Tag: Does God Exist

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New Interest in Exorcism

New Interest in ExorcismIn 1973, movie theaters were showing The Exorcist adapted from the novel by William Peter Blatty. The movie featured Linda Blair’s screaming, a spinning head, and green vomit. It also contained a statement by the Roman Catholic Church on what demon possession is and who could perform exorcisms. Those who study the Bible in-depth will find that there are clear statements that Jesus overcame all forces not from God and that these things would cease. (See Zechariah 13:2, 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, Colossians 2:15, and 1 John 3:8.) First Corinthians 10:13 says that everything that happens to us is a common experience of humanity. Demon possession requiring an exorcism is clearly not a common experience. James 4:7 tells us that we simply need to resist Satan, and he will flee from us. So why is there new interest in exorcism?

The new interest in exorcism is because people have found that they can make a lot of money by reviving exorcisms. They include both believers and nonbelievers. There is a stage play based on Blatty’s novel which has debuted in Los Angeles and London and is scheduled to go on tour. The Vatican has opened its course on exorcism to members of Christian denominations which have included Lutherans, Anglicans, Greek Orthodox, and Pentecostals. The official practice of exorcism by the Catholic Church is governed by the 1999 Vatican document De Excorcisms et Supplicationibus Quibusdam which translates to “Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops published it in 2017. They also sell online a book for $6.95, which is an English translation of the appendix of the De Exorcism manuscript and is titled Prayers Against the Powers of Darkness.

Those who minimize this new interest in exorcism as a byproduct of Catholic tradition need to understand that interest in the occult has grown. People write off the popularity of Harry Potter as an entertainment fantasy, but the number of people involved in the occult is huge. The Satanic Temple (which is a tax-exempt religious organization) has been effective in attacking Christianity. Requests for exorcisms in Indianapolis reported by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis exceeded 1700, and in Italy the number is more than 500,000 per year.

This false use of religion is as old as religion itself. In 1 Samuel 28, Saul goes to a woman who ran a séance to try to get advice in a battle. To the woman’s horror, the real deal (Samuel) shows up as a miracle. In Acts 19:13-16, a group of vagabond Jews try to use exorcism as part of their act, and the results are catastrophic. In Jesus’ day, exorcisms had a spiritual purpose to show the power of God over even those who were in spiritual trouble. Today, that purpose doesn’t exist. While Satan is alive and well on planet Earth and despite the new interest in exorcism, he is not allowed to attack us on a level that we cannot resist and overcome. (See I Corinthians 10:13.)

For a detailed discussion of this, see our May/June 2011 issue by clicking HERE. We also deal with this issue in video number 16 on our doesgodexist.tv website. Click HERE for the videos page.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

Data from: “The New Wave of Exorcism” by Stuart Vyse. Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 2019

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National Geographic and Alternative Medicine

National Geographic and Alternative Medicine
We frequently refer to articles in National Geographic magazine. There have been times when the National Geographic Society has jumped to conclusions about some issue because of their bias to the currently held scientific beliefs. That is especially true when evolutionary theory is involved. However, their articles always have excellent photography and are usually well documented by credible scientists. That makes the relationship between National Geographic and alternative medicine very surprising.

The National Geographic Society has published six books promoting alternative medicine that are not only bad science but also bad journalism. These books go back to 2010, but in the last three years, the books have moved past just presenting data and have gone to promoting a wide range of alternative remedies.

In 2010 they released a book titled Guide to Medicinal Herbs followed by Complete Guide to Natural Home Remedies in 2012. Starting in 2014 the editors began promoting what they called Healing Remedies, Nature’s Best Remedies (2015), Natural Home Remedies (2017), and Nature’s Best Remedies (2019). These books claimed to offer ways to cure or heal illnesses. It is disturbing is that there is virtually no documentation nor any attempt to point out problems in the promoted “remedies” such as side effects or possible collateral damage.

