An origin of life experiment in your kitchen

If you've ever had to wash dishes, you've probably learned a little trick about cleaning dried food from dishes and bowls. You know what I'm talking about – you bake a lasagna, now the casserole dish has some baked-on, crusty food that seems near impossible to scrap off. What do you do when that happens? I'll bet you've let the dish soak for a while. Suddenly, voila, the stubborn mess just seems to wipe off as if by magic. You've done this, right? Well, believe it or not, you've just conducted an origin of life experiment right there in your kitchen! Let me explain.

There are a lot of theories regarding the origin of the first life form. Actually, there are no “scientific” theories about the origin of life because anti-creationists are quick to point out that theories are well-tested and substantiated by the evidence. When it comes to abiogenesis, however, evolutionists are a little more relaxed over the use of the term “theory.” Any idea about how life could have formed from non-living chemicals cannot be tested because it has never been observed to happen. Not even once. Ever! So when they're talking about the origin of life, they say “theory” when they mean “guess.”

Anyway, the various theories... er... I mean “guesses” concerning abiogenesis all center around the idea that life began in the oceans. The most popular guess currently is that life first formed near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Of course, Phys.org reported a couple of years ago about a team of scientists that challenged that idea. According to their research, “the sea is just too salty to provide the ideal conditions necessary to spur life into existence.” Now that's funny. No one has been able to create life under any conditions so how do they know what the “ideal conditions” are? Regardless, they suggested then that hot pools of fresh water formed by thermal vapor are the more likely place where the first life form emerged. Um, but just a couple of days ago, Phys.org published another article saying we've been wrong about the origins of life for 90 years. Now it's being suggested that it's electrostatic discharges or UV radiation that drove life's first chemical reactions in the primordial soup.

Do you see how they are a little bit all over the place with their abiogenesis stories? Regardless, you can see the common theme in all of these guesses is water. Most evolution-believing scientists are so convinced that life began in the sea that, if liquid water is ever found on another planet, they are certain we will find life there also. Oh, really?

According to the US Geological Survey's website, “Water is called the "universal solvent" because it is capable of dissolving more substances than any other liquid.... ¶It is water's chemical composition and physical attributes that make it such an excellent solvent. Water molecules have a polar arrangement of oxygen and hydrogen atoms—one side (hydrogen) has a positive electrical charge and the other side (oxygen) had a negative charge. This allows the water molecule to become attracted to many other different types of molecules. Water can become so heavily attracted to a different compound, like salt (NaCl), that it can disrupt the attractive forces that hold the sodium and chloride in the salt compound together and, thus, dissolves it.” Isn't that interesting? Water is capable of dissolving more substances than any other liquid!

You see, this is why we soak dishes. Water is a solvent and when we soak dishes, the water literally breaks down the organic matter – i.e. food – then it becomes easy to simply wipe it off with a dish cloth. Now, water is vital to every form of life. Water aids in digestion by breaking down our food. Our kidneys use water to filter out harmful substances from our bodies. But in these examples and others, organized systems are using water to break down compounds. Water by itself, though, tends to be destructive. It's tends to break things down – not organize them.

I admit that I'm no chemist but it just sounds odd to believe the first life form organized itself in water. It's sort of a catch-22 for evolutionists: water is so necessary that life could not exist without it. But water, being the universal solvent, would tend to break down amino acids – not allow them to arrange randomly into complex proteins. If you add heat (or energy) to the water, it would actually cause the amino acids to break down even faster.

I don't have to convince you of any of this because you've seen it for yourself. You know what happens when things soak in water. Believing that simple cells could somehow organize in water to become a complex, living organism is laughable. Yet that's the best “origin of life” story that evolutionists have been able to come up with so far. The fact that water tends to break chemicals down instead of organizing them doesn't deter them in the slightest. No matter how ridiculous it sounds, they'll just keep pushing impossible stories until they come up with a plausible-sounding way a complex cell could randomly form in the universal solvent.

