Evidence for God to Answer Challenges Archives

November 8, 2024November 7, 2024

Is Prayer a Waste of Time?

We recently received an email from a man saying, “I have quit praying. It is a waste of time. Nothing I ask for ever happens or comes.” Is prayer a waste of time?

I understand the man’s comment. When my son was born, I prayed he would be healthy and blessed with a keen mind. After about six months, we learned that he had congenital cataracts. I prayed that his vision would be restored after cataract surgery, but then we learned that he had retinal problems and would be blind. I knew some blind friends who were very bright and had purposeful lives, so I prayed that my son would be bright and full of potential. However, by the time he reached school age, it was evident that he was mentally challenged.

At that point, I had to ask myself, “Is prayer a waste of time?” As a Christian, I knew the Bible said I should pray (John 16:24, Mark 11:24, Matthew 5:44, James 5:16). While studying this question, I gradually realized that prayer was never about physical needs. Jesus warned that problems would come (Matthew 24:4-13). Prayer did not remove issues for Jesus or Paul. Jesus was still crucified, and Paul still had an affliction (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

The Bible teaches that prayer is primarily about spiritual issues, not physical ones. That doesn’t mean we should not talk with God about physical problems, but the promises of what prayer will do are spiritual. James 1:5 tells Christians to pray for wisdom, not intelligence. James 5:13-14 says, “Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray.” (KJV) The Greek word “afflicted” is “kakopatheo,” meaning to suffer evil. This is not about physical affliction but letting evil take over your life. The use of oil mentioned in the passage was not about medicinal value but a symbol of gladness or spiritual nourishment. (See Deuteronomy 33:24, Psalms 23:5, and Job 29:6.)

Colossians 3:2 tells Christians to “Set your mind on things above, not on things on this Earth.” Philippians 4:6-7 tells Christians that prayer will guard our hearts and minds, not skin and joints. Is prayer a waste of time? I have had atheist friends tell me they don’t understand how I keep going with all the things that have happened in my life. They don’t realize that prayer brings what this passage calls “the peace of God.” Peace doesn’t come from politicians or things of this world. Realizing that you have a purpose for existence is a beautiful reward of being a Christian. My prayer for you is that you will find that peace.

October 31, 2024October 28, 2024

The Ouija Board Scam

Scams, lies, and fakes are nothing new—they have been around for centuries. An example is the Ouija board, which dates back to the early 1800s. Originally a parlor game, the “ouija” name was an amalgamation of “oui” and “ja” from the French and German words for “yes.” Today, you can buy a Ouija board from Walmart for $19.99. The Ouija board scam uses well-known psychological principles to do interesting things that depend on the human mind.

The Ouija board originated when life expectancy was very short compared to today. Almost a third of children did not live to see their fifth birthday. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, everyone was touched by the loss of a loved one. Many people wanted to communicate with their dead relatives, resulting in seances, disembodied voices, automatic writing, and other scams involving communicating with a loved one in the spirit world. In 1891, Elijah J. Bond received a patent for a “talking board,” which he sold to William Fudd, who made a fortune selling them.

The Ouija board scam is an example of automatism, doing something without feeling we are doing it. People have used automatism in hypnosis, dowsing, automatic writing, and many fake psychic events. Those of us who have been around for a while have seen things like this repeated over and over. Who can forget “Clever Hans,” the horse who could do complex mathematical calculations? It turned out to be a function of the mind of his owner, a mathematician, who could transmit commands to the horse by subtle physical gestures.

Another scam is religious spiritualism, in which a preacher claims to have special powers coming from God. Religious scams have also gone on for a very long time. In 1 Samuel 28:3-14 Saul went to a woman known as the witch of Endor and asked her to contact Samuel, who had died. Witchcraft was outlawed in Israel then, so the woman was reluctant to conduct a séance. When she did the scam séance, the real Samuel appeared through a miracle from God. The witch was shocked and screamed, obviously surprised because she had a scam going, and the real thing appeared.

The Bible presents a rational, accurate description of the normal process of human affairs. Miracles are identified as such and cannot, by definition, be proven. Jesus offered evidence through miracles during His physical time on Earth. Religious leaders today claiming the ability to perform miracles are like the Witch of Endor or the Ouija board scam.

— John N. Clayton © 2024
Reference: smithsonianmag.com

October 29, 2024October 28, 2024

What Nothing Is

It may seem strange that we would have an article about “nothing,” but this is a serious topic. The dictionary defines nothing as “not any material or immaterial thing” (Oxford English Dictionary). Cosmologists like Stephen Hawking won’t accept that definition. Do we really know what nothing is?

