In Him We Have Our Being.

Another working week done. The apocalyptic weather the Met Office had forecasted for Friday did not arrive until twelve hours later than predicted, allowing me to complete the week's scheduled round of work and finish for the weekend. Then earlier today (Saturday) I was off for my weekly dose of the sauna, a wonderful antithesis to the stresses of the week.

 

Such as when my General Practitioner (medical doctor) decided to reduce my wife's prescription. Whether this is normal procedure in the treatment of patients or, as the Media has been suggesting, a money-saving scheme as a result of National Health Service reform imposed by our present Government, I cannot say. However, an appointment with the doctor for next week should, I hope, clear things up. A normal procedure to wean the patient off drugs should, of course, be the norm for any doctor to carry out. However, with a reduced intake of prescribed medicine, my dear beloved has suffered relapses in her illness which I have found particularly distressing - and wondering whether she will end up being taken by ambulance back to Accident & Emergency at Reading Royal Berks Hospital once again.

 

No doubt, the NHS was, and is, a brilliant idea. For the benefit of readers outside the UK, it was started by the Labour Government in 1948, it is funded by National Insurance, a tax paid by every income earner to form a national public purse to enable those who cannot pay for private hospitals to receive treatment. Over the years, both my wife and I have much to thank them for. Yet, with her present prescription reduced, together with her relapse, I have been wondering if they were putting money above her welfare as a patient. This, after reading the papers as well as watching news bulletins that certain types of drugs are withheld or have limited use to save money. And what I find so annoying is that a rich person can make just one call to a private hospital and he will be instantly admitted and given hotel-rate accommodation, not to mention all the constant attention from the medics. Likewise with any celebrity, whether sportsman, actor, singer, writer, performer, or a member of the Royals, they will always be given preferential treatment.

 

It is with these things that I can feel discouraged and down-hearted. This, I think, is why I let out a blast at the English class system so often in these blogs. Preference. The bestowing of greater importance on one person over another. In our language we even have the initials VIP - very important person, and I couldn't help feeling bemused a few years ago when I walked past the entrance of London Zoo at Regents Park, and I saw the VIP entrance separated from the main entrance used by everyone else, and I have wondered whether if any of the animals in captivity would be any more impressed if, for example, the Mayor of London was gawking at them as he sauntered by! 

 

Although I have wished I have done a lot better at school, and found myself working as a microbiologist in a research laboratory instead of as a self-employed window cleaner - I am thankful to God that he has given as all magnificent brains with not only to make decisions and solve problems mathematically - various things no other species of animal has the capacity of doing - but with the ability to store up information long after we had left school and passed our final exams. I have to admit my gratefulness to such academics for making the results of their research and discoveries public. One of the branches of science I find so intriguing is the study of the cell, particularly its nucleus and the genome.

 

We have discovered that the nucleus of every cell in the human body (except the red blood cells) has a nucleus containing 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent, each one containing deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, which resembles a long winding ladder with each rung, or nucleotide, consisting of pairs of nucleobase - guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine - with adenine pairing up with thymine, and guanine with cytosine. In a human cell, Chromosome 1, the longest being over 80mm in length, has nearly 247,200,000 nucleotides, that is the "rungs" of the "ladder." Each nucleotide must be arranged in a certain order in very much the same way as a binary code runs a computer program. If one of the nucleotides is malfunctioning, or at a wrong place, the cell will die.

 

This is a very simplified version of what is otherwise a lengthy study. But the reality of DNA which contains the genetic code inherited from our parents is absolutely staggering! It is a vastly complex structure, each nuclotide being in its correct order and sequence that is needed for the cell to live and function. I, for one, can't help but give glory to God our Creator. Surely, evolution by chance coming up with such a vast complexity as this would be a stretch of the imagination, not to mention that the age of the entire Universe cannot wait for such a structure to develop without divine intervention. This, I think, why God has given us the capacity to learn about ourselves -to recognise that we have a Heavenly Creator whose will is for us humans to partake in and enjoy the love existing between Father Son and Holy Spirit.

 

It looks to me that our very cellular makeup with its highly complex genome system testifies of God's love for us as individuals, and as we are all equal in his sight, yet everyone of us is born with a sinful nature which deserves judgement, yet he commands everyone of us to repent, that is to say, to change our minds about Jesus Christ, and believing him to be our risen Saviour and Lord. The Gospel is here at one with science. Just as the complex genome system found in all human cells have no respect for social class or status, so likewise the Gospel is the same for all classes - to believe in Jesus Christ as Saviour and be saved from the penalty of our sins.

