asteroid collision Archives - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

Protection from Incoming Space Objects - Jupiter and Saturn — Jupiter and Saturn

One of the exciting features of our planet and solar system is how they are built for life. The cosmos contains a lot of material left over from the creation process, and we have learned that volcanic eruptions and asteroid impacts can eject material into outer space. Fragments that appear to be cast off from Mars have been found on Earth. The need for protection from incoming space objects like asteroids or comets is becoming more evident as scientists discover the enormous amount of damage done by the few collisions Earth has sustained.

Most people have heard of the asteroid collision scientists believe caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. However, evidence exists of earlier collisions that shaped and molded our planet. The recent experiment to alter the path of an asteroid by slamming a spacecraft into it shows the concern many have that an asteroid could crash into Earth and wipe out all human life.

During the last week in August of 2023, NASA’s Juno spacecraft confirmed an amateur astronomer’s report of seeing an object slamming into the surface of Jupiter. This is the third recorded sizable object impact on Jupiter, creating a fireball visible from Earth. In 1994, astronomers observed fragments of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet hitting Jupiter, and in September 2021, astronomers observed another collision.

Jupiter is strategically located and so massive that its gravity draws in asteroids, comets, and other materials that would cause a major disaster if they struck the Earth. Some objects don’t actually hit Jupiter, but they come close enough that Jupiter’s gravitational field slings them out of the inner solar system. Journalist Passant Rabie wrote on Yahoo News, “The solar system’s gas giant certainly knows how to keep peace in its cosmic neighborhood.”

We suggest that when God designed and created the solar system, He gave Earth protection from incoming space objects, which has kept humans safe for our entire history. Between Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus, it is almost impossible for a large object from outside the solar system to hit our planet.

The number of things that had to be “right” for our planet to support life is enormous. The more we discover, the less likely it is that pure accidental chance can explain them. A better explanation is, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands” (Psalms 19:1).

Time as Creative Agent - Platypus One of the major misunderstandings of many creationists and naturalists alike is the belief that, given enough time, anything can happen. Those who believe in naturalism deny that God had anything to do with creation. They promote the idea that evolution by natural selection can explain everything as long as there is adequate time for it to act. Time as creative agent does not work for many reasons.

We can all agree on what will happen if you have two animals in identical environments and one of them can run very fast and the other one cannot. When a predator comes to eat them, the one who cannot run fast is more likely to get eaten. This process cannot explain how a platypus could be produced from animals that have existed in Australia now or in the past. Atheists would maintain that given enough time such a change would have happened naturally, excluding God’s role in the production of every form of life on the planet. Time as creative agent cannot replace the role of God the creator.

Some creationists seem to agree. They assume that the only rebuttal to the atheist belief is to maintain that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. They argue that such a change couldn’t happen in that short of a time. The reality is that natural selection cannot explain the creation, no matter how much time has been available for life to evolve.

There are a large number of reasons why natural selection and time as creative agent do not explain what we see in the creation. Here are just three simple ones:

1-Natural selection only deals with what has already been created.
Any theoretical explanation of how a living thing has come into existence starts by assuming the existence of an ancestral form of life. Not only is it assumed that the life-form existed, but its properties are also assumed. To explain why the male platypus has a poisonous spur on its back leg, one has to assume that it evolved from an animal that had a spur which served some other purpose. One must also assume that the ancestor used venom in some way. To explain the “radar” unit in the platypus’s nose, one has to assume that there was some kind of appendage that housed the nerve cells. Then one must assume that nerve endings with a frequency equivalent to the electromagnetic signals of the platypus’ prey were present in some primitive form.

Those oversimplified proposals are just the start. The baby platypus has to lick the milk off the mother’s stomach because she has no nipples. One can say that the nipples never evolved from the ancient ancestor, but the skin has to be porous enough for the milk to come through. The mammary glands also have to be in the right place, and the system has to be selective enough that milk can get out, but toxins cannot get in. With a good imagination, you can propose ways each of these things could happen. However, they would all have to happen simultaneously or they would be of no use and could, in fact, be life-threatening for the animal.

2-Natural selection does not propose the formation of organs with unique chemical properties, nor does it explain the chemicals themselves.
We have discussed the bombardier beetle, where a lethal combination of chemicals produces a spray that protects the beetle from predation. This is one of many specialized organs in the natural world that demands an organ that has no other function than the one the beetle uses. For natural selection to work, a previous organism would have to exist with a different a chemical having a different purpose from which this animal could evolve.

3-Natural selection ignores catastrophic extinctions. The more we study the geological record of the Earth, the more we see that massive changes have happened in the past that put an end to biological processes. Asteroid collisions, massive volcanic eruptions, massive flooding, global cooling which resulted in the freezing of all bodies of water, and solar eruptions are all well documented. These changes have been so violent that they terminated most life-forms and their development. Natural selection demands a uniformitarian past for traits to continue unabated and ultimately be incorporated into the genome of a new species.

Those are just three fundamental reasons why time as creative agent would not work. Those are only three hurdles that evolution by natural selection would have to cross to create all of the living things on Earth. Tomorrow we will look at three more.
— John N. Clayton © 2019