Tag: health

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Retiring Early – Good Idea or Not

Retiring Early – Good Idea or Not
Some people dream of retiring early and spending the rest of their lives in pleasure-filled relaxation. That may not be a good idea.

Relaxing for a few days is a good thing, but studies show that when we stop doing anything constructive and challenging, both our mental and physical health decline. The Washington Post reported that studies “have shown a strong correlation between early retirement age and diminished cognitive function.”

Not only can too much leisure be bad for our physical and mental health, it even has an adverse effect on our happiness. Humans were designed to be productive and creative. Without physical stimulation, our bones and muscles become weak. Without mental stimulation, our brains lose their sharpness. The saying, “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it,” contains a lot of truth.

All this doesn’t mean that we have to keep working at an occupation for our entire lives. Retiring early can open the door to new opportunities of service. For those who retire from a paying job, volunteering for some service which is mentally, and even physically challenging can be rewarding in many ways. It can keep us physically stronger and more mentally alert. It can give us enjoyment and even help us to live longer. It can also be rewarding for those we are able to serve.

God created us to work. Even in the paradise of the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve work to do. (See Genesis 2:15.) If you want to live a long, healthy, and happy life, find a way to be productively stimulated while serving others. It’s what God designed us to do.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Marijuana Legalization – The Rest of the Story

Marijuana Legalization
The media has sold the American public on the idea that marijuana cannot hurt anyone and is not habit forming. Proponents argue that marijuana legalization in all 50 states would produce 46 billion dollars in federal sales tax revenue and more than one million jobs by 2025. Polls show that 61% of Americans believe marijuana should be legal.

We are also told that a benefit of marijuana legalization is that the government will control dosage and potency. I can remember when the Food and Drug Administration was making the same claims about the use of tobacco when I was a teenager. We all know the result of the long-term forestalling of government control of the use of tobacco. Dr. Sharon Levy who is the director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at Boston Children’s Hospital says, “We are simply not prepared for the fallout of marijuana legalization.”

Here are the known facts about marijuana:

*The concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is roughly 40 times stronger in today’s “weed” than the “grass” of the 1970s.

*Claims that marijuana is not addictive are simply lies. One out of every six teens who smoke marijuana become addicted to it.

*Studies of teens while smoking marijuana show that there is a significant change in the brain. There is a change in the nucleus accumbens, the part of the brain that affects motivation and learning.

*Studies of long-time users show long-term memory loss, a drop in IQ points equal to lead poisoning, and deterioration in the language areas.

*Studies show that teens who frequently smoked pot were less likely to hold full-time jobs as adults, less likely to get married, and less likely to finish their education.

*Since Colorado legalized the drug, marijuana-related visits to emergency rooms and urgent care centers have tripled among those under 21.

Those of us who follow Jesus Christ believe that the body is the “Temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 3:16). The Bible tells us to take care of the body, and that certainly means not taking a recreational drug that we know damages our bodies. Alcohol, nicotine, and pot damage the temple of God, and we must stand opposed to their use.

The chemicals in marijuana that can ease pain and help those in distress are not what we are talking about in this discussion. Paul told Timothy to “use a little wine to help you to get over your frequent spells of illness” (1 Timothy 5:23). We need to use our intelligence and apply the things God has given us wisely as we consider marijuana legalization. Using any substance in a way that does damage to our body and alters our ability to think and react wisely and constructively is wrong.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Data and quotes from Reader’s Digest, July 8, 2018 pages 78-82.

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Breathe Easy with Oxygen

Breathe Easy Oxygen Molecule
Life requires certain elements–one of which is oxygen. To live, we must have energy and our life-energy is produced by chemical reactions requiring oxygen. Because of the oxygen level of Earth, we can breathe easy.

When oxygen combines with other elements and compounds, we call the process oxidation or combustion. Oxidation results in the release of energy. Oxidation can be slow as when oxygen combines with iron to form rust. Oxidation can be fast, as when oxygen combines with chemicals in wood, producing fire.

