Evidence for God in Physical Design Archives

February 26, 2025February 26, 2025

The Mysterious Neutrino

A fascinating science story involves the mysterious neutrino. The famous Italian physicist Enrico Fermi gave it that name, which means “little neutral one.” When I was a graduate student at Indiana University, we were told that neutrinos are the binding energy holding neutrons together. A neutron consists of an electron and a proton held together, making a neutral particle. When a neutron decays, it releases an electron and a proton. Measuring the energy of these two particles leaves a tiny amount of energy unaccounted for. Neutrinos explain that missing energy.

Scientists later discovered that the mysterious neutrino is present anytime there is a change in a nucleus. Neutrinos are so tiny they can go through virtually anything, making them extremely difficult to detect or measure. Researchers obtained neutrino measurements by putting detectors made of glass spheres on the Mediterranean Sea floor and reported their findings in February of 2023. Now, we know that some neutrinos are 30 times more energetic than any previously known neutrinos. They are vastly more energetic than photons that make up visible light, X-rays, and ultraviolet rays.

The media has named the mysterious neutrinos “ghost particles” because of their properties. The truth is that neutrinos tell us that what holds matter together is not the physical material we can sense. Science does not fully understand matter and the particles of which it is made—electrons, protons, and neutrons. Those particles are made of energy in a form different from what we learned in chemistry class. What message about God can we see in the mysterious neutrinos?

The Bible tells us that God is not a man. Isaiah 55:8-9 finds God saying “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” In Acts 17:28, Paul described the nature of God by saying, “…in Him we live and move and have our being.” John 1:14 tells us that the God of Israel BECAME flesh and lived for a while among us.” In Exodus 33:18-23, Moses asks God to show himself, but God tells Moses no human can see Him and live (verse 20). These passages tell us that God is not a physical being, and what He does is not by the processes that humans can use.

The more we know about what holds matter together, the more we realize that God’s methods and design are not by physical processes we know, understand, or can duplicate. It reminds us of the words of David in Psalms 8:3-4: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him. You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

References: CNN Science and Wikipedia

February 4, 2025February 3, 2025

UFO/UAPs and Common Sense

Over the 56 years of this ministry’s existence, we have heard many UFO claims. The only progress that has been made is to change “Unidentified Flying Objects” (UFOs) to “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” (UAPs). We still see huge amounts of taxpayer money and large segments of the media devoted to UFO/UAPs when we can solve the issue with a little common sense.

On November 13, 2024, two subcommittees of the House Oversight Committee held a joint hearing on UAPs. One witness, journalist Michael Shellenberger, submitted 214 pages of testimony and published an article alleging that the government is running a highly secretive program called “Immaculate Constellation” with “hundreds, maybe thousands” of images and videos of UAPs.

Before we resort to common sense, let us clearly state this is not a biblical issue. Could God have created life elsewhere? Of course, He could. The Bible only describes Earth but tells us that there is a war between good and evil (Ephesians 6:12), and it could be happening in more than one place. Science fiction writers have proposed this for many years.

There is big money in UFO/UAPs with movies, books, newspapers, magazines, video games, and television shows providing a gold mine for people with great imaginations. Common sense says that there will be people who will see this and get rich from it, but there are some common sense reasons not to take these claims too seriously:

1) There is no reason for aliens to play games with us. If they had the technology to prevent us from seeing them, they would have used it without giving us a fleeting view.

2) A vast percentage of UFO/UAP claims have been exposed as frauds or shown to have an understandable cause. Reflections off the canopy of military aircraft at high speeds and weather phenomena have caused many military pilot sightings.

3) Satellites in orbit could make UFP/UAP sightings. However, the claims have all come from sightings on the ground or planes in the Earth’s atmosphere. To reach these locations, an alien must pass by the International Space Station, and no unexplained sightings have come from that source.

4) Nobody has suggested good reasons for aliens with the technology to travel huge distances to Earth. The closest galaxy to us is 152,000 light years away. That means it would take well over 152,000 years traveling at the speed of light to get here. Why do it? What would we have to offer? Saying that relativity would cause time to slow down does not answer the fact that the home planet would age more than 300,000 years while the aliens journey to Earth and back.

We need to work at solving our problems here on Earth and not obsess over the paranoia of UFO/UAPs. Jesus Christ gives us a way to solve the issues tearing America and the world apart. Will we allow God to bless America or continue to entertain ourselves with fictional stories and claims that offer no help for what ails us? Stay tuned!

