Bible Archives - Page 6 of 130 - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

August 27, 2024August 26, 2024

Medical Aid in Dying and Hospice Care

One of the many issues involved in the advancement of modern medicine is what to do when a person is slowly dying and has no quality of life. Should a lethal injection be given to end their struggle? “Medical aid in dying,” or MAiD, has been accepted in Europe, Canada, and other places. As expected, there have been abuses, and for that reason, the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that access to assisted suicide is not a human right.

Contrastingly, the Human Population Group has promoted assisted suicide and has had success in getting various American states to accept it. Now, the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) has announced a policy change that allows hospice nurses to participate in assisted suicide under the MAiD euphemism. The statement reads: “Nursing care for patients considering MAiD and their families is crucial to ensure that patients and families are not overtly or inadvertently disenfranchised or stigmatized as they proceed with MAiD and that they experience a safe and comfortable death, free from complications.”

This is a highly complex issue. Keeping someone alive when there is no hope of survival and no quality of life can be very expensive. Do you wipe out your loved one’s financial resources by continuing life in these situations? When a person has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t know anyone but is otherwise healthy, do you administer assisted suicide if they had requested it when they were rational? These issues touch many of us and will increase as our population ages.

Proponents of medical aid in dying argue that since we euthanize animals when they are suffering, we should extend that same option to humans. One prominent supporter of medically assisted suicide is Peter Singer, who is the DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer would not only support medical aid in dying but would require the euthanization of prisoners who have life sentences and mentally ill patients who are beyond help.

For Christians, there are grave concerns with medically assisted suicide. In 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, we read, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God has His home in you? If any man ruins the temple of God, God shall ruin him, for the temple of God is sacred, and that is what you are.” When hospice nurses are allowed to administer “medical aid in dying,” how long will it be before they are required to do so regardless of their religious and ethical objections?

There are no easy answers for any of us in this issue, but it seems that with modern medicine and technology, there should be an option other than giving a human a lethal injection to end their lives.

— John N. Clayton © 2024
Reference: The Life Legal Defense Foundation publication Lifeline for Summer 2024, pages 6-7.

August 26, 2024August 25, 2024

“Plant Neuroscientists” and Plant Consciousness

“Plant Neuroscientists” Claim Plant Consciousness

Several “plant neuroscientists” have written papers claiming that plants have intelligence and cognition and experience pain and other feelings. This is not the work of crackpots but of reputable scientists writing in professional journals.

It started in 2006 with an article in the scientific journal Trends in Plant Science by E.D. Brenner titled “Plant Neurobiology: An Integrated View of Plant Signaling.” In 2009, Frantisek Baluska claimed that root tips were “a brain-like command center.” In 2016, Monica Gagliano claimed to have demonstrated Pavlov-type classical conditioning in pea plants. The following year, she wrote that plants have an “internal value system” and use “feelings” to “motivate their choices.”

Plant neuroscientists accuse scientists who reject their claims of being “animal chauvinists.” The reality is that if you reject eating plants because they have feelings and experience pain, you will also have to reject eating insects or animals of any kind, such as fish, birds, or even farm animals. That leaves you with nothing to eat.

Genesis 1:29 finds God telling Adam and Eve, “I have given you every herb bearing seed … and every tree in which there is fruit for food.” In Genesis 9:3, God told Noah, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you even as the green plant I have given you.” God gave humans the capacity to have adequate food and challenged us to manage His environment with intelligence and respect.

Scientific evidence shows that what plant neuroscientists interpret as consciousness is a misunderstanding of the design God built into plants. It is well known that sunflower blooms will turn to follow the Sun from sunrise to sunset. Are the sunflowers thinking and acting on their thoughts? Of course not! This function is programmed into the plants to give them maximum sunlight exposure.

We have all seen plants wilt when they are too dry or hot. Is this the result of feeling pain or thinking out the need to reduce leaf area? An intelligent Creator hard-wired these responses into their DNA. Animals have consciousness because of a complex nervous system and a brain system that oversees the neural pathways. Conscious responses to pain help animals and humans survive.

I have known people who talk to their plants and claim that it makes the plants grow better. I must admit that I have talked to my car when it wasn’t working. Whether plants or cars, our conversations are really for our own benefit, not the thing we are taking to. We tend to anthropomorphize plants and cars, giving them human attributes. God has designed plants to feed us, shade us, and show us beauty, but they are not created like us and are not to be worshipped.

— John N. Clayton © 2024
Reference: Skeptical Inquirer for September/October 2024, pages 21-23.