It is important to understand that there are natural materials that can help treat physical problems in the human body. It is also important to know that this is a huge business with an expanding market making it attractive to every fast-talking con-artist. There is virtually no supervision of alternative medicine. That means people can make all kinds of claims without documenting them. To see National Geographic enter this circus is very disappointing. Skeptical Inquirer has taken on National Geographic in their September/October 2019 special issue titled “The Health Wars.” Skeptical Inquirer describes the problem this way:

“Producing books full of claims that lack evidence and don’t even meet minimum scientific standards belies the NGS’s stated ‘passion for science.’ Some of the advice can actually harm. The inconsistencies among the books are troubling and weaken any argument that they are providing ‘information people can trust.’ The National Geographic Society should not sully its reputation by promoting health practices and products not supported by credible scientific evidence.”

We encourage those interested in alternative medicine to examine what is presented in this issue of Skeptical Inquirer about National Geographic and alternative medicine. Click HERE to read the article and always use caution when taking medical advice.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Does God Exist? and Is the Bible True?

Does God Exist? and Is the Bible True?
How can we investigate the questions, “Does God exist?” and “Is the Bible true?” Many go to an atheist website or read a book by an atheist to decide. A vast majority of people who attack our position on the Bible follow atheist websites. The problem here should be obvious. If a person’s religious view is that there is no God, then obviously, the Bible cannot be the word of God since God does not exist! If you tell anyone something often enough and long enough, eventually they will believe it.

The same kind of problem could come up in the opposite way if one were to read only a book on the truth of the Bible written by a Christian minister. We are not saying that you should not read books written by atheists or ministers. What we are saying is that you cannot stop there and be satisfied whether the Bible is true or false. To answer the questions like “Does God exist?” and “Is the Bible true?” by reading what people say, you need to read both viewpoints. You also have to learn how both sides answer the questions posed by people whose views conflict with theirs.

A more direct way to answer the question “Is the Bible true?” would be to explore the evidence yourself. Is the Bible accurate in its statements of a scientific nature? Are the principles of psychology used in the Bible practical and worthwhile? Is the Bible’s approach to human relations valid? Can following the principles of the Bible bring peace, harmony, unity, and positive things to human beings? The way to answer these questions is to read the teachings of Jesus and ask yourself about these issues. It can be helpful to listen to the objections of an atheist and listen to a Christian apologist respond to those objections. But, take the time to look at the evidence and ask questions yourself. Starting with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 will show you clearly the answers to many of those questions.

Another approach worth considering is the cosmological evidence. The argument we make is very simple. We ask three questions: Was there, or was there not a beginning to the cosmos? If there was a beginning, was it caused, or was it not caused? If it was caused, what or who caused it?

The evidence for each of the steps in this logical discussion about origins comes from a variety of sources. In the first question, we can look at evidence from cosmology. The fact that the cosmos is expanding, strongly suggests that the expansion had a specific point in space and time from which it started. Any astronomy textbook will point this out. There is chemical evidence in the cosmos in terms of hydrogen, the fuel that powers the cosmos. If the universe had always existed, there would be no hydrogen left because it is the element from which all other materials are made. The power of the Sun and stars comes from the fusion of hydrogen atoms. We also see evidence from physics in the form of the laws of thermodynamics. We know that, in closed systems, things tend to move toward a condition of disorder. If the cosmos had always been, it would be totally disordered because the cosmos is a closed system with no energy being added to it.

The point we are making is that evidence comes from different fields. Experts in the fields of cosmology, physics, and chemistry have written about these processes. The evidence gives predictability to the cosmos and has many practical uses in space travel and astronomy. There is a wide range of support from a variety of areas for the argument that the cosmos had a beginning, that it was caused, and that it was intelligently caused.

Being confident about your beliefs cannot be rooted in what someone else tells you or what is popular. There are always problems with any biased belief systems passed on to you by others. You should be open to new evidence even when you have formed an opinion about something. The lesson of history on matters related to faith is that new discoveries support and confirm faith in God and His word.

