Category: Humans

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Why Two Genders?

Why Two Genders?
The simplest one-cell life forms can reproduce by dividing, but advanced life requires both a male and a female to procreate. We wonder why two genders are needed. How can naturalistic evolution explain sexual reproduction?

Science has discovered that sexual reproduction is much more complicated than we ever would have expected. Various plants and animals use different processes involving two genders to reproduce. The processes involved vary dramaticly between species. Would it not have been simpler for evolution to result in creatures with the ability to conceive a new life within themselves and give birth to that life without the need for another of the same species?

Think of how much more complicated the evolution of a new species would be if two genders had to evolve at the same time. If a male of a new species evolved with no female, that new species would become extinct when the male died. You must have two genders of the new species at the same moment in time with the same genes and the corresponding reproductive organs. Otherwise, reproduction would not be possible.

Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” God created humans in His image spiritually, but He gave them a physical morphology complimentary to each other. He made the man first and then showed him all of the animals. (Genesis 2:19, 20). Surely Adam noticed that there were males and females in the animal world. As a result, Adam would have realized that something was missing from his life. He needed someone like himself, but different.

After the sex education lesson, God took some of Adam’s physical body to create his complimentary half. Adam’s reaction, “(At long last) this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” This was God’s design for love and reproduction. Why two genders? God intended for us to have two genders to complete each other. It didn’t happen by accident. It couldn’t have.
–Roland Earnst © 2018
F. LaGard Smith has written an excellent book which goes into great detail on this topic. The title is Darwin’s Secret Sex Problem and we highly recommend it.

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Color Vision Gender Differences

Color Vision Gender Differences
There are many differences between men and women, but you realize that there are color vision gender differences?

Light is electromagnetic radiation that stimulates our eyes. There are only specific frequencies of the electromagnetic frequency spectrum that we can see. Frequencies below the range of visible light are called infrared. We can sometimes feel infrared radiation as heat, but we can’t see it, although some animals can. Frequencies higher than visible light are ultraviolet which we can’t see, but it affects our skin and can cause sunburn. Some animals can see infrared light.

Within the visible spectrum of light that humans can see, different bands of frequencies affect our eyes differently. Most of us have receptors in our eyes for the wavelengths which we call red, green, and blue. When light stimulates those receptors, they send a signal to our brain which combines the signals to allow us to see many variations in colors.

People with colorblindness (mostly men) have one of those color receptor categories missing. The missing color may be either red or green. Why are men colorblind more often than women? The genes that encode the red and green receptors are located in the X-chromosome. Men have one X- and one Y-chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes. That means that if a man has a defective X-chromosome, he is out of luck. A woman would need to have two defective X-chromosomes to be colorblind.

It’s interesting that the chromosome pair that creates the sex differences also explains the color vision gender differences. God said, “It is not good for man to be alone” and He took something out of the man to create a woman. Then He put them together to complete each other. In many ways, men and women really do need each other to be complete.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Adding Nitrogen to the Soil

Adding Nitrogen to the Soil
We all know that lightning can be dangerous. Each year people are killed, and a great deal of property damage occurs because of lightning. We don’t usually consider the benefits of this powerful force. Nitrogen in the soil is essential for plants to grow and lightning is a natural method of adding nitrogen to the soil.

Although lightning can be dangerous, it also produces materials that are critical to life. All living things depend on the chemical element nitrogen. Your body contains molecules known as proteins. Proteins are made up of several elements, including nitrogen. Nitrogen is essential for proteins, but it is very hard to make nitrogen into proteins. Even though nitrogen makes up 78 percent of our atmosphere, we don’t get any nitrogen from the air we breathe. With each breath, we inhale and exhale nitrogen without using it. The nitrogen in the atmosphere has three electron bonds between the atoms, and that is a very strong and stable chemical arrangement. It takes an enormous amount of energy to break those bonds to free the nitrogen.

When lightning slices through the atmosphere, it knocks electrons from nitrogen atoms. The atoms are then free to combine with oxygen and hydrogen in the atmosphere forming nitrates. Rain carries this new compound to the ground enriching the soil with nitrates which are the building blocks of proteins. Plants synthesize the nitrates into proteins. When animals eat the plants, they get proteins. When we eat the plants or animals, we get the proteins we need to build more proteins.

