Tag: life has meaning

John 1: 1-3  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the W0rd was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” 

Ivory soap floats.  I guess that is helpful if you’re taking a bath.  You don’t have to go searching for it on the bottom of the tub every time you want to use it.  But that’s about the only advantage it has over Dial or Zest or any of the other competitors.

However, there is something else that floats.  Unlike Ivory soap, if this item did not float the world would be a much different place.  Perhaps earth would not be uninhabitable, but living on this planet would be bleak indeed.

Maybe you’ve guessed that I’m referring to

ICE

Virtually all liquids contract and become denser as their temperature decreases, until finally, they congeal into a solid.  The solid, being denser than the liquid, sinks to the bottom and the process of congealing continues from the bottom up.

Not so with water.

Water contracts until it reaches 4 degrees C.  At that point it expands continuously until it finally congeals into ice.  The coldest water is actually at the top.  At that point another phenomenal event occurs.  The instant ice forms it expands even further, causing it to float.

 

If water followed that natural law of other materials, bodies of water would freeze from the bottom up.   And once frozen hardly any heat applied to the surface would cause them to thaw.  Michael Denton, in “Nature’s Destiny”, explains that in a vessel containing ice at the bottom and water at the top, Rumford made the upper liquid boil without thawing the congealed ice cake below.

If the natural law of materials had prevailed with water, the ice cake at the bottom of lakes, ponds and rivers would have increased with every occasion of freezing until the entire body was frozen solid.  Then there would only be small pools of water on the surface as the summer sun would thaw.  And those would freeze again at the first opportunity.

Our rivers, ponds and lakes would be devoid of life.  So would large portions of the oceans.  As a matter of fact, most of the water on earth would be permanently frozen into vast beds of ice on the bottom of the oceans.

William Whewell, master of Trinity College, Cambridge observed that the laws governing water are apparently a contrived violation of what would otherwise appear to be a natural law.  He further states that the expansion of water at 4 degrees C as well as the expansion of ice are two independent properties both of which “are mutually adapted toward the end of preserving bodies of liquid water on a planetary surface”.

I will end with the observations of Lawrence Henderson, professor of biological chemistry at Harvard University concerning the thermal properties of water and ice. (1)  Henderson states:

1. The anomalous facts that water contracts as it cools until just before freezing, after which it expands until it becomes ice, and then it expands on freezing are practically unique.
2. When ice melts or water evaporates, heat is absorbed from the environment. Heat is released when the reverse happens.  This is the phenomenon know as latent heat.  The latent heat of freezing water is one of the highest of all known fluids.  In the ambient temperature range only ammonia has a higher latent heat of freezing.  Water’s latent heat of evaporation is the highest of any known fluid in the ambient temperature range.
3. The thermal capacity or specific heat of water, which is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of water one degree centigrade, is higher than most other liquids.
4. The thermal conductivity of water, which is its capacity to conduct heat, is four times greater than any other common liquid.
5. The thermal conductivities of ice and snow are low.

If not for the properties of point 1, most of the water on earth would be permanently frozen into vast beds of ice at the the bottom of the oceans.  Lakes would freeze completely from the bottom up in the higher latitudes.

Without the properties in point 2, the climate would be subject to far more rapid temperature changes.  Small lakes and rivers would vanish and reappear constantly.

Without 3, the difference between winter and summer would be more extreme and weather patterns would be less stable, and the great ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream, which currently transfer vast quantities of heat from the tropics to the poles, would be far less capable of moderating the temperature differences between high and low latitudes.

Again without 2, warm-blooded animals would have a far greater difficulty ridding their bodies of heat.  Henderson was particularly struck by the adaptive significance of the cooling effect of the latent heat of evaporation in the case of warm-blooded animals.  Because, as Henderson points out, “in an animal like man… heat is a most prominent excretory product, which has to be constantly eliminated in great amounts, and to this end only three important means are available – conduction, radiation, and evaporation.”  But at body temperature “very little heat can be lost by conduction or radiation and evaporative cooling is therefore the only significant means of temperature reduction. “And he concludes: “To sum up, this property appears to possess a threefold importance.  First, it operates powerfully to equalize and to moderate the temperature of the earth; secondly, it makes possible very effective regulation of the temperature of the living organism; and thirdly it favors the meteorological cycle.  All of these effects are true maxima, for no other substance in this respect compares with water.”  Conversely, as the temperature falls, condensation occurs and this releases heat which tends to counteract the rate of temperature fall.  Moreover, as Henderson points out there is another aspect of the fitness of the latent heat of evaporation – the fact that as the temperature rises so does the rate of evaporation and so consequently does the cooling effect of evaporation.  So the cooling effect of evaporation increases when the usefulness of the property is most needed.