Hawking argues that “nothing” can result from cyclic processes – quantum fluctuations in the very early universe. Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss explained his understanding of what nothing is this way: “For surely “nothing” is every bit as physical as “something,” especially if it is to be defined as “the absence of something.” The cosmologists’ speculative attempts to redefine nothing is an attempt to eliminate God from the process of creation.

If I have a bill for $10.00 and $10.00 in my pocket, is my net worth “nothing”? If matter and antimatter combine, they destroy each other. Does that produce “nothing”? The answer is clear. They produce energy, which is not nothing. This is not a scientific discussion because you can’t observe “nothing,” and you can’t devise an experiment to test “nothing.” Hawking and Krauss are scientists, not philosophers, but they are attempting a philosophical argument to eliminate God from the creation process.

There is strong evidence of a beginning to time, space, and matter/energy. It was not eternal and was not created by “nothing.” We can talk about dimensions beyond the ones we live in and the ones scientists can do their experiments in, but ultimately, God comes to the creation process from a dimension beyond the three we know. String theory suggests eleven spatial dimensions, but that is not good science; it is only speculative guesses about the nature of reality.

“In the beginning, God created the heaven (space, time, and matter/energy) and the earth.” That statement in Genesis 1:1 gives purpose, direction, and realism to all of us. Let us not argue about what nothing is.

— John N. Clayton © 2024
Quotes and data from John C. Lennox’s book God and Stephen Hawking – Whose Design Is It Anyway? pages 30-33.

October 23, 2024October 21, 2024

Making Assumptions About the Biblical Account

Bible Skeptics claim that Cain would have had to marry a sister since no other women were around. This is a classic demonstration of making assumptions about the biblical account that are incorrect both scientifically and biblically.

Even if Cain married a sister (which the Bible does not say), it would not be incest. The genome of humans at the early stage of human creation would have been perfect. Incest is when two people with DNA from the same imperfect parents produce a child. We all have mutations in our DNA from the thousands of generations of humans on Earth. Any brother having a child with his sister today would be dooming the child to genetic issues.

People making assumptions about the biblical account are only guessing and may contradict other biblical passages. How many children were born in the “Garden of Eden?” In Genesis 1:28, God told Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the Earth …” Some have suggested that this is the only command God ever gave that humans have completely obeyed. The point is that they either had children or they disobeyed God. The skeptic’s only alternative is to assume their time in the Garden was too short to bear children.

Genesis 4:16-17 says, “Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” The Bible does not say that Cain took his wife to Nod, so he must have married a woman living in Nod. This would be a distant relative from the population that left the Garden of Eden. Genesis 5 lists the genealogy from Adam to Noah, leaving out Cain’s descendants. Genesis 6:1-5 records the increase in human population using the word “Nephilim,” meaning fallen ones. It does not mean aliens or monsters, as some have suggested, but those who rejected God.

Making assumptions about the biblical account is dangerous because the Bible does not tell us many things about early humans. Neither does the geologic fossil record give us the details we want to know. But what is actually recorded in the Bible is not at odds with the geological evidence. As in all such questions, you can intelligently and reasonably believe both the scientific evidence and the biblical record. They are symbiotic.

October 18, 2024October 17, 2024

Modern Atheism Has Lost Its Momentum

Evolution News & Science Today published an article by Denyse O’Leary titled “How the New Atheism Fizzled.” The point is that modern atheism has lost its momentum.

A book titled The Four Horsemen (Random House Penguin 2007) presented the arguments against faith by Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins. Hitchens and Dennett are deceased, and no one has taken their place. Antony Flew and Ayaan Hirsi Ali were atheists who could pick up the slack. Ali was a Muslim turned atheist, but she became a disciple of Christ, and Flew wrote a book titled There is a God (HarperOne 2008).

Modern atheism has lost its momentum as more evidence for design has become available. The challenges include the fine-tuning of the universe and simple things like the fact that the existence of beauty is not part of survival. We now see books and articles about why there is something instead of nothing.

To add to the challenges to modern atheism, evidence shows the growth of suicide among atheists. Atheist Staks Rosch, writing in the Huffington Post (December 8, 2017), noted that depression leading to suicide is a significant problem in the atheist community. The fact that atheism offers no purpose for existence while faith does is a factor in how modern atheism has lost its momentum.

One of the leading proponents of modern atheism has been the work of the late brilliant scientist Stephen Hawking. However, believers with the academic credentials to address Hawking’s complaints against faith have responded. For example, Dr. John C. Lennox of the University of Oxford directly addressed Hawking in 2011 in the book God and Stephen Hawking – Whose Design Is It Anyway? Atheists have been unable to respond to Lennox’s material. Books by other scholars have addressed the claims of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett.

