What is Your direction?

 

What is Your direction?

THE WINDS THAT BLOW

The real estate salesman said, "This house has both its good points and its bad points. To show you I'm honest, I'm going to tell you about both. The disadvantages are that there is a chemical plant one block south and a slaughterhouse a block north."

"What are the advantages?" inquired the prospective buyer.

"The advantage is that you can always tell which way the wind is blowing."

It is important to know "which way the wind is blowing". But it is also possible to allow that knowledge to affect us more than it ought to. I heard of a well-known hobo during the Great Depression of the 1930's who was asked how he decided which direction he would go every morning. He said, "It's easy. I find the way the wind is blowing, face away from it, and just let it blow me along."

And it's easy for us all to live our lives in just that way. Politicians are famous for doing it. Before taking a position, they'll take a poll and see how many people in the country believe one way or the other. But we're all guilty at times of allowing the "majority opinion" around us to shape who we are and what we do. It's so easy to look around to see which direction everybody else is headed and just turn our backs to the wind and drift along. And rather than make an effort to change the world (which is very difficult), we follow the easier path of letting the world determine the direction we take.

May these words serve to remind us of what our task as Christians is:

"Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:2)

Have a great day!

Alan Smith

Weighing Textual Variants (Part 1) | Has the Bible Been Corrupted? Very interesting video

https://apologeticspress.org/video/weighing-textual-variants-part-1-or-has-the-bible-been-corrupted-5810/ 

Please click on the link above and follow the paths provided.

 

Technological Progress Must Honor God’s Design for Our Bodies

by: Tony Reinke

Humans vs. Robots

The Jetsons leased a domestic robot maid. Her name was Rosey, a blue, well-worn generalist robot programmed to cook, clean, and parent when necessary. She was a cartoon vision from 1962 of what 2062 could look like. But generalist robots like Rosey are not likely to do our laundry and our dishes and our cooking anytime soon.

“There is some fantasy that we can make an AI robot that is superior to humans in all dimensions. That’s just technically, engineeringly impossible,” says Kevin Kelly. “We cannot make a machine that excels humans in all dimensions. You can make a machine that can run faster than the human. You can make a machine that can jump higher. You could make a machine that can crawl lower. But you can’t make a machine that does all those things at the same time because there’s an engineering trade-off. In addition to us being fairly powerful, we’re incredibly flexible.”¹

After three years of experiments on the surface of Mars by the Curiosity rover, one of its engineers estimated that the same workload could have been accomplished by one human in about a week.² Compared to robots, the human body is powerful, flexible, and efficient. It can run for sixteen hours every day, optimizing its mere quarter horsepower of energy, governed by a brain that requires less power than a light bulb. We are tremendously efficient, adaptable, and powerful. Robots are not. “We don’t know how to make a flexible, powerful machine,” says Kelly. “Those two things are normally not what we optimize. There’s no reason to try to make a machine totally like us—flexible, strong, fast, long duration, low powered—because we can make more of us very easily. Most robots will be different from us in many, many ways. They will be better than us in certain narrow ways.”³ But they will remain alien to us.

The human body is a remarkable design. And we will be given more power to optimize this body for sure. The age of anabolic steroids may give way to an age of genetically modified superhumans. As we learn how to bio hack the human body and optimize it for strength and speed, science is beginning to disrupt athletics, a venue where human competition has long assumed biological and chemical neutrality. What happens to sports when kinetic modifications are genetically rearranged? What happens when rapid strength and speed can be gained through genetic changes?⁴ Will genetic modifications eventually bring sports to a gradual end? Or will they, like the steroid era in baseball, make a sport more popular and exciting? Will athletes become the first genetically enhanced class of superbeings?

Honoring Our Bodies

In response to debilitating challenges, neurological implants may help remedy strokes, brain seizures, blindness, deafness, and even paralysis. They may even help alleviate depression, anxiety, and addictions. But ethics get sketchier when we talk about the use of these implants to augment healthy people. Augmentation does not seem to trouble inventors like Elon Musk, who is looking to accelerate human communication. It requires a lot of work to compress ideas accurately for others in concrete words, and the process of expression operates at a very low data rate. So what’s Musk’s proposed fix? A brain implant to allow for uncompressed impressions and concepts and thoughts to pass from one brain to another through “non-linguistic consensual telepathy.”⁵

The human body is a remarkable design.