August 23, 2024August 20, 2024

Change the Way You Think

A primary biblical teaching that many people find repulsive is that Jesus Christ brought change to all who would listen to and follow Him. In the “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5-7), Jesus compared what people had said about lust and hatred to a new standard. The message of “repentance” seen throughout the teachings of Christ and His followers was a call to change the way you think, and that threatens many people.

Moses changed from an Egyptian prince to a leader of Israel. Jonah changed from a man trying to run away from God to a preacher to the city of Nineveh. Peter changed from a denier of any association with Christ to the main speaker on the day of Pentecost. Paul changed from a persecutor of Christianity to one of Christianity’s great leaders.

All humans tend to resist change. Political parties and many voters rely on the status quo despite a huge need for change. The call of Christianity for America to change its stance on moral issues is a massive source of conflict. Terrorist groups, from the Ku Klux Klan to Muslim extremists, resist change. The biblical call of Galatians 3:28 is a threat to many people. It says that for Christians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female for we are all one..” That contrasts with the great prejudice and violence against the Christian community.

Repentance is not merely confessing to faults or to a mistake. Repentance is changing the way you think. In Acts 2:38, when Peter said, “repent and be baptized,” he was challenging his listeners to change the way they think and then wash away their sins in baptism. If you don’t change the way you think, then baptism is just getting wet.

Christian teaching seeks to transform our world from one marred by war, hatred, racism, abuse, violence, and prejudice to a world of love, caring, compassion, empathy, and peace. This is a call to change the way you think. That is a change the world desperately needs, perhaps more at this time than ever before in history.

August 21, 2024August 20, 2024

Bats Are Unique in Several Ways

Bats are among the most amazing creatures. The August 2024 issue of National Geographic was devoted to exploring research into all that bats can do and how they do it. Bats are unique in several ways.

There are over 1400 species of bats, ranging in size from the bumblebee bat, which weighs less than an ounce, to the flying fox, a fruit bat with a wingspan of nearly six feet and weighing up to three pounds. One-fifth of all mammal species on Earth are bats, and bats do many things that benefit humans. They consume mosquitoes and agricultural pests and are primary pollinators for bananas, mangoes, avocados, and durians (an important Asian fruit).

Bat wings are made of skin stretched on light bones with many joints, with muscles embedded in the skin. By comparison, bird wings have three joints. Bat wings have vast numbers of tiny hairs that sense airflow. Attempting to develop a drone in such a small space has turned out to be incredibly difficult. The quadcopter drones in widespread use can’t rival the flight of a bat in dark places.

Bats are unique in their long life expectancy and disease resistance. They can live for decades and rarely get cancers. They carry several viruses but are not affected by them. Some researchers suggested that COVID-19 jumped from bats to humans. Research shows that as bats age, their DNA is repaired, and scientists are studying this repair and immune activity.

It is interesting that the Bible doesn’t say much about bats. In Leviticus and Deuteronomy, bats are among the flying creatures God told the Israelites not to eat, a point that has interesting connections to viruses they can carry. Bats are unique and a critical part of the ecosystem that God designed. The more we understand about them, the more we see the hand of God in their creation. These small creatures are essential to God’s ecosystem and to us.

Reference: National Geographic for August 2024, pages 16-49

August 19, 2024August 18, 2024

Medication Abortion In Reality

Medication abortion is a two-drug cocktail that ends the life of the developing child during the first trimester of pregnancy. It is essential for women considering medication abortion to know what it does and its side effects.

The first pill is mifepristone/RU-486, which prevents the pre-born baby from receiving hormonal support (progesterone) essential for the baby to develop. The second pill (misoprostol) causes the uterus to contract and expel the baby. The process is painful for the woman.

The Mayo Clinic says the side effects include vomiting, fever, nausea, chills, diarrhea, and headache. Women may need painkillers to manage pain after a medication abortion. The Mayo Clinic also says that a woman undergoing a pill-induced medication abortion needs access to emergency services. Complications include hemorrhaging and infection. A 17-year study showed that of 423,000 abortions, there were 121,283 confirmed emergency room visits within 30 days.

When humans interfere with God’s design, there are always problems, and the miracle of conception and birth is a design that works. Medication abortions are a disaster in too many cases to be a reasonable alternative. The writer of Psalms 139:13-14 said it well: “For you, God, possessed my inmost being, you covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you, God, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are your works..”

— John N. Clayton © 2024

References: Mayo Clinic and 40 Days for Life

Note: The 2024 Democratic National Convention is this week in Chicago, and one of the features being offered is free chemical abortions from a mobile clinic operated by Planned Parenthood.

