____________________________________________________ THE GOSPEL OBSERVER "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19,20). ____________________________________________________ April 21, 1996 ____________________________________________________ Evidences of Design by Bill Carrell It has been remarked that life on earth is very resilient, and it is. But when viewed in light of conditions on other worlds in the solar system, life is extremely fragile. Not only so, but the earth has always afforded an extremely stable environment for life. Conditions here vary within very close limits. And these conditions are dynamically maintained by a complex set of controls. If the temperature of the oceans should vary more than a relatively few degrees they would either boil or freeze solid. Either way, life would disappear. Scientists tell us that the oceans contain just the right amount of water to maintain proper humidity, and to prevent the earth from being a water planet. But consider conditions on other worlds in the solar system. Mars is a barren planet with a thin atmosphere and planet-wide sand storms that reach 300 miles per hour. The sand has been pulverized to the consistency of talcum powder. Beautiful Venus has an atmosphere of corrosive acid, and a run-away greenhouse effect by which temperatures become hot enough to melt lead. Tornadic storms rage constantly over the surface of Jupiter, largest planet in the solar system. There is a big ``red eye'' there, observed for centuries, which turns out to be a huge whirling storm, big enough to swallow two earths. Mercury, the innermost planet, blasted by a giant pitiless sun has no atmosphere. Giant Neptune is a gaseous planet, with winds reaching more than 1000 miles per hour. Pluto is a frozen rock, where the sun possibly appears only as a giant star, affording little heat. Scientists once thought life might exist on one of these planets, but with the evidence of our space probes that possibility is no longer considered feasible. A ``green'' zone around the sun, called the CHZ or Continuously Habitable Zone, includes only one planet, the earth. Everything about the earth, shows evidence that it was designed as a home for life. It is no small matter that water exists here in three forms, vapor, liquid, and solid. Temperature is maintained within limits of about plus or minus 50 degrees centigrade, and the average temperature varies little more than a degree or two throughout the year. About 75% of the land lies in the northern hemisphere. Since land absorbs heat better than water, it is convenient that the orbit of the earth brings it slightly closer to the sun in the winter than in the summer. Also since the earth rotates at an angle of 23.5 degrees to the plane of its orbit around the sun, the seasons are possible. Since the continents are mostly triangular in shape, with a point toward the south, the change from land to water, allows the annual change of seasons to be as gradual as possible. Were the angle of 23.5 degrees much different, either there would be no seasons, or the seasons would be much more violent. The ice caps at both poles would probably melt and refreeze annually. French scientists recently created a computer model of the earth/moon system and found that the moon acts as a gyroscope to keep the earth at the precise angle of 23.5 degrees. If the moon weren't there, the earth would wobble as much as 85% over a period of time. The moon causes the tides as it circles the earth. But it is at just the right distance so that the tides do not flood all the land. What is less known is that it causes a ``land tide,'' lifting the land itself a few inches as it passes overhead. This gentle massage relieves some of the stress of faults which could build up and cause earthquakes more horrible than any we now experience. Also, the moon does not circle the earth at the equator, but more nearly in the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. Thus it deals evenly with all parts of the earth. The dust of the moon reflects white light, and contains glass beads which function to make the reflected light even more brilliant. Earth's atmosphere is composed of about 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen with a few other gasses in smaller amounts. The composition of the atmosphere is just right to avoid spontaneous fires from too much oxygen. It has a layer of ozone at its top, which conveniently protects us from the ultra-violet rays from the sun. The atmosphere is thick enough to burn up most meteorites which otherwise could cause great damage. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acts very much as a thermostat to maintain temperature dynamically. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. This has two beneficial effects: It maintains the balance of oxygen necessary for human beings and animal life. And it maintains a constant temperature on earth. When carbon dioxide increases it causes the earth to retain the sun's heat. This causes plants to grow more. As they grow, they produce oxygen, and remove the carbon dioxide. Thus the temperature drops. The sun sends out a extremely high speed solar wind, which could be harmful to life. Unless the wind is stopped, genetic damage on a wide scale would be the rule. Astronauts going to the moon experienced flashes of light when they closed their eyes. This was thought to be from the solar wind passing through their ship. But the magnetic field around the earth causes the wind to pass harmlessly around the earth. We see the result of this in the aurora, the northern and southern lights which appear as the solar wind strikes our upper atmosphere. These are just some of the facts about the amazingly fine-tuned environment in which we live. Scientists can only speculate as to why these things are true. And for some they have no idea at all. Is it not reasonable to believe that a Supreme Intelligence made it this way? ___________________________________________ "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His Hands" (Psalm 19:1). ___________________________________________ The Big Bang by Bill Carrell You'll likely be reading a lot about the Big Bang in this folder and others like it. There are some who don't think it ever happened. It may be around for a while though, because it provides an umpteenth billionth of a second where evolutionists can hide from God! They can squeeze the whole universe down into a dimensionless dot no bigger than a period on this page! It used to be a ``pea,'' but now it's a dot. But then they face the embarrassing question of the ``Dot Maker.'' But they've solved that. They modestly admit that they don't know what happened in that tiny fraction of a second before the dot formed! We are graciously allowed to believe that God made the dot. They don't know if He did it; and, of course, we can't know either, they think. So we are permitted to believe God did it, providing we humbly confess that we have no reason whatever for even believing in God. I agree with you, that there is no justification for believing that this explosion actually happened. And we have lots of scientific backing. Eric J. Lerner, author of ``The Big Bang Never Happened'' (Sky & Telescope, February, 1992), says that the theory is threatened by an avalanche of contrary observations. He lists several things that should be so if the Bang happened, including the fact that there has not been enough time for the universe to expand to its present configuration. He estimated it would take at least 60 billion years. ``Not one quantitative prediction of the Big Bang now accords with observation.'' The scientific community is like any other group of people--they're human beings. All scientists agree to the principle of scientific objectivity, but not all follow it. Politics plays a part in science, just as it unfortunately plays a part in religion. There are very good and honorable men and women who are scientists, just as there are very good men and women who are religionists. And there are very good scientists--quite a lot of them--who believe in God. Some are just afraid to admit it. And there are some in both groups who are less than honest, to say the least. There are very good scientific theories and doctrines, just as there are very good religious views. But there are very bad ideas that hang on merely because no one wants to challenge them. ___________________________________________ ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE? by Bill Carrell More and more these days we are seeing attention paid in the press, on TV and radio, to questions of life in outer space, to the origins of the universe, of life, and of human existence. Some may view this with alarm, as evidence of increasing pressure being brought to bear on Christian faith and the Bible. But may I suggest that conditions have never been better for an aggressive counter attack by those who believe in God and the integrity of His Word. It is characteristic of atheistic evolutionists to view belief in God as the Creator with the utmost disdain and contempt. But in doing so it seems they become more and more reckless, making claims and speculations they can in no way defend if brought to task. For example, in the May, 1996 issue of Reader's Digest is an article condensed from Time Magazine entitled ``Are We Alone in the Universe.'' There is great excitement in the scientific world about discoveries of possible huge Jupiter- like planets circling distant stars. The presence even of such huge, inhospitable worlds gives hope that the Milky Way ``must be bursting with other worlds and that there is life out there, somewhere.'' New scientific satellites are being launched by NASA and European science groups which, it is hoped will shed more light on the possibilities of life ``out there.'' Since 1960 a search for extraterrestrial intelligence (known as SETI) has been going on. Millions of dollars have been invested in establishing listening posts around the globe for radio signals from the intelligent beings supposedly living out there somewhere. Nothing has been discovered thus far, but many continue to hope. Recently