 

Without 4 it would be harder for cells which cannot use convection currents to distribute heat evenly throughout the cell.

Without 5 the protective insulation of snow and ice, essential to the survival of many forms of life in the higher latitudes, would be lost.  Also water would cool more rapidly and small lakes would be more likely to freeze completely.

All of this is the precise suitability of merely the thermal properties of water.

It is my hope that as you read through these posts that you are beginning to appreciate the incredible precision of our universe from the galaxies right down to the membrane of a cell.

That precision indicates design.

You are the work of the Master Designer

 

Romans 11:34  “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?”

It took me forever to figure out why the Wicked Witch of the West hung out with a bunch of flying monkeys as opposed to regular humans…… well as “regular” as humans can be in Oz anyway.  I kept thinking it was because she was so evil and monkeys just don’t have a moral compass.  Then it hit me.  The Wicked Witch of the West can’t bathe!  That’s not offensive to monkeys.

But it would be very offensive to most of us.

 

The fact that the Wicked Witch of the West dissolves in water seems pretty odd.  And I guess it is odd.

However, the fact that you and I DON’T dissolve in water is more of a miracle than you might imagine.

In his book, “Nature’s Destiny”, Michael Denton illustrates just how amazingly fit for life our universe is.  Although an agnostic, Denton is very outspoken in claiming that the universe has all of the appearances of being designed for life.  He even goes so far as to say that it has all of the appearances of being designed for life like us………… humans.

He says that the processes of life would have to be performed in a liquid medium.  Few would disagree.  Solids are far too inert to allow the chemical processes and reactions that are necessary for life.

 

Gases would be far too volatile.

 

A liquid medium is necessary.  The demands on that liquid medium are vast, necessitating a nearly perfect medium.

Enter water.

 

Dentin discusses how water’s thermal properties alone, including latent heat, specific heat, thermal conductivity and expansion and contraction properties make it unique.  Beyond that, water’s surface tension, density, viscosity and non-Newtonian characteristics place it in a category of fitness unapproachable by any other liquid.  And the list continues even beyond those.

But today I want to speak of yet another characteristic of water that make it the matchless medium.

The universal solvent.

Water could have no biological role if it was not a good solvent.

Lawrence Henderson, professor of biological chemistry at Harvard said, “It turns out that, as a solvent, water is indeed ideally fit.  So much so that water approaches far nearer than any other liquid to the alkahest, the universal mythical solvent of the alchemists.”

Nearly all known chemicals dissolve in water to a slight, but detectable extent.  It also catalyzes almost all known reactions.

Although quite reactive it is not as reactive as other liquids.  Many acids and alkalies will dissolve substances almost insoluble in water in a matter of seconds.  But these acids and alkalies use themselves up in the process by reacting with the solutes.

Water could not fulfill its biological role if it was either a highly reactive fluid like sulfuric acid or if it was an entirely unreactive fluid like liquid argon.  Henderson says that “water is ideally fit for both its biological and its geological role.”

                                          WATER IS NEARLY PERFECT!!!

 Nearly…… but not quite.  Water cannot dissolve lipids, or fats as we call them.

And that’s why the Wicked Witch of the West melted when Dorothy poured water on her.  She was just too skinny.  She needed to put on some fat.

Amazingly, every single one of our cells, be they muscle cells, bone cells nerve cells or whatever, are surrounded by a cell membrane that is tri-layered.  The membrane has lipids on the outside and lipids on the inside.  The lipids on the inside keep water in the cell where it belongs.  The lipids on the outside keep the water outside the cell where it belongs.

We are 70% water yet we stand erect, we run, we lift objects.  We are pretty much a giant bag of water, or more precisely millions upon millions of tiny bags of water that all work in concert with one another.  Yet we don’t dissolve ourselves from the inside.  And I thank God every time I go swimming that I don’t dissolve myself from the outside.

That’s why you don’t see witches at the beach.

