John N Clayton Archives - Page 84 of 102

November 23, 2020November 22, 2020

Faith or Lack of Faith in God

Yesterday we looked at the definition of the word “faith.” The Bible defines faith as the foundation (Greek “hupostasis”) of our lives (Hebrews 11:1). We mentioned that we all have faith in gravity. We also saw how the scientific faith that light is a wave and not a particle had to change as new evidence became available. All of us have foundations that rule our lives, and faith or lack of faith in God is one of them.

Even our understanding of what God is affects us in a variety of ways.* In the distant past, people thought of gods as physical beings that looked like humans. Roman and Greek gods were humans with superpowers of one kind or another. Some people today still view God as a human with human emotions and desires. Experiences in life can weaken or destroy that kind of faith. When someone rejects faith in God because of a tragedy in life, the root cause of that rejection is a flawed concept of what God is.

Faith or lack of faith in God can determine the foundation of our lives. The question that we must ask is, “What is the foundation (faith) on which I base my life?” For my father, who was an atheist, the foundation of his life was education. His father was a minister, and that faith did not appeal to him as a way to build his life. Instead, he pursued the highest level of education possible, achieving a Ph.D. in philosophy at Columbia University under one of the leading educators in his field. Then he became a full professor at Indiana University and was recognized as one of the top experts in his field.

After a long career with numerous awards and recognitions, my father retired. Did all of these achievements and recognitions provide a foundation for him? A regular activity for my father was to engage in a cocktail hour. He dealt with the stress and frustration of his work by drinking. My father was not socially active. He went to social affairs only because he had to, and alcohol was the foundation, the lubricant which enabled him to function socially.

Shortly after his retirement, my father developed leukemia. Going through the brutal treatments available at that time was tragic and agonizing to watch. The end of his life was a constant battle to survive, and the treatments eventually killed him. Death was the ultimate tragedy because he died without hope of anything better.

The other problem with my father’s faith was what his foundation did to and for my mother and my two brothers. My mother was forced to become the social director of the family. Social events were her life, and achieving recognition from her peers was her foundation. After my father died, she became the leader of the retirement center where she lived. She commanded the respect of everyone there, including the management and staff. This became her foundation, and her faith was that it would continue. When she suffered a stroke and was moved to the care center, she was not even allowed to eat with her peers, much less play a role in the retirement center’s social events. She was so mortified and miserable in her new situation that I had to move her 200 miles from the retirement center to a facility near me. She was miserable there as well.

My parents had a dependence on alcohol as a foundation for life and a faith that it would make everything else function normally. This rubbed off on the rest of the family. Like many people in today’s world, the negative destroyed not only my father’s faith but my mother and brother’s faith as well. Faith or lack of faith in God will determine the course of your life. In tomorrow’s discussion, we will look at how we can build a workable faith.

*For John’s discussion on “What Is God?” go to DoesGodExist.tv and watch program 8 in the video series.

November 22, 2020November 21, 2020

Foundational Faith in Our Lives

What is your faith? Some of my atheist friends will say, “I don’t have a faith,” but that isn’t true. The definition of faith given in the Bible is, “…faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1). The Greek word used for “substance” in this verse is “hupostasis” which is from two words meaning “stand” and “upon.” It is literally our “foundation.” What is your foundational faith?

Each of us has things in our lives that are fundamental to our existence and that we trust even though we don’t see them. We all have faith in gravity. We don’t sit around worrying about whether gravity will suddenly fail and we will drift off into outer space. There is a vast list of things that we cannot see and yet which are foundational to our existence.

For most of us, our foundational faith has more to do with our intellectual understandings, our values, our morals, and how we make decisions. The book of Hebrews identifies some of those things with scientific accuracy and on which most of us can agree. Verse 3 says, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed … so that what is seen was not made of what was visible.” Whether you are a Christian or an atheist, you can have faith in that part of the verse. However, the middle of that verse says, “…was formed at God’s command…” An atheist would disagree that God had anything to do with it but would still agree that “…what is seen was not made of what was visible.”

That raises an important point. Is faith something that is blind? The answer is clearly “no!!” We have faith in gravity because, for all our lives, gravity has functioned in the same way. We trust gravity and have faith in it because we have seen it working. We cannot directly see that God commanded the formation of the cosmos. Having faith in the cause of the universe requires a different kind of evidence. We cannot directly observe the creation of time, space, matter/energy, and life.