Even though modern atheism has lost its momentum, there have always been and will always be those who reject the existence of God. The bottom line is you don’t have to put your brain in “park” to be a believer. Jesus challenged the people of His day to look at the evidence. Those of us who believe in God and the Bible should follow His example.

— John N. Clayton © 2024
Reference: “How the New Atheism Fizzled” by Denyse O’Leary in the September 30, 2024, issue of Evolution News & Science Today

October 10, 2024October 9, 2024

Should Humans Eat Meat?

One of the questions we face today is, “Should humans eat meat?” Genesis 9:1-3 tells us, “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.’”

The atheist view is that we are just animals and nothing special. One issue of Skeptic magazine centered around animal rights and whether animals have the same rights as humans. The issue showed the impressive intelligence of ants, crows, octopuses, dolphins, goats, and turtles. Atheists typically jump from intelligence to animal rights and conclude that it is unethical for humans to eat animals and that we should consider the rights that animals have. One authority used in the atheist view is Peter Singer at Princeton University. He wrote “Animal Liberation,” often called “the bible of the animal rights movement.” Animal rights advocates argue that all human foods should be plant-based and that killing animals for food is a barbaric tradition that needs to stop.

There are major logical and factual problems with this view. Should humans eat meat? Is the intelligent behaior of animals the result of their thinking things out and acting on their thoughts, or is instinct the driving force? Is it a thought process or copying an observed behavior? Do crows, for example, take the lid off of a bottle because they figured out how to do it, or are they copying what they have seen humans do?

Another vital question is the result of restrictive diets: How will the human population survive if eating meat is no longer allowed? Getting enough protein and other crucial nutrients from plants for the world’s population is a significant challenge today. The problem would greatly increase without meat in the diet. We cannot overemphasize the importance of not causing pain to any of God’s creatures, but removing meat from everyone’s diet will cause more problems than it will solve.

“Should humans eat meat?” becomes a question because the atheist view fails to recognize that humans are unique because we are created in God’s image.

— John N. Clayton © 2024
Reference: Skeptic magazine (Volume 29 #3) “Animal Minds – What do they think?”

October 9, 2024October 8, 2024

Unhealthy Foods and God

Skeptics challenge that the Christian system allowed unhealthy foods that would not be condoned or promoted by an all-wise God. The Bible passage referred to is Acts 10:9-15 where Peter has a vision and is told to eat any meat, including animals that had been forbidden to the Jews. When Peter objects, a voice says, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

We must take the Bible literally. We must look at who said what is in the passage, to whom it was said, why it was said, and how the people who heard it would have understood it. In this case, God’s message for Peter is clear if you read the rest of the chapter and on into chapter 11. This event was not about eating unhealthy foods but about taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to all people, not just the Jews.

Another method of understanding the meaning of a passage is to compare it to the rest of the Bible. You don’t have to be a scholar to know that the Bible cannot contradict itself. The New Testament has many statements that show it is not a book about eating. For example, in Matthew 15:17-20, Jesus says that what you eat doesn’t defile you, but rather what you think. In 1 Corinthians 10:27-32, Paul tells the Christians not to worry about what foods they can eat but rather be concerned about offending others and driving them away from Christ. In Romans 14, Paul tells Christians that the Church is “not about meat and drink” and then talks about not offending others.

This does not mean the Bible doesn’t care about unhealthy foods and practices. In Acts 15:19-20 the Church was told to avoid drinking blood or meat secured by strangling. However, even in that passage, the message was not about food. In Jesus’ time, having meat to eat was rare, and grains, fruit, and fish were the primary food sources. Also, life expectancy was short due to a lack of hygiene, the spreading of disease by immoral choices, and the lack of modern medicine.

God is not the cause of the often unhealthy foods we place in our diets today. Christian morality and attention to our health and the needs of others testify to the validity of the Christian system as taught in the New Testament.

October 7, 2024October 6, 2024

Hostility Toward Christianity

We recently received a very hostile phone call from a person who went so far as to threaten us. This has happened many times in the past, and the hostility toward Christianity is excellent evidence for its validity. “So you think you are the only people going to heaven?” is a misguided challenge we get in response to the messages we post on this site.

Skeptics frequently refer to the Crusades and the horrible violence that people who called themselves Christians have done against those who were not Christians. Their actions violate what Jesus taught and contradict what those who follow the Bible do in relationship to others. Please do not confuse the misguided teachings of the past with what the Bible tells Christians to do. The Crusades violated everything Jesus taught, as did the inquisitions.

