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February 23, 2017October 8, 2018

Supernova 1987A Celebrates 30th Birthday

On February 23, 1987, a historic explosion was witnessed by astronomers on Earth. A massive star known as Sanduleak -60 degrees 202 exploded. What was previously classified as a supergiant star became a supernova. For the first time since A.D.1054, there was a supernova close enough to the Earth for scientists to observe first-hand what was happening.

Students in high school physics and earth science classes study a diagram known as the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. It is simply a scattergram of the temperature of stars plotted against their luminosity. Stars begin as very hot blue giant stars. As they cool, they turn white-hot, then red, then brown. Then they may become a cinder. In the case of larger stars, the internal processes change, and they become giant stars which in some cases explode. Because these processes require a very long time, we don’t live long enough to see a single star go through all of these phases. But we can see stars in all of these stages. Seeing a star explode is a very rare event (about once a century), and Sanduleak -60 degrees 202 was thus a fantastic opportunity to see in detail what happens when a star explodes.

There is much to learn from Supernova 1987A. Exploding stars seed space with the heavier elements. We are learning how the elements that make up our world were formed. For those of us who believe God is the engineer of all of this, we can see how God made iron, copper, gold and the materials of the Earth’s crust. The incredible energy and power of the process testify to God’s power and creative wisdom. As we compare this supernova with the one that happened in A.D. 1054, which produced what is now called the Crab Nebula, we see it is different in many ways. In 1 Corinthians 15:41 the Bible tells us that “one star differs from another” and we now know that is true even of exploding stars. This supernova also gives us another tool to measure the size and age of the universe. We have several methods of measuring how far away this supernova is, but they all give us the same answer. The explosion took place 160,000 light years away from us, or 160,000 years ago. We are safe from the incredible radiation because of the huge distance.

We now have 30 years of measurements of this historic explosion. This birthday will be celebrated by scientists, but it is also significant to those who enjoy looking into space and seeing the handiwork of God.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

February 21, 2017October 8, 2018

Animal/Human Chimeras Created

Human stem cells have been injected into pig and cattle embryos resulting in a human-pig or human-cow hybrid called a chimera. The name “chimera” comes from a fire-breathing monster in Greek mythology that had the head of a lion with a goat’s head coming out of its body and a tail with a snake’s head. The claimed purpose of producing a chimera of a human with some other animal is to find a way to grow organs for transplants. This kind of research is banned in some countries, and federal money is not allowed for this research in the United States. Animal rights people are already complaining about this research. Bioethicist Francoise Baylis says that chimera work is unethical “because it is based on the faulty assumption that human life is more valuable than that of nonhuman beings.” One researcher raised the possibility of pigs being given human brains. For Christians the question would be the definition of what it means to be human. The biblical definition of a human is a being created in the image of God. That definition avoids the kind of questions that animal rights ethicists are asking. The bigger question involves what happens when the research goes astray or creates environmental chaos.
–John N. Clayton © 2017
Data from Science News, February 18, 2017, pages 6-7.

February 16, 2017October 8, 2018

How Did These Things Happen?

One of the more beautiful areas of the United States is Bryce Canyon. There is no other place quite like it, so the processes and conditions there must be unique. Anyone who visits the area with its rugged landscape would be motivated to ask how it got to be the way it is.

It is interesting that we frequently see atheist authors and creationist authors giving the same answer to this question. Both say that you either believe that all of these geological phenomena–as well as everything else in the creation–was either created that way by God or it has come about as a product of blind chance. In both camps, there is a prevalent view that all things are either God-designed or chance-designed and that there is no other alternative. It is understandable why atheists would want to make such a narrow choice available. Not only does it push forward their religious view that there is no God, but it also makes belief in God seem to be a shallow and inconsistent view of reality. The problem of human suffering and disaster is a much more difficult area for believers to deal with if God is pulling all the strings and making it all happen. This viewpoint places belief in God in an illogical box.

It would seem that Bryce Canyon is the ideal place to show the foolishness of forcing only these two choices. Did God sit down and carve each pillar as an artist would carve a statue? If not, does this mean that chance formation of the environment that produced the columns is the only other option? How about the option that God designed the system and let it run its course?