• 
  

Consensual telepathy through brain-machine interfacing is a “heady” sci-fi enhancement plagiarized from the pages of Dr. Filostrato. But this is the trajectory of technology—making our innate powers superhuman. “Twentieth-century medicine aimed to heal the sick. Twenty-first-century medicine is increasingly aiming to upgrade the healthy.”⁶Such biological enhancements are unnatural, says Kevin Vanhoozer. “To heal is to intervene therapeutically by aiming to correct a biological or biochemical defect. In contrast, to enhance is to improve normal function, to go beyond the natural.”⁷ There’s a delicate balance to be maintained in preserving and restoring natural functions—and grave consequences to enhancing the natural into the supernatural. Supernatural enhancements bear supernatural consequences. For the “enhancement of the body is the disenchantment of the soul.”⁸

We may eventually modify our bodies in ways that are helpful and necessary. But we will never reach a point where the human body is a disposable machine. Nazi eugenics proved wicked in their attempts to isolate a superior race, but that noxious spirit can reemerge in the tech age. Today, prenatal screening is used on preborn children to identify possible genetic defects, using a science-based rationale that leads to the slaughter of countless children who are predicted to have Down syndrome, precious people who are notoriously the happiest populace on earth.⁹ Genocidal slaughter hides behind the veil of scientific objectivity. Every body, broken as it may be in this fallen world, is a fully valuable human being, reflecting its Creator. Technologies that devalue the human body will never honor the Creator.

Notes:

1. Kevin Kelly, “The Future of Robots,” July 8, 2020, youtube.com.
2. Bobak Ferdowsi in Netflix’s The Mars Generation, 2017, directed by Michael Barnett, produced by Austin Francalancia and Clare Tucker.
3. Kelly, “The Future of Robots.”
4. See Se-Jin Lee’s discovery of myostatin.
5. “WATCH: Elon Musk’s Neuralink Presentation,” CNET Highlights, youtube.com (Aug. 28, 2020), 1:04:03–. I should note that the Spirit communicates through some sort of inexpressible intercession “too deep for words”—a whole wordless (ἀλάλητος) channel we cannot comprehend (Rom. 8:26).
6. Harari, Homo Deus, 353.
7. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Pictures at a Theological Exhibition: Scenes of the Church’s Worship, Witness and Wisdom (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016), 256.
8. Vanhoozer, Pictures at a Theological Exhibition, 260.
9. John Knight, “The Happiest People in the World,” desiringGod.org (Mar. 20, 2015).

 

                         AND YOU TELL ME "THERE IS NO GOD"!

The RNA World Hypothesis Explained and Unexplained
by Kathleen Hamrick and Will Brooks, Ph.D.


[Editor’s Note: The following article was written by A.P. auxiliary staff scientist Will Brooks and one of his students. Dr. Brooks holds a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and serves as Assistant Professor of Biology at Freed-Hardeman University.]

One of the goals within the discipline of biology is to define life. This goal, however, is no simple task. While we can have an intuitive understanding of what it means to be alive, forming this understanding into a precise definition of life poses a dilemma for scientists. 

Life comes in many shapes, sizes, colors, and forms, so placing all these variations of life into one nice definition is seemingly impossible. To circumvent this problem, scientists have defined life by stating characteristics shared by all life forms.

To be considered “alive,” a system of molecules must possess each of these characteristics. Examples include (1) the ability to sense and respond to stimuli, (2) the ability to acquire and utilize materials for energy, (3) the ability to store genetic information in the form of DNA, and (4) the ability to self-replicate. All living organisms share these basic characteristics, and those systems of molecules which lack even one of these basic characteristics is not considered to be a living organism.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the genetic material used by all living organisms to code for life. DNA can be thought of as the genetic fingerprint of each organism because it is unique to each species of organism. During the process of self-replication, this genetic code is duplicated and identical copies (discounting rare instances of mutation) are given to each progeny of an organism, maintaining the fingerprint and thus the identity of that organism. 

The function of DNA as the genetic material of an organism is to provide a code for the production of another group of molecules known as proteins. Proteins serve a host of functions for an organism. They are known, appropriately, as the workhorses of a cell, because they carry out the vast majority of organismal tasks, including catalysis.

A catalyst is any substance capable of increasing the speed of a chemical reaction. Within each living organism on Earth, millions of chemical reactions take place every minute. The majority of these reactions are prompted by a very large group of protein catalysts known as enzymes. These enzyme-mediated chemical reactions range from those used to synthesize various metabolites to those used to break down ingested foods. By serving as enzyme catalysts, proteins play a crucial role in all living organisms. For without enzymes, organisms would be both unable to break down the food that they ingest and unable to make the necessary metabolites needed to sustain life.

While the vast majority of functional enzymes within living organisms are proteins, scientists have discovered that another group of molecules, known as ribonucleic acids (RNAs), are also capable of catalyzing some chemical reactions (Kruger, et al., 1982). RNAs are very similar in structure to DNA, differing only in the type of sugar used to form the molecules—DNA utilizes deoxyribose and RNA utilizes ribose. 

While DNA is the vital genetic code that is passed down between parents and offspring, RNA also plays an important role. Ribonucleic acids are a messenger system that carries the DNA code from the cell’s nucleus, the home of DNA, to the cellular cytoplasm where proteins are synthesized. These are known as messenger RNAs (mRNA). 