We do not have to be consumed by doubt and paralyzed by uncertainty. The Bible speaks confidently, and we must work to build a dynamic faith that allows us to meet the needs that we were put here to address. The questions, “Does God exist?” and “Is the Bible true?” are probably the most important questions you will ever ask. Do the research and think!
— John N. Clayton and Roland Earnst

This post was adapted from an article by John N. Clayton in the Does God Exist? journal. You can read the complete article HERE.

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Being Timeless

Being TimelessBeing outside of time or timeless is a new concept to science. In classical physics, time is perhaps the most fundamental standard against which everything else is based. When we measure velocity, it’s basic unit is length per second or hour. Feet per second or miles per hour are familiar to most of us. When we measure acceleration, the units are meters per second squared. Newton’s Second Law defines force as mass multiplied by acceleration, so time even becomes involved in parameters that don’t directly include motion.

One of the equations that Einstein gave us which high school students like to play with is the equation for time at very high speeds. For a given frame of reference, time is defined by the equation T = T’/the square root of 1 – V2 over C2. In the equation, T = the time you experience. T’ is the time you would experience at rest relative to a given frame of reference. V is the speed at which you move, and C is the speed of light. Notice that as your speed reaches the speed of light, the fraction V2/C2 become 1, and since it is subtracted from 1, the value of the denominator becomes zero. Time ceases to exist. It becomes undefined.

If you could exceed the speed of light, the denominator would become the square root of a negative number which is said to be imaginary. Einstein gave us a similar equation for mass in which the mass is the undefined factor. Nuclear physics and quantum mechanics verify these equations.

This is an over-simplified explanation, but the point I am making is that there is physical evidence that there are dimensions beyond the three in which we exist. Being timeless is something science has begun to comprehend because these equations show that time is a variable that can be changed. The creation is far grander and far more mysterious than we can imagine.

For Christians, this is no surprise. The Bible is full of descriptions that embrace the idea that time is a created entity and that creations exist outside of time. The whole concept of there being a beginning to the cosmos in Genesis 1:1 recognizes that there was an existence before time. Proverbs 8:22-23 indicates that time was a designed and fashioned quantity. Revelation 22:13 repeats this concept. Second Timothy 1:9 refers to it, and the whole idea of eternity relies upon it.

When we reach the end of life, time ceases to exist for us. That has interesting implications. If there is no time, there is no death because death depends upon aging, and without time, nothing ages. There is no physical pain if time doesn’t exist. That’s because physical pain depends upon the time it takes for the pain signal to go from what gets hurt (like a finger) to what registers the hurt – your brain.

“No more tears, no more sorrows.” Revelation 21:4 Describes this change saying that “the former things have all passed away.” Second Peter 3:8-13 speaks of the elements dissolving at the end of time. Science has given us some reinforcement for these promises recognizing that the physical world will be done away with when time ends. Let us live in such a way that we can look forward to the timeless new order God has in store for us.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Your Heart Is More than a Muscle

Your Heart Is More than a MuscleI recently had some concerns about my heart, which turned out to be unfounded. In the process of various tests, one of my atheist friends said to me, “Well, after all, your heart is just a muscle, but I guess you religious guys don’t believe that, do you?” My response was, “Well, you don’t either!” Your heart is more than a muscle.

All of us know that the physical heart beating inside our chest is a muscle. It is probably the most studied muscle in the body. I was fascinated as I watched my heartbeat in the echocardiogram. I was amazed to have the heart specialist point out the valves and the design of the vascular system that feeds blood throughout my body. It was also interesting that I could change the rate of my heartbeat, and in turn, my blood pressure, by thinking about certain things. The technician doing my echocardiogram said, “Oh yes, there’s a lot more to the heart than the muscle.”

