Return to 3rd Quarter 2024 articles.

from Does God Exist? 3rd Quarter 2024

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.

A PLANT THAT SWEATS: You and I keep cool in hot weather by evaporating water from our skin. That removes a lot of heat from our bodies, allowing us to survive hot weather. Botanists have discovered that the Carline thistle plant cools itself by evaporation. You could say it is a plant that sweats.

Carline thistles grow in an area of southern Spain where almost no other plants can survive. In August, everything shrivels and dies in the arid region around the Sierra de Cazorla mountain range, except the Carline thistle. By evaporative cooling, the flowers on this plant average nine degrees cooler than the surrounding air and may be as much as 18 degrees cooler.

To perform photosynthesis, leaves allow carbon dioxide to enter through tiny pores called stomata. During this exchange, a small amount of water in the leaf escapes, allowing some evaporation. However, the Carline thistle is the only plant known to allow substantial water quantities to move to the surface. God has designed plants to survive every conceivable climatic condition, even a plant that sweats.

Reference: “This Flower Refrigerates Itself to Survive Scorching Summers” in Scientific American, May 2024, page 18

UFO/UAP REPORT: One of the most repeated false claims is aliens in spacecraft regularly visit Earth and want to affect human history. In our day of conspiracy theories, there are stories that the United States government has been hiding alien contact. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick was the director of the U.S. Department of Defense's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Congress charged that agency in 2022 with bringing scientific evidence and clarity to the UFO and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) mystery.

You can read the report released by Kirkpatrick's group of qualified scientists, “Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP),” online by using the QR code. The bottom line is that there is no invasion by space aliens and no government cover-up. We remind our readers that all attempts to tie alien claims to the Bible or alien explanations of history are not supported by evidence or real scientific investigation.

Reference: “Observations from a Government UFO Hunter” in Scientific American magazine, April 2024, page 67

AI CAN BE USED OR MISUSED: Artificial Intelligence is the latest marvel of science flooding every part of human life — for good or evil. On November 19, 2022, a company known as OpenAI launched an artificial intelligence application, a chatbot called ChatGPT, making it available to anyone wanting to use it. Since ChatGPT can write papers, students started using it to meet course requirements.

Alarmists have suggested that AI could take over the planet. That may be an exaggeration, but innovators can do many very positive things with this new technology. One example is the ability to decipher unreadable ancient manuscripts. Pyroclastic flows from Mount Vesuvius buried a library in the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum in AD 79, burying the scrolls under 60 feet of debris, and baking them into charcoal. The process preserved the scrolls, but scholars could not unroll and read them because they would crumble. Using high-energy scans, scientists created a 3-D image of the scrolls and used AI to analyze the ink patterns and determine the words on the scrolls.

AI will allow scholars to study documents to expand our knowledge of the past, solve insoluble problems, make medical advances, and improve human life. However, like everything else, AI can be misused. The notion that it can take over the world and eliminate the human race is science fiction and not something we should fear.

Reference: “What We’re Learning From AI” in Scientific American, April 2024

TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 2024: In April 2024, a total solar eclipse crossed North America. Many people called it a “spiritual” experience that made them realize how small we are. Many indicated that it brought people together, reminding us that we need each other, and some said it was a testimony to God's existence.

In 1815, American novelist James Fenimore Cooper wrote, “… never have I beheld any spectacle which so plainly manifested the majesty of the Creator, or so forcibly taught the lesson of humility to man as a total eclipse of the Sun.” Modern eclipse chaser Kate Russo said about the total solar eclipse, “You don't need to know anything about it to feel that overwhelming sense of awe.” She is a clinical psychologist who has studied how eclipses affect people and wrote a book titled Being in the Shadow: Stories of the First-time Total Eclipse Experience.

Multiple news commentators remarked about the remarkable coincidence that the Sun is 400 times the size of the Moon but 400 times as far away. That “coincidence” allows the Moon to exactly block out the Sun so we can see its corona. That fact is one of many “coincidences” that enable us to study and learn about God's orderly creation.

Many people experienced awe as they watched the eclipse. Dacher Keltner of the University of California, Berkeley, is described as a “pioneer in the science of awe.” He defines awe as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.”

It will be two decades before a total solar eclipse crosses the United States again. There is no question that America's total solar eclipse of 2024 taught us about God's creative power and the brevity of life.

References: Involarium.org and nationalgeographic.com

Animal Behavior: One result of evolutionary thinking is believing that humans are not unique but just animals at the top of the evolutionary ladder. As a result, many people treat animals as if they are humans, but animals do not have human values or empathy, and their instinctive behavior may cause unexpected problems.

