Earth Archives

December 21, 2023December 19, 2023

Natural Science Cannot Answer these Questions

Natural science cannot answer these questions we examined yesterday:
1- ”Why does the universe exist?”
2- ”How did something come from nothing?”
Science is very good at answering “how” questions but not as good with “why” questions. Let’s look at two more “why” questions.

3- ”Why are the physical constants precisely tuned to support conscious life?”
Science has determined that the universe’s physical constants are fine-tuned to support our existence. They are fine-tuned with such precision that it could not be merely accidental, and this precision makes scientists who don’t want to believe in God very uncomfortable.

If you eliminate an intelligent Creator, there seems to be only one possible explanation for the apparent fine-tuning. It’s the “multiverse” idea. This proposal suggests that an almost limitless number of universes exist with various physical constants. We are lucky enough to be in the one universe with precise constants to support conscious observers like us. Therefore, it is merely an accident that we see the physical constants as being fine-tuned; otherwise, we wouldn’t be here to observe them.

The multiverse concept is not scientific since it cannot be proven or disproven. It lies outside of the limits of science. Furthermore, if you can’t explain the emergence of one universe from nothing, how can you explain an infinite number of universes from nothing?

Since science has set limitations on itself, it also can’t answer this question:
4- “Why do I exist?”
It’s a question that probably everyone thinks about at some time in life. “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose?” Regardless of how you ask the question, the answer is what gives meaning to life. Science can’t answer the question, but without an answer, many people give up on life. The lack of an answer is perhaps the biggest problem in today’s world, especially among young people.

Natural science cannot answer these questions because the answer is supernatural. God loves you and designed you for a purpose. He came into our world in a physical form we know as Jesus Christ. (See John 1:1-14.) From a humble birth to a perfect life, He showed us how to live. By His sacrifice on the cross, He demonstrated God’s love. If you take time to ponder this, you will realize that the questions natural science can’t answer are the most important ones.

December 19, 2023December 18, 2023

The Design of Dirt

Most of us take dirt for granted and perhaps even have a negative attitude toward what lies beneath our lawns and gardens. We may not realize that soil is a complex structure designed for life and that many life forms live in it. We should take a moment to consider the design of dirt.

There are many kinds of soil, and the amount varies widely in different environments. In deserts or polar areas, we find very little soil. For example, in Alaska, the soil is very thin, but life there is supported by the yearly migration of salmon. In desert areas, we may have only sand and no soil. Also, volcanic regions may have no soil since soil takes time to develop. Volcanic rock coming out of the lava flow is usually very sterile.

Because of the design of dirt, it is home to 59% of Earth’s species. Scientists have identified twelve families of living organisms that survive in the soil. Some of these are more familiar, such as mollusks, arthropods, fungi, protozoans, bacteria, viruses, plants, and even mammals. Less well-known are nematodes, oligochaets, enchytraeids, and archaes.

Humans depend on all of these life forms for food, fiber, and the survival of the animals humans use for food. Life on land could not exist without the organisms living in the soil beneath our feet. Using chemicals on soil threatens its ability to provide what we need to survive. Agriculture is moving toward more efficient and effective methods of growing our food. Efforts to duplicate the design built into Earth’s soil are proving to be a challenge.

In the Garden of Eden, everything humans needed to eat was already growing. God had designed soil that produced the plants; all the first humans had to do was gather it. When God expelled them from the garden, they were forced to deal with an Earth that was out of balance. They had to control the soil and what grew in it. We can try to copy God’s design of soil, but we are only beginning to understand how complex it is and what it takes to maintain a working environment. God’s wisdom is seen everywhere we look, even down to the design of dirt.

Reference: “The Soil Contains Multitudes” in the January/February issue of American Scientist, page 8.

December 15, 2023December 12, 2023

The Magnitude of the Creator and His Love

Dr. James C. Peterson, writing in the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, gave some astounding numbers to help us comprehend the magnitude of the Creator. These facts should cause amazement that God could care about us as individuals.

Peterson writes, “There are 12 times as many stars in our galaxy as there are people on our planet.” It is hard to comprehend that God knows about me at all when you realize that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and there are two trillion galaxies that we know of. Peterson points out we are on a dot (planet Earth) compared to the size of the Sun, which is a dot compared to the size of our galaxy.

Despite those facts, God knows my name and how many hairs are on my head (Luke 12:6-7). The Creator of the cosmos “knows within me my thirty trillion cells, and the three billion base pairs of my personal DNA copied in a complete set, inside each of my nucleated cells.” It has been said that the more we know about the creation, the more we comprehend the magnitude of the Creator.