Bill Nye confirms the Flood!

I wonder if Bill Nye wishes he hadn't debated Ken Ham all those years ago? I've heard that his friends were generally telling him that it was a bad idea – lots of risk with very little upside. After the debate, die-hard evolutionists breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he'd done a good job defending Darwin's theory while sufficiently bashing creationism.

I had a completely different opinion. A lot of the points Nye made were epic fails. He wasn't just a little wrong; he blew it. I recently wrote about his flimsy, 11-new-species-per-day argument. He also used the much debunked “prediction” of evolution, Tiktaalik. He even made a blatant appeal to ignorance when he said Noah could not have built a wooden boat to the dimensions given in the Bible. And some people think he won? I'm struggling to think of one thing he said that was factual. Oh, wait! I know one...

At one point in the video, while he was trying to attack the creationists' position that the Grand Canyon was carved out catastrophically at the time of the Flood, Nye made this comment:

And by the way, if this great flood drained through the Grand Canyon, wouldn't there have been a Grand Canyon on every continent? How could we not have Grand Canyons everywhere, if this water drained away in this extraordinarily short amount of time, 4000 years?

In this comment, Nye is making a prediction. Remember that successful predictions are the mark of a good scientific theory. His prediction is that, if the Flood really happened, we would expect to see canyons the size of the Grand Canyon on every continent. Am I lying? Isn't that what he said? OK, let's move on.

I'm going to put his prediction to the test. It's not hard, really; I simply consulted Wikipedia. You can read the article for yourself but let me just point out a few highlights:

The Grand Canyon is big, but it's not even the biggest canyon in North America. Mexico's Copper Canyon is both longer and deeper.

Two canyons in Peru, the Cotahuasi Canyon and Colca Canyon, are both deeper than the Grand Canyon. Each one is over 3,500 meters deep while the Grand Canyon averages only 1,600 meters deep.

The largest canyon in Africa is the Fish River Canyon. Its gigantic ravine is about 100 miles long.

National Geographic reported a giant trench discovered under the snow in western Antarctica that is deeper than the Grand Canyon. It is 15½ miles across and up to 1.9 miles deep.

Another subglacial canyon was found in Greenland in August 2013. Named, Greenland's Grand Canyon, it is believed to be the longest canyon in the world.

Australia has the Capertee Valley which is wider than the Grand Canyon, though not as deep.

Some of the deepest canyons in the world are found in Asia. They are the Indus Gorge, the Kali Gandaki Gorge, and the Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge. All are deeper than the Grand Canyon with the latter also being longer.

Nye made his comment out of ignorance. He obviously wasn't aware that everywhere in the world, we do find canyons that are longer, deeper, and wider than the Grand Canyon. In his own words, it is exactly what we would expect to find if a deluge of water drained off the continents in a short amount of time. Though he did it unwittingly, Bill Nye has confirmed the Flood!

Can God forgive really really really really really really bad people?

To the cat, “cat and mouse” is just a game. Cats will stalk mice, catch them, torture them, release them, catch them again, torture them more, and eventually kill them. You know it's a game to them because even after the rodent dies, the cats don't necessarily eat them immediately. Often they'll walk around with the carcasses in their mouths like it's some kind of toy. Still other times they will leave it as a “gift” for their owners. Many cat owners abhor this behavior. Sometimes, they leave their cats' bowls full of food thinking cats won't hunt if they're not hungry. I've heard though that well-fed cats only prolong the torture because, again, it's a game to the cats.

Are cats evil when they do this? I ask because I'm still a little fuzzy about how atheists define right and wrong.

