Crop circles and Intelligent Design

You've probably seen pictures of "crop circles" which pop up overnight in farmers' fields.  The perennial question is, "But who - or what - is making them?"

There are lots of suggestions for the phenomenon in this article at Live Science.  It could be natural causes, like wind or animals or crop disease.  Or it could be the intentional design of aliens or prankster humans.  This author looks at  the evidence and makes a conclusion that fits most of it.

" Having found chance and natural causes highly improbable, he landed on the only remaining explanation: intelligent activity."  (www.evolutionnews.org)

Image of God?

Many people say that traditional Western Civilization is on the decline, some say it is really dead.

But what is "Western Civilization?"  In very general terms, it's a kind of culture typified by certain values, beliefs, and social norms that developed in Europe during the Middle Ages, largely inspired by Christianity,  influenced by some ancient Greek/Roman contributions.

Western Civilization (called Christendom for centuries) spread outside of Europe during the building of empires so it was established in colonies like America, Australia, Canada, etc.

One of the Western beliefs founded in the Christian scripture is that human life is special, on a higher level than animal life, sacred and to be respected.  It's based on that verse in Genesis which says God created humanity in His own likeness.  It led to concepts like human rights and liberty.

While most people probably still believe in human exceptionalism, within the West there is now a very substantial challenge to this foundational value.

An article came out this week reporting environmentalist "Sir" David Attenborough's charge that "We [humans] are a plague on the Earth."  A plague?

Also this week there's an article at Salon.com by a woman strongly in favor of abortion called "So what if abortion ends life?"  She agrees human life begins at conception, she just doesn't care about it.

So I'm wondering where you tend to come down on this question:  are humans created in the image of God?

Ideas have consequences.

Creating . . music

If you haven't yet seen the video of the "Landfill Harmonic", do find it on youtube or go to the link below.  

"This is a wonderful example of what we call the development ethic from Genesis: people using what they have, the resources in their own community, to add value to their world.

"At the core of this vision is the heart and soul of people made in God’s image, acting creatively.

"Poverty is solved not by outside money, but by awakening the incredible creativity and innovation of people, even in the midst of their poverty."

Taken from: http://darrowmillerandfriends.com/2013/01/17/classical-music-from-garbage/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=classical-music-from-garbage

Read the whole blog posting, and for goodness' sake watch the videos!

Creating . . wealth

We know art is creative.  But have you ever thought about the creation of wealth?  Wealth not just for one individual, but wealth as life-improvement spread throughout a community or nation of people.

"Think about oil for a minute.  For thousands of years, oil was a nuisance - an insoluble mess to be scrubbed from your feet if you were unlucky enough to step in it.  Then one day someone had the bright idea of burning it to provide energy.  Suddenly oil was a resource, not a nuisance.  Soon dark streets could be lit, homes heated, cars driven.  The oil hadn't changed.  But [human] ingenuity had made this formerly useless substance into something we call "black gold."  Can you imagine the world without it?

"Now let's examine sand.  Sand is everywhere.  Like oil, it's sometimes hard to get rid of!  A grain of sand by itself has no value.  But a man can take that grain and transform it into a silicon chip, and suddenly it has value.  Another man can then take that chip and impregnate it with data, making it worth even more.  And when someone else connects that chip to a computer, it is worth quite a lot.  Multibillion-dollar companies like Intel have been built on grains of sand.  The sand, of course, remains basically worthless.  It must wait for people to give it its value."  Darrow Miller, Discipling Nations

Like Michelangelo's chunk of marble, oil and sand had no value to people - until people applied their imagination, effort, resources, aesthetic sensibility, engineering, craftsmanship, cooperation, and problem-solving skills to them.  And then there was value, worth.

People create wealth for themselves and their community!

Creating . . art

"It began as part of a mountain in Italy.  Then one day a workman came along and began chiseling out a block of marble.  Using his discerning eye and powerful hands and arms, he worked for weeks.  When the block was finally hewn from the mountain, another man with a horse-drawn wagon hauled it to Florence.  A third fellow bought the stone and had it put on a pedestal in his studio.  That man was Michelangelo.  As he went about his other work, the artist would often pause to gaze at the immense, flawed block.  Perhaps months later, Michelangelo saw what lay hidden in the stone.  Finally, he picked up his hammer and chisel and began to reveal it.  Today we call what was once a buried chunk of marble a priceless masterpiece -The David."  Darrow Miller, Discipling Nations

That buried chunk of stone was worthless to people.  Then three individuals (in this story) applied their effort and intelligence and genius to the stone, and the original material (it was always in there) now had huge value, huge worth to people.  That value, that wealth of beauty, was created by people.

