God Archives - Page 18 of 134 - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

August 19, 2023August 18, 2023

Love for One Another

Jesus Christ brought many new concepts that could solve the world’s problems today. The most important thing is His emphasis on having love for one another. In today’s sex-saturated society, people have lost the true meaning of love. If you only understand “love” as “sex,” you miss the most essential meaning. The New Testament was written in Greek, which is far more helpful than our English translations in understanding what God wants us to know about love.

The Greek language has various words we translate as “love” in English. The Greek word for sexual love (“eros”) is not used in the New Testament. “Phileo,” referring to the love of a friend, is used 22 times. “Storge” refers to family love between spouses and siblings, parents and children. “Agape” is the most common New Testament word for love, used 196 times.

In classical Greek writings, “agape” was rarely used, yet it is the dominant word for love used by Jesus and the New Testament writers. The Bible dictionary says, “Agape is the highest and noblest form of love which sees something infinitely precious in its object.” That’s what it means to have love for one another.

The unique Christian concept of love offers the solution to most of the world’s problems. When Jesus tells His listeners to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44), He urges them to consider all humans infinitely precious. If everyone would do that, all war would cease. In writing about marriage in Ephesians 5:28-33, Paul uses the word “agape,” not “eros,” when he refers to a man’s love for his wife. In verse 33, he repeats this admonition to men and combines it with the message to wives to respect their husbands.

The key to ending divorce, infidelity, racism, broken homes, abandoned children, and gender confusion is for everyone to “agape” all other humans. Jesus has given us the solutions to life’s biggest problems, and the wisdom of His teaching speaks of His divine nature. The best way to oppose selfishness, greed, abuse, prejudice, and conflict is to follow what Jesus told His followers: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love (agape) one another … by this shall all men know you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35.

Reference: The Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary, Eerdman Publishing, Grand Rapids.

August 18, 2023August 17, 2023

Feathers – Complex Structures of Ingenuity

We take many things for granted without realizing the complexity of their design. That is undoubtedly true of bird feathers. American biologist Thor Hanson correctly wrote that feathers are “complex structures of ingenuity that defy the most advanced human technologies.”

Feathers are made of keratin, which is a protein. They are connected to blood vessels like our hair is connected to our vascular system. Once a feather reaches its final stage, it is disconnected from the blood vessel that has nourished it, reducing the weight of the feather. When molting occurs, and old feathers are discarded, the vascular system is re-connected by tiny muscles surrounding the feather follicles to grow a new feather.

These same muscles allow a bird to move its feathers for various purposes. Feathers serve the bird by providing insulation, waterproofing, color, display, and flight. Birds accomplish each of these functions in remarkable ways. Peacocks can present colorful displays, but so can parrots, pheasants, and various tropical birds.

Feathers provide insulation by trapping air, which is a poor conductor of heat. Down feathers trap air efficiently while adding very little weight to the bird. This same feature gives waterfowl their buoyancy while giving them insulation. Birds preen their feathers by treating them with oil from a gland just above the bird’s tail. The tight interlocking barbules in a bird’s outer feathers make them impenetrable to water. Birds use down to produce an environment that allows eggs to hatch and to keep chicks safe. Modern technology can’t match the heat-to-weight ratio of feathers.

Flight is possible because each wing feather has the shape of an airfoil to provide lift and minimize drag. Since the feathers are flexible, they can move to reduce drag, and their tips are designed to minimize turbulence making smooth flight possible. They really are complex structures of ingenuity.

Color in bird feathers is accomplished in several ways. For some feathers, melanin gives color to the feather’s keratin, and the structure of keratin is such that the bird’s diet can control its color. A flamingo’s pink color comes from eating algae that have carotenoids in it. Rather than using pigments, many brightly-colored bird feathers use structural color produced by manipulating light waves to create blues, greens, and iridescent colors.

Considering the complex structures of ingenuity we know as bird feathers brings to mind Psalms 9:1, “I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will show forth all your marvelous works.” Feathers are among those marvelous works.

References: For more amazing information about feathers, see Thor Hanson’s book Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle, published by Basic Books © 2011, and Noah Stryker’s book The Thing With Feathers, published by Riverhead Books © 2014.

August 16, 2023August 15, 2023

The Growing Suicide Problem

On August 11, 2023. the Centers for Disease Control released data for 2022, showing 50,000 suicides, a 2.6% increase over 2021. The governmental response to the growing suicide problem has been chiefly hand-wringing, with no reasonable attempt to understand why it’s happening. Those of us who work with young people and talk with them regularly can see several causes.

