Ponder Scripture Newsletter

 

Newsletter #7:  Elul 2011 (Sixth Month of the Scriptural Year)

 

Creation Evidence in the Midst of Drought Conditions

by Larry & June Acheson

louds prevented us from sighting the new moon this month.  In last month's newsletter, I mentioned being willing to trade seeing the new moon for some heavy cloud cover, cooler temperatures and about a week's worth of gentle rain.  The clouds dissipated by the following morning, departing without depositing any rain; however, we have definitely noticed a significant drop in temperatures, with daily highs dipping to the 90's instead of the triple-digit temps that persisted all summer.  They say, "Two out of three ain't bad," but that saying does not apply to the situation here in Texas because drought conditions have now reached a critical juncture. The combination of dry conditions and low humidity has made our state a veritable tinderbox, and many wildfires have already claimed the lives of our citizens, along with hundreds of homes. We continue to pray for rain, but the spotty showers that have fallen evaporate within minutes, offering very little in the way of relief.

 

     June and I continue to see a rise in the number of skeptics—people who are skeptical about the Bible and its account of our being here because of a loving Creator—and the reactions we've seen to our drought have confirmed that their numbers are growing (or else the minority voices are just getting louder).  One common approach we've observed is poking fun at our governor, Rick Perry, who is currently running for President.  Rick Perry has made it very clear that he supports the Biblical account of Creation.  Certainly, we have our share of theological differences with the governor of this state, but at the same time, it is gratifying to know we both uphold the authority of the Bible, even if we disagree on its application.  Since our state has been suffering through such extreme drought conditions, evolutionists and other non-believers cynically suggest that Rick Perry isn't praying hard enough or that maybe he's not on our Heavenly Father's "good side."  Things like that.  I can't help but wonder how these same people would have treated the prophet Elijah during the three and a half-year drought that ravaged Israel (Luke 4:25, James 5:17).

 

     Although I do not feel there is much to gain by attempting to persuade non-believers that there is an intelligent Creator who is responsible for our existence, at the same time, I know I was once an agnostic who didn't "really" believe there was a Creator, but through a chain of events that transpired in the year 1977, all that changed.  First, I was confronted (in a non-confrontational manner) by a couple of young men seeking converts to their church. This occurred on-campus at the university I was attending.  They asked me if I had accepted Yeshua the Messiah as my Savior (of course, they referred to Him as "Jesus Christ" instead of the name He was actually called during His earthly ministry).  My answer was yes, which prompted them to inquire if I knew the "Five Steps to Sal-vation."  Within the space of around three minutes of asking me some very basic questions about my relationship to Yeshua, it became clear that I didn't have a clue about His ministry or purpose.  On the one hand, as a result of that brief exchange, I was turned off by religion; on the other hand, I wondered if maybe I should start reading the Bible.  Within a couple of months, I found myself enrolled in a geography course taught by a pro-Creationist professor.  At seemingly every opportunity, he would weave into his lecture something that, in his opinion, validated the Creation account.  I was mildly surprised by his approach, mainly because I had been so accustomed to the evolution theory that, even back in the 70's, was the educational norm, but I was more surprised by the reaction of my fellow students.  With every incorporation of Creationist reasoning, there was an equal and opposite reaction of  heavy sighing and/or sarcastic snickering.  I'm sure there must have been some students in that classroom who appreciated the professor's approach, but none of those students sat near me.  Here I was, a guy who only months beforehand was more or less persuaded that there isn't a Creator, and now I was one of the only students in a geography class who wasn't chuckling at the professor's knack of incorporating his Creationist reasoning into his lectures.  One day he made a point that, when he made it, sealed the matter for me.  It was about the sun, the moon and the earth.  When he was finished, I noticed two or three students shaking their heads and lightly chuckling to themselves, completely oblivious to the fact that I had just been converted to Creationism.  Here is a crude summary of the professor's reasoning:

 

     The sun is huge.  Really huge.  In terms of volume, it is over a million times larger than the earth.  In contrast, the moon is much smaller than the earth (approximately 50 times smaller volume-wise).  The sun is over 93 million miles from the earth (that's a long way), whereas the moon is much closer to us (roughly 240,000 miles). To give you an idea of how far away the sun is, if you could hop in your car and take off on a "road trip" to the sun, averaging 60 MPH, it would take you 176 years to reach your destination (presuming you don't take any breaks or have any breakdowns along the way).  If you could drive to the moon, it would only take you five and a half months at that same speed to complete your journey!

 

     To put it in even simpler terms, the sun is waaaaaay larger than the earth and very, very far away, whereas the moon is considerably smaller than the earth and not all that far from us (relatively-speaking). 

 

     In view of the tremendous size and distance differences between the sun and the moon, how is it possible that, as seen from our vantage point (earth), they appear to be exactly the same size?  When I say they appear to be the same size, I'm referring specifically to an eclipse.  In fact, during a solar eclipse, the moon blots out the sun so perfectly that all you can see is the sun's atmosphere (corona).  How is it possible that the one celestial body, being so much smaller, can perfectly blot out the other one as viewed from the earth? 