Geologists believe there are a wide variety of factors that contributed to the production of Bryce Canyon. When the rocks that make up the Canyon were laid down, they were deposited in a flat area near sea level. The sand and the iron oxide that colors it were deposited in beds that were flat. After many beds had been laid down, a new material was deposited with complex minerals making it very hard. After the area had been covered with several more layers of material, the whole region was lifted up to 8000 feet by forces deep within the earth. Water eroding this uplifted area found it difficult to cut through the hard material on top. Once that hard layer was cut through, the water cut deeper and deeper instead of flattening the area. The hard cap rock remained as the softer rock layers were eroded. Does this process preclude God having any role in the carving of Bryce?

Many times we have emphasized that the Bible tells us that God brings about His will in two ways. One way is the performance of a miracle that only God can do. The Hebrew word bara (create) denotes this kind of process and is only used when referring to God’s activity–never human activity. The second way is that God makes things happen in a natural way with no miraculous action. The Hebrew word asah (make) indicates this and is often applied to things that even humans can do. At the end of the Genesis account, the author tells us that God used both processes in bringing about the Creation. Genesis 2:3 says that God rested from all the work he had “created” (bara) and “made” (asah).

A failure to understand both processes that God uses in bringing things into existence leaves us with many problems in a variety of areas. God’s capacity to heal is not only seen in miracles that defy acts of doctors, but also in the design of the human body, in our mental outlook, in plants and animals that provide us with drugs, and in environmental factors. The bad things that happen to us do not happen because “God does it to us.” They come as a logical result of the struggle between good and evil and as a consequence of what we have individually and collectively done to the environment. War, starvation, poverty, and the spread of disease are not God-caused, but the result of our refusal to live as God commanded.

When we look at life itself, at the cosmos as a whole, and at beautiful places like Bryce Canyon, we are seeing the handiwork of God. The design built into everything from quarks to intergalactic space allows processes to function and bring about the beauty we see. Humans or God can direct how the processes will progress, but the initial design demands intelligence that makes mere chance a belief system without credibility.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

February 13, 2017April 26, 2023

“How Many Gallons of Gas Does One Dinosaur Make?”

“How many gallons of gas does one dinosaur make?” Marilyn vos Savant has a column in Parade magazine. In the February 5, 2017, issue (page 8), that was the title of her column, taken from a reader’s question. We get this same question in one form or another, usually from an adult, not a child. Many people believe the gasoline that drives our cars and all of our fossil fuels came from the bodies of dinosaurs that were smushed into crude oil. The fact that the Sinclair Oil Company had a green brontosaurus as their mascot for a long time probably contributed to this misunderstanding.

The real answer has much to do with our view of how God has provided for advanced human civilization. Ask yourself what you would answer if a young person asked where crude oil originated. In a Bible class context, the question might be, “How did God make crude oil?”

The answer to this question comes from our view of how God does things. Do we view God as a magician who zaps things into existence? Did God zap petroleum products deep underground so that we could find them and use them to drive the industrial age and our infatuation with gasoline-powered cars? We have tried to suggest over the years that God has used natural processes for most of what He has done. In Genesis 1, the Hebrew word for “create,” indicating a process that only God can do, is only used three times–verses 1, 21, and 27. These are all major items–space/time in verse 1, life in verse 21, and the human soul in verse 27. All the other verses in Genesis 1 use a word for “make” or “formed,” which implies a natural process. The bottom line is that most of what Genesis 1 describes were things formed by natural processes, not miraculous acts of God. Genesis 2:3 uses both words to describe the methods God used: “…he had rested from all his work which God (elohim) created (bara) and made (asah).” (Hebrew words in parentheses.)

So where did the gasoline for your car come from? The answer is that it came from an ecology that God created and shaped to produce it. That ecology was warm, had a particular chemical balance, and was full of single-celled animals called foraminifera and diatoms. They formed a tiny drop of crude oil in their bodies during their life processes. When the organisms died, their hard shells became diatomaceous earth, and the drop of oil united with millions of other drops to make a pool of crude oil. The dinosaurs were the agents that served as the gardeners to provide nutrients, prune, spread seeds, and generally control the ecology. Because God used this method, scientists can locate oil deposits miles below the earth’s surface. If God had formed the petroleum with a magic trick, humans would be unable to locate these resources. Because we know how the oil was formed, we know where to find it.

God used an incredible group of animals to prepare the things that humans would need. Not only was oil produced in this way, but coal, iron, and a plethora of other resources. God employed engineering skills and ecological genius to give us the standard of living we enjoy today. That is much more exciting than smushed dinosaurs.