Without lightning and the other processes for adding nitrogen to the soil, life could not exist on Earth. There is a purpose in the design of lightning. The Designer has also given us the intelligence to avoid many of the adverse effects of this powerful force.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Electrons Are Essential for Life

Electrons Are Essential in the Elements of Life
Everyone knows that electrons allow us to have computers and other electrical devices, but you may not realize how many ways electrons are essential. The mass, charge, magnetic properties, and spin of electrons are all designed to make life possible. It is amazing that something far too small for us to see is so important.

The changing momentum of electrons creates light which is essential for life. Electrons are also the fundamental cause of all that happens in chemistry. Atoms bond with other atoms to make molecules by exchanging or by sharing electrons. The complex organic molecules in your body, including DNA, are held together by electrons. The properties of every element in the universe are determined by how its electrons are arranged around the nucleus.

The oxygen atom with eight electrons joins with two single-electron hydrogen atoms to form water. The arrangement of the electrons in the oxygen atom causes the oxygen/hydrogen union to form in a way that gives water its unusual properties. The arrangement of electrons and the way the atoms bond causes water to dissolve salts, freeze from the top down, form crystals when freezing, and have surface tension. Without these unique properties of water, life would not be possible on Earth.

The arrangement of the six electrons in the carbon atom allows it to form enormous numbers of carbon compounds in various patterns. Because carbon can build so many organic compounds, our carbon-based life can exist. Without the particular arrangement of electrons in oxygen and carbon, life would not be possible.

Add to carbon and oxygen more than 90 other elements and their electron arrangements, and you can see that the probability of all of this happening by chance is not reasonable. We can be sure that a Master Designer created this complex system in which electrons are essential.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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How Much of Your Brain Do You Use?

How Much of Your Brain Do You Use?
How would you answer if someone asked you, How much of your brain do you use? The correct answer would be, All of it.

In the 1890’s psychologist and philosopher William James made a statement that we use only a small part of our mental resources. He was misquoted by broadcaster and writer Lowell Thomas in the foreword to a Dale Carnegie book in 1936. Thomas changed the wording to say that “the average man develops only ten percent of his latent mental ability.” That misquote has been re-quoted and repeatedly misquoted, ever since then.

I am sure you have read, or somebody told you that humans use only ten percent of their brains. In the 2014 movie “Lucy,” actor Morgan Freeman played a world-renowned neurologist who tells an auditorium full of people that “human beings use only ten percent of their brain’s capacity.”
Saying something many times may make people believe it, but that doesn’t make it true. It is not true that we use only ten percent of our brain, no matter how you word it. The truth is that not all areas are active all the time, but we do use every part of our brains. The human brain is an incredible living organ.

If we apply our brain power to consider our brain, we will have to ask some questions. “How is it possible that this amazingly complex and intelligent computer could have happened by mere chance? How could natural selection acting on random mutations with no guiding intelligence create something so complex?” Even more incredible than that—how could mind come from mindless matter?

If we use our brains to think back far enough, we realize that the process of creating life (and ultimately the human brain) would have begun with only non-living chemicals. Natural selection cannot act on non-living chemicals. Let’s see how much of your brain capacity you can use to think about how such a remarkable machine could have come into existence.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Suicide Rate Increase

Suicide Rate Increase
When a celebrity commits suicide, it makes front page news and dominates the tabloids for months. We still hear about Robin Williams’ suicide which happened in 2014. Now we have Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain dominating the news during the early part of June. What many of us don’t realize is that 44,965 Americans killed themselves in 2016 and that from 2010 to 2016 there has been a 70% increase in suicide among girls ages ten to 19. The nation as a whole has seen a 28% suicide rate increase from 1999 to 2016.

The experts are trying to explain all of this. Certainly, there is more than one factor involved, but we suggest that a major factor in our country’s strong movement away from faith in God to a rejection of religion as a whole. Jesus Christ has given us a purpose in life. The unique teaching of Christ is that everyone, no matter what their situation or appearance or abilities, has a purpose in living. In addition to that, Christianity provides a way to deal with the failures in life. No one needs to live with a load of guilt. We can be forgiven of our sins and overcome our guilt, and we can turn the mistakes of the past into a ministry to help others walking the same path that we walked.