Critics often criticize Christianity by attacking the justice/mercy of God. I came across an article online, written by the The Friendly Atheist, where he made this very argument. Consider this quote from the article:

To the Almighty, nothing is unforgivable. Let that sink in. Nothing. You can be a genocidal maniac who eats crushed-up infants on toast during snack time… and still go to heaven if you eventually repent. [italics and ellipsis in original]

To drive this point home, the author relates the horrific career of Liberian-born Joshua Milton Blahyi. Blahyi's vile history supposedly began at age 11 when he began sacrificing and cannibalizing small children. He claims to have personally killed more than 20,000 lives, many by decapitation and later, he and his soldiers would play soccer with the severed heads. One source cited in the article describes Blahyi as, “the most evil man in the world.” Blahyi now claims to be a born-again Christian, forgiven of his many sins, and bound for an eternity in glory with the Father.

Critics often point to the forgiving nature of God and question its “fairness.” Could even people like Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot, after their lifetimes of sin, have been forgiven by God if they had just confessed and accepted Jesus on their deathbeds? Even many Christians struggle with this concept and will hem and haw when asked to defend it. Indeed, that is why skeptics like the Friendly Atheist continue repeating the criticism. I see many flaws with this argument.

The first problem with this criticism is that, at its core, it commits the fallacy of an argument from incredulity. This is where a speaker essentially claims something seems too outrageous to be true. It's hardly a rebuttal when you think about it. Even if it seems unfair of God to forgive really bad sinners, it doesn't make it untrue. Romans 10:13 says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” There's no qualifier in that verse limiting salvation to “only those who haven't been that bad.”  It says, whoever.

Next, atheists have a problem claiming any moral high ground because, ultimately, they have no objective standard of morality. If they are correct and the universe is all there is, then everything that happens is nothing more than matter acting on matter. One person murdering another is no different than a cat torturing a mouse or an apple falling from a tree. It's just the way things are and the universe doesn't care. Actually, if one particular cat were able to torture thousands of mice, it would probably be considered a superior cat from an evolutionary perspective. Likewise, one human who is able to personally murder thousands of others could arguably be described as the better human if the goal is the survival of the fittest.

Think carefully about atheism. If there is no ultimate Lawgiver, then “morality” is merely the product of whatever people think is preferable. You may think it's horrible to play soccer with severed heads but Blahyi and his soldiers didn't think so. Without appealing to anything beyond human opinion, what makes your view right and Blahyi's wrong? By that same token, critics try to say that God's standard of justice is perverse. On what grounds can they say their opinion is correct and God's wrong? Evil can only exist if God exists. Their argument, then, really has no teeth. They rely solely on the fact that it sounds awful that God could forgive someone like Hitler.

I understand that we struggle sometimes to understand God. It's a symptom of our sin nature. God is infinite and perfect; we are finite and corrupt. His ways are not our ways so we should never presume to judge God according to how we think it ought to be done. It's laughable, really, that the clay should think it can instruct the potter. To understand God, we need to look into His word.

In Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard. I always encourage people to read the Bible themselves but, for the sake of brevity, I'll give you a thumbnail: A land owner goes into the marketplace early in the morning and hires people to work in his vineyard. He agrees to pay them a penny (the standard wage for a day's work). Throughout the day, he returns to the market and hires more workers. He even hires some 1 hour before quitting time. At the end of the day, as the workers are leaving, the land owner gives all of them a penny. Those who were hired first felt slighted that the people who worked only 1 hour got the same pay as they, who had worked all day.

Christians who have trouble understanding how God can mercy on especially evil people are, in fact, demonstrating the same attitudes as the workers hired early. They are, in a sense, saying, “God, I've worked much harder at being good than that person. How can you give him the same reward as me?”

The owner of the vineyard gave an interesting reply to the complainers. He said, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?” The Bible says that God will have mercy on whoever He chooses to have mercy (Romans 9:15). If God has made salvation available to anyone on the condition that the person believe in His Son, then who are we to attach strings? Should we say, “God, I know that person accepted Christ but let me tell you how bad he's been....”? If so, we are placing our sense of justice above God's. If you really think some people can be forgiven but not others, then you are endorsing a type of salvation by works. You're essentially saying, “This person has been good enough to deserve Christ's forgiveness but this other person hasn't.”