Science gives us interesting examples of faith in something we can’t directly see. For many years, scientists debated whether light was a wave or a particle. Those scientists with faith that light was a wave had evidence for their faith. They proved it by showing destructive interference in light. Two light waves can intersect and cancel each other out, leaving darkness. Waves can cancel each other, but particles cannot. Experiments also show that waves can be polarized, and particles cannot. You can shine a light through certain types of crystals, and the crystals will only allow light vibrating in one plane to pass through. Reflected light turns out to be polarized, as you know if you have a pair of Polaroid sunglasses. There was massive evidence that light is a wave, and 400 years ago, that was the faith of most scientists.

The problem with that faith was that there were things that light could do that waves could not do. Light could shine on certain materials and knock electrons out of those materials. This is called the photoelectric effect, and we all use it in photo-sensors and solar-cells. Waves such as sound waves cannot go through a vacuum because they need something to “wave.” Particles can go through a vacuum. Some scientists had such strong faith that light was a wave they explained how light reaches us from the Sun by saying that space is not a vacuum. They made up a substance they called “aether” which they said filled the universe and which waves could pass through.

Scientists today have faith in the dual nature of light. It is both a wave and a particle, and aether doesn’t exist. The point is that our faith can change when we see new evidence. What is your foundational faith, and how has it changed during the last few years? If you are a Christian, has your faith grown? We’ll talk about that tomorrow.

November 21, 2020November 21, 2020

Architect-Engineer, Magician, or Chance

One of the things that John Clayton often emphasizes is that God is an architect-engineer. Some people see God as a magician. As John likes to say, they see God “zapping” things into existence. So which is correct— architect-engineer, magician, or chance?

If we think of God as a magician, we are rejecting science. We are like the ancients who saw magic in lightning, volcanoes, wind, fire, and everything else. They saw magic in the created things, and they worshipped the creation. So they had a god of the volcano, a god of the river, a god of the harvest, and on and on.

Science today has told us what causes volcanoes and hurricanes, so we no longer see them as gods. Science tells us how stars begin and how they die. It tells us how the elements are formed within stars. Science also tells us how our solar system developed. Plate tectonics reveals the processes that gave us today’s continents, and scientists are studying the formation of our atmosphere. We see how millions of things came together to provide us with a habitable planet. Were all of those merely fortunate accidents, or were they intelligently designed? Remember, the alternatives are architect/engineer, magician, or chance.

The greatest mystery of all is how non-living elements became life. How did those elements come together to form amino acids, proteins, RNA, DNA, and living cells? We are still far from understanding that, but it is evident that the chance of it happening without a guiding intelligence is vanishingly small.

However, once that life threshold has been crossed, the accepted faith in the science community is that evolution took over from there. The accepted science dogma today is the worship of evolution. That dogma says naturalistic evolution is the god that developed all forms of life, including ourselves. For a scientist to deny that dogma is to commit heresy. Any scientist who wants to keep his or her job, credentials, prestige, or credibility must adhere to the dogma and worship the god Evolution. It all happened by natural selection acting on random mutations, and you better believe it, or at least pretend you do.

But, is chance a viable explanation? Does our everyday experience of designed things, from shovels and lawnmowers to cars and computers, tells us anything? It should say to us that those things don’t design themselves. It should be evident that intelligence, not mere chance, was involved in all of them.

Again, the alternatives are architect-engineer, magician, or chance. If we rule out chance, that leaves us with two options. If God is a magician who “zapped” everything into existence and made it look old, the study of science becomes futile. Why would God try to fool us into thinking we can study the ancient creation processes when there is no such thing?

If God is an architect-engineer, we can study the creation and see how He worked to design and engineer the universe, our solar system, our planet, and even life. We don’t see those creations as gods. Instead, we see the God who created them, and we worship Him. The bottom line is that we see evidence of God in the things He has made (Romans 1:20).

November 20, 2020November 19, 2020

Good Soils Are Vital for Survival

Many years ago in Alaska, I had a discussion with a biologist who was studying the Alaskan soils. His study revolved around the fact that Alaska has very little soil and what it does have is developing. The lack of soil in Alaska has limited plant growth and made the ecology dependent on migrating salmon. Soils are complex mixtures of organic matter, minerals, water, air, and billions of organisms that form over hundreds of years. Good soils are vital for survival. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.”