One last thought.  How did a cell with this tri-layer form?  Did a cell membrane “empty bag” form first and somehow got filled with a nucleus, mitochondria, ribosomes, etc. and of course water?  Or did the nucleus, mitochondria, ribosomes etc. just form in water all in a clump and were “engulfed and sealed up” by a membrane that was floating around in the area?

God only knows!!

 

 

Occam’s razor is a well regarded guideline for life.  It is also observed in the sciences. More about that razor later.  Right now I want to talk about math.

Mathematics is an integral part of science.  If you were to talk to any scientist in private, when they had their guard down, they would never for a moment dispute the importance of math in science.  How many times have you seen the scientist at a blackboard that is covered by mathematical equations?  Math and science are inseparable.

 

There are 7,000,000,000 people on earth.  How much would you be willing to bet that if I randomly picked ONE person living anywhere on earth without telling you anything about them, that you could get in a plane, boat, car, bicycle, walk and pick out that one person correctly on the first try?

 

That would be a 7,000,000,000 to 1 bet.  Those are pretty slim odds.

 

Science is a lot more generous.  They give anything a 1 in 10 to the 50^th power chance before they call it impossible.  (that’s a 10 with a little 50 above and to the right of it)

 

That looks like this.  1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Those are far slimmer odds.  Still, like I said, science tries to cut every possibility a break.

But science draws the line at some point.  At some point science determines that an event is mathematically impossible.

Wellllllll…….. there are exceptions!

 

If your “science” happens to be the pseudo-science of evolution then all bets disappear and math goes flying into the waste paper basket like your last lottery ticket.

 

In his book, “Just Six Numbers”, Martin Rees gives a developed account of six specific numbers that must be within a very, very limited range in order for life to exist. (1)

They are:

N  (Ratio of gravity to electrical force)  1:10 to the 36^th power.

Anything less and life as we know it doesn’t exist.

 

E (Coupling constant for the strong force)

The value is 0.007

If E was 0.006 or 0.008 we could not exist

 

Omega (density of the universe)

A slight change higher and the universe would have collapsed

A slight change lower and galaxies and stars would not have formed

 

Lambda (energy density of the universe)

Lambda is very small.  Otherwise it would have stopped galaxies and stars from forming

 

Q (Energy to break up galactic clusters)

1/100,000 in value

Even smaller and the universe would be inert

Much larger and the universe would be a violent place

 

D (Spatial dimensions)

D = 3

Life couldn’t exist if it were 2 or 4.

 

With the exception of the number of spatial dimensions these are all either very large or very small numbers.  If any of these numbers were slightly different, life would be impossible.

Yet they must all exist virtually precisely as they are.

The odds of that happening are calculated by multiplying together the probability of each of those separate events happening.  Now we’re talking a really huge number!

 

Agnostic physicist Paul Davies tells us, “Had the explosion (of the Big Bang) differed in strength at the outset by only one part in 10 to the 60^th power, the universe we now perceive would not exist.”

 

Oxford University physics professor Roger Penrose (a self-proclaimed agnostic) gave a figure of 10,000,000,000 to the 123^rd power for the uniqueness of the Big Bang singularity.

 

The likelihood of certain proteins developing on earth has been determined to be a chance of 1 in 10 to the 237^th power.

 

To get your head around a figure like that it is more than all of the electrons in the known universe.

 

And you thought picking the one human out of all of those living on earth was a task!  Heck, that’s a piece of cake.  Try taking a space ship ride throughout the universe and choosing the one electron I have selected…… Careful now!  Are you sure it’s that one!

 

Evolutionists don’t bother with the bet.   It’s not that they question the math.

They don’t.

However, with their philosophical mindset they have already determined that we evolved.  “We’re here aren’t we?”

 

Their solution to the massive improbability that our universe meets all of the above requirements?

 

There are an INFINITE number of universes that co-exist side by side.  They are like an infinite number of bubbles.  Some are moving away from us faster than the speed of light.  Some may crash into us, but we wouldn’t even know it.  Those two particular universes would merely pass through each other uneventfully.

But here is the important thing.  Because there are an infinite number of universes at least one of them must meet the necessary criteria mentioned above.  One would be able to support life as we know it.  And we just happen to live in that universe.

 

We can’t see those other universes.

We can’t test this hypothesis.

These scientists actually say that we are in this universe because it is the only one that can support us.

Duh…. well I guess that would have to be true.

Would God create us and place us in a universe that would not support us.

Duh… well I guess not.