 

     What are the odds of the existence of two celestial bodies with such huge size and distance variables blotting each other out as seen from yet another celestial body anywhere in the universe?  Even when we disregard the miracle of life itself, it staggers the mind to even calculate the odds that, from a neutral planet anywhere in the universe, one could see two spheres of such immensely different sizes being able to perfectly blot out the other when they appear to cross paths.  Yet, this is a spectacle that each of us has the opportunity to witness during the course of our lives.

 

     Here in Texas, we were blessed to be in the "path of totality" for the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse. This is truly an awe-inspiring spectacle that testifies to all that there is a Creator!  Sadly, we do not own a special camera to allow us to take internet-worthy photos of this special event. Displayed below is a photo shared by Gadi of the Israeli New Moon Society, who made a special visit to the USA to see the eclipse. He took his photo from Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas, which was also along the "path of totality."

 

     Of course, evolutionists and other skeptics will not be impressed with the miracle of an eclipse.  In fact, at one web site, I read the following comment: "I don't think Earth is special for its Solar Eclipse. I am sure you can see this or something more spectacular elsewhere. Especially with all the moons Jupiter has."  Even when I was an agnostic I was more appreciative of the amazing phenomenon of the eclipses than the individual mentioned above is.  I hope he makes it to Jupiter to see the wonders displayed by their moons as seen from that planet, but alas, once he gets there he will not see any perfectly total eclipses. Nor will he find life.  That's because, against all odds, only planet earth is situated at the perfect distance from the sun so as to allow the existence of life as we know it.  If our planet was any closer (relatively-speaking), it would be a lifeless desert.  Any farther away, it would be a frozen tundra.

 

     Just to give you an idea of what I mean by the odds of seeing a perfectly total solar eclipse on some other planet, I'm including below a photo of Mars' moon, Phobos, making its best effort to eclipse the sun. The photo was taken by the Mars rover, Perseverance, on April 20, 2022. As you can see, it's a beautiful sight to behold, but it's not by any means a total eclipse. You can actually watch a video of the eclipse on NASA's website.

 

     According to the Bible, Yahweh, the Master of what we know as "science," put the wheels in motion that caused the universe as we know it to exist.  Evolutionists and skeptics attempt to explain our existence as having originated with science, but without any intelligence or intelligent design as the catalyst.  While I admire their faith, I do not admire their reasoning. 

 

     I often make copies of articles that I feel are worth keeping and file them away so I can read them again some other day in the near or distant future.  I recently came across a short commentary from the "Points to Ponder" section of the January 1973 issue of Reader's Digest.  I obviously first read the commentary well after 1973 because it's something that I feel would have had a profound effect on my faith if I had read it at the time that issue of Reader's Digest was published.  It's one of those things that you know an evolutionist will dismiss, even though whatever reasoning he or she will offer cannot possibly make any sense.  Granted, if an evolutionist can explain in layman's terms how life came from non-life, how the entire universe as we know it sprung from that speck of dust that became the "Big Bang," and if they can explain how the human capacity to achieve the "simple" functions described below were able to evolve from that "nothingness," then I would like to read it.  Here's the commentary:

 

     Do this: toss an object into the air and catch it. Now consider the extraordinary device (you, yourself) that accomplished this everyday miracle. You sensed the energy of the toss, knew the value and the importance of success. You triangulated the position of the object throughout its flight with your binocular vision; you edited out distractions by other senses that might divert your attention; you brought an extraordinary signal mechanism into precise operation that triggered one set of muscles after another into a sequence of ground-to-air-missile direction-control processes resulting in easy success as you caught the object without thinking.

 

     Ask your friends who know micro-electronics best what it would cost and how much space it would take to achieve artificially what you just achieved naturally. Anyone will admit that the problem of reconstituting these simple excellences of yours would require a major federal grant. But that’s just the easy part.

 

     Remember that all the miraculous abilities you demonstrated can be naturally and automatically packaged and preserved without the slightest impairment, for periods of 20 to 50 years or so, in an ultra-microscopic part of you, received by you at no cost and forwarded into the future at the same price, in a tiny segment of a gene in a chromosome in a solution so concentrated that a single teaspoon could contain all the instructions needed to build and operate the 3½ billion people now on the planet.

 

-- David Brower in his Foreword to Summer Island by Eliot Porter

 

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and divine nature; so that they are without excuse. -- Romans 1:20

  

2024 Update: A Symbiotic Relationship Annihilates Charles Darwin's Theory

 

    I recently found out the hard way that you can post anti-creation commentaries on secular media apps, confidently stating that there is no Creator, but if someone dares to challenge and engage you, the discussion is removed by an unseen moderator. That's what happened in April 2024. I stumbled across a posting to the Nextdoor app from a woman named Summer, who described experiencing something she had never felt before when she went to bed one night. She felt as though someone had jumped on her chest; this same sensation occurred at least seven to eight times before she finally fell asleep. She wondered if maybe a demon was trying to possess her. There were all kinds of explanations offered, including the likelihood that she had experienced a form of sleep paralysis. Others reassured her that she wasn't being demon-possessed, and offered prayers for angels to watch over her. One man, Richard, chimed in to inform everyone that there are no demons and no angels. Upon further questioning, he added that there is no Creator, parroting the evolutionist doctrine, and he openly mocked those who believe otherwise. This brought on several protests from Bible believers, especially from someone named Stephanie.  Richard smugly challenged Stephanie to produce any proof that there's a Creator. As I reviewed the various postings, I noticed the exchange had taken place several days earlier, but Stephanie had not responded. In fact, no one had taken Richard up on his challenge, so I knew he was still waiting for her to respond. It appeared, then, that the evolutionist's claim was going to go unchallenged.

