John N Clayton Archives

September 7, 2022September 6, 2022

Chemical and Medical Side Effects

We live in a time of incredible advances in chemistry and medicine. However, we face the problem of chemical and medical side effects from modern drugs and food additives. Therefore, a medication designed to address one problem will often create other unexpected issues. I can give personal testimony to that.

I have blood pressure issues that are hereditary and a product of my age. For two years, doctors tried various medications to lower my blood pressure, but nothing worked. Finally, a doctor found a new drug that does work. My hypertension is under control, and I am thankful for that. This new drug, in conjunction with some previous medications, together with my new regime of exercise and eating habits, has greatly reduced my risk for a stroke.

The problem with this new medication is that it has side effects that were unknown when I started taking it. It affects my vision, balance, breathing, and sleep. When I complained to my doctor, who likes to be a comedian, he said, “Well do you want to die of a stroke or the side effects?”

We also have chemical and medical side effects from food additives and drinks. People in Christ’s day used fermented grape juice because the water was unsafe to drink. The “wine” available then had a very low percentage of alcohol, around 4%. Today, distillation processes allow the alcohol percentage to be vastly higher, and alcohol poisoning is a significant issue. Recently in Missouri, 19-year-old Daniel Santulli suffered severe brain damage after being forced to drink alcohol as part of hazing during a pledge reveal party for the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. When I was a fraternity pledge at Indiana University, my fellow pledges were forced to drink alcohol until they could no longer walk. Then they were then driven to a remote country road and dropped off.

Now the college drug of choice is marijuana. Modern marijuana has levels of THC (the drug responsible for psychoactive effects) 15% higher than in the 1970s. British studies show that these high THC levels increase the probability of addiction. We are now seeing fatal accidents caused by marijuana, as Newsweek reports that car accident rates have risen in states after legalizing marijuana sales. Science has not adequately studied the long-term side effects of marijuana.

In addition to drugs, people use food additives and supplements without scientific studies exploring their long-term side effects. God has given us plants and substances such as alcohol that we can use to alleviate human suffering. However, chemical and medical side effects are likely to increase suffering when we use them as untested recreational drugs or food additives.

References: KOMO Mid-Missouri News, Newsweek, The Week August 12, 2022, page 22, and AP in the South Bend Tribune 6/2/22 page 6A.

September 6, 2022September 6, 2022

Nadir Asteroid Impact Crater

One of the challenges to evolutionary theory is the principle of uniformitarianism–the assumption that no process has ever functioned on Earth that is not going on today. We are not talking about common disasters but events in Earth’s history that would have altered the course of evolution or stopped it entirely. For many years, scientists have known about the Chicxulub asteroid that struck the area that is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, probably causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Such an event would have changed life’s future direction. Now, there is news of a Nadir asteroid impact crater.

BBC news reported that geologists discovered a possible asteroid crater off the coast of Guinea in west Africa. They call it the Nadir crater because it is at the Nadir (opposite lowest point) of the Chicxulub crater. This new crater is 8,500 meters wide and over 300 meters lower than the seabed. It is about the same age as Chicxulub but much smaller. The Chicxulub crater, caused by a larger asteroid, is 12,000 meters wide.

Both of these asteroid collisions would have violated uniformitarianism, dramatically affecting life on Earth. The Chicxulub asteroid impact would have caused major earthquakes, tsunamis, and a global firestorm. The result would have thrown enough dust into the atmosphere to plunge Earth into a deep freeze that dinosaurs could not have survived.

Since the Nadir asteroid impact crater is in an ocean environment, it would have caused a tsunami with a wall of water over 1000 meters high. The Nadir collision would have produced about 1,000 times more energy than Tonga’s recent (January 2022) volcano eruption. However, the energy from the Chicxulub impact would have been about 10 million times greater.

The textbook model of evolution is greatly simplified. We don’t fully understand how an asteroid collision would have affected life on Earth. It seems unlikely that most life forms could have survived the one-two punch of Chicxulub and Nadir asteroid impacts.

Genesis 1:1-3 indicates that there was a change in the Earth. An accurate translation of verse 2 is that Earth “became empty and wasted.” That is precisely what the asteroid collisions would have caused. This may have been God’s methodology of a final step to make Earth fit for human life. This new evidence supports the biblical account in ways we are only beginning to understand.

