The 5 Animals that Disproves God?

I recall one Sunday evening at Bracknell Baptist Church sometime in the late eighties. We were at that time meeting at a school assembly hall. This was due to the size of the congregation that has outgrown its old building on Church Road. Soon, a new permanent meeting place was to be built and opened, to be called The Kerith Centre. 

In the meantime, we met in a nearby school assembly hall. On the front stage stood two women who had just returned from one of the charismatic revivals that were taking place in North America. One of these I have heard about was in Toronto, Ontario, and the other one in Pensacola, Florida. Which one of the two churches these married women flew across the Atlantic to visit, at this time, I can't fully remember, but that doesn't matter. However, the effect their testimony had on us cannot be forgotten.

After several minutes of talking, all of a sudden, the whole congregation went berserk! All around me, people - fully grown adults - started to wail, to cry, to laugh, to scream, to make strange noises. There was violent body shaking, trembling of the hands, and people falling to the floor. The whole scene of pandemonium was so chaotic, any child or unchurched would have doubled up in fright.

I was the only person who sat there stone-cold sober! I looked around. If this whole scenario was a visitation of the Holy Spirit, then why did He bypass me entirely? All I did was sit there and said or done nothing but watch and listen to everything that was going on around me.

It was tempting, at the time, to believe I was ignored by the Holy Spirit because I was still in my sins. Unlikely. Even back then, I was familiar with the Bible, and I was already aware that there is nothing in Holy Scripture, whether in the Old Testament or the New, that had anything parallel to this "revival."

I recall the husband of one of the women on the stage. He didn't think of me very highly, and I doubt whether he thought highly of the senior pastor, either. But each week, he could be seen "dancing in the Spirit" at the back of the church while everyone else remained at their place during worship, thus giving the impression of being at a higher spiritual level. Then, some years later and after I left the church for the one at Ascot, I heard through the grapevine that his wife - the one who stood on the stage - attended a house party and has met another man with whom a relationship between them has begun. This led to her divorce from her husband.

As already mentioned, all this came through the grapevine and as such, I can't verify the story. But having known her husband for quite a few years, I wasn't too surprised. If a spirit of self-righteousness had developed in him, and that was something I also saw, it would come to no surprise that sooner or later, his wife would find solace in another man who showed her enough affection as not to be so judgemental over her.

If such a revival had carried with it a sense of optimism for the church - never mind the scandal that followed. At least that can be swept under the carpet. If I wish to believe that the hysteria was of God, despite having no backing from the Bible, and so, in today's Daily Mail, the Saturday Essay was about the glorious optimism for the English. After developing a successful vaccine rollout which is paving the way to freedom after sixteen months of lockdowns, everything is looking up. Then, after a quarter of a century of losing to Germany, England knocks out its enemy from the European Football championships. As we eagerly wait for the final whistle that will end tonight's game against Ukraine, the nation is optimistic enough for our team to play in the semi-finals. And who dares wins? Perhaps the Final too? After 55 years since 1966 of missing the Final altogether, England is optimistic.

England is also proud, due to Brexit, that big international firms such as the Japanese Nissan carmakers choosing to set up a factory in Sunderland, northern England, thus providing jobs for many. And so, also due to Brexit, the economy will recover at a fast rate - not that surprising really - when considering market demand. After months of not spending on non-essential items, people will be ready to open their wallets. I tend to believe that it was the mass vaccination and not Brexit, that will springboard the economy to health.

If England frees itself fully from the pandemic by mass vaccination, wins the European Cup, and experience a thriving economy mainly due to Brexit, then indeed, the nation has reasons for pride and glory! But something is missing. Just as the "revival" was raising hopes for a higher spiritual ecstasy in the church, the woman on stage who ushered in the hysteria was herself already finding godly living at home difficult.

Likewise, the hopes and dreams of a golden age for post-Brexit Britain has a gaping hole in the middle - a lack of faith in God. And as this national apostasy is accelerating, I actually dread rather than anticipate the future. Will a new variant of the virus, totally vaccine-resistant, finally wipe us all out? Or a national takeover by a foreign power so strong, all we can do is submit without a fight?