Furthermore, another group of RNAs, known as ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), is used along with proteins to build the cellular structure known as the ribosome, which is the cellular location at which proteins are made. So, RNA plays several related roles in the process of protein production: (1) it carries the genetic code from DNA to the ribosome, (2) it helps form the structure of the ribosome, and (3) it functions in catalysis.

While there are a few other examples (reviewed in Fedor and Williamson, 2005), the catalytic properties of RNA are best seen in the ribosome. When proteins are synthesized by an organism’s cells, small units known as amino acids are chemically linked together to form a long, linear chain. This chain of amino acids is known as a polypeptide or protein. 

The chemical bond that links together each amino acid in the chain is called the peptide bond. Because each of the 20 amino acids are very similar in structure, the same peptide bond is formed between every unit of the polypeptide chain. The chemical reaction that forms this peptide bond requires catalysis. 

The protein-rRNA complex that we know as the ribosome has long been known to serve as the site as well as the catalyst in forming the peptide bond. But, scientists were surprised to discover that the protein component only serves as a structural element of the ribosome. It is the RNA component of the ribosome that serves as the catalyst (Nissen, et al., 2000). This catalytic RNA has thus been termed a ribozyme.

Later it was discovered that yet another group of RNAs, the small nuclear RNAs (snRNA), were also capable of catalyzing a chemical reaction (Valadkhan and Manley, 2001). When produced by the cell, mRNA must undergo a series of maturation steps before it is fully functional as a genetic message (Alberts, et al., 2002, pp. 317-327). 

One of these steps toward maturity is the process of splicing. Newly synthesized mRNA contains large regions, spread throughout its length, that do not directly code for protein production. These non-coding regions are called introns. To make the mRNA mature and functional as a code, each intron must be removed from the mRNA and the remaining coding regions, known as exons, must be linked or spliced back together. These “cut-and-paste” events occur within the cell’s nucleus within a structure that we call the spliceosome. Like the ribosome, the spliceosome is a large complex of both protein and RNA, in this case snRNA. 

Amusingly, these protein-RNA complexes have been dubbed small nuclear ribonucleoproteins or “snurps.” Interestingly, scientists found that not protein, but RNAs were responsible for catalyzing the chemical reactions that take place during these splicing events. RNAs were carrying out chemical reactions on other RNAs.

Scientists were very excited by these revolutionary findings. Now, they had a single type of molecule, RNA, that possessed two very important properties. First, it was very similar in structure to DNA and thus theoretically could also store genetic information. Second, it could function as a catalyst like proteins. 

In 1986, Walter Gilbert coined the phrase “RNA World” and initiated what is now known as the RNA World Hypothesis (Gilbert, 1986). This hypothesis on the origin of life states simply that because RNA has the dual ability to both store genetic information and catalyze chemical reactions, it must pre-date DNA and proteins, both of which supposedly evolved after and perhaps from the RNA.

The RNA World Hypothesis is widely accepted by evolutionists, because it provides an alleged solution to a long-recognized problem in evolutionary theory. Consider how proteins are made by a cell. First, DNA which holds the genetic code is converted into RNA through a process known as transcription. This process is similar to how one would copy a letter from one piece of paper onto another sheet. The contents of the letter remain unchanged, only the medium—the paper—has changed. 

RNA carries this information to the ribosome, where it is read and used as a code to make a protein through a process known as translation. This process can be compared to translating the copy of the letter from one language into another. Nucleic acid (DNA and RNA) is changed into another molecule altogether: protein. 

This linear progression of DNA to RNA to protein is known in biology as the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology (Alberts, et al., 2002, p. 301). Of the three components in the path, only DNA has the capacity to be replicated. So, while DNA stores the genetic code and can be replicated, it cannot perform any chemical reactions. And, while protein can perform chemical reactions, it cannot store genetic information. 

So, in evolutionary thinking, which came first—DNA or protein? Making the problem even more difficult, DNA relies upon proteins during its own replication. DNA does not self-replicate of its own accord. It must have protein enzymes to facilitate this process. So, what came first—the chicken or the egg? DNA or protein? Each relies upon the other. You should begin to see how RNA might solve this problem. If RNA can both store genetic information and catalyze chemical reactions, and if it evolved first, we have a single molecule that stores information and can catalyze its own replication, a self-replicating genetic material.

In order to prove this theory plausible, a set of conditions must be created to favor the spontaneous formation of RNA molecules without the aid of a biological catalyst. This would have had to be the starting point for an RNA world. One necessary component for RNA formation would be a steady supply of nucleotides, the building blocks of RNA. 

Scientists speculate these nucleotides were created from other small molecules present, or were generated in space before arriving on earth. Ribose, the sugar used in RNA, is assumed to have arisen from formaldehyde via the formose reaction. 