References: BBC news August 19, 2022, and Science Advances

September 5, 2022August 31, 2022

Labor Day in the United States

Today is Labor Day in the United States. Looking back, we can learn from the COVID infestation and the consequences of the isolation it brought to most of us. Those who keep records of such things tell us that in two years of the pandemic, there was a massive increase in divorce, pornography use, drug use and overdoses, and a 39% increase in alcoholism. In my experience, people who retire from their job to the idleness of a rocking chair don’t live very long. When my wife died, I was able to survive the loss by spending 90% of my time in work connected with this ministry.

To students of the Bible, all of this is no surprise. In Genesis 3:19, God told Adam, “By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food.” The law of Moses was centered around labor – “Six days you shall labor and do all your work” (Exodus 20:9). The inspired Bible writers talked about the fact that work is good for humans physically, mentally, and spiritually. Consider these verses:

Ecclesiastes 5:12 “The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich man will not allow him to sleep.”
Proverbs 6:6 “Go to the ant, you sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.”
Proverbs 14:23 “All hard work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty.”
Proverbs 21:25 “The lazy man’s craving will be the death of him because his hands refuse to work.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10 “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”

Jesus set the example for His followers. He was active and involved in all that was around Him, right up to the time of His death. That was even though His disciples fell asleep because they could not keep up with Him. In the parable of the talents, the man who buried his talent instead of investing it was condemned (Matthew 25:14 – 30).

In that same chapter, Jesus talks about rewards and condemnations for how people use their time and their talents (verses 31-40). Feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, visiting prisoners, taking in the homeless, and ministering to the sick are all activities that involve work.

The pandemic has shown what happens when humans don’t do what God has called them to do. Labor Day in the United States reminds us of the relationship between humans and labor. For Christians, it’s a reminder of what we must do with our time and talent.

September 3, 2022August 30, 2022

The Christian Concept of God

We have been examining the Christian concept of God for the past several days. The Bible tells us that God is beyond time, space, and matter/energy because He created them. As science goes deeper into understanding the structure of matter/energy, it becomes increasingly evident that there are forces beyond our familiar physical laws. Quantum mechanics and studies of the nature of matter show that creation has not been merely a physical process.

Heaven and hell are not physical places with physical rewards or punishment. When we die, our soul, that part of us created in God’s image, will no longer be limited by time. All the bad things that time brings will be gone, “…there will be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying. Neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

We struggle to understand metaphors in the Bible that use physical pictures of things that are not physical. The result is that when we approach them with a physical understanding alone, we become confused. If we understand the biblical Christian concept of God, these metaphors become much clearer, and our freedom as Christians is greatly enhanced. Christ’s promise of life after our physical life is over gives us joy and comfort beyond physical understanding. We can rejoice in knowing that the things that afflict us in this life will be gone, and our future will be secure and filled with joy in spiritual union with our Creator.

September 2, 2022August 30, 2022

An Earthly Kingdom

For the past few days, we have been looking for the biblical Christan concept of God. We have observed that atheists, and even people who call themselves Christians, fail to understand what God is. We are familiar with the physical world, so we look for God to bring a physical earthly kingdom.

The New Testament calls for us to understand that Christians serve a God who is not a man—or woman. Galatians 3:28 tells us that “there is neither male nor female” in Christ’s kingdom, the Church. This same message appears in Romans 10:11-13 and Colossians 3:11. In John 18:36-39, Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world,” making it clear that He was not bringing in a physical earthly kingdom. Yet, even today, some Christian groups interpret Christ as a military leader who will defeat all other belief systems and establish a physical kingdom in Jerusalem.

This struggle to understand God goes back to Genesis 1:1, describing the creation of time, space, and matter/energy. When Peter describes the end of the world in 2 Peter 3:3:10-12, he says that time will end and the physical cosmos will “dissolve in fervent heat” (verse 12). God is in a higher dimension than time or the material cosmos. He created the human soul in His image–not our physical bodies.