Mental health issues begin at an early age. Children are born with no control over the actions of their parents or the condition of their home situation. The life plan Jesus gave, and which the Bible clearly teaches, is the nuclear family with a mother and father having clear-cut responsibilities in a loving, stable relationship. It is difficult to misunderstand passages like Ephesians 5:28-6:4. We hear “experts” and popular figures saying that marriage is an outdated tradition, but collateral damage from alternatives to the nuclear family includes badly disturbed children leading to the growing suicide problem.

Kids react to the instability in their homes in various ways. Some want to change their gender thinking that will improve their lives. Others rely on substances that affect their mental state. Whether marijuana, alcohol, or a hard drug, the effect is temporary, and the damage is long-lasting. Kids without a stable family at home look for a substitute at school or in a club or in a gang with peers who have the same problems. All of those choices are temporary and in most cases a dead end. For many, suicide is an easy option.

Instead of supporting the efforts of Christians to address these issues, the government is making it harder for churches to do what Jesus has called us to do. Even prison ministry, which we are heavily involved in, is being subjected to increasing rules and requirements. Governments are regulating Christian adoption and foster care programs out of existence by conditions that violate Christian principles.

Voters must start asking questions about the beliefs of political candidates and how they will address the needs of families and young adults. The alternative is a continually growing suicide problem and other social issues among our young people.

Reference: cdc.gov

August 14, 2023August 13, 2023

Ronald Numbers and Creationism

Dr. Ronald Numbers died on July 23, 2023, at 81. Numbers had an interesting journey from being a Seventh-Day Adventist to an agnostic and supporter of Darwinism. He is best known for his studies and books on Adventism, Creationism, and the history of science.

In 1976, Dr. Numbers wrote an excellent expose’ of Adventism titled Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White. His study of the topic led to his leaving the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. This book remains an excellent source for those wanting to know the weaknesses of that denomination.

In 1992, Ronald Numbers wrote The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism, a scholarly study of the history of the creationist movement. He revised it in 2006 with the subtitle changed from “Scientific Creationism” to “Intelligent Design.”

Although Ronald Numbers disagreed with the faith of the creationists he wrote about, he showed respect for them and presented factual history. Dr. Numbers was Hilldale and William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin from 1974 to 2013. Among other writings, he co-edited the eight-volume Cambridge History of Science.

In our exchanges with Dr. Numbers, he was always polite, interested, fair, and understanding. He had his own beliefs, some of which I disagreed with, but he strived for accuracy and fairness and set a model that the evolutionist and creationist camps should emulate.

Data from Wikipedia, the NCSE journal for August 2023, and his obituary from the Wisconsin State Journal. For more information on Creationism and Dispensationalism, click HERE, HERE, or HERE.

August 11, 2023August 10, 2023

What Jesus Looked Like

What did Jesus Christ look like? In my travels, I have seen pictures of Jesus with Asian features, caucasian features, Hispanic features, and features of people of color. We don’t know what Jesus looked like, and we really shouldn’t care. The fact that He could slip through a crowd unnoticed (Luke 4:28-30) and Judas had to use a kiss to identify him (Matthew 26:48-49) indicates that He must have looked pretty much like a typical Jewish man of His time.

The important thing about Jesus is not His appearance but His message. If you read Matthew 5, 6, and 7, you won’t see a picture of Jesus, but you will get a good look at the uniqueness and practical value of His teachings. Time magazine recently (August 24, 2023) reviewed the various cover images of Jesus they published over the years. They would have done better to publish what Jesus taught in those chapters of Matthew’s gospel. That is what our society needs today.

Read Acts 2:37-42 and notice how the people who listened to Peter’s message about Jesus responded to God’s invitation. They weren’t concerned about what Jesus looked like. They were changed by what Jesus taught and what He did. They were baptized, not as an emotional response to a speaker but to receive the gift God offered to them through Jesus.

Read Romans 6 and notice what baptism is about. It isn’t like joining a club and isn’t dependent on hearing a preacher. Baptism is a personal response to God and a change in one’s life. It is also the way to bring God’s Spirit into our feeble human existence so we can live a new life. Reading and acting on God’s Word can make an incredible difference in our lives and future.

August 10, 2023August 9, 2023

Tell the Clouds What to Do

Yesterday, we asked the puzzling question, “How can clouds float in the air?” Clouds are made of water, which is heavier than air, so how can clouds float on air? The short answer is they don’t. We have two things to learn: the clouds are falling, and only God can tell the clouds what to do.