February 12, 2017October 8, 2018

A Visit to the Galapagos Islands

Blue-Footed Boobies on the Galapagos Islands

(Today is the birthday of Charles Darwin and has been proclaimed by many organizations as “Darwin Day.” This post by John Clayton is a condensed version of an article in the printed DOES GOD EXIST? Journal for May/June 2013.)

The Galapagos Islands are located some 600 miles west of Ecuador. They were made famous by the studies and work of Charles Darwin who visited the islands in 1835 at the age of 26. His studies led him to some understandings which violated the religious traditions of his day. They also were seized upon by some philosophers to justify a belief system that rejected God and depended on naturalism as the faith upon which they lived their lives.

The reason I have always wanted to visit the Galapagos Islands is that evolution has been used as a club by many skeptics and atheists against belief in God and acceptance of the Bible as His word. In our ministry, we have maintained that science and faith are friends and not enemies and that science supports the biblical record. We have also maintained that since the same God who created all living things also gave us the biblical record, no scientific fact can conflict with what the Bible says. If there is a conflict, I believe it is because we have bad science or bad theology or both.

Darwin was studying the question of how animals came to be as we see them today. There are 13 species of finches scattered throughout the 13 main islands, six small islands, and 42 islets, where detailed studies of the finches have been conducted. In addition to the finches, there are various iguana species that cannot interbreed. The Galapagos land iguanas are infertile with the Galapagos marine iguanas. The marine iguanas feed on algae on the floor of the ocean and have a gland in their respiratory system that collects excess salt in their bodies and “sneezes” it away. Even the huge Galapagos tortoises, which can weigh over 500 pounds, are different on each island and infertile with the tortoises on other islands. Today our studies of DNA and the genomes of living things have shown how close these animals are to each other genetically. The incredible wisdom built into their DNA allows them to adapt and become unique for a particular environment. The research being done at the Charles Darwin Research Center is helping us to understand how to control and protect all forms of life on this planet.

In Darwin’s day, the claim of most theologians would have been that God created each tortoise separately, and placed each one on its island and that they were unchanged to this day. What Darwin maintained was that there was a design system built into the animals which allowed them to change to fit the physical conditions in which they found themselves. Since genetics was not a functional science at that time, Darwin had no idea what the design feature was that allowed this natural change, but he maintained it was the explanation for the finches and iguanas and tortoises.

What was going on theologically in Darwin’s day is essentially what is going on today. People had decided that the Bible was too radical to be believed. Not only did people not want to follow the Bible’s teachings, but they considered it to be primitive ignorance to suggest that Genesis was true. We now know that the genome of the iguanas contains enough stored information to allow the iguanas to live in a marine or land environment. The design of the genome is a fantastic demonstration of God’s wisdom and design allowing the finches to live in every ecological niche the Galapagos has to offer. Even the tortoises have subtle physical characteristics that enable them to reproduce and live in particular habitats.

What impressed me about the work going on in the research stations we visited was that it was good science and not speculative theories and philosophies. Researchers were not looking for a link between the finches and the iguanas. They were concerned with understanding how the natural history of the Galapagos had shaped and was being shaped by the forms of life that exist there. In talking with researchers, I encountered no one who felt there was a conflict between what they were doing and faith in God and the Bible. We had a guide assigned to our boat by the governmental agencies. He was very knowledgeable and expressed some wonderment that anyone would even suggest that somehow this area that he knew so well would be contributing to doubts about God and the Bible.

We have much to learn about how God has designed and created the Earth and it’s living creatures. There is no reason to fear that one’s faith will be destroyed because the beauty and wisdom of God shine as brightly in the Galapagos as any place on this planet. It is sad that in our day people have taken Darwin’s work and attempted to exclude God from our thought processes as we study life on Earth.
–John N. Clayton © 2017
For the complete article and pictures go to:
http://www.doesgodexist.org/MayJun13/DGEMayJun13.html

February 11, 2017October 8, 2018

Dinosaur Demise

Everyone seems to have a fascination with dinosaurs. For kids, it may just be the old “monster under the bed” type of obsession, but adults have similar desires flavored by wanting to know more. Trying to suggest that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, as some creationists do, stretches credibility to the breaking point. Not only is there no credible evidence that humans and dinosaurs lived together (although the number of attempts never seems to diminish), but the conditions under which the dinosaurs lived would be virtually impossible for humans to survive. Temperatures, the composition of the atmosphere, and the efficiency of the dinosaur predators make most people at least doubt the cohabitation of humans and these huge reptiles. Movies like Jurassic Park help reinforce the difficulties of such a co-existence.