Research has shown that plants are designed to “call” for nutrients from the soil. A plant will release molecules called flavonoids, which cause bacteria in the soil to migrate into the plant and form nitrogen nodules on the roots. The nitrogen nodules generate food for the plant. If ample nitrogen is already available for the plant, it will not release the flavonoids.

This “hunger” by plants is vital to understand because many natural and human-caused processes can deplete the soil. Forest and brush fires, hurricanes, pollution, and climate change can deplete soils’ nitrogen content and kill plants. Studies of the giant sequoias in California have shown that the soil under them has twice as many bacteria as the soil under nearby sugar pines. We all know that bacteria influence human health, but bacteria also affect plant health and growth.

As our population increases and world climates change, it will become increasingly important to understand how soil allows us to feed our growing population. God’s design of the Earth includes providing the soils necessary to produce food. Good soils are vital for survival.

Reference: The National Science Foundation post on October 14, 2020.

November 19, 2020November 18, 2020

Glaciers and Treasures of the Snow

In Job 38:22, God refers to “the treasures of the snow” and “the treasures of ice.” In Job’s day, that may not have made a lot of sense. Even today, most people are not aware of the role glaciers play in our lives.

We are living in what scientists call an interglacial period when changes in Earth’s orbit have caused glaciers to melt. This interglacial period has been going on for some 12,000 years and is unrelated to any human-induced climate change. When scientists find evidence of forests, other life-forms, and human remains under the ocean’s surface, we can be sure that the sea level has been very different in the past.

Water molecules are designed in a way that allows glaciers to exist. A glacier is not a block of ice. When water is frozen and put under pressure, it behaves like a fluid. When I was teaching physics, we had a demonstration in which we froze a metal container of water and then used a piston to put it under pressure. The metal container had holes, and the ice would shoot out through the holes in a cylindrical form, just as any liquid or gas would do. Snow falls on the ground in a cold place and piles up, putting pressure on the snow on the bottom. The pressure changes the snow, and it begins to flow like toothpaste. Those gorgeous blue ice flows, the treasures of the snow, are glaciers.

So why is this a good thing for you and me? First, it locks up water, so it is available year-round. The amount of land area available to humans would drop radically if we lost all the glacial ice on the planet. As the ice melts, it does so gradually. Many areas of the world have water year-round only because slow-melting glaciers supply water in a controlled manner.

Many plants and animals depend on glaciers for their survival. Glacial algae get their water by producing dark pigments, which absorb enough sunlight to melt glacial ice. In that way, plants can grow in places like Greenland. The algae provide food for fish and other marine organisms in northern latitudes. Without the glaciers to supply drinking water for the bottom of the food chain, life couldn’t exist in northern marine environments.

Glaciers are also one of the strongest erosional agents in existence. Because of that, mountainous areas have u-shaped valleys with numerous cirque lakes and moraines. Glaciers have allowed a whole biosphere to exist in those mountainous areas. Human habitation in much of the Rocky Mountains is only possible because of the work of glaciers. Here in Michigan, we see and enjoy a continental glacial area where a vast ice sheet shaped the land and created thousands of lakes.

Job could not comprehend the full meaning of the words God spoke to him. Today, people who live where the glaciers have worked and are working can be thankful for God’s design of the “treasures of the snow.”

Reference: Discover Magazine December 2020, page 66.

November 18, 2020November 17, 2020

Human Expression in Music and Art

One evidence for the unique spiritual makeup in humans is our ability for creative expression in art and music. Attempts to claim elephant art, gorilla creativity, and chimp creative technique have not given convincing results. We believe that the presence of human expression in music and art, as well as worship, is because we are created in the image of God.

A recent study from the University of California seems to support this. The study involved 144 infants from age two months to 14 months. Researchers fitted babies with heart rate and skin monitors and observed them while they listened to a lullaby. It didn’t matter what language the lullaby was in; the babies responded similarly in all cases. Their heart rate slowed, their pupils became smaller, and their skin electrical activity declined. When the researchers played music that was not a lullaby, there was no response from the infants. Obviously, it was not just the sound that was involved, but the type of sound.