What can you expect if you are taught that you are an accident, that you have no purpose, and that life is merely a chance-driven battle for survival of the fittest? It is not hard to see the attractiveness of ending your life when you have no purpose, and you face struggles that seem impossible to overcome. How could we not have a suicide rate increase?

I speak as one who attempted suicide when my atheist belief system couldn’t handle the reality of the life I was living. I know how hopeless life can seem to be without faith. Having lived as a Christian who has still had to confront all the negatives in life, I now know that, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Data from Time magazine, June 18, 2018, page10.

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Giza Pyramids and Answers

Giza Pyramids
Someone said, “If you don’t believe in something you will believe anything.” A lightning rod for people looking for ways to deny the biblical account or the existence of God has been the three giant pyramids near Cairo, Egypt. The Giza Pyramids are listed as one of the “Seven Wonders of the World.” We have seen books, documentaries, and articles attempting to prove that space aliens built the pyramids, or that a super-advanced lost civilization was responsible. Research has gradually answered most of the questions concerning those impressive structures.

The three Giza Pyramids were constructed during the 70 years between 2575 and 2465 B.C. There is no doubt about their purpose. They were tombs for royalty. The blocks that make up the pyramids were cut from quarries along the Nile River. They were moved by men or cattle using sledges. One particular building material was white limestone which faced two of the pyramids (Khufu’s and Khafre’s). It was quarried at Tura on the Nile’s east bank eight miles away from the pyramid site. Granite beams for inner chambers were quarried in Aswan which was hundreds of miles away. The Egyptians dug canals and harbors and used cargo boats to move those huge stones.

In 2013 a papyrus was found stuffed between stones in a building at a harbor used in the construction of the Khufu pyramid. The papyrus is a day-to-day log by an inspector named Merer who directed a cargo boat crew transporting the white limestone from Tura to the Giza Plateau. Archaeologists are making more discoveries as research continues.

The Giza Pyramids are amazing, and they tell us that ancient humans were very intelligent and very concerned about what happens when this life has ended. There were no aliens, super-humans or divine spirits involved in the pyramids. Those structures were built by humans desperately wanting to find a way to a life that is better than this life when they died. We are blessed in our day to have the Word of God that tells us how to live successfully in this life, and how to live eternally.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Reference: Discover magazine, July/August 2018, page 30-33.

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DNA Barcoding and Evolution

DNA Barcoding and Evolution
The journal Human Evolution published an article about new research on DNA barcoding. There are two different types of DNA. Most of us know something about nuclear DNA which is the genetic blueprint for every single individual passed down from parent to offspring. The complete DNA blueprint contains more than three-billion letters and is packed into the tiny nucleus of every cell in our bodies.

The second type of DNA is found in the mitochondria of cells. The mitochondria generate energy for the cell, and mitochondrial DNA contains 37 kinds of genes. One of those is the COI gene which is used to create DNA barcoding. You could compare these DNA barcodes with the barcodes on products which we purchase from a store.

Researchers at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario have analyzed the COI of 100,000 species by examining millions of DNA barcodes. They conclude that most animals appeared simultaneously. Researchers credited that to a sudden event that caused large-scale environmental trauma and wiped out a majority of the Earth’s species.

This is another blow to the belief of those who say gradualism is how the diversity of life-forms came into existence on the Earth. The DNA barcoding research supports the view that catastrophic events gave rise to sweeping changes on Earth which led to the emergence of new species including humans.

As more and more evidence becomes available, the credibility of the biblical account grows. Future data will help us understand more about what has happened in the past to give us the planet we call home.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

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Male Chauvinism/Feminism Conflict

Male Chauvinism/Feminism Conflict
We live in a world of extremes. As women have become more aggressive in confronting their sexual abusers, there is collateral damage on all sides. Extremists in the feminism camp are using the sexual abuse issue to attack the male gender as a whole. Extreme male chauvinists view the female gender as generally inferior to themselves and want to maintain their superior position. Those who are insecure about their sexual identity find themselves being pushed by extremists on all sides of this male chauvinism/feminism conflict.