The mystery of the addition of nucleotides onto a ribose backbone remains unsolved by scientists attempting to create conditions of a primitive Earth (Müller, 2006, 63:1279-1280). Once these RNA molecules were formed completely by chance, they would have to have possessed or evolved the ability to catalyze reactions leading to self-replication. After sustaining itself through several replications, the RNA would then need to gain the ability to create a barrier between the extraneous materials surrounding it, in order to isolate the beneficial products from those proving non-functional. Thus, a membrane of sorts would have had to evolve and be maintained (Müller, 63:1285-1286). These steps are only the basics, proving the task much too complicated to occur by mere chance.

In all known organisms living today, DNA and not RNA is the genetic material. DNA has advantages over RNA which make it a more suitable molecule to store the very important genetic code. 

First, DNA is a double-stranded molecule while RNA is single-stranded. The double-stranded nature of DNA gives it the ability to be replicated in a much simpler series of steps. When DNA is replicated, each of the two complimentary strands serves as a template on which to build another strand. The result is that in one step, each strand of DNA is replicated to produce four total DNA strands or two identical double helices. 

RNA, however, is single-stranded. In order for it to be replicated, two sequential rounds of replication would be required. First, a complimentary strand would need to be synthesized from the original parental strand. Only then could that new complimentary strand be used to re-make the parental strand. 

As stated before, DNA and RNA differ in the sugar which makes up the molecule’s backbone. Deoxyribose, the sugar used in DNA, differs from ribose used in RNA, by lacking one organic functional group known as alcohol. The absence of this alcohol group greatly increases the stability of DNA over RNA. In ribonucleic acids, this
–OH group is capable of initiating chemical reactions which favor breakdown of the RNA molecule. For these and other reasons, DNA is a much more stable and preferable genetic material. This is made obvious by the fact that all living organisms use DNA, not RNA, as their permanent storage medium of genetic information. It also indicates that RNA would be an unsuitable medium by which to initiate life.

Evolutionists would have us to believe that non-living elements and molecules joined together and developed increasing biological capabilities. Those who believe in intelligent design reject this hypothesis, insisting that neither RNA nor living cells are able to evolve spontaneously. While some disagreement exists among those in the evolutionary community on the time frame for such alleged reactions to occur, the consensus is that, given large amounts of time, single-celled bacteria were formed. But all known biological principles militate against this notion. 

Even billions of years could not provide mechanisms for the reaction products to evolve advantageous characteristics and form DNA and cell proteins, let alone create strings of RNA nucleotides, arriving at just the right sequence in order to code for a functional protein. The four nucleotide bases that form RNA (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil) can be arranged in an exponential array of combinations and lengths. 

For an actual, functional protein to be coded, a precise sequence of nucleotides must be obtained. Forming the code for even one protein by evolutionary means is impossible, without even considering the necessity of the number that work together in a single cell.

There is no scientific evidence to suggest that RNA is spontaneously being created and capable of forming pre-cellular life today. While some artificial ribozymes have been created in the laboratory (reviewed in Chen, et al., 2007), there are still significant holes in reproducing an RNA world to support the hypothesis. The ribozymes created artificially lack the abilities to sufficiently process themselves, and there is no evidence of them producing large quantities of advantageous nucleotide sequences. Moreover, no system has ever created cellular life. There is even significant debate among scientists over the conditions and constituents of a “prebiotic Earth” model.

The RNA World Hypothesis is simply another attempt by scientists to explain the origin of life to the exclusion of the divine Creator. Given the absolute impossibility of life originating from the reactions of non-living matter, it can be justified that RNA did not predate other biological molecules. All biological molecules were created together to work in concert. RNA was designed to be the essential intermediate between DNA and proteins, making our cells capable of sustaining life as it was created. The designer of this system must be the intelligent Designer, the God of the Bible.

REFERENCES
Alberts, Bruce, et al. (2002), Molecular Biology of the Cell (Oxford: Garland Science).

Chen, Xi, et al. (2007), “Ribozyme Catalysis of Metabolism in the RNA World,” Chemistry and Biodiversity, 4:633-656.

Fedor, Martha and James Williamson (2005), “The Catalytic Diversity of RNAs,” Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, 6(5):399-412.

Gilbert, Walter (1986), “The RNA World,” Nature, 319:618.

Kruger, Kelly, et al. (1982), “Self-splicing RNA: Autoexcision and Autocyclization of the Ribosomal RNA Intervening Sequence of Tetrahymena,” Cell, 31(1):147-57.

Müller, U.F. (2006), “Re-creating an RNA World,” Cellular and Molecular Life Science, 63:1278-1293.

Nissen, Poul, et al. (2000), “The Structural Basis of Ribosome Activity in Peptide Bond Synthesis,” Science, 289:920-930.

Valadkhan, Saba and James Manley (2001), “Splicing-related Catalysis by Protein-free snRNAs,” Nature, 6857:701-707.

Sacrifice and Atonement Video 7 min and what a great gift for man

https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/sacrifice-and-atonement/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=pardot&utm_campaign=weekly+email+2022&utm_content=sacrifice+and+atonement+video+060722&utm_term=video+button+bottom 

Click on the link above and follow the path provided

Did Jesus Deny His Deity? Video 7 min

 Did Jesus Deny His Deity? - Apologetics Press

Please click on the link above and follow the path provided.