If you didn’t read yesterday’s post, I suggest you read it for background. But, for now, let’s return to where we left off in Job 38, where God speaks of clouds as He challenges Job and his friends. These are God’s words in verses 34-38:

“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
That an abundance of water may cover you?
Can you send out lightnings, that they may go,
And say to you, ‘Here we are!’?
Who has put wisdom in the mind?
Or who has given understanding to the heart?
Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven,
When the dust hardens in clumps,
And the clods cling together?”

God asks Job if he can tell the clouds what to do, sending rain when the ground is dry. Of course, the answer is “No.” Human wisdom and understanding can’t do that, but God can. Before God spoke to him, Job seemed to believe that sometimes God used rain as a form of punishment (Job 37:13). God did withhold rain from Israel for years because of the evil leadership of Ahab and Jezebel, but Elijah’s prayer brought it back.

So does God make a practice of withholding rain as a punishment? Not according to Jesus. He told us to love our enemies, “that you may be sons of your Father in heaven, for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:44-45).

We cannot tell the clouds what to do, whether we want it to rain or not rain. Only God can do that, but He is not a punishing old man in the sky ready to withhold rain or zap us with lightning if we misbehave. Many people have that confused idea, but the Bible does not support it. God sends sunshine and rain on the just and the unjust through the weather system He created. All weather conditions occur naturally according to God’s designed system, except in rare cases when He intervened with a timing miracle.

Let’s get back to our original question about clouds. They are water and sometimes ice, so how can they float in the air? The answer is that they don’t float. They are falling very gradually. Any unsupported object will fall to the ground because of Earth’s gravity. As it falls faster, the friction of the air molecules increases.

Any falling object will eventually reach terminal velocity when the friction force equals the pull of gravity. We can ignore the air friction for a bowling ball because it is minuscule compared to the ball’s weight. However, the weight of a water droplet in a cloud with a diameter measured in microns is minuscule, so the terminal velocity may be less than a hundred feet per hour. When you consider that clouds are thousands of feet in the air, that “falling” is too slow for us to notice. The water droplets may “dissolve” into the air before they fall very far. When they converge into larger droplets, they fall more quickly as rain.

The bottom line is, yes, the clouds are falling, but you will only notice it when they fall as rain. The more important point is that only God can tell the clouds what to do. The most important thing to remember is that God’s love sends sunshine and rain for everyone, even for those who refuse to recognize His existence.

August 9, 2023August 8, 2023

How Can Clouds Float in the Air?

The sky is falling! Well, not exactly. Actually, the clouds are falling, or are they? Clouds are made of water, and everyone knows water is heavier than air, so how can clouds float in the air? Have you ever wondered about that? Are clouds floating, or is it an optical illusion? I’m baffled. How about you?

Before we answer those questions, here is another one. What does the Bible say about clouds? Clouds are mentioned many times in the Bible. God gives us a creation story in the Book of Job that expands on the Genesis account. These are some of the words God used to challenge Job and his friends in Job 38:8-9:

“Or who shut in the sea with doors,
When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
When I made the clouds its garment,
And thick darkness its swaddling band;
When I fixed My limit for it,
And set bars and doors;
When I said,
‘This far you may come, but no farther,
And here your proud waves must stop!”

In this poetic account, when the early Earth was a water world, God shut up the ocean “with doors” and told it, “Here your proud waves must stop!” I love that word picture of the creation process! God speaks, and the seas listen! But we are talking about clouds, and how can clouds float in the air?

In this Job passage, God explains something we wonder about in Genesis 1:1, where it says, “darkness was on the face of the deep.” The garment of clouds explains the darkness covering the oceans. Otherwise, we have to wonder why the first part of Genesis 1:1 tells us, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The heavens would have to include the Sun, Moon, and stars, as well as all of the galaxies and everything in them. Why, then, was there darkness on the water-covered Earth? God answers that question by saying: “I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band.”

Genesis tells us that God divided the water covering the land from the water in the sky, meaning the clouds. (See Genesis 1:9-10.) We read further in Genesis 1:14-18 that God caused the clouds to clear up enough to allow the Sun and Moon to be fully visible “for signs and seasons, and for days and years” and to “give light on the earth.”

We see that God’s description of the creation process in Job clarifies some questions that the Genesis creation account leaves unanswered. But that isn’t all God said about clouds in Job 38. He challenges Job with this question in verse 34:

“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
That an abundance of water may cover you?”

God verifies that clouds are made of water, and as Genesis tells us, God divided the water on the surface from the water in the air. So how did God make the water float in the air? Are the clouds defying gravity, or is this an optical illusion? Is God breaking His own laws of physics, or is He fooling us? The answer is – we are out of time for today. But tomorrow, we will answer the puzzling question, “How can clouds float in the air?”

