ants. This species of ants have hydrophobic exoskeletons, which allow them to float on the water to reach the food. However, when the scientists added a surfactant to reduce the surface tension, the ants sank and drowned.

That was the point where the scientists saw the ants adapting tool use. The researchers provided the ants with sand in various grain sizes. They allowed the ants to choose a way to reduce their drowning risk. One of the study authors, Dr. Aiming Zhou, said, “We found the ants used sand to build a structure that could effectively draw sugar water out of the container to then be collected.” Dr. Jian Chen, another author of the research, said, “We knew some ant species are able to use tools, particularly in collecting liquid food; however, we were surprised by such remarkable tool use displayed by black imported fire ants.”

It is difficult to believe that the ants have a brain that could reason this out, and they did not display trial and error behavior. The response was immediate and indicated that built into the ant’s DNA is something that enables them to secure food. Entomologist Jian Chen wrote, “Our findings suggest that ants and other social insects may have considerable high cognitive capabilities for unique foraging strategies.” Previously cognitive sophistication has been observed in primates and birds, but scientists had thought the behavior was “hard wired” in invertebrates. These ants adapting tool use seems to defy that understanding. According to Dr. Chen, “Our study is the first to touch on this interesting topic.”

We would suggest that the ants’ Creator designed them to live in a wide variety of environments and built the tools into their genetics that would allow them to do that.

Reference: britishecologicalsociety.org

October 31, 2020October 31, 2020

Origin of Halloween

As our society rejects God and the Bible, people grab onto substitutes for the Christian faith. Sometimes those substitutes can be dangerous and certainly foolish. We see an increase in this activity around Halloween. Decorating with jack-o-lanterns and putting on costumes, and even trick or treating can be fun as long as it doesn’t move into witchcraft or a destructive game. However, it is important that we know something about the origin of Halloween and instruct our children about what is real and what is fantasy.

The origin of Halloween and most of its customs can be traced to an ancient pagan Celtic festival called Samhain, Gaelic for “summer’s end.” When the Roman Empire took over Celtic land, they added their traditions to Samhain and the day became known as “All Hallows Day.” Later the Catholic Church designated November 1 as All Saints Day in honor of Catholic saints. People costumed as angels and saints and paraded through the villages. Since November 1 was once called All Hallows Day, October 31 became known as All Hallows Eve, which was shortened to “Halloween”.

In the Middle Ages, women who practiced divination were called witches from the Anglo-Saxon word wicce or wise one. Superstitious people believed that these women flew out of their chimneys on broomsticks and terrorized people with magical deeds. Jack-o-lanterns and costumes were the rage during Samhain, all designed to scare off evil spirits.

Even bobbing for apples had a religious connection. Around November 1, the Roman celebrated a festival for Pomona, the goddess of fruit and orchards. The Romans believed that the first person to catch a bobbing apple with their teeth would be the first to marry in the new year. People believed that the shape of the peel thrown on the ground would be the first initial of the peeler’s true love.

You may think all of this is ancient, silly nonsense, but people believed it. In today’s world, people grab at almost anything looking for something better than what they have in this life. Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Life is serious, and Christ has given us the key to having an abundant life. Superstition and tradition may make grandiose promises, but the teachings of Christ work.

You can have fun with the fall tradition and use the origin of Halloween as a teaching opportunity. Above all, follow Christ for the best in this life and the life to come.

Data from The Old Farmer’s Almanac. Fall and Winter 2020, pages 14-15.

October 29, 2020October 29, 2020

Refusing to Use Vaccines is Bad Science

Many years ago, the daughter of a friend of mine had a severe reaction to a vaccination that left her brain-damaged and physically incapacitated. Many of the family’s friends refused to have their children vaccinated because of this. Several of the children contracted diseases that vaccines have could have prevented. In 1998 there was great concern about whether the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine produced autism. Now with the drive to create a COVID-19 vaccine, people are saying they will refuse to use it. Refusing to use vaccines is bad science.

Many people who oppose vaccinations do so by saying that God designed the human body, and adding materials such as vaccines suggests that God’s work is not adequate. If we carry that idea to its logical conclusion, you would never use an antibiotic or any immune therapy. Parents have even refused to give insulin to a diabetic child with tragic results.

The starting point of rejecting vaccinations was a 1998 study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. He claimed to prove that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine had caused autism in children. Wakefield managed to get his research into a peer-reviewed medical journal. He appeared before congress and did a 60 Minutes TV show as well as several British TV shows. It turned out the Wakefield’s claimed study was a scam.

Special interests had paid Wakefield a large amount of money to find evidence they could use in a suit against vaccine manufacturers. The claimed autism evidence was faked. The problem was that the medical community did not follow scientific rules in analyzing Wakefield’s claims. Wakefield was stripped of his medical license because his research did not follow scientific methods and used none of the required safeguards for research of this kind.