Who knows? Earlier this week, I watched a video by Harrison Cother, an ex-Jehovah's Witness. He has made only eight videos but between them, he had already collected 1,238,984 views since he joined YouTube on January 31st 2021. His latest video, 5 Animals That Disprove God, had already collected 114,000 views since it was posted just six days previously.

Harrison Cother is a very handsome young man with a gentle spirit, and I believe it's that, rather than the video's content, which drew in an audience with astonishing rapidity. An ex-Jehovah's Witness turned atheist, his growing knowledge of the natural world was not only the reason to renounce his faith but also leaves any Christian apologetic in a difficult situation. The five animals he refers to are the bed bug, the snake, the box jellyfish, the mosquito, and the human being.

Cother refers to the bed bug as a blood-sucking parasite that feeds on human blood whilst the victim is asleep. Designed by Jehovah to creep up in the darkest night, and drawn by the carbon dioxide in the exhaled breath, this bug gorges itself with blood during the night - such is God's creation - the same God who has forbidden the consumption of the blood of other animals by humans under the penalty of death (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11-14).

The box jellyfish is another mentioned by Cother. He even mentions a dispute between the Father and the Son on this issue! Why on earth did you create such a creature? the Son asks, Oh, because I am God, the Father answers. I can create what I like! And that is despite that many humans, whom God loves, were badly hurt by the jellyfish's ferocious sting and many had died of it, including children.

Another pest, according to Cother, is the mosquito. Whilst also sucking human blood, this insect has spread malaria throughout history. Countless people had died of malaria, especially children. Yet, God sees fit to create such an insect with the foreknowledge of the lives these creatures will take through such a horrible disease.

Harrison Cother, here on Twitter.

The snake is another. Many species of snake consume eggs laid by other animals, or if the egg is too big, then it eats the hatchling. Other species of snake strangle their prey or injected it with poison. As for egg-eating snakes, this is strange when foretold and designed by a loving God when he says that if an unborn child dies as a result of a blow to the mother's tummy, the offended must be punished by death - a life for a life -Exodus 21:22-23.

Finally, Harrison Cother ranks the human being as the number one animal that proves the non-existence of God. And the failure of God's pinnacle of Creation lies with pregnancy and childbirth. Here, he names 31 ailments that can occur during pregnancy and childbirth, along with the death rate of mothers giving birth. He quotes that in the present 21st Century estimate made by the World Health Organisation, up to 300,000 deaths occur during childbirth every year worldwide. That is one death every two minutes. He then gives an illustration of flying to Saudi Arabia to cut off a man's hand. When the innocent victim asks why his hand was severed, the explanation given was that his great, great, great...great...great...grandfather once stole something and as such, his descendant must bear the punishment. Hence Eve's sin and the punishment suffered by all her descendants.

As a JW, Cother used to quote Genesis 3:15 - I will greatly multiply your pain during childbirth, in pain, you shall bring forth children...and he accuses Creationists of blaming him for ranking the human being as the worst example of God's creation. He then blames God for saying, "I will multiply your pain in childbirth..." rather than merely "Your pain will merely be a consequence of your sin."

As a Christian and a creationist myself, I'll be the first to step forward and ask: how can I give an answer to such an intelligent and observing atheist? The only thing I can say is at the Edenic Curse, which is what this is, there was a dynamic anatomical change that not only took place in Eve's body, but in Adam's too, and in every animal alive at that time - on land, in the sea, and in the air. Personally, the need to defecate might have arisen from this curse, and some species of animals that were vegetarian before the Curse became carnivorous afterwards. And the Curse of Genesis 3:16 is well known by Harrison Cother.