The psalmist David seemed to comprehend the magnitude of the Creator as he looked at the stars without telescopes and marveled at their creation. In Psalms 19:1, David wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” In Psalms 139:13-15 David writes, “…you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret…”

Today, as we look outward with our telescopes and inward with our microscopes, we have more reason to be amazed than David ever did. David wrote in Psalms 8:3-4, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

There is more to fill us with awe than just the magnitude of the Creator. We also marvel at the magnitude of His love. Jesus spoke of the “agape” form of love, which considers every human to be of incredible worth no matter who they are or their station in life. Earth would be at peace if all humans could grasp that concept. Perhaps someday, enough of us will realize that our concept of the Creator is too small and the value we place on the creation and on our fellow humans is too limited to allow war to continue.

Reference: Dr James C. Peterson writing in the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, December 2023 issue, page 153.

December 7, 2023December 5, 2023

Earth Is Designed to Sustain Humans

Nearly every day brings an announcement of discoveries by various space agencies showing that our unique planet Earth is designed to sustain humans.

The Webb space telescope found a planet as large as Jupiter but much less dense, and researchers have dubbed it the “cotton candy planet.” It has winds up to 10,000 mph and large amounts of sulfur dioxide in an atmosphere of sand that acts like rain. Another discovery from the Webb space telescope is that there are free-floating planet-sized objects similar in size to Jupiter but not in orbit around any star. No model of planet and star formation explains these strange objects.

Discoveries of the Webb telescope show the complexity of the cosmos, complicating travel in space. Additionally, NASA has released data showing that humans suffer significant body changes in weightlessness for an extended time. Astronaut Scott Kelly was in space for roughly a year, and his heart diminished in size by nearly a third and became rounder. Astronauts have had bone density changes of up to 2% a month, and radiation significantly affects their DNA. Reported psychological issues called “detachment phenomena” make astronauts unreceptive to instructions from mission control.

Humans were created to live on planet Earth, and Earth is designed to sustain humans. Simply transporting humans to a space environment doesn’t work easily. Creating an environment similar to what God gave us will require massive scientific work and may be impossible. The idea that people can survive on other planets going around other stars in the near future makes good science fiction but is not practical. We must learn to get along and solve our problems here on Earth. The belief that we are here by chance becomes harder and harder to accept as we learn more about both space and ourselves.

Reference: The Week for December 8, 2023, pages 11 and 22, and October 20, 2023, page 22.

December 4, 2023December 3, 2023

The Treasury of the Snow

“Have you entered the treasury of the snow…?” (Job 38:22”. “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater…” (Isaiah 55:10). “He gives snow like wool …” Psalms 147:16).

That is just a sampling of the Old Testament understanding of the importance of snow. Many of us don’t view snow as a treasure, not realizing how snow does things that rain cannot do. The fact is that snow is essential to humans as well as many forms of animal and plant life. We couldn’t live without the treasury of the snow.

Snow on the mountains locks up water during winter and releases it gradually during the summer. Rain comes all at once and is quickly gone, as many of us have experienced flooding in the past year. If that moisture came as snow, there would be no flooding, and melting snow would gradually provide water for plants and animals. Falling snow also has a cleaning effect, as Job 9:20 suggests.

In the winter, snow allows small animals like vols, moles, chipmunks, and field mice to feed on plants and insects they would not have access to in summer. They can even raise their young under the protection of snow. When the snow melts, larger animals can feed on these smaller ones, preserving the balance of the food chain. Even in winter, the larger animals can catch some of them because the snow does not block the sound of their scurrying. The whole food chain is affected by the treasury of the snow.

Snow formation is due to the water molecule’s design and not some accident. The polarity of the water molecule means it has positive and negative ends. That creates the beautiful snowflake shapes. As water freezes, the molecules latch onto each other, and the volume of the water expands. This allows lakes to freeze on the surface since the density of ice is lower than that of liquid water. Non-polar materials do not expand as they freeze.

Romans 1:20 tells us we can know there is a God through the things He has made. The treasury of the snow is an essential part of God’s design to allow life to survive.

November 20, 2023November 20, 2023

World of Life Beneath the Soil

An unknown world of life lurks beneath our feet, and we should be thankful that it does. A research report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) says that approximately 59% of all living species on Earth live in the soil. Because there are so many organisms living there and they are generally out of sight, scientists don’t know how many species exist in the world of life beneath the soil.