 

Although the English in particular generally adore their Majesty the Queen, and no doubt, if anything happens to her health, the doctors will rush at her aid without delay - yet it may be surprising to some that God allows the monarch to exist because of our sinful natures, as well as establishing authorities as a means to keep evil in check. The truth is, after existing for several hundred years as a Theocracy - that means under God's direct rule - the whole nation of Israel approached the seer Samuel to ask for a king to lead them and fight their battles (1 Samuel 8.) God was actually displeased with Israel's request, but after bidding the prophet to warn the nation of the consequences in having a king, at the end God complied, and Israel became a kingdom for the first time in its history, with the annointing of its first king, Saul. 

 

In later years, Israel's kings were particularly hard on their subjects. King Solomon, the son of David was very demanding, according to 1Kings 12:12-16, when King Rehoboam, Solomon's son and heir to the throne, announced to his subjects that he will be much harsher than his father was. Israel's period as a kingdom was a trying time, which pushed further home their distrust in God as their King, and towards their eventual ruin by exile into Babylon under their new pagan ruler Nebuchadnezzar.

 

Our Queen, of course, is nothing like Solomon, Rehoboam or Nebuchadnezzar. Instead, for the last sixty years since her enthronement, she has served her country well, earning the respect the nation owed her. But although she had served the country well, as a nation, the attitude of her subjects shows the same lack of trust in God as ancient Israel demonstrated. For centuries, the British had always looked to their monarch as not only the nation's leader, but also as an intercessory between the nation and God, very much as the Pope is the in-between before God for the Catholic Church. I believe that it is having the Queen as Head of State, and the pageantry that follows every time she steps onto the street, or is seen in public sitting in her coach, that acts as a base rock for the social class system with its pecking order of preferences.

 

But our intricate body structure, with our magnificent cell and genome system, our health and wellbeing testifies of the universal creation and love of God, who has no favouritism, no pecking order, no national or cultural class stratum. This is endorsed in Scripture which says that whoever despises a poor man despises the God who made him. Jesus himself had always respected the poor and needy and had no hesitation to minister to them and to meet their needs - as well as proclaiming to them the Kingdom of God, and their willingness to enter.

 

And also knowing how much God loves the church as a corporate body, each congregation making up the body and bride of Christ. Therefore isn't it most important that every individual believer within the Body of Christ should treat each other as equals, without any pecking order of any kind. In the church there should be no snobbery, no academic preferences, no social class, no nationalism, no preferences for any political party, no greater respect for those in the professions. We as a body of believers are as equal to each other as each cell is equal to each other in our bodies, regardless to what part of the body the cell is serving.

 

And maybe it's time for the NHS to learn the same thing about discrimination between patients. After all, their doctors and staff know about the workings of the genome than most of the rest of us.

 

 

 

 

A Small Block To The Reality Of Evolution

Although there is a lot to discuss here, I will try to keep this blog as short as possible
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In my last two articles, I was approached by a commentator, Bryce (I hope he doesn't mind me using his screen name here, else I would need to edit). He discredited my views on Biblical Creation when I wrote in the first of the two blogs, Our Eternal Home when I made the suggestion that man and Dinosaurs co-existed within the same time frame, rather than millions of years apart. In my second article on this subject, Answer To An Evolutionist, I gave what was a history lesson, as Bryce called it, and reminded me that I made no referral to the subject of Evolution on a biological sense. He also challenged me to mention incidents in the Bible which could not occur in real life - such as a talking snake or someone coming back from the dead. I finished my last blog with the words, In my next blog I will show something that will shatter the entire theory of Uniformitarianism, on which evolution rests. Watch this space.

As for incidents in the Bible, I will answer that because Bryce had never seen a talking snake, or for that matter, a talking donkey (Numbers 22:28-31). Neither had he ever seen someone rise from the dead. He is walking by sight, not by faith. The Bible itself tells us that faith is believing, and hoping for things not yet seen (Hebrews 11:1-2). Like the skeptics alive during Leonardo Di Vinci's day, who laughed at his suggestion that one day man will fly, and so developed a contraption with flapping wings. When the prototype of the plane fell to the ground, people turned away, shaking their heads. And who would ever thought that one day a small box would play music and sing songs without anybody inside the box or standing near it?

I ended my last blog about Uniformitarianism, because in the days of Darwin, and in the many years to follow, Lyell's Uniformitarian Geology of stratified rocks were classified by the fossils found in them. The famous "Index Fossil" - that of the Trilobite which was found in the Cambrian rock stratum, was one classic example explaining the theory of evolution. Darwin and his followers knew nothing of microbiology, the study of the cell, as the microscope was of a later development. Had he known, it would have been most likely that Darwin would have recanted on his new evolutionary theory. As such, the topic of this blog has been changed from Uniformitarian Geology to that of Microbiology, in answer to Bryce's concern. And I hope it won't be too long for the reader.