In 1 Corinthians 15:35-55, Paul conveys the concept of a kingdom not of this world. People in that day didn’t understand it, and still today, many Christians don’t understand it. The fact that Christ’s kingdom is not an earthly kingdom makes it, unlike any human system. That brings us back to the biblical Christian concept of God, and that is where we will conclude tomorrow.

September 1, 2022August 30, 2022

The Things We Pray For

Yesterday, we said that understanding what God is and what He desires for us can help us understand the meaning and importance of prayer. There is nothing wrong with praying to God for our physical needs. You can see that in the model prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). However, it is illogical and unbiblical to get upset when God doesn’t answer our physical requests in the way we desire. Failure to receive the things we pray for is rooted in a failure to understand what God is and what He desires for us.

When I was an atheist playing football in high school, one of my teammates asked God for victory in every game. We played a team from a Christian high school late in the season. One of their team members told me that he knew they would beat us because they had prayed to God for victory. Unfortunately, we lost that game, and my teammate, who had been praying for us to win, decided he needed to be an atheist like me because, clearly, God didn’t answer prayer.

There have been wars between cultures that worshipped the God of the Bible. Examples are the American Civil War and the Irish wars between Catholics and Protestants. Both sides prayed to the same God for victory. However, winning a victory would mean killing people who were Christians on the other side of the conflict.

When I gave my lectures in Ireland, people expressed great interest in my message that science supports belief in God. However, many people wanted nothing to do with the Church because of the history of religious warfare. A Catholic priest in full clerical garb attended one of my lectures and informed me that he was an atheist. He was still conducting mass because that was the source of his income, but he didn’t believe in God. The things we pray for reflect our concept of God.

It becomes clear that even “religious” people often do not understand the Christian biblical concept of God. We will continue with that thought tomorrow.

August 31, 2022August 30, 2022

What Gender is God?

Yesterday, we said that many people are confused about God. We learn that from the questions we receive. For example, some ask if God is male or female. God is not a sexual being, and gender descriptions in the Bible are always symbolic of the message presented. It is obvious that someone doesn’t understand the biblical concept of God if they ask, “What gender is God?”

When Jesus expressed His sorrow for Jerusalem, He used the female image of a hen and her chickens in Luke 13:34. At other times, He referenced male images when He spoke of “my Father.” But the essential point is that God is not a physical being. Throughout the New Testament, there is a strong emphasis that God is a spiritual being. For example, “God is spirit…” John 4:24.

The message is that God is concerned about spiritual things over material things. The Bible describes prayer as being oriented toward the spiritual and not the physical. Even Christians have been confused about how God answers prayers. James 4:3 says, “You ask, and you don’t receive because you ask in error wanting to consume it on your lust.” Asking God to meet our physical desires emphasizes the wrong thing and will not produce a positive result.

When people read passages such as Matthew 7:7-8 and John 14:13-15, 15:7,16, they assume Jesus is saying that anything His followers ask will be given to them–no matter what it is. However, if you look at the context of these promises of Christ, you will see that they all relate to spiritual things. If all a person had to do to be cured of sickness or to make a lot of money were to become a Christian and pray to God, people would be flocking to churches to get a solution to their physical dilemmas.

Asking, “What gender is God?” shows a misunderstanding of how the Bible describes God. However, understanding what God is and what He desires for us can help us appreciate the meaning and importance of prayer. More on that tomorrow.

August 30, 2022August 29, 2022

What Is God?

What is God? Is God male or female? What race is God? Is God bisexual, lesbian, trans, homosexual, or heterosexual? Is God on the Earth or in the stars or the air? Does God dwell in animal life? Are animals reincarnated humans who are in the image of the natural gods? All of these questions are ones we have received and have done our best to answer.

Part of the confusion problem is due to what people say about God on television or radio, in books and magazines, and how movies and video games portray God. Some world religions present gods active in sexual relationships or military conflicts. Some people propose God as a solution to climate or agricultural problems, disease pandemics, or infertility. Others present God as a cause–or solution–to losses or victories in war or athletic competition.

Is there any wonder that many people don’t believe in God? Why is there so much confusion and people asking, “What is God?” The Bible plainly shows the Christian concept of God. We will examine that tomorrow.