The rapid combustion process releases energy in the form of heat and light. In our bodies, oxygen combines with other chemicals more slowly. As oxygen combines with sugar (glucose) in our cells, energy is released warming our bodies and powering our cells. The by-products of this oxidation are carbon-dioxide and water, which can be safely eliminated from the body.

The design of the oxygen molecule with its ability to pull off electrons from other elements makes combustion possible. Are there other chemicals which can produce combustion? Yes, chlorine, fluorine, and bromine can also produce combustion. However, the by-products of that combustion, such as hydrochloric acid, would be harmful or fatal to living cells. Oxygen has just the right properties to combine with carbon-based sugars in our cells to release energy and sustain life without producing compounds harmful to life.

The fact that one-fifth of our atmosphere is oxygen enables us to breathe efficiently. A lower level of oxygen would make breathing difficult. A higher oxygen level would lead to a greater danger of rapid-combustion fires. Replacing oxygen in the air with other combustive elements would be destructive to life. Oxygen has the right properties and is available in the right amount to allow us to breathe easy and live. We think a Master Engineer designed this system.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Permanent Solution to a Temporary Problem

Permanent Solution to a Temporary Problem
Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. At the lowest point in a person’s life, suicide takes away any future blessings.

Some would say, “The problem has been with me for a long time and is not going away.” If that’s the case, someone needs to step in to address the problem and help to find a solution. As God’s people, Christians need to love and care for others.

Whether you believe in God or not, you have to admit that the desire to live is built into our DNA. Every living thing wants to live. If that were not true, all life on Earth would have ended long ago. No animal commits suicide. No, not even lemmings. (We dealt with that yesterday.) No animal willingly submits to a predator. No wildebeest surrenders to the lion. The predator wins only when the creature has no more ability to go on or to run faster. Why is the predator so desperate to catch that prey? It’s the predator’s will to live.

Why do animals resist death with every fiber of their being until their very last breath? Some would say it’s an evolutionary development that life has evolved to want to live. But that can’t be right because life must have had a strong desire to live from day one. I think the desire to live is evidence of a Creator who put that desire into the very first life—even those living things without conscious understanding. The drive to live built into every living thing, even plants, is another evidence that life is not an accident.

It’s only humans that have the ability to chose. Only humans can choose right or wrong. Only humans KNOW right from wrong. We can choose to make bad choices. We can even choose a permanent solution to a temporary problem. That ability to choose is evidence that we were created by God. The desire to choose right over wrong is evidence that we were created in God’s image. The failure to always choose the right is evidence that we are merely human. God’s willingness to redeem us from our bad choices is evidence that God is love. (1 John 3:1, 16; 4:7)
— Roland Earnst © 2018

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Wreck of the SS Cedarville

Wreck of the SS Cedarville
Between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, there is a stretch of water known as the Straits of Mackinac. (Pronounced mack-in-awe) This narrow channel connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Nearby is a museum which tells the story of shipwrecks in the Straits. One of those was the wreck of the SS Cedarville in the early morning of May 7, 1965.

The Cedarville was carrying a heavy load of limestone and traveling through the straits in dense fog. In spite of low visibility Captain Martin Joppich kept the ship moving at top speed. He even ordered the wheelsman to cut corners off the official shipping channel to save time. Radar detected two oncoming vessels. One of them was identified as the Norwegian freighter Topdalsfjord. Captain Joppich ordered the crew to reduce speed and steer starboard to pass the Topdalsfjord on the port side. In doing that, the Cedarville steered directly into the path of the Topdalsfjord. The Norwegian ship sliced a large hole into the side of the Cedarville.

Captain Joppich ordered the crew to stop the engines and drop anchor. The crew prepared the lifeboats, but no order was given to abandon ship. The ship was starting to list to port, so the crew began to fill the starboard ballast tanks. The captain then ordered the crew to raise anchor and steer the ship to shallow water six miles (10 km) away. By the time they had gone just over two miles (3.3 km), the ship rolled over and sank.