When Does a Human "Person" Begin? This is a good read!!

 

When Does a Human "Person" Begin?

by Wayne Jackson, M.A.


When does human “personhood” begin? Various answers are offered to this question, depending upon the individual responding, and his or her philosophical, or religious persuasion. The question cannot be answered from a strictly “scientific” perspective, for science cannot determine anything about a human “spirit,” much less when its bestowal initiates a “person.”

Some Theories

Some contend that the entity resulting from conception is not a “human person” until sometime after birth, when it can be certified genetically sound. Such was the position of Nobel Prize winner Sir Francis Crick, a skeptic who denied that human beings even have a soul (Howard and Rifkin, 81).

A view among some is that the fetus becomes “human” at birth. Those who endorse the practice of “partial-birth abortion” have no qualms about killing a child so long as a portion of the tiny body is yet within the birth canal.

Many secular medical authorities argue that viability is the commencement of a “human person.” Viability is generally defined as the shortest length of pregnancy after which a child that is born prematurely has a chance of survival. Generally, this ranges from 20-27 weeks.

Conservative scholars within the framework of “Christendom” contend that personhood commences at conception. In April of 1981, a distinguished panel of geneticists and physicians testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee with reference to the nature of the human organism that is produced by the union of a sperm and ovum.

Dr. McCarthy de Mere, a medical doctor and law professor at the University of Tennessee, testified as follows: “The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception” (emp. added).

Known as the “Father of Modern Genetics,” Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers: “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion ... it is plain experimental evidence” (see “Association of...”, 2006)

Note the testimony of world-renowned geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, an atheist: “A human being begins his existence when a spermatozoon fertilizes an egg cell” (1965, p. 10; emp. added). Even the late Isaac Asimov, a rabid enemy of the Bible, conceded that “the human being ... begins life as a fertilized ovum” (20; emp. added). Neither of these men believed in the existence of a “soul”; nonetheless, they acknowledged that the union of sperm and egg is the commencement of a human person.

To purposefully destroy a human embryo is to take the life of a human being.

A Recent Claim

Recently I was introduced to a theory advanced by some gentlemen who wanted to “bounce” off me some arguments relative to an idea they apparently are considering. They contend that one cannot prove that the “spirit,” as bestowed by God, enters the sperm-egg union at that point in time; rather, they allege it is more likely that the spirit enters the embryo when the latter implants itself within the uterus.

There was absolutely no biblical argument offered for this position. The claim was simply this: one cannot prove that the “spirit” is bestowed at the time of the sperm-egg union, i.e., at conception.

In view of this position, these questions, designed to focus the issue, surely are appropriate. (a) Is the pre-implanted embryo living or non-living? (b) Is the embryo human or non-human? The answer to the first question is too evident to warrant further discussion. The response to the second is similarly apparent. The embryo certainly is neither fish, reptile, fowl, or beast; if fully developed it will never be anything other than a man or woman. (c) Is the human embryo a person or non-person? If one answers that it is a non-person, upon what basis is this judgment made? That proposition must be supported with evidence if it is to be affirmed.

The Consequence of the Teaching

Reflect upon this necessary deduction: If human embryos are not “persons” prior to implantation, then they are appropriate candidates for experimentation, or any utilitarian purpose, e.g., stem cell research, and extermination—at the whims of scientists! There are approximately 400,000 frozen human embryos now awaiting an uncertain destiny. What Christian can possibly live with this conclusion?

In the course of my communications with the gentlemen mentioned earlier, it became fairly apparent to me that they are motivated primarily by the fact that certain birth-control procedures are designed to destroy the fertilized egg before it reaches the uterus. Thus, if it could be demonstrated that the embryo is not a human person until implantation, elimination procedures prior to that event could be justified. This position, we contend, is fallacious.

Person versus House

With the union of spermatozoon and egg, a new living entity is formed that, in its microscopic-genetic substance, consists of everything it ever will be genetically—if sustained with water, oxygen, and nutrition. The implantation in the uterus is analogous to moving into a house that has been designed to facilitate the resident.

It makes as little sense to argue that a baby is not a person until it enters the house in which it will live, as it does to allege that the embryo is not a person until it reaches the uterus. Is it permissible to practice infanticide while the child is en route to the house, but not after it has entered?

Biblical Evidence—Old Testament

As we noted earlier, “science” cannot speak to the issue of the “spirit,” for the spirit is a non-material entity. On the other hand, for those who respect the testimony of the Scriptures, if there is light to be shed on the “spirit” issue, surely it will be within the pages of sacred literature. Is there biblical information that provides help in this regard? Yes. The Bible writers take for granted that personhood begins at conception.