Author J.R.R. Tolkien says, ". . we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker."  J. R. R. TOLKIEN, On Fairy-Stories

(http://www.notable-quotes.com/t/tolkien_j_r_r.html)

So we are able to create . . because we are created . . by our Creator . . to be like Him.

Living cells function like computers

When scientists first started actually seeing living cells, they looked like little specks of simple jelly.  Science has come a long, long way from there.  They've identified all the components of cells, right down to the atoms in the molecules in the chemicals.   And all the discoveries of overwhelming complexity have really changed the narrative.

Here's how Dr. Stephen C. Meyer explains it:

"During the last half of the twentieth century, advances in molecular biology and biochemistry have revolutionized our understanding of the miniature world within the cell.

"Research has revealed that cells--the fundamental units of life--store, transmit, and edit information and use that information to regulate their most fundamental metabolic processes.

"Far from characterizing cells as simple "homogeneous globules of plasm" as did Ernst Haeckel and other nineteenth-century biologists, biologists now describe cells as, among other things, "distributive real time computers" or complex information processing systems."

http://www.discovery.org/a/200

Not junk

Here's a New York Times article from last September that reports the new research results about "Junk DNA" - which turned out to be not junk at all but, on the contrary, to be vitally important to human life:

Thanks for sending it to me, Bethany!

Understand more about DNA

Most of us have a very simple, not to say completely inadequate, concept of what DNA does in our cells.  Of course!  Because we haven't taken biochemistry, nor does anyone talk about it on tv news.  And we have enough going on in our lives already, so who has time to look up the subject in a science textbook.

In the outside chance that you reading this would like to understand it much better, I have a link for you.  It's full of pictures and diagrams.  Depending on how much of it you can patiently watch, you will be astonished and inspired (like I am) at the incredible elegance of what goes on in our cells.

http://www.reasons.org/videos/encoded-by-design

Disappointment for evolutionists?

You probably know that your genes are found in the super big and complicated molecule called DNA in the nucleus of all your cells.  You may know that those genes are coded with instructions for making all the types of proteins (there are hundreds) which your cells need in order to operate.

You may not know that only about 1% of your DNA actually carries those protein-building instructions.  There are long stretches of DNA segments that do not code for proteins.  For years biologists have called these segments "Junk DNA", thinking they were useless.

The teaching of evolutionists goes like this:  If God created DNA, he would certainly not have included  worthless junk in his design.  It can only be that "Junk DNA" developed during millions of years of evolution, their usefulness eventually ended, and they became retained residue of the evolutionary process.

Big surprise!  A huge research effort has found that about 80% of our DNA is not junk but instead has important, even vital function.

Are scientists upset?  No, not if they hold their assumptions lightly and are willing to go wherever the evidence leads.  Yes, if this new information threatens their assumptions and their convenience.

Watch this two-minute summary by biochemist Fazale Rana:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqcgM9cGxik

Obvious, but that's ok

Bill Zipp’s Law of Scheduling:

Unscheduled events will conform to scheduled events.

Obvious, yes - but sometimes the obvious should be said in so many words!  If you want to get something done, even if it's minor, put it on your schedule/calendar.

We don't completely buy it

"Seventy-eight percent of Americans today believe God played some role in how people came to exist, while only 15% attribute it to evolution alone"

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/americans-reject-evolution-creationism-poll-article-1.1090596#ixzz2HFm4Z1t0

What! Most people think God had a hand in the origin of humanity?  If you think evolution (chance mutations acted upon by natural selection) is sufficient to explain human life, with no interference from God, you are in the small minority.  Surprising, because . . .

Public schools K-12 and beyond have taught for decades and decades that evolution is the total answer to how we got here.  But somehow most people are not buying it.  How can that be?

It's frustrating to evolutionary scientists and profs and teachers.  They think they just need to improve their teaching methods.

Maybe it's something else.  Everyone knows that the Bible teaches that mankind is made in God's image. Maybe there's an intuition built into the human mind that can discern God's involvement in creation.

Check out Romans 1 verse 19: “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.”  (Amplified Version)

Here's the article where this idea is developed:

http://www.reasons.org/articles/articles/intuitive-knowledge-and-the-image-of-god-part-4-of-4