August 8, 2023August 7, 2023

If Pain Did Not Exist

Atheists and skeptics maintain that pain and suffering are the most significant proof that there is no God and the Bible is not true. They claim that a good and loving God would not allow pain and suffering. Is there an inconsistency between the descriptions of God in passages like 1 John 4:7-8 and the history of Israel? Unfortunately, skeptics and atheists fail to consider the alternative if pain did not exist.

The ability to exist in a physical world requires being able to feel pain. How could we survive if we could not know that a stove is hot when we put our hand on it? The ability to feel pain lets us know if something is sharp, or dangerously hot or cold.

Pain occurs on more than a physical level. What kind of a person would it be who could not feel guilt, compassion, empathy, and sympathy? These characteristics are unique to humans. We may condition an animal to display a response we interpret as one of those emotions, but humans uniquely can experience mental anguish over the circumstance of another human. People who bury this capacity, such as Hitler, Mao, and Putin, have created enormous problems for the whole human race.

The Bible clearly tells us that God can perform miracles. However, a careful study of the biblical miracles shows there was a reason beyond just curing a disease or infirmity. If people could escape life’s problems by becoming Christians, many would come to Christ to escape even minor physical problems. The Apostle Paul struggled with suffering, which he called his “thorn in the flesh.” He would not have learned an important lesson if pain did not exist. He wrote, “Three times I prayed to the Lord to relieve me of it.” God responded, “My grace is all you need; power comes to full strength in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:7 -9).

None of us like to have any kind of pain, but this life is only temporary. If pain did not exist here, there would be negative consequences. Christians have peace in knowing that the future holds an existence that will be free of pain. My suffering has given me a purpose in living and the strength not to fear dying. Denying God’s existence adds another level of denial and uncertainty to life.

August 4, 2023July 31, 2023

Famous Non-Scientists Who Expressed Faith in God

A popular belief says that famous men of history were atheists or agnostics who broke from the religious conventions of their day and achieved greatness because of their independence from God. We have often quoted words of faith from famous scientists, but likewise, there are famous non-scientists who expressed faith in God and the Bible.

Allen Webster, in his periodical “House to House/Heart to Heart,” collected these quotes:

Charles Dickens – “I commit my soul to the mercy of God, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the teachings of the New Testament.”

William Shakespeare – “I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Savior, to be made partaker of life everlasting.”

George Washington – “The hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.”

Benjamin Franklin – “Young man, my advice to you is that you cultivate an acquaintance with and firm belief in the Holy Scriptures, for this is your certain interest. I think Christ’s system of morals and religion, as He left them with us, is the best the world ever saw or is likely to see.”

John Quincy Adams – “My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising … which seems to me to be the most suitable manner of beginning the day. It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.”

Abraham Lincoln – “I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this Book that you can by reason and the balance by faith, and you will live and die a better man.”

William Penn – “We believe the Scriptures to contain a declaration of the mind and will of God. They ought also to be read, believed, and fulfilled in our day. We accept them as the words of God himself.”

William Gladstone – “I have known 95 great men of the world in my time, and of these, 87 were all followers of the Bible.”

This is just a sample of the famous non-scientists who expressed faith in God and the Bible.

References: Allen Webster in his periodical “House to House/Heart to Heart” (Volume 28 #8) – You can see examples of scientist quote in our quarterly publication HERE, HERE, and HERE.

August 3, 2023August 3, 2023

Hunger and Malnutrition in the World

It is hard to believe that in 2023 hunger and malnutrition are still major issues causing pain and suffering worldwide. As the world population grows, this situation is going to get worse. Those of us who have donated some money to organizations addressing hunger find ourselves on mailing lists that fill our mailboxes with requests for more money with pathetic pictures of starving children. Strangely enough, the primary issue isn’t food shortage but food waste.

Scientific American magazine published a study showing food loss and waste by country. Nigeria had the most significant waste in 2017, with over 3500 million tons of food lost. Nigeria is the source of many of the pictures of starving children and impoverished families, yet it leads the world in the waste and loss of food.

The United States in 2017 had about half as much food wasted or lost as Nigeria did. However, seeing what American restaurants, airlines, and food banks discard is appalling. India is the second-highest country in wasted or lost food, with just under 2500 million tons.

Hunger and malnutrition should not exist because God has given us all the resources we need to feed every man, woman, and child on the planet. Humans have allowed war, greed, selfishness, and mismanagement to cause the suffering we see.

Reference: “Waste Not” in the July/August 2023 issue of Scientific American (page 14)