Also, there are several things, in my mind, that's worth considering: One is the time the Curse was passed. Unfortunately, we are not told of the time-lapse between the initial creation and the Fall. And also worth considering that by comparison to what we see today, there weren't that many land animals back then, either. For example, the question of speciation. The feline family, for one, has at present, the lion, the tiger, the leopard, the cheetah, the puma, the wild cat, and the domestic cat. All these seven could have arisen from just one pair - a male and a female - during Adam's time. The Equine family is another example - the horse, the pony, the zebra, the onager, the kianger, the ass, the quagga, and the mule - all could have arisen from the one pair. The same applies to the primates, starting with just one pair of ape-like creatures. Even the elephant, the mastodon and the mammoth could have arisen from the one pair. And so, I can go on and on. For a further example, could the brontosaur, the diplodocus and the brachiosaur have arisen from just one pair? (By the way, is the Behemoth in Job 40:14-24 a description of a Brontosaur?)

We are not told how long it took for Adam to name every animal that God brought to him, but assuming it took a considerable short time may indicate that in their original state, for some to turn into carnivores most likely occurred before the birth of any of their offspring, therefore, this might not have been a big issue as one can imagine when examining speciation that exists now.

I agree with Harrison Cother that there are many bad things in the natural world. such as the Cotesia wasp which larvae burrow into a live caterpillar. By contrast, the fossil record shows how ancient organisms, including dinosaurs, died by violence and drowning. Several fossils were found of one creature in the process of eating another when it came to a sudden end. Cother even holds one such fossil up close for us to examine. Or a pregnant ichthyosaur meeting its sudden end, found, I believe, at the Jurassic Coast of Southwest England. I have visited the Natural History Museum in Oxford. At one gallery, there is a rock slab with many fish fossils preserved on it, all fully complete with their scales. Dead fish don't settle to the seafloor. Instead, they are normally eaten by scavengers, or they decompose entirely. These fossil fish were preserved intact as if met by some sudden catastrophe.

Could the record of Noah's Flood be the making of the entire fossil record?

Next, I would like to say to Cother that he was lied to by the Watchtower Society from childhood. With all matters relating to topics specified by the Watchtower, the issue with the Trinity, I feel, is of the most importance.

Jehovah's Witnesses deny the Trinity - that is, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all equal in the Godhead. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but these are not three gods but one God. This is the central doctrine of the Christian faith and sets it apart from all other religions.

Tied with the Trinity is God's plan of salvation. If the Son Jesus is not equal to the Father, then he is not capable of saving anyone completely. The Watchtower knows this and plays a very subtle psychological trick - that if Jesus Christ cannot save fully, then it's up to man to save himself. Therefore, absolute obedience to the Society - in door-to-door work (known as a Kingdom Publisher) - along with accepting everything handed down from the Society's table without ever questioning what they say. In other words, for the hope of salvation, you must be a slave of the Watchtower Society!

If Jesus was truly God and truly man - in theological circles, known as the Hypostatic Union, then He's able to save completely. And if God can save completely, then the organisation would crumble.

True salvation involves justification by faith - or imputed righteousness. That is, the Righteousness of Christ imputed into the sinner's account. That means the Father seeing the believer in exactly the same way He sees His Son! To be in Christ and Christ in you. The Watchtower doesn't teach any of this, indeed, it cannot, or it would fall to pieces. But it's clearly taught by Paul in his letter to the Romans, chapters 3, 4, and 5. Romans 8 is also worth a read - without any of the Watchtower's interference.

If this wonderful plan of salvation is to be set in motion, then Jesus had to die by crucifixion on a cross (note: not merely impaled on an upright stake!) Then He was buried and on the third day, rose physically from the tomb. The Watchtower denies a physical Resurrection. Instead, they promote only a spiritual one, the ghost of Jesus rising from his dead body. But the physical Resurrection of Jesus Christ is absolutely essential for salvation, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15. Again, that's worth reading on its own. If Christ did not rise physically, then there's no salvation.

I have a lot of respect for Harrison Cother. His gentle spirit while explaining why he has turned to atheism had earned my respect and not any form of judgement. If only he understood the very glory of God in his plan of salvation, that is way, way better than what the Watchtower can only offer. Who knows, he can see how bad our present natural world can be, and still trust in his Triune God for his wonderful salvation.