In the Bible, the word “heart” has many uses. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for “heart” occurs 29 times referring to the physical organ directly or figuratively. (See 1 Samuel 25:37, 2 Samuel 18:14, 2 Kings 9:24.) Old Testament writers use the word 257 times to refer to personality, inner life, or character. (See Exodus 9:14, 1 Samuel 16:7, Genesis 20:5.) An additional 166 times it refers to emotional states of consciousness. Some examples are: intoxication (1 Samuel 25:36), joy or sorrow (Judges 18:20, 1 Samuel 1:8), anxiety (1 Samuel 4:13), courage and fear (Genesis 42:28), and love 2 Samuel 14:1). Also 204 times it refers to intellectual activities such as attention (Exodus 7:23), reflection (Deuteronomy 7:17), memory (Deuteronomy 4:9), understanding (1 Kings 3:9), or technical skill (Exodus 28:3).

Finally, 195 times it refers to volition or purpose (1 Samuel 2:35). This varied use continues in the New Testament with the most common application referring to our mind. (See Mark 12:30-33.) Your heart is more than a muscle.

The point is that the word “heart” is used frequently referring to something that is the center of things and rarely does it refer to the physical heart that beats within our chest. God calls us to put Him and His Word at the center of our lives. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Paul wrote that when “Christ dwells in our hearts by faith,” we can comprehend the love of God (Ephesians 3:17-19). In that sense, it is true that your heart is more than a muscle.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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God’s Environmental Solutions

God's Environmental SolutionsWith a growing human population, environmental toxins, the warming of our planet, and the shortages of potable water, we recognize that Earth is under stress. News reports tell of people dying because of ecological problems. It is essential to understand that all of this pain, death, and turmoil are unnecessary. When God created planet Earth, He built into it many self-correcting tools for survival. If you name a major problem that threatens the long term existence of humans, I believe there is a built-in device that can correct the problem. God designed the Earth to withstand even the abuse that selfishness, ignorance, and greed have brought upon it. Here are a few examples of God’s environmental solutions:

Carbon dioxide and global warming. Several greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, but the main one is carbon dioxide. Not only do animals exhale carbon dioxide, but fires produce it, so human-caused fires are a contributor. God beautifully designed planet Earth with tools to contain carbon dioxide. Plants take it out of the air and release oxygen as a product of photosynthesis. This system is highly efficient as a single tree can take care of the carbon produced by one human. Plants in the ocean do the same thing. Human deforestation of both the land and the sea thwarts the system God put in place to sustain life on Earth. God’s environmental solutions are there if we will use them.

Water. Oceans cover roughly 3/4ths of Earth’s surface, but water shortages plague a significant percentage of the world’s population. The obvious problem is that because of minerals in the water, ocean water cannot be consumed directly by humans or most animals or plants. But the 50-quadrillion tons of minerals in the oceans, including 4.5 billion tons of uranium, have 14,000 industrial uses. God’s environmental solutions not only provide enough water for every living thing on the planet but also a wealth of minerals to sustain an advanced society.

Toxins. In the past five years, science has discovered that a Chinese brake fern (Pteris vittata) can survive on arsenic. Arsenic is a significant pollutant poisoning millions of people in the world, causing skin lesions, cancer, and other illnesses. Finding a plant that removes arsenic from the environment is a significant breakthrough. Over the past several years, we have mentioned other plants that provide environmental cleansing. Scientists have found bacteria that eat plastics and others that consume crude oil. These are more of God’s environmental solutions to tackle the plastic trash and oil spills in the ocean.

We need to allocate research funding to learn more about God’s environmental solutions to counter ecological problems. God has given us resources to repair the damage we have done to the environment. Maybe the problems we see around us will bring us to accept what God has provided and have the heart to think beyond our own selfish interests.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

Reference: Scientific American, September 2019, page 18.

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Labor Day Weekend USA

Labor Day Weekend USAThis weekend is Labor Day weekend in the United States because the first Monday in September is a federal holiday. Since it is the 125th anniversary of Labor Day, this tradition goes back a long way. Like most of our holidays, Labor Day has taken on all kinds of unrelated meanings. At one time it was the last day you could wear white or seersucker and be in style. Many consider Labor Day to be the unofficial end of summer. Workers often take their vacations to end on Labor Day.

