from Does God Exist? March/April 2010

DOES GOD EXIST? SCHOLARSHIP AVAILABLE. Over the past 42 years the Does God Exist? ministry has given $1,000 scholarships to aspiring students to be applied towards college or technical school tuition. To be eligible students must have a high school diploma or GED equivalent and be attending an accredited post high school educational institution in the fall of 2010. Selection will be based on a competitive essay on the subject “Science and Faith are Not Enemies.” Registration forms are available from John Clayton, 1555 Echo Valley Drive, Niles, MI 49120 or jncdge@aol.com. The deadline date for submission of essays and registration forms is June 1, 2010.

YEAR END REPORT AVAILABLE. A detailed report of this ministry for 2009 is available. The work done and the financial data are included. If you are a financial supporter of this program, you should have received a copy. Otherwise just let us know and we will mail one to you.

REMINDER OF NEW MATERIALS FROM DOES GOD EXIST? In 2009 a number of new materials were developed by our ministry. There are four new programs in the DVD series, bringing it to 28 programs on seven discs. We also have a new course written at the freshman college level for high school and undergraduate student use. This course has a teacher’s guide for class use or can be taken by mail free of charge. We also have a new children’s book titled Frogs and Toads: God’s Bug Snatchers available — our fifteenth children’s book. Let us know if you have an interest in any of these materials or visit our Web sites www.doesgodexist.org and www.doesgodexist.tv.

HIV ORIGINS. There has been a multiplicity of explanations of how the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) got into the human population. Recent studies of preserved tissues shows that the most widespread HIV strain (known as group M) came into existence around 1908 and has been in chimpanzees since the time of Columbus. Cases have now been traced to 1959 in the Congo and in Haiti by 1966 and in the U.S. by 1969. Human activity has caused the spread to be so dramatic including the eating of bush meat and sexual activity. Source:  Scientific American, September 2009, page 91.

EXTRASOLAR PLANET NUMBER PASSES 400. Science News (November 21, 2009, page 14) announced that 32 new planets had been discovered and carried an announcement that the number of known planets orbiting stars other than our sun has now passed 400. Scott Gaudi of Ohio State writes in Astronomy magazine (February 2010, page 50) that only one planet has been found that has a mass less than 10 times that of Earth, that one being 4.8 times Earth’s mass.  The planet has been labeled CoRoT-7b and is 1.7 times larger in size than Earth. Planets are a natural consequence of star formation, and finding so many is not a surprise. The uniqueness of Earth continues to astound many researchers as these planets have highly elliptical orbits and unique chemical make-ups.

POLLUTION AND HOMOSEXUALITY. Recent studies have shown that in some U.S. rivers 91 percent of the male large-mouth bass were affected with a phenomenon which causes male bass to become an “intersex.” What that means is that the male sex organs are producing immature female eggs. Pollution is suspected as being the cause of these males becoming females, but a more significant question for humans is whether this same pollution is connected to homosexuality. Dr. Jo Ellen Hinck found intersex male bass at 34 of 111 sites in the Columbia, Colorado, and Mississippi rivers. In a related story Science News reports (December 19, 2009, page 10) that a family of industrial chemicals known as phthalates used in plastics causes a reduction in testosterone in children. This results in changes in the children’s choices of toys. Diethylhexyl phthalate seemed to be especially involved in this. Women who had high phthalates during mid-pregnancy had an unusually high percentage of boys who wanted to play with dolls, dress up in girl’s clothing, and reject playing with toy cars. If pollution is doing this and humans drink the same water as the fish, could there be chemical causes of homosexuality? Time will tell, but we do want to emphasize that a tendency does not mean there is no choice. However, the issue of whether someone is born gay may have more complicated variables than anyone imagined. Source: Popular Science, December 2009, page 17.

GORE FILM SUED IN BRITAIN. A British citizen has filed suit against his government for forcing children to watch An Inconvenient Truth, the environmental documentary by Al Gore. The plaintiff claims the film is roughly half scientific material, 30 percent pure politics, and 20 percent sentimental mush. The judge agreed that the film promoted a partisan political view and should be voluntary. Source: Pollution Engineering, November 2007, page 19.

MEGAFLOOD IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. Science News (January 2, 2010, page 5) reports that new studies have shown the Mediterranean Sea was at one time like a giant bathtub, and a breach of the area between Morocco and Spain through the Strait of Gibraltar caused the Atlantic Ocean to flood the area. We have pointed out in the past that the Glomar Challenger has shown a fault and water fall gouge in the area, but new data shows stratagraphic evidence to expand the Challenger’s data. The timing is difficult to ascertain. The article puts the event well before man, but the methods of dating are not very good because of the geology of the area. What it does show is that flooding is very much a part of the story of the area where the Bible account takes place, and as more data becomes available a picture of what contributed to the flood of Noah may become more clear.