The abuse that is present in the world around us is extreme, and the victims of the abuse are looking for reliable answers. We are constantly getting e-mails and letters from people who have received terrible advice from mental health experts in the secular world. We believe that Christianity has an answer to all of the confusion.

The incidents of abuse are undeniable, and the abuse occurs in every facet of human experience–including religion. In the Old Testament, the problem of abuse was identified with the Hebrew word “alal” meaning to roll oneself on or upon. It is used in some horrible stories of rape such as Judges 19:25 and in battle scenes such as 1 Samuel 31:4. In the New Testament, the Greek word for abuse is “arsenokoited,” and the use is totally sexual. Abuse is always wrong, and it is strongly condemned by the Bible however and wherever it occurs.

So how does Christianity offer any help on this issue? The answer is in the identification of roles. One of the victims of the collateral damage produced by the conflict between extremists on opposite sides of the male chauvinism/feminism conflict is young men who haven’t learned their life role. Women have a specific, unthreatened role given to them–that of being a mother. They can choose whether to accept that role, but their gender has a built-in guarantee that no male can threaten. A woman can be artificially inseminated and give birth to a child. A man has no such option.

As women have gained their rightful role in the business world, males have found more and more problems with their self-image. They realize that there are always women out there who can do the job as well or maybe better than their male counterparts. The question is whether some of the physical abuse on women has come from males who have no role that they can claim as theirs, but they do have enough physical strength to subjugate a woman.

From the very beginning, God instituted a system that would work well for both genders. Genesis 2:24 tells us that male and female were joined together as one giving them independence from their parents. That is not just a sexual reference, but rather it presents the family as the basis of stability for both sexes. The entire biblical account shows man not using what God gave him correctly, but allowing sin to tear at the fabric of the one thing that would give men stability and purpose. In the New Testament, the roles of men and women were refocused. Polygamy would no longer be tolerated. Loving and submitting to one another was the guide (See Ephesians 5:21-33). The value of all humans is the same (See Galatians 3:27-29). Women could be involved in the business world as was Lydia and the “virtuous woman” of Proverbs 31:10-31.

The one role given to men that would be unthreatened by women was providing loving leadership to the family and the church. In 1 Timothy 2:8-15 the male leadership is identified as giving males a unique role. That passage ends by reminding the reader that women also have a role guaranteed in childbirth. The next chapter shows who the ideal leader of the church and the home should be. In chapter 5 Paul approaches the failures of humans to keep God’s plan in operation no matter what the circumstances.

There should be no male chauvinism/feminism conflict if people follow God’s plan and respect the needs of others. Selfishness in church and home leadership is a cause of male insecurity and tends to produce more abuse. The June, 2018, issue of Christianity Today carried an article titled Mending Men’s Ministry which addresses these issues in the denominational world. In the biblical world, the healing of men will come when we simply love God and others enough to do what God says and the male chauvinism/feminism conflict will end.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

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Oldest Living Person Is Muslim Woman

Oldest Living Person is a Muslim Woman
One thing you learn when you live past 80 years is that old age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The Week (June 1, 2018, page 10), reported that the oldest living person is Koku Istambulova. According to her passport, she is 129 years old. She is a Muslim woman living by strict Islamic codes in Chechnya.

Istambulova doesn’t view long life as a blessing. She says “I have not had a single happy day in my life. Long life is not at all God’s gift for me, but a punishment.” Istambulova saw Nazi tanks, Stalin’s deportation, and the death of all of her children. Her faith is one of strict rules and regulations with very legalistic guides for life. As a Muslim woman, the role she was forced into is very restrictive.

So the oldest living person says she has had a life of misery. It is important to note that the things that made Istambulova’s life miserable were the violent acts of humans and the legalism of man-made religion. Those factors contributed to her misery instead of addressing it and solving it.

In contrast to Istambulova’s situation, Christ came to eliminate the things that bring misery in life. Istambulova never knew the peace, love, family, and joy of being free from the legalistic human rules based on race or sex. Galatians 3:26-4:7 presents a contrast to legalism and the misery that human sin and legalistic religions bring. Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).
–John N. Clayton © 2018