Biblically there is a lot to support the emphasis on labor. The Old Testament is full of stories and characters who demonstrated an incredible willingness to work. Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1:17 – 2:18 talked of his labors and what they taught him. Nehemiah (4:16-21) talked about how hard the Jews worked to rebuild the walls in the face of enormous opposition. Noah’s building of the ark and Moses’ long journey to the promised land are examples of hard work. Paul gave instructions in 1 Thessalonians 4:10-12 for Christians to work with their own hands and be independent.

Beyond that, the Bible condemns laziness. Proverbs contains multiple charges for us to be active in labor (See Proverbs 6:9-11 and 26:16-17). In 2 Thessalonians 3:10, Paul told Christians that if someone will not work, they should also not eat. God has told us that physical labor is the responsibility of all humans, but equally important is spiritual labor.

Romans 2:5-11 tells us that we must work for good no matter who we are because only doers of God’s instructions will be justified. And what are doers? Matthew 25:33-40 tells us that it is those who feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, take in the strangers, cloth the naked, visit the sick and visit those who are in prison. When we engage in such actions, we build and demonstrate our faith. James 2:14-20 points out that just having faith doesn’t meet needs and doesn’t provide salvation. James wrote that faith without works is dead.

God intended for us to be active and involved. Genesis 2:15 says, “God took the man and put him into the garden to dress it and keep it.” We are incomplete if we don’t work, be active, and complete what we were created to do both physically and spiritually. On Labor Day Weekend let’s celebrate the fact that we can work with our hands, be creative, worship God, and enjoy serving God and others in ways that bring glory to our Creator.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

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Elephant Ecology or Extinction

Elephant Ecology or ExtinctionThere are those who like to change things, even if they have not investigated all the ramifications of that change. When God’s creation is involved, there are especially drastic proposals that are sometimes a product of ignorance. There is an ongoing battle between those who want to preserve elephants as a species and those who say that elephants are an ecological disaster. Instead of elephant ecology, they believe that elephants need to travel the road to extinction.

Those who want to allow elephants to go the way of the dinosaurs say that the volume of plants they need to survive makes them too destructive to justify their existence. To support such claims, they show pictures of areas decimated by elephants and tell stories about the invasion of elephants into agricultural regions. Elephants, they say, have threatened the survival of whole communities of subsistence farmers by eating the plants humans depend on.

On the other side of the fence is the “Save the Elephant” campaign in Kenya. They maintain that there is interconnectivity in the natural world between all organisms. They argue that elephants provide a variety of connections to various African ecologies. Elephants are ecosystem engineers. Scientists tell us that elephants knock over trees, trample brush, prune branches, and disperse seeds, which increases the biodiversity of the areas in which they live. Elephant ecology helps to maintain the savannas and forests.

A recent discovery connects the largest animals in the African ecology with the smallest. Herpetologist Dr. Stephen Platt has been studying the Nay Ya Inn wetland in Myanmar (Burma). He found that frogs depend on elephants in a very surprising way. As elephants travel in wetland areas, they leave Jacuzzi-size pools in the ground that stay full of water during the dry season. Frogs depend on these pools to lay eggs and develop tadpoles to maintain their populations in a fragile environment. Platt says there other small organisms that also depend on these pools for their survival. In Platt’s words: “Such microcosms of life are probably commonplace, but almost no one has bothered to look before.”

Earth’s history has been full of examples where large animals supported an ecosystem that produced not only life, but also resources for humans. Dinosaurs were huge for a reason, and it was not to make movies. Like the elephant, dinosaurs provided for humans by being the ecosystem engineers of their day. Without them, we would not have the coal, gas, iron, and many other resources that make our modern world possible.

God has provided for us in some incredible ways, and elephant ecology has opened our minds to a whole new way of seeing that.
— John N. Clayton © 2019

Reference: Scientific American, September 2019, page 16.

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Arranging Books on a Shelf

Arranging Books on a ShelfMy wife recently did some major rearranging of the books in our library. We have a large number of books, and we needed to downsize and make it easier to find what we are looking for. She asked for my advice about arranging books on a shelf. This brought to my mind a column in Astronomy magazine in January of 2013. In Bob Berman’s “Strange Universe” column, he often presents some interesting facts, and we have referred to his articles previously. In that particular column, he wrote about what random events or “chance” can or cannot accomplish.