Refusing to use vaccines is bad science. Vaccines stimulate the body to produce an immune response to defeat a selected virus. There is no substitute for what the body has built into it. Most of us take an aspirin or a vitamin pill to stimulate the body to solve a perceived problem. My old doctor used to say he never cured anyone of anything. He simply found ways to make the body solve a problem itself.

I have had a severe reaction to bee stings and hay fever reactions to alfalfa. I can take medications to stop those reactions, and without those medications, a bee could kill me. When I was a child, I had severe reactions to sulfa drugs, which threatened my life on one occasion. Any of us can react to a medication or a natural substance, and sometimes this reaction can kill us. My friends eventually lost their child to the reaction she had to the vaccine. It was a tragedy and brought great pain to them. Such an incident is rare, but it does happen.

We raised an adopted child whose biological mother had measles during her pregnancy. He is mentally challenged, blind from cerebral palsy, and wheelchair-bound. If his mother had taken the vaccine that killed my friend’s child, my son Tim would have had none of his problems. Refusing to use vaccines is bad science, and it can have dire consequences. I don’t know all the answers, but God has allowed us to have medical tools, and refusing to use them is not a solution.

Reference: The Doctor Who Fooled the World: Science Deception, and the War on Vaccines by Brian Deer, Johns Hopkins Press.

October 28, 2020October 27, 2020

How We Use Our Money

One of the interesting things going on in the world today is how we use our money. The sale of a T. rex fossil is one example. The skeleton of a massive dinosaur can bring huge profits to the owner. Recently a 13-foot tall Tyrannosaurus rex fossil known as “Stan” was sold at Christie’s Auction House for $32,000,000. Most of us would wonder why anyone would spend that kind of money on a fossil? Sarah Rose Sharp gave a possible answer in Hyperallergic.com:

“And honestly, can we find a more contemporary symbol than a tyrant king who stomps on all other living things with no regard for propriety, before witnessing the extinction of his species based on natural science beyond his control?”

Daily we see reports of leaders in politics, media, and technology raking in vast amounts of money no matter who gets hurt in the process. Jesus dealt with this mindset in His day. The parable Jesus told in Luke 12:16-21 is a picture of what is happening today. We should heed His follow-up teaching in verses 22-34. The words of Jesus in Matthew 6:19-21 tell us what we should hold as important. Luke 18:10-14 demonstrates the attitude we should have.

The sale of a dinosaur fossil for massive amounts of money is just one more illustration of how we use our money and where we place our priorities.

October 27, 2020November 1, 2020

Life from Non-life by Chance

Let’s consider the possibility of life from non-life by chance. The simplest living organism is an anaerobic bacterium known as Pelagibacter ubique, which was first isolated by scientists in 2002. Anaerobic means that it does not need oxygen to survive.

Anaerobic bacteria are much simpler than aerobic bacteria, which do require oxygen. This bacterium lives in the lakes and oceans of the world. In 2005, scientists sequenced (decoded) the genome (genetic material, DNA) of P. ubique. They found it to be the smallest genome with the theoretical minimum of information needed to exist as an independent life.

P. ubique has 1,308,759 base pairs, which are pairs of the essential biological compounds that are held together by hydrogen bonds to form the DNA molecule which contains the “blueprint” for each living organism. Each of the components of the base pairs, called nucleobases, are complex biological compounds containing nitrogen and other elements.

There are four nucleobases in DNA, and they are adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. They are typically abbreviated A, G, C, and T. The DNA molecule is present in every cell of every living organism, and the arrangement of those nucleobases describes the basic features of the organism.

We have vastly oversimplified this explanation, but I think you can see our point. Let’s go back to those 1.3 million base pairs in the simplest living organism. What do you think is the possibility of all the essential elements coming together to form the compounds and molecular structures to create the simplest form of life from non-life by chance with no guiding Intelligence? We have one word for it. IMPOSSIBLE!

October 26, 2020October 25, 2020

Abortions in the United States

The Week Magazine (October 23, 2020, page 11) had some interesting data on abortions in the United States. Here are the abortion rates per 1000 women ages 15-44 in some of the states:

Arkansas 6.2
Oklahoma 6.2
Alabama 8.3
Mississippi 8.6
California 17.3
New York 27.4
New Jersey 28.2

Middlebury College in Vermont conducted the study of abortions in the United States. If the Supreme Court struck down Roe vs. Wade, the national reduction in abortions would be 12.8%, and 90% of the American abortion industry would remain intact.

The main point of all this is that laws and court rulings cannot control people’s moral choices. If we are to stop infanticide in America, it will have to be done by changing the thinking of our population. The question remains as to whether a woman’s personal rights supersede the personal rights of a child.

This reminds me of the story of a man who came to the United States of America. He came because he heard that it was the land of the free, and you could do anything you wanted because all human rights were guaranteed. On his first day in America, he saw a man he didn’t like the looks of, so he punched him in the nose. He was arrested and brought before a judge. “I don’t understand,” the man said, “I thought America was the land of the free!” The judge said, “That it is, but your freedom ends where the other man’s nose begins.”