DEAD SEA SCROLL AUTHORSHIP AGAIN. The Dead Sea Scrolls have been a topic of huge interest to apologetics. Not only do the scrolls support much of the Old Testament, but they give a much more accurate history than most other finds and documents. The question of whether they were written by a sect of Jews called the Essenes, or someone else, has been an area of great debate. In the Smithsonian magazine (January 2010, page 40) is a good article that talks about authorship and what some of the evidence is for the scrolls’ authors and their impact on Christianity. New archeological data is coming at an increasing rate, and much of it is very supportive of the Bible and the credibility of Christianity. The Biblical Archeology Review (January/February 2010) has a number of new finds in this area to report including a painting of Paul and an underground hall with many Christian symbols. As more data becomes available we will let our readers know about it.

CREATIONIST MUSEUMS AND MONEY. There is a growing number of creationist museums popping up all over the country. Atheists constantly maintain that all religious activity is designed to make money for the people promoting the religion. In the Reports of the National Center for Science Education (September/October 2009, page 17), an atheist journal with heavy funding of its own, there is a report on the incomes of creationists as revealed by the IRS. Some of the numbers given include Answers in Genesis (AIG) with twenty million dollars in assets in 2006 and paying Ken Ham $188,655. Four other AIG employees were getting over $100,000 a year. When the museum opened it was valued at 27 million dollars and has been collecting $20 a person admission fees with some 714,000 visitors. Kent Hovind who ran Dinosaur Adventure Land made bank deposits of over a million dollars yearly before being jailed for tax fraud. Even The Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas reports $400,000 in revenues, although Carl Baugh, the director, draws a salary of $71,730, and John Morris of the Institute for Creation Research  made $89,049 in 2007, which the journal considers modest.

One problem with these museums is that they promote doctrinal views inconsistent with the teachings of the Bible. Many times their science is also bad. We should not try to compete with the secular world in flashy entertainment functions, and need to use our finances for constructive avenues of service. We would urge caution in visiting museums of this type.

FRANCIS COLLINS FORMS BIOLOGOS FOUNDATION. We have mentioned Francis Collins in this periodical several times in recent years. He was the director of the Human Genome Project, and has been involved as a believer in a number of debates with leading atheists. Collins has started a foundation to promote a positive view of the relationship between science and faith. Collins has some wonderful material. We reviewed his book The Language of God several issues ago, and his debate with Richard Dawkins was very well done. Collins is a theistic evolutionist, and believes that evolution is how God created life. We have pointed out that as evolution changes, his view will have to change, and we differ with him on that approach. However, his new Web site at www.biologos.org has some useful material and will be helpful.

FEATHERED DINOSAUR ISSUE CONTINUES. A dinosaur named Sinosauropteryx was claimed by experts to be a turkey-size dinosaur that had “protofeathers” to keep it warm and was a link to the birds. Experts now say that the marks thought to be protofeathers are collagen fibers and not related to feathers at all. The debate goes on, but remember that this has no biblical implications. The Bible talks about the flesh of birds, fish, mammals, and humans (1 Corinthians 15:39) and whether the dinosaurs are birds or scaled like fish is not a biblical issue. Source: Science Illustrated, March/April 2008, page 23.

MORE ABORTION PROBLEMS. There is a variety of social and health issues involved with abortion, but the mental and emotional problems of women who have had abortions are not made public by the media very often. A study in New Zealand showed that women who have had abortions have twice the rate of major depression as women who were never pregnant and 35 percent higher than women who had chosen to continue the pregnancy. A California study showed that women who had given birth and later had an abortion were 929 percent more likely to use marijuana and 460 percent more likely to use other illicit drugs. A University of Minnesota study showed a tenfold increase in suicides for teens who had aborted during the previous six months. The emotional costs of abortion seem to be an unreported complication of this destructive process. Source: Family News in Focus from Dr. James Dobson, January 2008, page 4.

BATTLE OVER MISS USA REMARK ON HOMOSEXUALITY. We do not endorse beauty pageants in any way, but last year’s Miss USA competition in Las Vegas had an incident which brings up a number of issues and has precipitated a great deal of controversy. Miss California was Carrie Prejean who attends San Diego Christian College. Ms. Prejean was asked before a national television audience to voice her perspective on same-sex marriage. Her response was “I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman; no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman.” The question was asked by a homosexual activist who calls himself Perez Hilton who then proceeded to use the incident to promote his views on the subject and bring a great deal of negative attention to Ms. Prejean. Why a gay activist was allowed to use the pageant as a means of promoting his views is not clear. Is believing that marriage should be between a man and a woman a position that cannot be voiced in public? Do personal views of public figures have to conform to the media interpretation on every social issue that is out there? It seems we have entered a very scary time and this incident is just a small indicator of how far our culture has swung into complete rejection of any biblical standard.

FAITH AND HEALTH. An article in Time magazine (February 12, 2009, page 62) continued the debate about prayer and belief in God and their relation to health. It was a fairly balanced article, but still fell into the trap of making assumptions that cannot be justified. Whenever you compare a “prayed for” group with a “not prayed for” group, you have problems. There is no way for anyone to know what silent prayers are going on, and assuming that an organized prayer is more effective than a personalized one, is a very dubious assumption to make. The article was interesting reading.

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