 

     I decided to post the following tidbit, which I think offers an appropriate update to this newsletter: In chapter 6 of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, he wrote, "If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection. Although many statements may be found in works on natural history to this effect, I cannot find even one which seems to me of any weight."

 

     Apparently, Charles Darwin, the champion of evolutionists, was not aware of the relationship between a certain plant and a certain insect. Not only was the structure of the one species formed for the exclusive good of another species, but it turns out both species depend on each other for survival. The plant I'm referring to is the Yucca plant. The Yucca plant produces a bloom, and unless that bloom is pollinated, the Yucca plant will not produce the seeds necessary for reproduction. The bloom gives off a scent that only attracts one insect--the Yucca Moth. The Yucca Moth gathers the pollen from the bloom and takes it to another flower, where it lays its eggs. The Yucca Moth ONLY lays its eggs in the bloom of a Yucca plant, and by carrying the pollen to another flower, it becomes the plant's only means of pollination. So not only does the Yucca plant depend upon the Yucca Moth for pollination, the Yucca Moth depends upon the Yucca plant for reproduction. The bloom of the Yucca plant, then, was formed for the exclusive benefit of the Yucca Moth, and the Yucca Moth's specialized senses that lure it to the Yucca bloom, as well as its specialized mouth parts that it uses to collect pollen, were formed for the exclusive benefit of the Yucca plant. It's a symbiotic relationship that cannot be explained by science, so they "explain it away" by saying things like, "What a beautiful phenomenon of nature!"

 

     Richard, in his Nextdoor response to my posting, attempted to discredit this evolution-defying anomaly by downplaying it as a natural expression of the evolutionary process, then he supplied hyperlinks to articles about the amazing way certain species "evolved" to benefit other species, such as how blood is the perfect food for mosquitoes, grass evolved to benefit cattle and horses, etc.  The articles offered nothing explaining how the one species cannot survive without the other. I don't know about you, but I am persuaded this world would get along just fine without mosquitoes. In keeping with Charles Darwin's concession, the symbiotic relationship between the Yucca Moth and the Yucca plant annihilates his evolutionist theory.

 

     As an aside, I find it interesting, yet disconcerting, how evolutionists keep "moving the goalposts" in their efforts to try to make their theory credible. When I was in school, our Biology textbook taught that plants first began to appear 360 million years ago. Then, 35 million years later, the first insects came into existence. But if this is so, it begs the question of how the Yucca plant survived for 35 million years without the Yucca Moth to pollinate it. Displayed below is the "Timetable of Geology," as found on page 571 of Exploring Biology, 5th ed., by Ella Thea Smith, Harcourt, Brace and Company, Chicago, IL, 1959:

 

 

     My Biology teacher didn't teach us about the amazing symbiotic relationship between the Yucca plant and the Yucca Moth, nor did anyone seem to even know such a relationship existed. But now that evolutionists have been confronted with this fact, they have subtly changed the rules of the argument by coming up with "co-evolution," a word that wasn't in our high school Biology textbook! "Co-evolution" is a new term used to describe "the process by which two (or more) species reciprocally affect each other's evolution." So even though Charles Darwin wrote that such a process would disprove (annihilate) his theory, modern evolutionists have "changed the rules," and we are now expected to believe it's a "beautiful phenomenon of nature" that the Yucca plant and Yucca Moth "just happened" to evolve at the same time (i.e., forget about the previously-taught 35 million-year gap), and it "just so happened" that neither species could reproduce without aid from the other. For such a coincidental and extraordinary process to "just happen" within the course of nature requires an incredible stretch of the imagination--yet, that is precisely what evolutionists expect us to believe occurred.

 

     But my point is this: I was about to post additional information explaining the inadequacy of Richard's hyperlinked articles when I noticed the entire discussion had been covertly removed by the unseen, silent Nextdoor moderator. So an evolutionist was permitted to promote his agenda, his comments being tolerated for many days; but when a creationist accepted his challenge, the discussion was removed within hours (maybe less). This is the state of our culture in these modern times: evilution is treated as "science," even though, from a Biblical perspective, it's a false and doomed religion. Creationism is treated as "religion," not science, and is openly ridiculed within the realm of mainstream media. I can only hope many are able to see what's really happening behind the scenes and who is actually pulling the strings.

 

     Until next month, we wish you excellent health and the wisdom to discern between truth and error, as well as the strength and determination to act accordingly.  Of course, we also wish you gentle rains in due season.

 

Updated 11/19/2024

 

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