Return to 1st Quarter 2025 articles.
from Does God Exist? 1st Quarter 2025
STAY UP-TO-DATE ON NEWS AND NOTES. The stories in News and Notes are condensed from articles previously published on our website DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY. You can use the links within each of these articles to see the original posts (on the Does God Exist? Today website) for more details. (Some of the articles below have links to outside sources, which may not be available after we have published this page.) There are also many other interesting and informative articles on the Does God Exist? Today website each day. We encourage you to follow us daily on “Does God Exist? Today.” On that website you can also subscribe to our free weekly e-mail update. We call it “The Best of the Week from DOES GOD EXIST?” It contains links to the most popular of our posts on DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY and our facebook page (Facebook.com/evidence4god).
OPPORTUNITY TO STUDY WITH JOHN CLAYTON: Because of the COVID pandemic and age, we have suspended our lectureship schedule. In place of that, we are providing an opportunity for congregations to have a lectureship electronically. We want to give the readers of this publication the same opportunity to study with John Clayton.
We will mail you a DVD of the first four lectures in our video series. You or your group can watch the four programs writing down questions and challenges to the material. Please send us your questions via e-mail or postal mail, and John Clayton will respond to them. If you are satisfied with that material, return the DVD, and we mail you the next one. Your only cost is the return postage for the DVD.
If you are interested in this opportunity, please send us your name and address, and we will send you the first DVD. Watching the Does God Exist? presentations in the comfort of your home is an excellent way to receive the information without risk from COVID or the inconvenience of driving to a lectureship site. E-mail your request to John Clayton at jncdge@aol.com.
JUST RIGHT FOR LIFE: According to an article in American Scientist magazine, newborns cry in the accents of their mothers. They differ in their cries when they are first born, and this translates into speech later on. Doctors have told me babies react emotionally to sounds they have heard before birth. If a woman has been abused by her husband during pregnancy, the child will scream and move away from the husband after birth. A mother singing to the baby in her womb will find that those same songs will calm the child after birth.
Many years ago, as a graduate student at Indiana University, I attended a concert by the violinist Isaac Stern. During a break in his music, he introduced a tune he called a mystery melody. Stern was playing a piece while his mother was listening, and she asked him where he got that tune. He said he did not know. His mother told him, “I wrote it when I was carrying you and played it repeatedly, but I didn't save it, and it was never published.” Stern played it to honor his mother.
Stories like this remind us that unborn babies are aware and react to what is happening in the outside world. Late-term babies will fight the intrusive medical hardware being used to do an abortion. Now, we know that newborns cry in the accents of their mothers.
Reference: “Baby Talk” in American Scientist magazine, November/December 2024, page 368
ADDICTIONS ARE LINKED TO TRAUMA: Addiction treatments are often not successful because they fail to address the root causes. It is becoming more evident that various addictions are linked to trauma. More than 40% of people with opioid addiction report some type of childhood abuse or neglect. Other studies have shown that at least 85% of all people with an addiction have had at least one adverse childhood experience, and the risk increases with each additional experience. A substance abuse addiction shows up in 58% of people living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
All of the drug therapies and socialization efforts cannot undo the past. Addictions are linked to trauma, and this is where authentic Christianity can make a difference. The biblical design of the nuclear family is the best tool for most of addiction's challenges. Ephesians 5:21-6:4 speaks of submitting to one another in the fear of God. Husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and love them as they love their own bodies. Wives are told to respect their husbands. Fathers are to bring up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Colossians 3:21 warns fathers not to provoke their children to anger.
As people base their conduct on skepticism, atheism, and naturalism, we can expect addictions to increase.
Reference: “New Treatments Address Addiction alongside Trauma” by Maia Szalavitz in Scientific American magazine, October 2024, page 45
EFFECTS OF THC ON THE HUMAN BRAIN: Studies have examined the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) on the human brain. THC is the primary psychoactive chemical in marijuana (cannabis) plants. One study of teen health in Australia and New Zealand dealt with the effects of THC on depression and suicide. It showed that adolescents using cannabis were 2.5 times as likely to have depression and three times as likely to have suicidal ideas than those who did not use it.