According to the report by Diana Wall of Colorado State University, Fort Collins, soil organisms support life above the soil in many ways. They make it possible for us to grow food, and they break down organic waste. We often think of earthworms, but there are also many smaller worm species. We seldom see various insects that spend their lives in the soil. However, we do see insects that live much of their lives under the ground as well as above. Those include ants, springtails, woodlice, and millipedes. We often think of some animals that live in the soil as pests, such as termites and nematodes. However, they serve the purpose of breaking down organic materials, helping to keep the world from filling up with waste.

Plants also live in the world of life beneath the soil. For example, fungi do not use photosynthesis like green plants, so they can survive in the darkness. Subterranean life forms include the least familiar amphibians, the caecilians, whose name means “blind ones.” Naked mole-rats live underground, and many other mammals spend at least part of their lives in subterranean darkness.

According to the report in PNAS, “soil is the most biodiverse singular habitat.” We don’t often think of the world of life beneath the soil, but we should thank God that He thought of it. Subterranean life makes it possible for life above ground to thrive and prosper. We see this incredible web of life as evidence of design.

Reference: pnas.org

November 17, 2023November 14, 2023

The Purpose for the Cosmos

Scientists and philosophers speculate on the question, “Why Is There Something Instead of Nothing?” The question is why our solar system exists and why there should be countless galaxies other than our Milky Way. Part of this question no one can answer, at least not at the present time. What is the purpose for the cosmos?

Is there intelligent life in any of the other solar systems? We can’t answer that question yet. However, if God’s purpose in creating the physical world in which we live is to advance the battle between good and evil, would He also do that in other places? Isaiah 55:8-9 challenges us to understand that God is not limited to our capacity to think and understand. In that passage, God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways … For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Science fiction writers have created a whole industry on the assumption that the war between good and evil is ongoing and not limited to the planet on which we live.

A theologian may object to the possibility of other planets with intelligent life, saying, “So you think that Jesus died more than once and experienced more than one resurrection?” The answer to that is “no.” The biblical account is limited to planet Earth. However, many years ago, on a Larry King talk show with an atheist, a caller asked the atheist, “What would you do if a spaceship landed on the White House lawn and a little green man jumped out with a Bible in his hand and said, ‘Has Jesus been here yet?'” My atheist opponent smiled and said, “Punt.”

God may provide a different means for the battle between good and evil than what we see on planet Earth. The point is that there is a purpose for our existence and a purpose for the cosmos. God may use other places and methods to carry out that battle. On a cosmic level, the atheist has no purpose for existing.

Another point we must consider about why the universe exists is that all we see in the cosmos may simply be the result of the creation of time, space, and energy in the beginning. We now understand that the “big bang” singularity was not just a physical process. God created time and space, and matter-energy was engrained in the fabric of space. For us humans, limited to our five senses and able only to comprehend the changes in our physical world, the purpose for the cosmos is beyond our current understanding.

Recent advances in quantum mechanics have shown that time did have a beginning and that the fabric of space contains all the residual matter produced by the creation process. God was not just concerned about the scientifically ignorant population of the days of Moses and Christ. God knew that humans would eventually come to understand the creation process to such an extent that we could see evidence of God’s hand in the cosmos. As God’s ultimate creation, it makes sense that humans would seek to know the purpose for the cosmos.

We suggest that what makes humans unique and special is our spiritual makeup, being created in the image of God. Our physical qualities are of secondary importance. The whole message of the cosmos is that God is a God of incredible power, wisdom, and purpose. The universe radiates that, and the more we see of the creation, the more we understand of its Creator.

October 24, 2023April 12, 2024

Solar System Formation

NASA released a fascinating picture showing solar system formation. The star in the picture is PDS 70, and the resolution is so good that a planet orbiting the star is clearly visible. Also visible is a disk around the planet, apparently forming several moons.

This picture shows what astronomers believe was the process that produced Jupiter and some of its moons. This is the first time astronomers have seen a solar system formation in progress. The amazing thing about this is that it is very reminiscent of the Bible’s description of the process God used to produce the Earth and the other objects in our solar system.

Genesis 1:1 uses the Hebrew word for creation (bara), which describes a process that only God can do, creating something from nothing. Modern science has now shown that time, space, and matter/energy came into existence at a point called a singularity, but can’t answer what went on before this singularity. From verse 1 through the rest of Genesis chapter 1, the word “bara” is not used until verse 21, when God created the first animal life. The term used elsewhere is “asah,” which describes changing something already created. (See verses 7, 16, and 25.) The word “bara” is used again in verse 27, when God created man and woman in his own image. Chapter 2, verse 3 summarizes what God had done by saying that He rested from all He had created (bara) and made (asah).