Years ago, there was an interesting story about a famous classical violinist who was playing a song that his wife did not recognize. She asked him what it was, and he couldn’t remember. Later his mother heard the discussion between the violinist and his wife and told them, “I know exactly what that song is. I was composing that song when I was pregnant with you, and I played it over and over as I wrote the song.”

Stories like this suggest that music is a designed part of the human spiritual makeup. It is not just brain activity but the soul that enjoys and creates music. Human expression in music and art touches our soul because we are created in the image of God.

Reference: The Week, November 20, 2020.

November 17, 2020November 16, 2020

Questions to Ask Religious Founders

Throughout history, many men have founded religions which gathered large followings. Here is a list of some of them and a list of questions to ask religious founders.

RELIGIOUS FOUNDERS IN HISTORY
1-Zoroaster or Zarathustra – Born between 1700 and 500 BC, Zoroastrianism
2-Gautama Siddhartha (the Buddha) – Born c.563 BC, Buddhism
3-Confucius – Born in 551 BC, Confucianism
4-Jesus Christ – Born c. 4 BC, Christianity
5-Muhammad – Born in AD 570, Islam
6-Guru Nanak – Born 1469, Sikhism
7-Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri (Bahaullah) – Born in 1817, Bahai
8-Charles Fillmore – Born in 1854, Unity School of Christianity
9-Gerald Gardner – Born in 1884, Wicca
10-A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada – Born in 1896, Harre Krishna
11-L. Ron Hubbard – Born in 1911, Scientology
12-Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – Born in 1918, Transcendental Meditation
13-Sun Myung Moon – Born in 1920, Unification Church

QUESTIONS TO ASK RELIGIOUS FOUNDERS
Were your message and the details of your life prophesied before your birth?
Were your followers instructed to bring peace and love to others, or did you lead them into war?
Was your message primarily spiritual or political?
Did you teach and practice the equality of all human beings?
Did you promise an existence beyond this life?
Was your life one of sacrifice or pleasure for yourself?
Did your religion bring you wealth and prosperity?
Is your burial place in existence today?
Was your message confirmed with miracles?
Were you raised from the dead?
Was there peace and cooperation among your disciples after you were no longer present in the flesh?

Considering these questions to ask religious founders, some of the founders could answer some of the questions in a positive way. None of them would answer all of these questions in the way Jesus Christ would. We are not attempting to denigrate any religion. We are only saying that we follow Jesus Christ because of what He did, how He lived, and what He taught. We also do not base our faith on the actions of any human who claims to follow Christ.

Picture Credits: bigstockphoto.com and wikimedia.com

November 16, 2020November 16, 2020

Could There Be Life on Other Planets

A subject that keeps drawing attention is the question of whether we are alone in the universe or could there be life on other planets. Many people seem to feel that this is a religious issue. They assume if science discovers life on another planet, it will discredit the Bible in some way. This has led some religious writers to try to prove that life exists nowhere but on the Earth.

Discover magazine devotes much of the December issue to the question, “Could there be life on other planets?” The cover picture shows the parabolic reflector of a large radio telescope with the heading “Are We Alone?”

It is essential to understand that this is NOT a religious issue, and the search for life in space has no biblical implications. The Genesis account describes Earth’s history and gives no discussion of any other planets in the cosmos. A careful scientific study of the requirements for life to emerge from non-life shows complexity beyond the reach of any chance process. If there is life elsewhere, God created it.

Why would God do that? Why do all of the other stars and their planets and galaxies exist? God has not limited humans to where we can travel. It may be that in the distant future, humans will live somewhere else in space. It may be that natural resources on Earth will eventually run out, and we will need to secure those resources in space. The biblical message is intended for this planet (Mark 16:15), but the language does not exclude a relationship between God and any creature. For example, Hebrews 4:13 says, “There is not a creature that exists that is hidden from him.”

This discussion reminds me of a radio debate I had in Washington, D.C., with Larry King as the moderator. My opponent was a leader of the atheist group in Washington, and people could call in questions for the two of us to answer. A caller asked, “What would you do if a spaceship landed on the White House lawn, an alien got out with a Bible in his hand and said ‘Has Jesus been here yet?’” My atheist friend said, “Punt.” In reality, that proposal would raise many other questions, but the point is that life in space is not a biblical issue.