 

Even if this crazy theory is true it only speaks to why we are in this universe.  It does not begin to speak to how we got here.

It is so incredibly evident that evolutionists can only accept a totally natural explanation for life.  It is so incredibly obvious that they accept evolution as fact because, after all,  “What else is there?”

By the way, the amount of proof that exists for this theory?

NADA, ZILCH, ZERO, NONE, NULL SET, ZIP,

 

Now there is a number I can understand!

 

And now for the shave.

Occam’s razor says that the simplest explanation is the best explanation.

Occam’s razor (also written as Ockham’s razor, and lex parsimoniae in Latin, which means law of parsimony) is a problem-solving principle attributed to William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), who was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher and theologian. The principle can be interpreted as stating Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

In science, Occam’s razor is used as a heuristic technique (discovery tool) to guide scientists in the development of theoretical models, rather than as an arbiter between published models.^[1][2] In the scientific method, Occam’s razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result; the preference for simplicity in the scientific method is based on the falsifiability criterion. For each accepted explanation of a phenomenon, there may be an extremely large, perhaps even incomprehensible, number of possible and more complex alternatives, because one can always burden failing explanations with ad hoc hypotheses to prevent them from being falsified; therefore, simpler theories are preferable to more complex ones because they are more testable.^[3][4][5

Option #1.

We exist among an infinite number of parallel universes each of which is unseen, each of which developed in a like manner to our already unknowable universe, each of which occupies the same time/space continuum, everyone of which is outside of our own and is  untouchable and is unknowable, and each requiring an exhaustive amount of matter and energy….. totaling an INFINITE amount of matter and energy.

Option #2.

One God

 

Anybody need a razor?

 

(1) Evidence Unseen – James M. Rochford

 

Genesis 1:26  “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

 

There’s a mammal living down by the river.   WAY DOWN by the river.  WAY DOWN UNDER by the river.

It has fur like a mammal.

It produces milk like a mammal.

It has a tail like a beaver.

It has webbed feet to help it swim.  But it only uses its front feet when it swims.  It tucks its back feet in.

When it walks it walks on its knuckles to protect those webs.

 

But then again

 

It lays eggs like a bird or a reptile.

It has a bill like a duck.

It walks with its feet to the side like a reptile.

It has no teeth – like a bird.

It has no nipples.  Instead the female sweats its milk onto its chest where the young lap it up.

The male has talons on its back legs like a bird.

Those talons have venom like a snake.

 

And weirder yet

 

It has eyes, however, in the millions of years of “evolution” it “opted” to close those eyes when it hunts.

As luck would have it this creature developed an electro-location system for finding its prey that is exquisitely precise.  It developed that system over millions of years through miniscule changes provided by totally random mutations that in and of themselves had no advantage yet hung around in each succeeding generation and just randomly kept improving until it reached perfection.  Yet in those millions of years it didn’t starve because….. because…. because…. well it would be better if one of your evolutionist friends explained that.  I’m kinda thinkin’ it would have better off using its eyes.

 

You already know this little misfit is the platypus.

 

Here is a fun video on this little fella.  At the end of the video the narrator is going to “splain” how this guy evolved.  Meet me on the other side of the video because I want to discuss that explanation.

 

The platypus may muddy the waters a bit as it hunts.  But, as usual, the attempt to explain the platypus’ evolving is merely another attempt to muddy the waters.

 

Here’s how the platypus evolved.

A.  There used to be a lot of monotremes in Australia.

And?

 

B.  There were “platypus-like” creatures in the fossil record 61 million years ago.

Actually they were intact platypuses.  They just had teeth.

 

C.  There was a really big platypus that was discovered.

What it was was a really big….. wait for it…… platypus.

 

D.  They took to the water when the marsupials arrived.

 

So this explains how the platypus changed from a big one with teeth to a smaller one without teeth.  I’ll buy that.

What it doesn’t even attempt to explain is how the heck an animal came into existence that has fur, a duckbill, a beaver tail, venom, lays eggs, sweats milk, walks like a reptile and on its knuckles no less, and has an electro-location mechanism to locate its prey.  Where are the common ancestors for that?!

 

I’m guessing it was the yet to be discovered mamphibirdtile.

 

But hey, they don’t have to keep looking because the friendly narrator lady “splained” everything……. And with a smile no less!

The platypus is unique.  It looks like a bunch of things put together.

You are unique as well.

You were made in the image of God.