A study of adult daily cannabis users showed they have five times the risk of psychosis compared to non-users. Canadian research has shown that emergency department visits for cannabis syndrome increased by a factor of 13 between 2014 and 2021. Science does not fully understand the effects of THC on the human brain, so users have become test subjects.
Marijuana growers have used selective methods to increase the THC content. In 1995, the total THC by weight of marijuana was around 4%. Today it is 20% or more. Concentrated cannabis products can have THC content as high as 95%. Teen exposure to THC can lead to long-lasting problems with memory and learning, and teens are more likely to become addicted than adults. Very little research is available on the long-term effects of cannabis and THC.
References: “Transcriptomic diversity of cell types across the adult human brain” in the journal Science, and “The teen brain is especially susceptible to the harms of THC” in Science News magazine
ALCOHOL DAMAGES THE HUMAN BODY: Dr. Douglas Zipes is an internationally acclaimed cardiologist, professor, author, inventor, and authority on pacing and electrophysiology (heart rhythms). He pointed out the similarities between the medical data for alcohol and cigarettes. He wrote that no amount of alcohol is beneficial, and any amount of alcohol is harmful to your heart and other organs.
Alcohol (ethanol) as a drug is very destructive to humans. We all experience enormous pressure to drink at parties and celebrations. Drunkenness is often a joke in movies and television shows, and it is the punch line in many songs.
My personal experience has been that alcohol is a family destroyer. My younger brother drank until it killed him. I got in trouble as a chemistry teacher when I pointed out to my students that “intoxicated” refers to the toxic nature of alcohol.
Comparisons between today's alcoholic beverages and the wine of Christ's day show a sharp contrast. Distillation was not available in Jesus' day, so the alcohol content was much lower, and alcohol served to make the water potable. Today, the higher alcohol concentrations lead to the destruction of families. Christians must take the lead in the long battle to at least moderate the consumption of alcohol and even eliminate it.
Reference: Dr. Douglas Zipes in the Saturday Evening Post for September/October 2024, page 54
E-CIGARETTES AND TEEN VAPING: As America moves away from God, young people are desperately searching for a substitute for the peace that faith brings. Since they came on the market in 2007, e-cigarettes have created a teen vaping problem. When a person inhales vapor laced with nicotine, the drug is quickly absorbed through the blood vessels and can reach the brain in as little as 10 seconds. This rapid absorption means that addiction comes very quickly.
Roughly 2.8 million young people use tobacco products, according to The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control. One in four of those using e-cigarettes say they use them every day. Young people assume that vaping is safer than cigarettes, but frequently, the vapors contain other toxic chemicals.
The 2023 Verkada Teen Vaping Survey of 2,650 Americans found that 61% of teenagers who vape consider themselves addicted. More than half (54%) of the teens expressed a desire to quit vaping. The Verkada survey also found that 9 out of 10 teachers reported vaping to be disruptive to learning environments. When users who vape do not have access to nicotine, they become agitated and sometimes belligerent, leading to school attendance problems and conflicts with parents. It is also an issue for the church as many teens who vape find it hard to participate in teen classes or activities.
In the New Testament, we find warnings about the dangers of the world, and vaping joins the list of world agents that bring addiction, heartbreak, conflict, and death.
THE CURSE OF INCARCERATION: The Does God Exist? ministry recently mailed out our 6,000th apologetics course to a person in prison. Over the years, we have presented our programs in prisons throughout the United States. I recently had a conversation with an inmate who said he was glad to be in jail, where he was learning things from other prisoners to help him not get caught when he gets out and resumes his life of crime. This shows that incarceration is not working.
The cost is massive to keep a person in jail for many years or even life. In Texas, a program called Christians Against Substance Abuse (CASA) has changed the lives of literally thousands of incarcerated men and women through education and counseling. Several chaplains in Texas prisons use the “New Life Behavior” curriculum.
Recently, two factors have made getting our life lesson materials to prisoners more challenging. The mail service is more expensive, and prisons have extreme requirements for delivery because many prisoners have received mail with hidden drugs.
Christians believe that every human being is created in the image of God and should be shown the “agape” kind of love that Jesus taught (see Matthew 5:43-44). Prisons should be places where people are rehabilitated, not tortured. Educating and rehabilitating humans would be far less expensive than our present system, where most prisoners are simply learning how to be smarter criminals to commit more crimes when released.