Jesus told His followers in Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” This concept is repeated over and over in the New Testament. Judging is up to God, and the New Testament commands Christians to be peacemakers. Acts 2:47 tells us that the first-century Christians “had favor with ALL the people.” At the same time, it is essential to understand that Jesus told His followers they could recognize false religions and their teachings by their results. (See Matthew 7:16-20 and John 15:2-16).

It’s a fact of life that we have to make judgments every day. As we look at world religions, we see the results of their teaching. We must ask, “What are the results of following the teachings of those religious systems?” We can read the historical results and see them in the news today. The hostility toward Christianity and the very fact that our ministry is attacked is an indication of the violence and destructive nature of most world religions. Over the history of humanity, religion has caused a considerable number of wars, and it continues to do so today. Biblical Christianity (not human creeds) teaches the opposite of all this, but other religions and religious leaders reject the Bible’s teachings.

As we analyze each religious system, we must question the hostility toward Christianity. How many hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages, educational institutions, etc., have resulted from the beliefs of each religious system? You can kill me, but you cannot destroy the good that Christianity has brought to the world. If men and women study the evidence, they will see that religious systems are not all the same. This ministry is dedicated to providing evidence, but if someone rejects it, that is their prerogative. They will have to answer, as will we, to the perfect judge who created the cosmos and us.

October 4, 2024October 1, 2024

To Understand the Godhead

Both believers and skeptics ask the question, “What is the godhead?” While I don’t pretend to understand the Godhead, I have spent years trying to explain it.

Passages like John 14:26 bother a lot of folks. That passage has Jesus saying, “But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, who the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” The word “godhead” is found three times in the King James version of the New Testament, each time translating a different Greek word. In Acts 17:29 (theios), Paul was talking to the philosophers in Athens. Romans 1:20 (theiotes) deals with evidence for God’s existence. Colossians 2:9 (theotes) was dealing with philosophy and human deceit.

An analogy that may help us understand the Godhead is that humans have three parts that makeup one individual. We all have intellect, which allows us to be creative and have ideas of a spiritual nature. God’s intellect is seen in the creation and design we see all around us.

We all have a personality that allows us to express our spiritual nature and to love in a way that is not just survival. Jesus taught His followers to be known by their love (See John 13:34-35) and demonstrated it in His life. He used the Greek word “agape” and referred to caring about all of humanity – even our enemies.

We all have spirit, which is the action that we do, and the Bible consistently uses that word with a verb. (“The Spirit MOVED upon the face of the waters.” “He will TEACH you.” My spirit will not always “STRIVE” with man.) We are all just one individual, but we all have intellect, personality, and spirit.

When the disciples questioned how they could see God, Jesus gave an answer that involved one part of the Godhead while referencing the other parts. (See John 14:9-10.) John 1:1 and 1:14 and 1 Timothy 3:16 show that Jesus was God in the flesh. It is impossible for us to understand the Godhead. St. Augustine wrote, “If you understand God, what you understand isn’t God.” J.B. Phillips wrote a book titled “Your God is Too Small,” in which he pointed out how the human mind limits God.

We humans will never understand everything there is to know about God, creation, or God’s purpose in creating us, but we can understand enough to make our lives meaningful and productive.

September 20, 2024September 17, 2024

Understanding the Relationship Between Science and Faith

Many people have bought into the belief that science has the answer to every question humans can ask. The idea promoted by the media and various organizations is that science is the only answer to all human problems. Some of humanity’s major problems today are caused by not understanding the relationship between science and faith.

Science can’t show us how to cope with personal challenges caused by Alzheimer’s, dementia, paralysis, brain damage, or mental illness. Theology and faith can provide essential answers when facing life’s challenges. The dictionary defines theology as the study of the nature of God and religious belief.

In the September 2024 issue of the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, James C. Peterson made the following comment that we believe is essential for understanding the relationship between science and faith:

“Theology serves science well when it reminds science that science is very good at what it does but only at what it does. There is no scientific basis for claiming that science is the sole way to apprehend reality. Such is the ideology of scientism, not science. Science seeks to recognize causal connections between material entities. It does not have the tools or expertise to do else, even to pronounce that it is a good thing to study science! Much that is real is not accessible to scientific verification.”

Peterson goes on to say that apparent contradictions and anomalies are important opportunities to better understand what is true.

We recently received a letter from a man who stated that prayer was useless and something he would no longer do. This is a classic example of not understanding what prayer is for, what it does, and how it helps us. He said he did not want to pray because when he prayed for there to be no rain, it didn’t do any good. It rained anyway. I asked him what he would expect God to do when one person prayed for no rain while a farmer prayed for rain.

Understanding the relationship between science and faith and what theology really means is essential for atheists and religious people. Peterson explains this relationship well.