Bryce likened my Creationist views, to my mind, to that of pseudoscience, when he asked whether I really believed "with a flick of his finger, God was able to bring life into existence" and then went back on himself when realising that it was not good for Adam to be alone, without a mate, and performed an operation using anaesthetics to put him into a deep sleep. Why not just snap his fingers and - wolla! - Eve comes into existence? Why the rib? Perhaps God did know better - that woman coming out of man would result in a much more intimate relationship. Unfortunately, sin had spoiled this relationship to the point in bringing in divorce laws. But this was not originally intended.

Pseudoscience, or false knowledge. That, I believe, is how Bryce sees my views of Creationism. As total nonsense. But it can be very popular. Author Erich von Daniken had acquired a fame with his book Chariots of the Gods? (1968), still in print today. Here, von Daniken puts forth a theory that around 40,000 years ago our planet was visited by a race of super-human space gods, who allowed primitive man to see their advanced technology. Two cases of this is found in the Bible. First, von Daniken insisted that the tabernacle built by Moses was a radio transmitter through which he can communicate with the gods. That despite the fact that this transmitter was an extremely primitive construction for a race of interstellar space travelers! Then there was this helicopter, so according to von Daniken, that was seen by the prophet Ezekiel (Chapter 1). A proof without doubt that aviation existed some 600 years BC. But unfortunately, von Daniken, when introducing the concept of such an ancient helicopter, deliberately omitted the words, And I saw visions of God, found in verse 1. Visions are not to be taken as literal sights. The author here was dishonest enough to refuse to admit that the visions Ezekiel saw was of God. But von Daniken's main thrust of his argument was that the evolution of primates was deliberately tinkered with by the space travelers for Homo Sapiens to have evolved. In other words, evolution was given a boost to further human intelligence.

But von Daniken was not alone. Atheist author Arthur C. Clarke wrote in 1947 a short novel, The Sentinel. Where von Daniken's theories were propounded as science, Clarke made sure that his book was fiction. In it, about four million years ago, a group of primates saw a large black monolith appear suddenly overnight, in their midst. It was actually a highly complicated computer which not only analysed the primate's original intelligence, but also raised their intelligence to a degree that the primates were now able to use discarded bones as tools. The book was the basis of the 1968 award-winning movie by Stanley Kubrick, 2001 A Space Odyssey where here again, the evolution of primates into Homo Sapiens was given a massive boost. The only other difference to von Daniken's ideas was that where his gods arrived in spaceships which landed on Earth, Clarke's gods had long evolved out of their bodies and exist as pure energy. No spaceships were required.

Why have I gone into all this? Because as we shall see, we shall go back to it in the form of mainstream science as adhered to by Bryce and his ilk.

Now we shall look at on why organic evolution was impossible. No way could it have began in the first place.

I'm talking here about the evolution of a living cell, apparently a amoeba-like single cell organism floating in the primeval ocean. The amoeba today, has within its structure a long molecule known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) which carries the genetic code which acts as a template for the production of protein within the cell, to maintain its life. Being a single cell, the amoeba has no chromosomes in the same way as humans have, but a genophore, in which the DNA, and as such, the genetic code, is stored. The DNA is a very long double helix, or a twisted ladder, the two side chains are of sugar-phosphates. These are held together by the "rungs" of the ladder, known as bases. There are four bases, the adenine (A), the cytosine (C), the guanine (G) and the thymine (T). A, on one side of the helix, always pairs with T on the other side, thus forming a rung on the ladder, while G always pairs with C, forming another rung. Thus each rung is better known as nucleotide bases, or simply base pairs. In the amoeba, there are 290 billion nucleotide or base pairs, each arranged in a specific order for the cell to live. In humans, there are about 2.9 billion base pairs in the nucleus of each cell.

The double helix of a DNA molecule

In the nucleus of a human cell, there are 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent. Chromosome 1, for example, has 247,199,719 nucleotide base pairs, in which there are 4,220 genes. In the two sex chromosomes, the female X chromosome has 154,913,754 base pairs within are 1,846 genes. The male Y chromosome is much smaller, with just 57,741,652 base pairs, with just 454 genes. As such, in the nucleus of each cell of a female, there are 3,022,102,095 base pairs in the DNA molecule, with 31,731 active genes. In the male, there are 2,924,929,993 base pairs with 30,339 active genes in the nucleus of each cell.

The each base pairs must be arranged exactly right for the genes to function correctly. It looks to me that the genes are a far more complex version of a computer program, which have binary numeric digits as bases, a group of eight digits of "1" and "0" making a unit known as a byte. A long chain of ones and zeroes forms the code with which the computer functions properly. If there is an inconsistency in the arrangement of the binary code, the computer will crash. Likewise, if if the DNA base pairs are not arranged correctly, the cell will die.