The connection with library books goes like this. If you have 4 books on a shelf, how many ways can you arrange them? The answer is “4 factorial,” which is 4 x 3 x 2. Multiply it out, and you find that there are 24 possible ways. However, what if you have 10 books to arrange? That would be 10 factorial, which is 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2. Multiply those numbers, and you will find there are 3,628,800 different ways to arrange 10 books on a shelf. We have way more than 10 books in our library, and I am not going to compute how many possible arrangements there are. Neither my calculator nor my brain could handle it.

When my wife asked for advice on arranging books on a shelf, she didn’t realize what a difficult question she was asking me. However, I had no problem giving a suggestion because I have enough intelligence to know what books should go together by topic. But if you were to put 10 books on a shelf at random, the chance that they would all be in alphabetical order would be about one in 3.6 million. Try it blindfolded and see how long it takes for you to get it right.

Why am I talking about arranging books on a shelf? What’s the point? There are many more than 10 options when it comes to designing any part of the complex universe in which we live. What are the chances that they all came together without any intelligent direction? The possibility would be far lower than for all of the books in our library to be in alphabetical order, or even in topical order, if we just randomly put them on the shelves. The question then becomes: “Can anyone believe that this universe, our solar system, planet Earth, life, consciousness, and intelligence all happened by chance?” My library disproves that theory.
— Roland Earnst © 2019

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Dinosaur Blood Pressure

Dinosaur Blood Pressure in BarosaurusIt’s an animal that does not exist on Earth today and which poses some serious challenges to a chance explanations. It’s a dinosaur called the barosaurus. Skeletal remains of this animal show that its head would have towered fifty feet (more than 15 m) above the ground. We have seen drawings of these huge herbivorous dinosaurs. Many of us have seen the reconstructions based on the bones such as the one shown in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. No one denies the size of the animal. The problems come when we start looking at its anatomy. The problem of dinosaur blood pressure raises some serious questions.

The animal with the longest neck today is the giraffe. To get blood to its brain, a giraffe has a systolic blood pressure as high as 350. Systolic pressure is the pressure produced when the heart contracts. For humans, anything over 140 is considered high. To create that much pressure, the weight of the giraffe’s heart weighs is about 25 pounds (11.3 kg). A human heart weighs about 11 ounces (310 grams). For a barosaurus, the heart would have to weigh tons. Also, the blood vessels would have to be extraordinarily thick. It is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that such conditions could exist.

Years ago, two scientists working at the investigative Cardiology Laboratory at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York developed a proposal that barosaurus had eight hearts. They suggested a heart like ours pumped blood from the body to the lungs and back. They then suggested a complicated series of seven other hearts. Their idea was that there would be a single-chamber secondary heart above the primary one. It would have one-way valves to boost the blood into the neck. Above the second heart, the artery would divide into two branches sending blood to the brain. Three hearts along each branching artery would pump the blood to the next heart until it reached the brain. This arrangement would reduce the dinosaur blood pressure so that the systolic pressure would max out at about 180.

This is a theory which in all probability will always remain as just another imaginative proposal. It is doubtful that there will ever be any way to test it. The point is that the anatomical complexity and the number of critical parameters required would make this dinosaur blood pressure system virtually impossible to happen by chance. Each heart’s pressure would have to be critically adjusted to just enough to move the blood to the next level. If the dinosaur blood pressure were too high, it would damage the delicate valves of the next heart. What would happen when the animal ran? Each heart would have to speed up, but not at the same rate.

We suggest that proposals like this defy any possible accidental cause. If a person wants to accept chance as a faith proposition in spite of its inadequacies, they are certainly free to do so. But the more variables that must be controlled to achieve the desired effect, the less likely it is that the result can be a product of chance. They can better be explained by design.
— John N. Clayton © 2019