A man named Austin Riley in Boerne, Texas, found a newborn warthog whose mother had died. Riley nursed and raised the warthog for five years. He named his pet warthog Waylon after Waylon Jennings, a country singer known for his outlaw behavior. When Riley would lie down and listen to sports radio, Waylon would lie beside him. Waylon grew to weigh 250 pounds and was identified with Pumbaa in the popular Lion King movie, with the Swahili expression “hakuna matata,” meaning “no worries.” However, there was something to worry about in this case.

Warthogs have lower tusks protruding from muscular jaws like blades. The tusks are curved, so the warthog can do incredible damage to any animal or person by twisting its head. On an October evening in 2022, Austin came to Waylon's pen, and the warthog greeted him happily as he went to the feeding trough. Twenty minutes later, Waylon attacked Austin, ripping his legs, wrist, abdomen, and neck. Doctors say that Austin lost half of his blood, and his treatment required ten surgeries.

The bottom line is that wild animals are not good pets and do not possess human values or empathy. Humans can behave like animals, but animals cannot behave like humans. Humans are created in God's image, which is expressed in how we live and care for one another. The world would be a much better place if everyone followed the teachings of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapters 5 to 7.

Reference: boingboing.net and Texas Monthly

THC GUMMIES AND CHILDREN: A five-year-old Colorado girl ate some gummy bears that contained THC. Recreational marijuana is legal in Colorado and many other states, and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol ) is the psychoactive drug from cannabis. Edible THC products include candy and cookies, which are attractive to children. In this case, the parents and doctors could not awaken the girl, and she remained unconscious for 16 hours.

Hospital-reported cases of THC exposure in children under the age of six increased more than 1,000 percent between 2017 and 2021. About a third of the children were treated and released, but 15% required hospital admission, and 8% were sent to intensive care. THC is concentrated in the candy, cookies, or brownies,and it remains in body fat for several days. There is no antidote for THC poisoning and no reversal agent or special treatment.

In the Colorado case, the family had no marijuana or cannabis in their home, and they did not know she had eaten the THC-laced gummy candy. They had been on a camping trip where other campers had given the gummies to the girl. This is a new concern for parents and a problem that will grow. The marijuana industry has no supervision or control, and cities that have opted to allow unrestricted marijuana distribution are going to see increasing problems as kids find products that give them a drug high.

Reference: Discover magazine, May/June 2024, page 20

MEDICALIZED CHILD ABUSE: One of the most inflammatory issues of our day is the question of children who decide they want to change their gender. A team led by Dr. Hilary Cass, a renowned British pediatrician, recently produced a 388-page report based on four years of research into trans care in Britain. The UK's Sunday Times reported that “Trans activists have bullied politicians and doctors into embracing ‘medicalized child abuse’ and cowed dissenters into silence.” That is a challenge to the same groups in America, but some public school counselors should be added to the group of abusers.

The number of British children referred for transgender drug and surgery treatments rose from 250, primarily boys, in 2012 to 5,000, mostly girls, in 2022. The treatments for “gender dysphoria” have lifetime effects, including a loss of bone health and fertility, making the subjects lifelong patients for medical treatment. The Times newspaper points out that the problem is likely more severe than anyone realizes because 6 out of 7 gender treatment centers refused to give data to researchers. Although this report is from Britain, we suspect the situation is worse in the United States.

Attempting to change God's creation and design of the human reproductive system will cause children a great deal of pain and uncertainty. We suggest that medicalized child abuse is not the way to help disturbed children find their identity and live meaningful lives.

References: cass.independent-review and The Week, May 3, 2024, page 14.

A LESSON FROM AN ASTROLABE: The astrolabe was an ancient astronomical instrument, a two-dimensional map of the universe typically crafted from plates. Astrolabes, with their star charts and analog calculation capabilities, were tools and gateways to understanding the cosmos. People used them to calculate distances, the time of sunrise and sunset, the position of stars, and the location of latitudes and longitudes. With its intricate design and multifaceted functionality, the astrolabe shows human cooperation.

Federica Gigante, a historian at the University of Cambridge, found the plates of an eleventh-century astrolabe in the vaults of a museum in Verona, Italy. The astrolabe she discovered was made of brass and had Arabic engravings. It also has Hebrew letters engraved on the plates, indicating their use by Jewish owners, and it was in the archives of a Christian museum. This astrolabe shows human cooperation. It means there was an era in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians built upon one another's intellectual achievements. All cultures had people with incredible minds who contributed to human knowledge of what the cosmos is about and how we can observe it.

In our day of religious wars between these same groups, it is incredible that humans do not have the sense to realize the importance of understanding each other and working together to discover Truth. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Think of the progress the world could make if we could work together and follow the commandments of Jesus given so clearly in Matthew 5:21-25; 38-48.

Reference: Verona astrolabe on wikipedia.org

Answers to the 3rd Quarter 2024 CROSSWORD puzzle: ACROSS: 2-purpose; 5-creation; 7-lie; 8-infinite; 10-seek: DOWN: 1-love; 3-example; 4-baptized; 6-DNA; 9-ten

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