So far, I have dealt only with the DNA, the genetic template of protein production in the cell. The whole cell is a vastly complicated structure. If I want to go on about the complexity of the cell, this would make this blog way too long. So I will post a general illustration of the function of the cell, with a brief run on its function, then go on to reason that no way evolution by chance could have ever taken place! Yet the central core of evolution by chance was taught for decades, if not centuries after Darwin's time.

Briefly, the genetic code in the DNA is copied on to the messenger RNA (or mRNA) with one of the bases - thymine -being replaced by another base, uracil. Where the DNA is a double helix, the mRNA is a single helix with a row of nucleotide bases. The genetic code is represented here in groups of three bases, known as codons. The mRNA then passes out of the nucleus of the cell, to be decoded by the ribosome. As the ribosome moves along the mRNA, this connects a chain of amino acids, the correct sequence of the amino acids being determined by the codon sequence of the mRNA. When the ribosome had completed the decoding of the mRNA, the chain of amino acid molecules fold up to become one unit of protein, also known as polypeptide. Up to 3,000 units of polypeptides are linked up to form a protein chain. Some of these polypeptide units are enzymes, which are responsible for chemical change in the body, for example, the pancreas producing the digestive enzymes lipase, protease and amylase.

Using the vastly complex cell as a yardstick, there is no way that evolution by chance could have ever taken place. For a demonstration, take the letters of the alphabet, say from a Scrabble board. There are 26 letters in the alphabet, each represented by at least one piece in the game. Take one of each letter, place in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Then carefully empty the bowl onto the floor, making a straight a line as you can. The chance of all 26 letters falling in perfect alphabetical order, including each the right side up and the right way round, is 1 in 26! - that is the factors making what is sometimes known as 26 Bang! It consists of 26 x 25 x 24 x 23 x 22 x 21 x 20... down to 2, which would give a result as one chance in 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 that all the pieces would fall in a perfect alphabetical order on the first throw. If the letters represent the genes of a cell, they must all be in the correct sequence, or the cell cannot function and it will die. Yet the genetic code in the cell can produce a protein structure consisting of up to 3,000 proteins joined together in a long chain. In turn, as already mentioned in the paragraph above, each protein consists of up to 3,000 amino acid residues folded together into precise structures and arranged in proper sequence as directed by the genetic code. With the possibility of a single cell forming by chance, without intelligent design, by means of the protein chain alone would be 1 in 9,000,000 bang! - which would give a result which the entire age of the Universe would not be able to accommodate.

For example, mathematician Sir Fred Hoyle had calculated that the odds of producing just the basic enzymes by coincidence resulted in just one chance in one, with 40,000 zeros after it. By comparison, the chance of picking just one electron out of the entire Universe is one out of one with 80 zeros after it. If every electron in the Universe in itself becomes a Universe of its own, then the odds of picking out an electron out of all these Universes is one in one with 160 zeros after it. On this, Hoyle comments:

This situation is well known to geneticists and yet nobody seems to blow the whistle decisively on the theory...
Most scientists still cling to Darwinism because of its grip on the educational system...You either have to believe in the concepts, or...be branded a heretic.
Source: From an interview by AP Correspondent George W. Cornell, quoted from Times Advocate, Escondido, California, 1982. PP. A10-11.

The Universe simply can't wait for the cell to evolve, for its sheer mathematical impossibility. But there does look to be an evolutionary saviour - extraterrestrial origin. And this is taken seriously by evolutionary scientists.

One example from outer space origins is the meteorite which fell in Murchison, in Victoria, Australia in September 28th, 1969. Because of the location on which it fell, this rock became the Murchison Meteorite.

A fragment from the Murchison Meteorite

This rock contains some amino acid molecules, and it is now become the basic clue to the evolution of the cell, particularly the amoeba. Of course, evolutionists would rather see the whole group of living cells within the meteorite, but some amino acid molecules, which is the building blocks for protein, would have to do. Although there is still an unbridgeable gap between some amino acid molecules and a fully functional living cell, it lends to a very attractive theory that some living cells might have arrived on the primeval Earth billions of years ago. It is a bit like Erich von Daniken's theory of an invading race of space travelers, the only difference was that instead of spaceships, they hitched a ride on a passing meteorite instead! But such absurdity must evolutionists rely upon - otherwise the only alternative is Biblical Creation.

Erich von Daniken pushed as fact that what we call pseudoscience. It was rejected by every mainstream scientist. Could the idea of extraterrestial invasion of cells on an ancient meteorite also be false knowledge?

Erich von Daniken may not be that alone in the scientific world after all.