— John N. Clayton © 2025
Reference: “Inside Capitol Hill’s latest UFO Hearings” in Time magazine, December 9, 2024, page 16.

January 24, 2025January 20, 2025

Possible Astronomical Catastrophes

The media often fills a void in natural disasters on Earth by headlining possible astronomical catastrophes. A recent example was a headline in USA Today stating that a “Rare but extreme solar event could disrupt life on earth.”

The article tells us that a solar superflare would fry communications satellites and produce electric currents strong enough to paralyze the power grid. The article tells us that in 1859, a violent solar storm knocked out the telegraph network in large parts of northern Europe and North America. It said if a solar superflare happened today, it would knock out phone services, GPS, credit card authorization, and weather and climate monitoring. The USA Today report is taken from the peer-reviewed journal Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

So, what is the danger of a solar superflare to you and me? The answer to that question is “virtually none.” The point is that solar superflares occur in stars like our Sun roughly once every 10,000 years. The flare in 1859 was not a solar superflare but merely a flare for which the nascent electric industry was unprepared. Today, such a flare would not significantly affect today’s telegraph or phone service.

The lack of possible astronomical catastrophes shows the intelligence and design built into our planet and solar system. A G-2-type star, like our Sun, has infrequent occurrences of solar superflare. Other spectral classes of stars can have solar superflares every 1000 years. That means the occurrence of life on a planet around another star is highly unlikely, if not impossible.

In his 1956 CBS television program “Our Mister Sun,” the late Dr. Frank Baxter said, “The more we know of the creation, the closer we get to the Creator.” The lack of solar superflares is another example of the truth of his statement.

— John N. Clayton © 2025
Reference: “Rare but extreme solar event could disrupt life on earth” on USA Today December 6, 2024

January 23, 2025January 20, 2025

Alien Civilizations in Space – WOW!

On August 15, 1977, astronomer Jerry Ehman looked at a printout of signals received by the “Big Ear” radio telescope at Ohio State University. He saw a signal that astronomers associated with SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) had suggested would be a natural calling frequency for alien civilizations. Ehman circled the signal and used a red pen to write “Wow!” in the margin. The signal has never been seen again, and no explanation of its origin has worked until now.

Astrobiologist Abel Mendez at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo Observatory has discovered a cosmic hydrogen cloud that can emit light like a laser. Scientists have built hydrogen masers, and they have seen a few of them in space, but this is the first one at this frequency.

If this discovery turns out to be correct, it can complicate things for the SETI researchers looking for alien civilizations in space. Those folks would like to find a source for some of the things that are attributed to God. By explaining away claims of action by God, they feel they can discredit the Bible and eliminate God from the picture.

We have pointed out that the Bible is silent on life elsewhere in the creation, but if there is, God created it. Rejecting God because they can find an explanation rooted in alien civilizations is a step of faith for these people. However, explaining life on Earth as seeded by alien life is not logical. It does not explain the origin of the alien life. Over and over, attempts to find signals from aliens have proven unsuccessful, and this is just one more.

— John N. Clayton © 2025
Reference: Science News for January 2025, pages 23-24

January 16, 2025January 12, 2025

Life on Mars in Fiction and Fact

Our fascination with Mars goes back to American sci-fi, with War of the Worlds, written by H. G. Wells and published in 1898. It was recreated as a radio drama by Orson Welles on Halloween in 1938, causing panic in America. In 1950, Ray Bradbury released a novel called The Martian Chronicles, which ended with the Earth destroyed by nuclear war. In 2005, Steven Spielberg directed a movie based on the Wells novel starring Tom Cruise. In 2015, The Martian was a science fiction movie starring Matt Damon. We have now scientifically investigated the red planet, resolving the question of life on Mars.

Measurements made by NASA’s Curiosity Rover from four Gale crater sites show that there is no life on Mars and that there has never been life on Mars’ surface. The ratios of carbon and oxygen isotopes indicate that no biosphere existed on the planet. Rock samples show extreme rates of evaporation and carbon flowing into the atmosphere like bubbles from a pressurized can of soda.

Previous measurements on Mars have been made in ice, which forms and melts there with some degree of regularity. For the first time, science has isotopic readings from rock samples. One can argue that there has been life on Mars in the distant past preserved many feet below ground, but drill cores have not backed up that theory.

The more we learn from scientific data gathered in space, the more we realize how extraordinary life is on Earth. Mars is NOT our twin planet, and no planet in our solar system is. Travel to another star and another solar system would not be within human capacity at any time during the lives of those living today. Humans may destroy Earth by nuclear war, but Bradbury’s story of The Martian Chronicles is not a predictor of how that might happen.