THE VALUE OF A DINOSAUR FOSSIL: In 2024, the record price for a fossilized dinosaur skeleton was $44,600,000 paid for a Stegosaurus fossil nicknamed Apex. The buyer is loaning it to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, which expects millions of visitors to come and see it. The previous record for a dinosaur fossil was $31,800,000 paid in 2020 for a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil named Stan, which is going to be displayed in Abu Dhabi. A T-rex fossil named Sue, on display in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, sold in 1997 for a mere $8.3 million.
What is the value of a dinosaur fossil that can command such enormous prices? The buyer of Apex says it “offers a unique window into our planet's distant past.” Are there religious or biblical connections to finding a dinosaur fossil? For some religious denominations, the answer may be negative. It is not easy to imagine how humans could exist with an animal of this size. As people look at this colossal dinosaur fossil they may be unable to accept the idea that humans and dinosaurs were contemporaries, and they would be right.
The Genesis account contains no Hebrew word that could be translated as “dinosaur” or Stegosaurus. Some people refer to “behemoth” in Job 40:15. The word behemah is used 51 times in the Bible, including Genesis 1:24-25 and refers to cattle. Stegosaurus was not a cow! The term “leviathan” (Job 41:1 and Psalm 104:26) refers to a great water creature, but Stegosaurus was not a water creature. The “creation week” in Genesis clearly refers to animals that the people of Moses' time were familiar with, and that would not have included dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs were creatures God used to prepare the Earth for humans. Imagine the volume of plant material a Stegosaurus would have eaten every day. Dinosaurs were instrumental in pruning the plants and spreading their seeds to provide the coal and mineral deposits humans would need. Like everything God does, the scale of what he did after Genesis 1:2 and before the creation week was massive. So, what is the value of a dinosaur fossil? We can join in the awe of seeing God's plan as we look at dinosaur fossils like Apex, Stan, and Sue without feeling any doubt about the message of Genesis.
IS PRAYER A WASTE OF TIME? We recently received an e-mail from a man saying, “I have quit praying. It is a waste of time. Nothing I ask for ever happens or comes.” Is prayer a waste of time? As a Christian, I know the Bible says I should pray (John 16:24; Mark 11:24; Matthew 5:44; James 5:16). While studying this question, I gradually realized that prayer was never about physical needs. Jesus warned that problems would come (Matthew 24:4-13). Prayer did not remove issues for Jesus or Paul. Jesus was still crucified, and Paul still had an affliction (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).
The Bible teaches that prayer is primarily about spiritual issues, not physical ones. That does not mean we should not talk with God about physical problems, but the promises of what prayer will do are spiritual. James 1:5 tells Christians to pray for wisdom, not intelligence. James 5:13-14 says, “Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray” (KJV). The Greek word “afflicted” is kakopatheo, meaning to suffer evil. This is not about physical affliction but letting evil take over your life. The use of oil mentioned in the passage was not about medicinal value but a symbol of gladness or spiritual nourishment (see Deuteronomy 33:24; Psalm 23:5; and Job 29:6).
Colossians 3:2 tells Christians to “Set your mind on things above, not on things on this Earth.” Philippians 4:6-7 tells Christians that prayer will guard our hearts and minds, not skin and joints. Is prayer a waste of time? I have had atheist friends tell me they do not understand how I keep going with all the things that have happened in my life. They do not realize that prayer brings what this passage calls “the peace of God.” Peace does not come from things of this world. Realizing that you have a purpose for existence is a beautiful reward of being a Christian. My prayer for you is that you will find that peace.
Answers to the 1st Quarter 2025 CROSSWORD puzzle: ACROSS: 4-very; 5-God; 7-fine; 9-cosmological; 10-species: DOWN: 1-creation; 2-beginning; 3-made; 6-scientism; 8-Mars
There are two mistakes in our printed copy in the answers for the crossword puzzle: 10 ACROSS: spices should be species; and 6 DOWN should be 8 DOWN for Mars.
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Scripture links/references are from BibleGateway.com. Unhighlighted scriptures can be looked up at their website.