We have suggested that taking the Bible in a very literal way eliminates the need for trying to make a T. Rex a household pet. The Hebrew words used in the creation week all refer, if they are taken literally, to animals that Moses knew and/or had control over. Behemah in Genesis 1:24 refers to a cow, not a T. Rex. Kanaph oph in verse 21 refers to a chicken, not a pterodactyl. The creation week is an explanation to the Israelites about God’s creation of the living things they knew and depended on. Duckbilled Platypus is not in the creation week, nor are phytoplankton, bacteria, viruses, penguins, worms, arthropods in general, or dinosaurs. References to living things in passages like Exodus 20:11 are referring back to the creation week in the choice of words and the purpose.

Genesis 1:1 talks about the miraculous creation of the universe and the Earth in particular. The word for Earth (erets) normally refers to a functional planet–not a blob of gook. The method God used to produce the Earth is not given. Proverbs 8:22 discusses this in some references to God’s wisdom and planning, but not the mechanics of how God did what He did. The use of living ecosystems to produce a functional Earth is not out of the question, and the evidence shows that this is how God did it. Dinosaurs were the gardeners of prehistoric Earth, with some dinosaurs pruning and spreading the seeds of plants that produced coal and other resources humans would need.

In verse two of Genesis 1, we are told that the Earth became empty and wasted and that darkness came on the face of the Earth. The Hebrew tohu bohu choshek is normally used to address a destructive change. If in fact, biological systems were preparing the Earth for humans in verse 1, then verse 2 indicates a change. The evidence strongly supports this understanding. In Science News for February 4, 2017, pages 16-26, there is an excellent article by Thomas Sumner reporting on new research into the demise of the dinosaurs. It is titled “Devastation Detectives, ” and it reports on new data that backs up the asteroid impact that made the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan. It also shows that in addition to the asteroid strike, massive volcanic eruptions were taking place on the opposite side of the planet that contributed to the renovation of the Earth. The evidence is that the destruction was complete. Fish have been found with their gills filled with silicon dust, and the atmosphere seems to have been so full of ash and materials from these catastrophes that the Earth was in darkness. The congruence of all this and the biblical account is too complete to ignore.

I am aware that our critics will say that we are just fitting science to the Bible or vice-versa. We would plead guilty to that charge. Science is facts, and if we believe that the Bible came from the Creator of the universe, then the facts must fit the Bible. If they don’t fit, we either have misunderstood the facts of science, or we have misunderstood the Bible. When God says something, we should not question it. When God just says He did it, we are free to look at the evidence and try to understand how. That is what science is about, and it leads to a better way of living for all of us. The way the new data fits Genesis 1:1-2 is too complete to ignore. Genesis is not a myth, but it is also not complete. There are many things we would like to know more about, and the role of the dinosaurs is certainly one of those things. For more on the Hebrew of Genesis, go to our doesgodexist.org website and read “God’s Revelation Through His Rocks and His Word.”
–John N. Clayton © 2017

February 4, 2017October 8, 2018

Extinct Animals in the Bible

In Discover magazine (March 2017, page 24) there is a reference to a species of wild cattle called aurochs that lived in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. The article says that the aurochs was the first recorded animal to become extinct. The last aurochs died in Poland in 1627. These animals are portrayed in the ancient cave art of Chauvet-Pont d’Arc and Lascaux in southern France. They have been called “supercattle.” Julius Caesar saw aurochs and said of them, “In size these are little but inferior to elephants. They spare neither men nor beast.”

In the Bible, there are animals described that we do not find examples of in the living biosphere of today. In Job 40:15-24 there is a description of an animal which in the Hebrew is called behemoth. This word is the plural of the word behema used in Genesis 1:24 and many later verses throughout the Old Testament. Behema is usually translated as livestock or cattle, and there is no question but that this is the intent in Genesis 1. Behemoth would be a large, massive example of behema. It cannot refer to a dinosaur, even if we ignore the scientific evidence because the word always referred to an ungulate, which is a mammal. Suggestions that it was a hippopotamus are unlikely since there was another word for the hippo. It could refer to a giant sloth which also became extinct. However, the aurochs probably fits the description better.

Our point is that animals that lived at the time of Job and Moses may not be in existence today. While we cannot be sure what they were, there is no reason to suggest that this is an error by the author of Job. It is also no reason to say that the Bible describes mythical animals or that it refers to dinosaurs. Like every other argument that attempts to denigrate the integrity of the Bible or put it at odds with scientific evidence, better information shows the Bible to be true and accurate. (Hebrew word discussion from The New Bible Dictionary, Eerdman’s Publishing.)
–John N. Clayton © 2017

February 3, 2017October 8, 2018

Human Embryos-People or Property?