August 16, 2024August 14, 2024

Inconsistency of Well-Educated Skeptics

It has become fashionable in the media to bash the Bible, but the inconsistency of well-educated skeptics who denigrate the Bible as a fictitious writing does not stand up. This essay is not about bashing skeptics but about encouraging them to reconsider their views on the credibility of the Bible.

Most skeptics do not question the credibility of Plato’s writings, but how many ancient copies do we have of Plato’s work? The answer is seven. No educated scholar would question the works of Pliny even though, once again, only seven copies exist. Herodotus and Suetonius are required reading in most universities, but we have only eight manuscripts for each. Even Socrates and Aristotle exist in less than 50 ancient copies. It is easy to understand why this is the case because these manuscripts were hand-written and produced hundreds of years after the author lived. We agree that these copies are valid and that their message is clear.

In comparison, roughly 5600 early New Testament copies and fragments are in museums worldwide. Well-known ancient scholars also quoted from the New Testament. Justin Martyr quotes 268 times from the gospels and 43 times from the letters of Paul. Origen quotes 9231 times from the gospels, 349 times from Acts, and over 8,000 times from the letters. If you add up all the Bible quotes known to scholars, there are 19,369 quotes from the gospels, 1,352 from the book of Acts, 14,905 from the letters, and 664 from the book of Revelation. This adds up to 36,289 quotes by ancient writers.

We see the amazing inconsistency of well-educated skeptics accepting writings with only seven or eight ancient copies while rejecting biblical manuscripts of similar ages with over 35,000 quotes. Because of the huge number of manuscripts and quotes available, we can check on the integrity of biblic a l translations. Attempting to justify rejecting Christ because you don’t want to live as He says is one thing, but being dishonest and inconsistent with evidence is something else.

We warmly invite you to take our free correspondence course “Beyond Reasonable Doubt.” Simply send us your USPS address, and we will send you lesson # 1. This is an opportunity for you to delve deeper into the evidence supporting the Bible’s credibility and reconsider any doubts you may have. – John N. Clayton
jncdge@aol.com
Does God Exist?
1555 Echo Valley Drive
Niles MI 49120

August 15, 2024August 14, 2024

UAP Sightings

The scientific community has rejected UFOs, but in their place, we have “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena” or UAPs. From 2001 to 2020, people reported almost 99,000 UAP sightings. A huge percentage of these reports are easily explained. They include drones, satellites, balloons, the planet Venus, vapor from unspent fuel released from a SpaceX rocket, airborne trash, military aircraft, and even flocks of migrating birds.

Nearly every day, we get a letter or email from someone who claims that aliens control Earth’s history. Suggesting that Jesus Christ was an alien is just a way of discounting the Bible and the whole concept of the spiritual world. However, some skeptics claim the UAP sightings prove this rather foolish viewpoint.

It is essential to understand that the Bible does not say Earth is the only place where God created life, and life’s complexity makes it extremely difficult to attribute it to chance. Some have gone to extremes to claim other forms of life could exist on other worlds, but life is typically defined as carbon-based life with oxygen and water. UAP sightings have not given evidence of any alien life.

The Bible gives Christians a purpose in life, and all other views offer no real purpose for existing. Atheists attempt to bypass this problem by denying that evil exists, but reality shows that to be false. We urge everyone to look at the evidence and form their life around the same truth that Thomas finally came to when Jesus said to him, “Reach your finger here and behold my hands, and reach your hand here and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing.” (John 20:27).

For more data and scientific discussions of UAPs, see Science News for August 10, 2024, and science.nasa.gov/uap.

August 14, 2024August 13, 2024

Komodo Dragons and Dinosaurs

Komodo dragons can give us a clue to ancient carnivores. Many atheists and denominational creationists make incorrect assumptions, as we have heard members of both groups say the Bible claims there was no death until Adam and Eve ate the “forbidden fruit.” That is simply not true because you can’t eat anything without something dying. When talking with kids, I often use the fun statement, “When you eat a mouthful of corn, you just murdered a plant.” That is not actual murder, but the point is that death is a part of eating. Topsoil consists of minerals and organic material that came from things that died, including insects and all kinds of animals.

The Genesis statement refers to spiritual, not physical, death. We have pointed out in our materials that Genesis 1:1-3 describes Earth’s preparation for human habitation. By the end of those three verses, you have a planet with everything humans would need, including coal, oil, topsoil, and the minerals essential for life on land. God provided an ecosystem that could produce all those things. The dinosaurs produced massive amounts of organic matter buried in an anaerobic environment to produce coal. Carnivores were necessary to control the herbivores, and they had to efficiently kill multi-ton herbivores.