an even more ambitious effort called BETA has been set up with an 84 foot dish antenna near Boston designed to sweep the heavens on billions of channels for signs of life. Nothing has been discovered, but they are still hopeful. ``I have no doubts,'' says BETA director and Harvard physicist Paul Horowitz. ``Intelligent life in the universe? Guaranteed. Intelligent life in our galaxy? So overwhelmingly likely that I'd give you almost any odds.'' Really!? First of all it should be noted that whether extraterrestrial life exists or not poses no threat to faith in God or the Bible. The Bible says absolutely nothing about whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. The nearest thing to it is found in Matthew 24:31 and Mark 13:27. ``And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.'' ``The uttermost part of heaven'' does not necessarily refer to outer space, although it could. At any rate, if there are intelligent responsible beings out there when the Lord returns, they will miss neither the hope of heaven, nor God's judgment against the wicked. In ``The Myth of Natural Origins'' by Ashby Camp, page 36 it is stated that 2,000 different functioning enzymes are needed to duplicate even a bacterium. And the odds of assembling this many enzymes in proper order is one in 10 followed by 40,000 zeros. This expresses the odds of only ONE bacterium forming by accident The odds against the tens of millions of species of life on earth originating by accident is many times greater than this. ``To appreciate the magnitude of a number like 10 to the 40,000 power, one should know that there are only an estimated 10 to the 80th power atoms in the known universe....'' If every atom in the universe were itself a universe, there would be only 10 to the 160th power atoms. The odds, therefore, declares Sir Fred Hoyle, that 2,000 enzymes could assemble themselves by natural processes is ``an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.'' But back to the Reader's Digest article, ``Although astronomers increasingly suspect that bio-friendly planets may be abundant in the universe, the chemical steps leading to life remain largely mysterious.'' Mysterious indeed! The formation of life is more than just a chemical process. Living things have mechanical structures as well. Chemical processes might, for example, lead to the formation of a plastic goop. But accidentally forming that goop into useful objects, or the fabric of living organisms is still another giant and mysterious step. ``Traditionally,'' the Digest writer continues, ``biologists believed that life is a freak -- the result of a zillion-to-one accidental concatenation of molecules. And Darwinian selection is blind. The path of evolution is merely a random walk through the realm of possibilities. If this is right, there can be no innate drive toward more complex systems, including consciousness and intelligence.'' The probability of even the simplest living organism forming by accident has been likened to the probability of a 747 airplane resulting from a tornado passing through a junk yard, or to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a print factory. As scientific knowledge increases the things needed to make Darwinian evolution possible have increased until even the atheistic scientists are a bit embarrassed. So they must come up with new theories. ``There is, however,'' the Digest article continues, ``a contrary view that is gaining strength: complexity can emerge spontaneously through a process of self-organization. If matter and energy have an in-built tendency to amplify and channel organized complexity, the odds against the formation of life and the subsequent evolution of intelligence would be drastically shortened.'' One wonders how anyone could make a statement like that and keep a straight face! Where is there the slightest evidence that inanimate matter can organize itself spontaneously into anything as complex as a living being? Such a view is ``gaining strength'' only because its proponents hope that no one will question it. Like evolutionism itself, if it can be stated often enough without serious objection, it will somehow, mysteriously change from a hypothesis to a scientific theory and then to a scientific fact. ``Meanwhile, the astronomers who are looking for planets are sounding downright cocky.'' It is time that we call them to task on their fantasy and bring them down to earth. ___________________________________________ From the editor: Thanks to Bill Carrell for all these interesting articles I was able to retrieve from the Gary's-List archive. ___________________________________________ Creation "speaks" of God's invisible attributes, eternal power, and divine nature (Romans 1:19). Have you been listening? ________________________________________ Tri-State CHURCH OF CHRIST 713 13th Street, Ashland, Kentucky 41101 Sunday: 10:00 A.M. Bible class 10:50 A.M. Worship 6:30 P.M. Worship Wednesday: 7:30 P.M. Bible study evangelist/editor: Tom Edwards (606) 325-9742 e-mail: tedwards@wwd.net ________________________________________