Of the 35 crew members, ten of them died in the wreck of the SS Cedarville. What mistakes did the captain make? The Cedarville was going too fast for foggy conditions. The ship steered the wrong way into the path of another vessel. The crew was not given orders to abandon ship. There was another area of shallow water only two miles (3.2 km) away that they might have reached before sinking. All of these things were caused by the captain making bad decisions.

A plaque at the Straits of Mackinac Shipwreck Museum says, “To some degree, all wrecks in the Straits of Mackinac were avoidable. Someone exercised bad judgment or performed their duties incorrectly. In many instances, several people made many small errors, each individually, but momentous when combined with others. As a result, ships went down while passengers and crewmembers died.” The wreck of the SS Cedarville is only one example.

The plaque says the real cause of wrecks is people. How often do people cause wrecks and destruction to their own lives or the lives of others and then blame God for the pain? Does God allow us to make bad choices? Yes, but when we make those bad choices, we should put the blame where it belongs, and not on God.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Law We Must Obey

Entropy - A Law We Must Obey
Have you noticed that things wear out? Whether it’s your clothes, your car, or your favorite easy chair, they all decay over time. Iron rusts, wood rots, food spoils, and everything becomes disordered. We think of it as a normal part of life, and we refer to it as getting old. People get old too, and our bodies are not what they used to be. There is a law for this, and it’s called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It’s a law we must obey!

The principle of increasing disorder or decay is called entropy. It is unavoidable. More than that, it’s necessary for the world in which we live. Because of the principle of entropy, heat energy can be transformed into mechanical energy to perform work. That’s what happens in the engine in your car. It’s also what happens in the muscles of your body. In other words, without entropy, you would not be able to move, or digest food, or breathe. Your heart could not beat. Every process that sustains life requires work and work requires entropy.

Decay is the inescapable result of entropy. The principle of entropy proves that there was a beginning to the universe, as the Bible says from the very first verse. If the universe were infinitely old—if it did not have a beginning—it would be completely disordered today, and no life would exist. Because of entropy, we know that the universe will end. “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the ONE WHO SUBJECTED IT (God), in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-21, emphasis added).

The Second Law of Thermodynamics was part of the physical laws God created in the beginning. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to the sonship, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22, 23).

In other words, for now, we must obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics and its resulting entropy. But, here’s the good news, the law we must obey, will be abolished! “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…” (Revelation 21:1).
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Color Vision Gender Differences

Color Vision Gender Differences
There are many differences between men and women, but you realize that there are color vision gender differences?

Light is electromagnetic radiation that stimulates our eyes. There are only specific frequencies of the electromagnetic frequency spectrum that we can see. Frequencies below the range of visible light are called infrared. We can sometimes feel infrared radiation as heat, but we can’t see it, although some animals can. Frequencies higher than visible light are ultraviolet which we can’t see, but it affects our skin and can cause sunburn. Some animals can see infrared light.

Within the visible spectrum of light that humans can see, different bands of frequencies affect our eyes differently. Most of us have receptors in our eyes for the wavelengths which we call red, green, and blue. When light stimulates those receptors, they send a signal to our brain which combines the signals to allow us to see many variations in colors.

People with colorblindness (mostly men) have one of those color receptor categories missing. The missing color may be either red or green. Why are men colorblind more often than women? The genes that encode the red and green receptors are located in the X-chromosome. Men have one X- and one Y-chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes. That means that if a man has a defective X-chromosome, he is out of luck. A woman would need to have two defective X-chromosomes to be colorblind.

It’s interesting that the chromosome pair that creates the sex differences also explains the color vision gender differences. God said, “It is not good for man to be alone” and He took something out of the man to create a woman. Then He put them together to complete each other. In many ways, men and women really do need each other to be complete.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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How Much of Your Brain Do You Use?