Recent studies of the Komodo dragon have shown that even today, we have an animal with the equipment of the ancient carnivores. Komodo dragons can grow up to 10 feet (3 m) long and kill water buffaloes weighing more than 1,000 pounds (450 kg). Studies of Komodo dragon teeth show that they have a thin iron protective coating along the cutting edges and tips to keep them sharp. Because iron oxidizes, the iron in long-dead dinosaurs is no longer detectable, but studies indicate that T. rex probably had the same tooth design.

God designed carnivores to maintain the biological balance needed on a healthy planet. Komodo dragons give us a clue about the design features of carnivorous dinosaurs.

August 13, 2024August 12, 2024

Coprolites Teach Us About the Past

In my fossil collection, I have several varieties of coprolites – better known as petrified dinosaur poop. Because they are petrified, they have no odor and leave no residue, but coprolites teach us about the past. I used them in teaching earth science in high school and in my lectureships and class lectures. I would lick a coprolite in front of the class to demonstrate that fossilization replaces organic material with rock. I always got the expected reaction from the kids, and it was a demonstration they didn’t forget.

On a more serious note, coprolites teach us about the past. My collection includes several coprolites from a large plant-eating dinosaur. You can look at a coprolite with magnification or examine a slice of the coprolite under a microscope. The coprolite from the plant-eater is 100% plant material with no animal material. I have another specimen that is just the opposite. It was excavated from the lower intestinal tract of a T. rex fossil and contains no plant material. Instead, it has teeth, bones, and even skin, proving that it came from a meat-eating dinosaur.

So what do coprolites teach us about the past life on Earth? Clearly, some dinosaurs were herbivores (plant eaters), and some were carnivores (meat eaters). In Williams, Arizona, a museum named “Poozeum” contains over 7,000 coprolite specimens from George Frandsen’s collection. These have come from various places and tell us a lot about the history of the dinosaur age.

Denominational attempts to explain how Noah got dinosaurs on the ark fail miserably when it comes to the facts, including coprolites. We have pointed out that the literal meaning of the words in Genesis 1 tells us that God used natural methods to produce the coal, oil, and other resources He knew we would need. Dinosaurs existed before humans as part of the process of producing and maintaining an environment that gives us the resources we need today.

For further information, go to doesgodexist.tv and view video number 30, in which you can see the two examples of coprolites I use in my presentations.

August 12, 2024August 11, 2024

Tornadoes Are Not the Wrath of God

Some people try to tell us that tornadoes are God’s retaliation against humans for not obeying Him. Atheists and skeptics often say that disasters disprove the existence of a loving and all-powerful God. Now, we are seeing some preachers and religious periodicals saying that God is spiteful and taking it out on humans. This is not only a denial of scientific fact, but it contradicts the nature of God as revealed in the Bible. Catastrophes such as tornadoes are not the wrath of God.

The science behind tornadoes is well understood. They are a natural response to Earth’s changes and human abuse of what God has given us. A tornado happens when hot air becomes trapped under a layer of cold air. Hot air rises, and the Coriolis Effect of the Earth’s spin causes the rising column of air to spin as well.

How can hot air get under cold air? There are several causes, but the main one is the Sun heating Earth’s surface. Dark surfaces can get very hot. Several years ago in Oklahoma, I saw a weatherperson fry an egg on the hood of her car on a scorching day. Hundreds of square miles of blacktoped parking lots and plowed-up land guarantee rising air masses. Older native Americans who lived in Tornado Alley told me that they had never seen a tornado as a child, and their native language had no word for it, although they did have a word for dust devils.

The Bible clarifies that Jesus does not bring destruction, and tornadoes are not the wrath of God. Peter tells us God “..is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 ). Repentance is simply thinking differently. It does not always mean we must confess some great sin–although that could be the case. “Repent and be baptized” in Acts 2:38 means thinking differently, and Peter spoke those words to a large crowd. Romans 8:28 says, “In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him.” James 1:13 tells us that God tempts no one with evil.

If God zapped us every time we made a mistake, the planet would have no humans in a matter of minutes. Tornadoes are not the wrath of God. They are mainly a product of human abuse and carelessness. Building flimsy structures in areas prone to tornadoes is asking for trouble. Not managing the use of what God has given us has caused catastrophic damage and loss of life. Let us work on using the things God gave us more intelligently as we understand that God is a God of love (1 John 4:16) and forgiveness (John 3:16).