The Discover article runs through many familiar suggestions. One popular proposal says that we don’t see alien-inhabited planets because they have built a sphere around their solar system, trapping all energy and making it impossible to see them. Called a Dyson sphere, it demands a level of sophistication that is hard to imagine. Another popular suggestion is that aliens camouflage their space ships to look like asteroids. We saw that idea suggested recently when an asteroid called Oumuamua came through our solar system from outer space.

Aliens capable of building such technological wonders would not need to camouflage since they would have better ways to protect themselves. There are some newer and wilder proposals, but the question, “Could there be life on other planets?” is not a biblical issue. If life is out there, it is so far away that it is unlikely to be a threat to our planet in the near future.

November 15, 2020November 13, 2020

The Does God Exist? Ministry

The Does God Exist? ministry is an effort by John Clayton, supported by Roland Earnst, Karl Marcussen, and Linda Glover. We desire to demonstrate to anyone who will consider the evidence that science and faith are symbiotic. They support each other. We don’t pretend to have all the answers, and we are not a business and do not market our materials.

For over 50 years, we have been distributing correspondence courses, books, magazines, booklets, and audio and visual programs free of charge or on loan to anyone who requests them. This daily article website is one of a variety of resources:

DVDs and CDs can be borrowed by emailing John Clayton at jncdge@aol.com. You can also watch them free of charge on doesgodexist.tv.

Books can be borrowed at the same email address. A catalog is available on doesgodexist.org. or can be requested via postal mail at the address below.

The above materials can be purchased at cost with a credit card on powervine.biz.

Our quarterly printed journal will be mailed to you free upon request.

On the doesgodexist.org website, you can read all of our periodical publications back to 1995, as well as pamphlets, booklets, charts, and other materials.

We have two correspondence courses available postage paid on request. Our college-level course can be taken on our doesgodexist.org website.

We have a YouTube channel HERE.

We have a Facebook page with daily posts that show design in animals and plants: facebook.com/evidence4god.

You can see our daily Twitter feeds at twitter.com/powervine.

We have a website for kids where you can watch our children’s videos and read our children’s books free of charge: grandpajohn.club.

We also have special topic websites. Whypain.org deals with the issue of human suffering, and dandydesigns.org shows examples of design in nature, indicating an intelligent cause.

John Clayton is the regular speaker on Sunday mornings at 11:00 AM on zoom.com at the Dowagiac Church of Christ. You can be included by calling Karl Marcussen at 574-514-1400 or emailing him at marcusen@michiana.org.

The Clayton Museum of Ancient History is maintained on the campus of York College in York, Nebraska. This museum is promoted by Nebraska’s tourist division and includes the Foster Stanback antiquities collection with artifacts from Biblical times. The website is claytonmuseumofancienthistory.org.

We hope you will take advantage of the many resources available from the Does God Exist? Ministry.

Does God Exist? – P.O. Box 2704 – South Bend, IN 46680-2704

November 14, 2020November 13, 2020

Avoidable Pandemic of Hyperemesis

It’s an avoidable “pandemic.” I put the word “pandemic” in quotes because using a drug is not a virus or bacteria. It is also not self-replicating and does not afflict innocent people. The pandemic we are talking about is cannabis hyperemesis syndrome.

As I write this article, eleven states have legalized the recreational use of marijuana, and 30 states have decriminalized it. One rarely publicized consequence of repeated marijuana use is recurring attacks of painful and protracted vomiting. It can continue until the esophagus rips, and the person bleeds to death. Since medical experts first identified this condition in 2004, the number of U. S. cases of hyperemesis has grown to over two million per year.

Your body stores cannabinoids in fat tissue, so weight loss, fasting, or alcohol consumption can trigger their release, resulting in hyperemesis. Colorado legalized the recreational use of marijuana in 2009. Since then, visits to emergency rooms for hyperemesis have doubled. The cannabis plant contains 100 different cannabinoids, but selective breeding has contributed to the hyperemesis surge. The THC content in marijuana tripled from 1995 to 2014, but the CBD content has been cut in half. CBD is supposed to decrease pain and anxiety.

Our society has turned away from God and the joy, fulfillment, love, and security He gives us. We will not find spiritual contentment in any chemical or alternative lifestyle. The acceptance of marijuana in our culture is one more tool of Satan to bring pain and destruction. As Christians, we must oppose it and this avoidable pandemic.

Data from Discover Magazine December 2020, page 24.