The Bible says God created time, space, matter-energy, and life. It doesn’t tell us when or how many steps were involved in creating the planet on which we live. The Bible does tell us how to live and avoid the things that can destroy this planet. Albert Einstein is purported to have said that if nuclear war is used in World War III, World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Moving to Mars is not an option. We can avoid wars by following the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 5-7.

— John N. Clayton © 2025
Reference: American Scientist magazine for January/February 2025 (page 10)

November 25, 2024November 20, 2024

Fine-Tuning the Universe

I recently attempted to bake some pumpkin bread. It was a disaster because I failed to use the proper proportion of one ingredient. When baking any pastry, having all the right ingredients in the right proportions is essential. Equally important is having the correct oven temperature for the right amount of time. Every factor must be just right. This is a simple illustration of fine-tuning the recipe. Far more complicated than baking any pastry is fine-tuning the universe.

Scientists have realized that the universe requires fine-tuning to make the existence of complex life possible. The number of factors that must be fine-tuned is vast, but five significant ones are these:

Gravitational Force Constant – This is the force that pulls us toward Earth. More than that, it holds the planet together and makes it round. It also holds the Moon in orbit around the Earth and the planets in orbit around the Sun. It holds together the Milky Way and all other galaxies. This force has to be strong enough to form stars and planets, but if it were too strong, stars would quickly burn up, and no planets would form.

Electromagnetic Force Constant – This force holds atoms together. It must be just right for chemical bonds to form, creating molecules that everything is made of, including our bodies.

Strong Nuclear Force Constant – This force holds together the protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms. It must be just right to form stable atoms.

Weak Nuclear Force Constant – This force regulates radioactive decay and must be precisely correct to form stars such as our Sun.

Cosmological Constant – This force controls the universe’s expansion speed, balancing the attractive force of gravity with the repulsive force causing space to expand. It must be extremely precise to prevent the universe from flying apart or collapsing on itself.

A properly “baked” universe requires that all of these constants and many more parameters be just right. The chance of all of them coming together by accident is beyond impossible. Fine-tuning the universe requires intelligent planning far beyond that of any human baker, and it could not have happened by accident. It is evidence of an intelligent creator God.

— Roland Earnst © 2024
Reference: “List of Fine-Tuning Parameters” by Jay W. Richards

November 18, 2024November 17, 2024

God Reveals Himself in Two Ways

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork” (Psalms 19:1 KJV). That is how the psalm begins with a Hebrew parallelism where the same thought is repeated in slightly different words. The word translated “firmament” is sometimes translated as “sky.” Literally, the Hebrew word means “expanse.” As we look up at night, we see beyond what we usually call the “sky” and observe the “expanse.” We see God’s glory and handiwork in the things He has made. (See also Romans 1:20.) But an essential truth in Psalm 19 is easily overlooked. It tells us that God reveals Himself in two ways.

In that first verse, the Hebrew word David uses for God is “El.” The ancient Middle Eastern people used that word to refer to a generic “god.” The Jews used it to refer to the Creator. Read the first six verses of that psalm, and you will see the psalmist says that twenty-four hours a day, the visible physical creation reveals knowledge of God and speaks of Him without using words. He says that this natural revelation of the Creator is available to everyone worldwide at all times.

Something changes in verse 7 when David begins to speak of God’s law–His divine revelation. In that verse, the word for God becomes “Yahweh.” The psalmist no longer uses the generic term known to all but the personal name revealed to Moses. (See Genesis 3:14.) In the following verses, David speaks of how God’s law revives the soul, imparts wisdom, brings enlightenment, and is greatly to be desired. God reveals Himself in two ways.

The point is that God is clearly revealed in His creation, but only in His written word can we fully know His will and plan for us. The cosmos, physics, chemistry, biology, and life all point us to “El,” an intelligent Creator. However, to fully know “Yahweh” the “I Am,” we turn to the written word. Some people refuse to accept the evidence of God in creation and call themselves atheists or, at best, agnostics. Others recognize that the creation indicates a Creator and adopt a theistic view but go no further.

The point is that we need to recognize that God reveals Himself in two ways. Go beyond the generic and lame concept of “the man in the sky.” Recognize that God has revealed Himself in the Bible and most clearly in Jesus Christ. The Creator loves us, and He conquered death by dying for us. (See John 1:1-14 and the rest of the gospels.) Our lives can only be complete when we accept God’s natural and written revelations.