August 29, 2022August 28, 2022

Soil Derived from Barren Rock

I have had the privilege of walking along a still hot lava flow in Hawaii and watching it cool and crack, exposing a red hot glowing interior. As a student of geology, I have seen the bedrock that tells of the composition of the early Earth in places throughout North and South America and England. There can be very little doubt that the creation of planet Earth left a ball of sterile, barren rock orbiting the Sun. Having lived for 85 years on this planet, I have had the joy of seeing soil derived from barren rock supporting vast plant and animal life.

The story of how soil is produced is a story of wisdom and design unique to our planet. Therefore, it is essential that we understand the importance of the soil God gave us and how to take care of it in our age of expanding populations.

National Geographic published an excellent article by Ferris Jabr titled “Out of Sight,” containing pictures by Oliver Meckes and Nicole Ottawa. The pictures show the agents God created to convert the barren rock of our planet into soil that can grow a forest. A single gram of forest soil (1/454th of a pound) can contain as many as a billion bacteria, a million fungi, hundreds of thousands of protozoa, and nearly a thousand roundworms. The pictures of those microscopic organisms are incredible.

Soil derived from barren rock began with fundamental processes caused by rain, wind, and ice. Once the elements broke down the rocks to small sizes, the microscopic living organisms went to work. Microbes, fungi, lichen, and tiny plants broke down the sand-size rocks and enriched them with minerals life could use. In Hawaii, you can see the black sand beaches produced in modern times and the places where those agents have processed soil in which plants can live. Over time, the elements in early soils, such as carbon, phosphorus, and potassium, were processed to produce advanced soil structure.

The Genesis creation account does not explain God’s methods of preparing the planet for human life. Proverbs 8:22-36 finds Wisdom narrating the processes of creation. But even Wisdom can’t describe the process of soil derived from barren rocks to people with no microscopes or technical language. Today, we are uniquely privileged to see God’s handiwork and to marvel at the incredible complexity involved in the creation of dirt.

Reference: “Out of Sight” by Ferris Jabr in the September 2022 issue of National Geographic, pages 82 -99, with pictures by Oliver Meckes and Nicole Ottawa.

August 27, 2022August 25, 2022

Parental Rights in Education

What rights should parents have concerning the education of their children and the environment they are forced to live in when they leave home? If you are involved in the current new theories about sexual identity, race, and learning, you know that parental rights and input have been shoved aside as schools struggle with pressure from special interest groups. This is especially true if parents want to give their children spiritual instruction at home that is not opposed by secular learning at school.

ParentalRights.org reports that 39 states have no statutes that expressly define and protect parental rights. In the late 1900s, I was head of the science department at Riley High School in South Bend, Indiana. At that time, we were required to have a parent participate in evaluating the textbooks we would use. The Goldwater Institute (January 2020) reports that 47 states do not grant parents the right to review the learning materials and activities before their use. The Heritage Foundation (May 2019) says that 12 states do not allow parents to be involved in their schools’ sex ed curriculum. As a result, schools are forcing many things on very young children without their parent’s consent or knowledge. That is the state of parental rights in education today.

The transgender movement in America has become a fad, with many children being pressured by school officials encouraging kids to change their gender identity. This is called “affirmative care” and can even involve the use of drugs to catalyze a child’s movement away from their birth sex. The long-term effect of this kind of counseling, especially the drugs and surgical procedures used, is destructive. We have had personal contact with situations where the parents were unaware that their child was being pushed to change.

The introduction of critical race theory to young children without the knowledge or consent of their parents is another issue of concern. Children are being taught that all white parents are racist or that all black parents feel that no matter how hard they work, their success will be limited by their skin color. That is simply not true. The terrible history of race relations in this country, neglected in the past, must be presented in history class. A first grader of any race should receive a positive picture of the American dream and that all humans are of equal value.

As a public school teacher with 41 years of experience, I know the challenges American schools face today. However, if public education is to survive, it must acknowledge parental rights, allowing parents to determine their children’s moral, sexual, and racial training. Parents must not be excluded from the process of making public schools neutral on these issues. Parents must have the right to raise their children in what they feel is best for them. As it is right now, America is becoming a police state where parents have no rights and children are forced into a framework that violates what public education is all about.

References: Faith and Justice magazine for August 2022, pages 5 – 7, and parentalrights.org