A Missouri appeals court has ruled that a couple’s frozen embryos are joint property, not children. The woman sued her ex-husband for the right to implant the embryos they conceived through in-vitro fertilization. The court ruled that the embryos are joint property so both the woman and the man must consent to their use. This is in spite of Missouri state law which says that life begins at conception. The inconsistency of this ruling and of the mentality of the court is incredible. What would be the ruling if the embryos in question had been allowed to develop to nine months and the husband wanted to abort them in spite of the mother’s objection? Most pro-abortion politicians when asked the question of when an embryo becomes a human have responded by saying they haven’t investigated the issue, and yet that is fundamental to this entire debate. When the sperm meets the egg and fertilizes it, what is left if not a property or some other animal, it is a human being. We would suggest that the baby so conceived is a human and should have all the rights that you and I have. The court case was reported in Christianity Today, January/February 2017, page 20.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

January 31, 2017October 8, 2018

Darwin Day and Evolution Weekend (Part 2)

Yesterday we mentioned that various groups are celebrating February 12, the birthday of Charles Darwin, as “Darwin Day.” There are also churches that are designating February 10-12 as “Darwin Weekend” to promote harmony between science and faith. That seems like a positive goal since the purpose of the DOES GOD EXIST? program for over 40 years has been to show that science and faith are friends, not enemies.

As this annual commemoration approaches, we want to reflect on what Darwin discovered and how he interpreted it. People knew that animals could change and the breeding of animals for improved features had been going on for centuries. (See our post on January 28 about goldfish breeding and note what Jacob did with Laban’s cattle in Genesis 20:25-42.) What Darwin did was to suggest a method by which these changes can take place in the natural world unaided by outside intervention. In 1859 he published his influential book On The Origin of Species. He advanced a theory that natural selection acting on random mutations was what led to the evolution of all living species from a few common ancestors, or perhaps only one. He suggested that variations within a species occur randomly. If the variation is harmful, it will lead to extinction. If the variation helps the animal to adapt to its environment, that animal will live and pass on those traits to its descendants. In The Descent of Man (1871) Darwin clearly applied this process to the origin of human beings. Darwin concluded that humans must have evolved from an apelike animal based on comparing the anatomy of humans to other mammals. He also based it on similarities in embryological development, and the existence of what he called “rudimentary” organs which today are often referred to as “vestigial” (such as tonsils and appendix). In Darwin’s words, “In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some apelike creature to man as he now exists, it would be impossible to fix on any definite point when the term ‘man’ ought to be used.” Darwin fully expected that later fossil discoveries would show the gradual progress of evolution. More than 150 years later, the fossil record is still lacking, but today science points to DNA to show evidence of common descent.

From the beginning, Darwin’s proposal was controversial. Many atheists seized on Darwin’s work to show that God was not necessary. Many theologians condemned the idea of humans descending from “some apelike creature” because of its conflict with the biblical account. However, there were and are people who suggest that evolution is the method God used to create all life, even including humans. A noted scientist today who is a firm believer in God and a Christian is Dr. Francis Collins. He believes that evolution was created by God as a method of bringing all life into existence. He wrote in his book The Language of God, “No serious biologist today doubts the theory of evolution to explain the marvelous complexity and diversity of life.” Other Christian scientists such as Dr. Hugh Ross and Dr. Fazale Rana argue for God’s intervention into the process of evolution as demonstrated in the “Cambrian Explosion” and the “hominid explosion” which indicate a geologically sudden emergence of new life forms. They see the emergence of new life forms and the creation of Adam and Eve as cases of Divine intervention. They explain this in their excellent book Who Was Adam? now in its second edition updated in 2015.

If you define evolution as change over time, the evidence for that change is all around us. The Creator did not create 25 million different varieties of creatures with all of their specialized features separately and independently. All living things were designed with the ability to change and adapt. Knowing that fact, we have been able to fight diseases, build more productive food sources, and develop agents that solve our problems of handling waste and reversing the effects of pollution. Evolution does not necessarily contradict the Bible. Naturalistic evolution does. Leaving God out of the equation not only contradicts the Bible, but it makes humans an accident of nature with no value or significance. (To be continued tomorrow.)
–John N. Clayton and Roland Earnst © 2017