November 12, 2024November 11, 2024

Trashing God’s Creation

The Bible tells us that God created our planet to be a beautiful place and gave humans the responsibility to take care of it. However, we see today that humans are trashing God’s creation.

Several times in my life, I have had the privilege of being in an area where no human activity had ever been present. From the underwater gardens in the Galapagos Islands to isolated regions of Alaska, the beauty of the natural world has astounded me. In Australia, I was allowed to be in places where the nearest human city was hundreds of miles away, and the beauty was breathtaking. Canoeing in Canada’s Quetico wilderness was another place where I saw incredible beauty. Numerous trips to the bottom of the Grand Canyon allowed me to see an unspoiled natural environment.

Finding unspoiled places today has become increasingly difficult. Human greed, selfishness, and materialism have led to trashing much of our planet. Many people have sensed this loss, including those who may not see it as God’s creation but cannot deny the destruction of the natural world. One organization is the Ocean Conservancy, which is involved in global cleanup. One of their programs is the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC), which uses volunteers to pick up trash worldwide.

In 2023, ICC volunteers collected 1,947,483 cigarette butts, 1,358,870 plastic beverage bottles, 853,086 plastic bottle caps, 762,803 food wrappers, 563,390 plastic grocery bags, and a variety of trash, adding up to 14.3 million items. The issue of trashing God’s creation has gotten more attention since scientists discovered that microplastics contaminate all oceans and even show up in the human bloodstream. Medical research shows that these tiny plastic particles combine with chemicals to produce cancer, birth defects, brain damage, infertility, and various other health issues.

We see skeptics blaming God for these illnesses and problems when the root of much of the pain and suffering is humans trashing God’s creation. Christians cannot assume that this problem is unrelated to their faith. We need to be leaders in caring for God’s creation just as we must lead in helping our world understand Christ’s wisdom as He tells us how to live and how to treat each other.

November 11, 2024November 7, 2024

Saturn Launched a Comet

Among the many evidences for design in our solar system are the outer gas-giant planets that protect Earth from comets. We have seen Jupiter draw in a comet, break it into multiple pieces, and then swallow it. If Jupiter had not stopped that comet in the outer reaches of our solar system, it could have been catastrophic to our planet. Astronomers have recently learned that Saturn launched a comet out of the solar system.

In June 2014, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) discovered a comet they call A117uUD. Looking through previous images of the comet, they were able to “wind back” the history of its solar orbit. They found that in 2022, it came close enough to our second-largest planet (the one with the famous rings) that Saturn’s gravity grabbed it and flung it away from us. Now, it’s traveling out of the solar system at 6,710 miles per hour (10,800 km/hr).

A117uUD is the second comet astronomers have seen a gas-giant planet launch into deep space. In 1980, Jupiter sent comet C/1980 E1 (Boswell) on a path out of the solar system. What would happen if a comet invaded our solar system and the outer planets, with their massive gravity, were not there to send it on a detour? How long would our planet survive? What if Jupiter and Saturn were not available to swallow, destroy, or re-route a destructive comet?

When Saturn launched a comet into the wild black yonder, it caused no danger to Earth’s inhabitants. We can be thankful that the solar system is well-designed for us to survive. Does design indicate an accident or a Designer?

Reference: space.com

November 4, 2024November 3, 2024

When Neutron Stars Collide

The periodic table has 94 elements that occur naturally and 24 others that exist only in particle accelerators, nuclear reactors, and atomic explosions. The natural elements include one group known as “rapid neutron capture process” or r-process elements. Most of those elements are created when neutron stars collide, giving off gamma rays.

In the periodic table above, you can see the r-process elements in lavender. Without those elements, life would be very different, if not impossible. Two of the r-process metals are thorium and uranium. Earth’s strong magnetic field that protects us from deadly solar and cosmic radiation exists because of radioactive thorium and uranium inside our planet. Those elements are also the reason for plate tectonics, which transformed the planet from a water world (Genesis 1:2) into a world with oceans and continents (Job 38:8-11).

Other valuable metals in the r-process group include silver, gold, platinum, palladium, and osmium. Those metals are essential for electronic components and catalysts that make our high technology possible. They are also involved in medical treatments, including chemotherapy.

The precisely fine-tuned properties of neutrinos and the weak nuclear force make the rapid nuclear capture process possible. When neutron stars collide, we are also blessed by the fact that they are far away from our planet, so the gamma rays pose no risk to our survival. The closest detected collision was in a galaxy 130 million light-years from Earth. We see evidence of God’s creative wisdom in all of these things and many more.

Reference: salvomag.com