The Hebrew Old Testament uses the word zera’ (seed) both literally and figuratively. In a literal sense it may be used of seed planted in a field. “The most frequent metaphorical use of... zera’ (seed) is employment to designate human seed, i.e., offspring and descendant(s)” (VanGemeren, 1152). The word can signify an individual person, as in the case of the coming Messiah (Genesis 3:15), the people of the nation of Israel (Genesis 15:5; 22:18), or, prophetically, Christians (Psalm 22:30; Isaiah 53:10; cf. “children” – Hebrews 2:13).

Now here is an important point. In Numbers 5:28, a woman was said to “conceive seed,” or as the English Standard Version reads, “conceive children.” That which is “conceived” is not a blob that later becomes a child; it is a child.

David declared: “In sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). Calvinists pervert this text in an attempt to prove original sin; they misunderstand the hyperbolic nature of the language (cf. Job 31:18; Psalm 22:10). That aside, the text assuredly indicates that David considered himself a person (“me”) from the moment of his conception.

In Psalm 139, David described God’s care of him even at the earliest stages of his development. He said that Jehovah saw “my unformed substance” (v. 16). The Hebrew expression appears to denote the “undeveloped embryo” (Kirkpatrick, 789; cf. Kidner, 466; emp added). The “embryo” exists before implantation.

Biblical Evidence – New Testament

A Greek word corresponding to the Old Testament zera’ is sperma (seed). It is found 217 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint; LXX), and 44 times in the Greek New Testament. Likewise, it is employed metaphorically for a person; and this “seed” (person) commences at “conception” (see Hebrews 11:11).

Both Elizabeth and Mary are said to have “conceived” a “son”—not mere tissue (Luke 1:36). It will scarcely be denied that “son” in this context indicates a person.

James wrote: “The body apart from the spirit is dead” (2:26). The text suggests (by implication) that the spirit is present as soon as there is a living body. That tiny “body” commences at conception. But is it proper to designate the embryo as a “body”? How is a living human to be defined?

By the time the embryo reaches the uterus, it already has developed into a conglomerate of some 50 to 150 cells. This tiny organism exhibits all the characteristics of a living body.

It has independent movement.
It experiences true growth, the multiplication of cells.
It responds to external stimuli.
It is capable of metabolism, i.e., it breaks down products outside of itself for the production of energy.
The fact that it is so small in no way nullifies the reality that this is a living body.

This information, combined with James’ affirmation, argues for the presence of the “spirit” or “soul” of that person. The divine equation is this: body – spirit = corpse; body + spirit = living person. To classify this process of logical reasoning as mere “assumption,” as some have done, is incredible! It is logical inference, not assumption.

Defensive Quibbles

As suggested earlier, after analyzing the statements of some of those who justify the destruction of the embryo prior to implantation, I am convinced that the prime motive behind this position either is: (a) guilt for having sanctioned birth control methods that are known to abort the embryo; (b) a desire to defend a practice that is perceived to be a convenient method of birth control. Some argue in this fashion.

If all embryos have a spirit, and;
Oral contraceptives abort embryos;
Then, oral contraceptives kill embryos with spirits, thus people.
The “syllogism” is constructed incorrectly. If the conclusion is to follow, the minor premise (2) must read: “All oral contraceptives kill embryos.” That was not proved. A contraceptive designed to destroy an embryo is immoral. One aimed at simply suppressing ovulation is not. A wife should be informed as to the nature of the pill she uses.

Another argument being employed relates to what is called the “Luteal phase defect” (LPD), which is believed to interfere occasionally with the implantation of embryos during the postpartum breast-feeding span. Unbelievably, some contend that God “designed women in such a way as to cause” LPD, and therefore this destruction of an embryo is evidence that the spirit is not present. What about the many causes of “miscarriage” after uterine implantation? Do these tragic occurrences likewise suggest that the fetus is not a human person; thus, abortion is permissible anywhere en route to birth?

The fact is, LPD is recognized as a “disorder,” a “defect”—not something divinely purposed. One might as well argue that heart attacks and cancer have been divinely designed. The human body is fraught with many weaknesses as a consequence of the long-term effects of sin. Disorders and death are attributed to Satan (Luke 13:16; John 8:44b), not God. Does the fact that disease takes life argue that one may kill his neighbor with impunity?

CONCLUSION

It is unconscionable that men who profess to represent Jesus Christ should advocate that the deliberate destruction of an embryo is a moral act that carries the approval of the Creator. Yet even good men can be caught up in societal trends. Such is a tragic reality. May those who seek to be advocates of Christianity study carefully and reason logically.

REFERENCES
Asimov, Isaac (1963), The Genetic Code (New York: Orion Press).

Association of Prolife Physicians (2006), “When Does Human Life Begin,” [On-line], URL: http://www.prolifephysicians.org/lifebegins.htm.

Dobzhansky, Theodosius (1965 ed.), Evolution, Genetics, & Man (New York: John Wiley & Sons).

Howard, Ted and Jeremy Rifkin (1977), Who Should Play God? (New York: Dell).