How Much of Your Brain Do You Use?
How would you answer if someone asked you, How much of your brain do you use? The correct answer would be, All of it.

In the 1890’s psychologist and philosopher William James made a statement that we use only a small part of our mental resources. He was misquoted by broadcaster and writer Lowell Thomas in the foreword to a Dale Carnegie book in 1936. Thomas changed the wording to say that “the average man develops only ten percent of his latent mental ability.” That misquote has been re-quoted and repeatedly misquoted, ever since then.

I am sure you have read, or somebody told you that humans use only ten percent of their brains. In the 2014 movie “Lucy,” actor Morgan Freeman played a world-renowned neurologist who tells an auditorium full of people that “human beings use only ten percent of their brain’s capacity.”
Saying something many times may make people believe it, but that doesn’t make it true. It is not true that we use only ten percent of our brain, no matter how you word it. The truth is that not all areas are active all the time, but we do use every part of our brains. The human brain is an incredible living organ.

If we apply our brain power to consider our brain, we will have to ask some questions. “How is it possible that this amazingly complex and intelligent computer could have happened by mere chance? How could natural selection acting on random mutations with no guiding intelligence create something so complex?” Even more incredible than that—how could mind come from mindless matter?

If we use our brains to think back far enough, we realize that the process of creating life (and ultimately the human brain) would have begun with only non-living chemicals. Natural selection cannot act on non-living chemicals. Let’s see how much of your brain capacity you can use to think about how such a remarkable machine could have come into existence.
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Oldest Living Person Is Muslim Woman

Oldest Living Person is a Muslim Woman
One thing you learn when you live past 80 years is that old age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The Week (June 1, 2018, page 10), reported that the oldest living person is Koku Istambulova. According to her passport, she is 129 years old. She is a Muslim woman living by strict Islamic codes in Chechnya.

Istambulova doesn’t view long life as a blessing. She says “I have not had a single happy day in my life. Long life is not at all God’s gift for me, but a punishment.” Istambulova saw Nazi tanks, Stalin’s deportation, and the death of all of her children. Her faith is one of strict rules and regulations with very legalistic guides for life. As a Muslim woman, the role she was forced into is very restrictive.

So the oldest living person says she has had a life of misery. It is important to note that the things that made Istambulova’s life miserable were the violent acts of humans and the legalism of man-made religion. Those factors contributed to her misery instead of addressing it and solving it.

In contrast to Istambulova’s situation, Christ came to eliminate the things that bring misery in life. Istambulova never knew the peace, love, family, and joy of being free from the legalistic human rules based on race or sex. Galatians 3:26-4:7 presents a contrast to legalism and the misery that human sin and legalistic religions bring. Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).
–John N. Clayton © 2018

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Road to Enlightenment

Buddhist Road to Enlightenment
A Buddhist monk in Japan is suing his monastery for making him work too many hours. Buddhism has traditionally taught that “the road to enlightenment” involves enduring hardship. When a young man decides to enter a monastery, he understands that he will learn discipline through hardship. He knows that an austere regime will be part of the road to enlightenment. That doesn’t sit well with many people in the world today. Without faith in God, they may not be willing to take that road.

The teachings of the Dalai Lama released in June of 2001 stated that “There is no God or Supreme Creator.” The “Four Noble Truths” and the “Noble Eightfold Path that leads to Nirvana” depend on individual effort. There is no concept of a Holy Spirit to assist one in making the journey. When your belief system excludes a personal relationship with a power higher than yourself, self-discipline and sacrifice just don’t work.

In contrast to the Buddhist beliefs, Christianity promises help from God on a personal level. Acts 2:38 speaks of receiving the Holy Spirit when one is baptized into Christ, and Jesus repeatedly promised to be with the individual to the very end. “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Romans 8:16). The idea of traveling the road to enlightenment without God is outdated.
–John N. Clayton © 2018