What we are now seeing is how material already created is crafted into a solar system. We may never know what purpose God has for these other solar systems. However, watching this solar system formation helps us understand the formation of our solar system and our unique planet. We know that our giant gas planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are strategically placed to protect Earth from collisions by comets and other objects coming from outside our solar system.

In Psalms 8:3-4 we read, “When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him,…” We don’t see the answer to that question in the physical processes God has used and continues to use. The significance of humans and Jesus Christ’s teachings reveal God’s spiritual purposes in the creation.

The horrible wars wreaking havoc among humans in today’s world are caused by the evil that combats the good Jesus came to establish. While the world is embroiled in war, selfishness, power struggles, greed, and death, we see God working in the lives of men and women and the good being done by the people who faithfully follow Jesus.

Reference: apod.nasa.gov for October 17, 2023.

October 23, 2023October 22, 2023

Incredible Color in Birds and Trees

One of the great mysteries of living things is the presence of beauty. If your faith is “survival of the fittest,” you have no explanation for beauty. Things in the natural world often radiate incredible beauty that has no survival benefit or even threatens survival. The incredible color in birds and trees provides a classic example. Some birds have gorgeous colors that can make them vulnerable to predators.

Here in Michigan, we are witnessing another example of beauty with no survival value but seems designed for humans to enjoy. The green color we see in plants is due to chlorophyll, which allows plants to use photosynthesis. There are two kinds of chlorophyll molecules called chlorophyll A and chlorophyll B. Chlorophyll A absorbs blue light, and chlorophyll B absorbs red light. Green light is the highest energy of sunlight reaching Earth’s surface. Plants are green because the green light radiation is reflected away to protect the plants. In the fall of the year, the chlorophyll in the leaves is removed, and we see the remaining colors.

These facts explain why trees are green and the wisdom in the green color of chlorophyll. But why do the leaves have different colors when the chlorophyll is removed? In our area, the first fall colors that appear are the reds of sumac and poison ivy. Depending on the variety, maple trees have various colors of red, orange, and yellow. We also have multiple birch tree varieties, each with different fall colors.

Why should there be different colors we can’t see until the chlorophyll is gone? The chemistry that creates these colors is very complex. From an evolutionary view, all trees would have the one pigment that advances survival, but that is not the case. The picture gets even more complicated when we consider plants that never see sunlight, such as ferns and various grasses.

As we enjoy the incredible color in birds and trees, we can see beauty for the spiritual value it offers and the joy it brings. That is because we are created in the image of God, the creator of beauty.

For a detailed discussion of chlorophyll, see Wikipedia.

October 16, 2023October 14, 2023

Annular Solar Eclipse

If you were in the path of the annular solar eclipse on Saturday, October 14, 2023, and had a clear sky, you were privileged to see something that won’t happen again until 2039. In an annular solar eclipse, as opposed to total or partial eclipses, the Moon passes directly between the Sun and Earth without totally blocking the Sun. That is because the Moon is at a distant point in its eliptical orbit. Because of that, it appears slightly smaller, so its shadow cannot completely hide the Sun from our view.

The Moon and Sun are on the same side of Earth once every 29.5 days. We call that event the “new moon” because it is invisible to us. When the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides, we see the monthly “full moon.” Because the orbit of the Moon is 5 degrees off from the Sun’s path (which we call the ecliptic), the Moon rarely falls precisely between the Sun and Earth. When it does, we see a total solar eclipse. When it is a little off from directly blocking the Sun’s light, we witness a partial solar eclipse. We have an annular solar eclipse on those rare times when the Moon is directly in front of the Sun but at its farthest distance from Earth (known as apogee). We see the “ring of fire” around the Moon’s shadow, which is what happened Saturday.

Although the lower 48 United States all experienced a partial eclipse, those in the direct path of the Moon’s shadow witnessed an annular solar eclipse. It began in Oregon, traveled across several western states, and exited from Texas into the Gulf of Mexico. It then covered several Central and South American countries before leaving into the Atlantic Ocean from Brazil. Millions of people could view this annular eclipse. In the U.S., the eclipse crossed several national parks, including Bryce Canyon, where Does God Exist? has often taken groups on our Canyonlands tours.

The wonderfully amazing thing is that we can accurately predict solar (and lunar) eclipses hundreds of years, even a thousand years into the future. That is because we live in a precision-designed universe and solar system. The next solar eclipse crossing North America will be a total eclipse at 2:10 p.m. Eastern time on April 8, 2024. You can put that on your calendar.

Eclipses have taught us many things about our Sun and the solar system design. Regardless of what some people may try to tell you, eclipses are not prophetic signs. They are part of God’s design for a planet where life can live and prosper.