Kidner, Derek (1975), Psalms 73-150 (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press).

Kirkpatrick, A.F. (1906), Psalms (Cambridge: University Press).

VanGemeren, Willem A. (1997), Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), Vol. 1.

Christian Courier Publications (www.christiancourier.com)

 

Young People Leave the Faith Because They Believe Christianity is ANTI-Science

KYLE BUTT, M.Div.

AMERICA'S CULTURE WARBULLETIN ARTICLES

From Issue: R&R – June 2022

David Kinnaman is the president of the widely known research organization Barna. One of his primary areas of work deals with research regarding Christianity. In his book You Lost Me. Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church…and Rethinking Faith he detailed several of the main reasons why 18-29 year-olds say they leave Christianity. 

In his list of six broad reasons young people leave their faith, the third reason he listed, based on the vast amount of research Barna has done on the topic, is that 18-29 year-olds believe Christianity is anti-science. He wrote:

Many young Christians have come to the conclusion that faith and science are incompatible. Yet they see the mostly helpful role science plays in the world they inhabit—in medicine, personal technology, travel, care of the natural world, and other areas. What’s more, science seems accessible in a way that the church does not; science appears to welcome questions and skepticism, while matters of faith seem impenetrable.1

He further noted that the research showed that 29% of 18-29 year-olds said that churches “are out of step with the scientific world we live in, while one-quarter (25 percent) described Christianity as anti-science.”2 He related the story of a Catholic man named Mike who became an atheist. Mike said: “It was tenth grade. I started learning about evolution. It felt like my first window into the real world. To be honest, I think that learning about science was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I knew from church that I couldn’t believe in both science and God, so that was it. I didn’t believe in God anymore.”3 Kinnaman summarized the research by saying: “Issues of science are one of the significant points of disconnection between the next generation and Christianity.”4

At Apologetics Press, we have known for over four decades that this is the case. We have listened to countless, heartbroken parents tell us how their faithful Christian children abandoned their faith in God for the more “honest, intellectual” approach presented by modern atheistic science. In truth, this tragic problem is one of the primary reasons Apologetics Press exists. Furthermore, this issue should cause every church leader, elder, preacher, parent, grandparent, and church member to ask themselves what can be done. Let’s look at several ways to approach the situation.

1. Recognize the Need to Teach on the Subject

Many people in the Lord’s Church grew up without being challenged by questions about how science and the Bible interact. Because of this, they do not recognize the fact that young people in the Church today are bombarded with information on a regular basis that demands that Christianity and science stand at opposite ends of the truth spectrum. 

The simple question that needs to be asked by every congregation of the Church is: What are we doing to help our young people understand the relationship between science, the Bible, and Christianity? What classes are scheduled to deal with the subject? What curriculum materials have we diligently assessed to be the most robust to deal with the issues? What special seminars or video series have we used (or plan to use) to help our youth through this very serious challenge to their faith? If the answers to these questions are, “nothing, very little, not much, and we don’t know,” then there is a good chance that many of the young people of that congregation will have trouble with their faith because of this unanswered challenge.

2. Teach the Truth: Science and the Bible are Compatible

The primary sentiment expressed by young Christians who leave the faith based on “science” is that science and the Bible cannot both be true. This is a false statement designed by Satan to force our young people to make a choice that should never be made. You can quickly see how sinister this approach is by comparing it to other false dilemmas.

• Do you want to be a thinking intellectual or do you want to be a Christian?
• Do you want to care about people and their rights, or do you want to be anti-choice on the abortion question?
• Do you want to love and be kind to people, or do you want to teach that God only saves those who believe in Jesus? 

Each of these ideas is presented as if only one can be true. When addressing the question of science and the Bible, we discover that real science and a proper understanding of the Bible always agree with each other. Dr. Michael Houts, who holds a Ph.D. from MIT and works for NASA, has written an excellent article on this subject titled: “True Science is the Christian’s Friend.”5 While most young people are taught by secular education institutions that science and the Bible are incompatible, they have not been equipped with the truth that shows this idea to be false. An honest look at real science will always increase faith in the Bible.

3. Not All “Science” is Equal

The quote David Kinnaman included from Mike, the atheist, gives us insight into the real conflict. He stated that he started learning about evolution in 10th grade and that is when he realized that “learning about science was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” He equated evolution with science. Unfortunately he was not given the truth about the aspects of evolution that are  unscientific.6 

Often the information that young people are being told is real science, is nothing of the sort. It is our job as Christians to show our youth the difference and give them the tools to distinguish between truth and error. We should be determined to send our young people into the world knowing that they must “test all things” and “hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). We cannot let them leave our congregations being so naïve as to think that everything an atheistic professor calls “science” is true science. There is a vast difference between legitimate science and false theories such as organic evolution, abiogenesis, and the inflationary Big Bang model.

4. Does Modern Science “Welcome Questions and Skepticism”?

Many of the young people who left Christianity in Barna’s research did so because they believed that “science appears to welcome questions and skepticism, while matters of faith seem impenetrable.” It is imperative that we show our young people the truth about this false idea. The brand of atheistic, evolutionary science that is taught in most educational systems today in no way welcomes honest inquiry. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Young people need to be shown the truth that all scientific discoveries and research that even mention the idea of intelligent design are rejected immediately.7 Valid scientific research that calls into question the billions-of-years timeframe of modern geology is dismissed. Scientific discoveries that disprove the Big Bang model are “cancelled” quickly.8

In 2007, the world’s leading atheist—Antony Flew—published a book in cooperation with Roy Varghese titled: There Is a God: How The World’s Most Notorious Atheist Became a Believer. Flew noted several times in the book that his life’s mantra was to “follow the argument wherever it leads.” He further confessed: “I reached the conclusion about the nonexistence of God much too quickly, much too easily, and for what later seemed to me the wrong reasons.”9 Flew proceeded in the book to document all the philosophical and modern scientific findings that drove him to the conclusion: “I have followed the argument where it has led me. And it has led me to accept the existence of a self-existent, immutable, immaterial, omnipotent, and omniscient Being.”10 How do you think the atheistic, “scientific” community accepted Dr. Flew’s conclusion? In the preface of the book, Roy Varghese discussed the responses of those in the scientific community who once lauded Flew as a champion. He wrote: “Curiously, the response to the AP story from Flew’s fellow atheists verged on hysteria…. Inane insults and juvenile caricatures were common in the freethinking blogosphere…. 

The advocates of tolerance were not themselves very tolerant. And, apparently, religious zealots don’t have a monopoly on dogmatism, incivility, fanaticism, and paranoia.”11 Our young people need to know that the modern atheistic, “scientific” community is extremely welcoming and open to questions, as long as you arrive at exactly and only the conclusions that they have decided are “scientific.”12

5. They Will Have to Make a Choice

While our young people will never have to choose between real science and the Bible, they will have to make a choice. In today’s secular culture, the majority of educators, professors, politicians, and world leaders believe and teach falsely about the Bible and science. 

The vast majority of university professors are openly atheistic and many have made it their personal goal to destroy the Christian faith in their young students. Young people will be forced to decide if they love the truth more than error, and if they are willing to stand for the truth even when such a stand will cost them something. 

The modern geological community has adopted a billions-of-years time frame that does not rest on robust science. If a young person wants to be a geologist today, he or she will be pressured to adopt this same time frame, in spite of real, scientific evidence that militates against it. 

If young people do not toe the modern “scientific” party line, they may find that universities and jobs that offer geology degrees and opportunities will not even let them into their programs. Ultimately, our young people will have to choose between believing the truth, and sacrificing the truth because they want something more, such as recognition, acceptance, academic advancement, or to be viewed as part of the intellectual elite.

The New Testament gives us an excellent example of this dilemma. In the book of John, the author presents many evidences that prove that Jesus is the Son of God. The miracles He performed and the prophecies He fulfilled verified the truth of His claims. So convincing were these evidences that the text says, “Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him” (John 12:42). Their “belief,” however, was of little value to them. The text continues, “but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God” (John 12:42-43).

Our young people will be faced with a choice: not the choice between science and the Bible. The choice is between truth and error. Have we given them the foundation that adequately prepares them to stand for the truth when the rest of the world pressures them to believe a lie? As Jesus bluntly put it: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, therefore it hates you” (John 15:18-19). Let us not be so naïve as to think that Satan has infiltrated politics, sports, business, and most media outlets but somehow has left modern “science” alone.

Endnotes

1 David Kinnaman (2011), You Lost Me. Why Young Christians Are Leaving the Church…and Rethinking Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker), pp. 92-93.

2 Ibid., p. 136.

3 Ibid., p. 138.

4 Ibid., p. 132.

5 Mike Houts (2011), “True Science is the Christian’s Friend,” Apologetics Press, https://apologeticspress.org/true-science-is-the-christians-friend-3572/.

6 Mike Houts (2007), “Evolution is Religion, Not Science,” Apologetics Press, https://apologeticspress.org/evolution-is-religionnot-science-part-i-2299/.

7 Kyle Butt (2008), “The Catch-22 of Peer-Reviewed Journals,” Apologetics Press, https://apologeticspress.org/the-catch-22-of-peer-reviewed-journals-2508/.

8 “An Open Letter to the Scientific Community,” https://www.plasma-universe.com/an-open-letter-to-the-scientific-community/.

9 Antony Flew and Roy Varghese (2007), There Is a God: How The World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: Harper Collins), pp. 12-13.

10 Ibid., p. 155.

11 Ibid., p. viii.

12 Kyle Butt, “Freethought: Not so Free After All,” Apologetics Press, https://apologeticspress.org/freethought-not-so-free-after-all-926/.

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Published June 1, 2022

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