At the bottom line, no one deserves God's mercy. Indeed, if it is deserved, then it's not “mercy,” is it? We all have broken God's commandments and we all are deserving of hell. The Father has made salvation available through the Son. Jesus is the Lamb of God, the one who takes away the sin of the world. Please do not mock God by saying some sin is more than His blood can cover!

God forgives sins. It doesn't matter if you don't think He should; it doesn't matter if you don't know how. He still does. People should rejoice when they read articles like those written by the Friendly Atheist. It shows that even your sins can be forgiven. No matter how great. No matter how many. Accept Jesus now and though your sins be like scarlet, they'll be made whiter than snow. Now that's good news! Praise God!!

Nye was wrong about the number of species

Over eight years ago, the famous “Debate of the Decade” happened between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. I don't know if the debate lived up to its hype and, in the years since then, the interest in it has waned to an occassional cite on social media. However, Nye made one point that I continue to hear repeated fairly frequently. It's sad because Nye's point was epically wrong and it only endures because the people who repeat it are ignorant about how wrong it is. My goal is to correct that.

The point to which I refer was made by Nye at about 53 minutes into the video (view on YouTube). I'd write a transcript but Nye takes a while to make his point so it would take a lot of space to write it all out. I'll summarize instead. Nye says in the video that Ham claims that there were only 7,000 “kinds” when the Flood happened 4,000 years ago. Nye then said that a fair estimate of the number of species that exists today would be about 16,000,000. So, in order to go from 7,000 “kinds” to the 16 million species that exists today, about 11 new species would have to have appeared every single day!

Is 11 new species every day unreasonable? That sounds like a lot. As a matter of fact, it's only because it sounds like a lot that the argument seems to have weight. When you get right down to it, this is nothing more than an argument of incredulity, where the speaker tries to assert something is untrue on the flimsy grounds that it just sounds incredible. After all, 11 new species per day is only around 4,000 new species per year which is only .025% of 16 million. I don't know if that even seems unreasonable. If we look at the opposite end of the spectrum, we have been warned for years that thousands of species are going extinct every year. The Center for Biological Diversity says, “Scientists predict that more than 1 million species are on track for extinction in the coming decades.”

First off, I don't believe Nye is correct that Ham believes there were only 7,000 kinds in world in Noah's day. I suspect he misunderstood or is misrepresenting some creationist sources that estimate there were probably about 7,000 kinds on the Ark. There were plenty of species that survived outside the Ark! We'll get to that in a moment. Nye's estimate of the number of species is also suspect. Nye said 16 million. I've read varying estimates but the number of identified, extant species of creatures is closer to 1.5-1.9 million. Of course, there are more species that are certain to exist but just haven't been discovered. How many more there might be is somewhat subjective. 16 million is about 10 times the number of identified species. If we assumed a lower number, then a much lower speciation rate would be necessary. If we assumed only 400 new species per year (about 1-2 per day), we could have reached 1.6 million new species in only 4,000 years. There are probably more than 1.6 million species but, hopefully, you can see my point. Assuming a more conservative number of species, even a modest speciation rate could have reached that number in the time since the Flood.

But what if there are more species? What if there truly are 16 million or even 30 million as some scientists estimate? Here is the key flaw in Nye's point: The overwhelming majority of identified species are insects, bacteria, fungi, and plants. Noah did not have to accommodate any of these species (though many of them probably made it on board the Ark, either as food or carried by animals). The actual number of vertebrate species is closer to 80,000 but even ½ of these are marine animals. There are only about 40K species of terrestrial, vertebrate animals. That's a lot smaller than the “16 million species” straw man that Nye presented.

Nye also seems to conflate kinds and species. A species is a little more narrow than a “kind.” There are currently 32 species of cats but Noah only had 2 cats on the Ark. There are 8 species of bear but Noah only had 2 bears on the Ark. So even though there are more species of cats and bears, there are still only 1 cat and 1 bear kinds.  Do you see where I'm going with this? If there were 7,000 kinds on the Ark, there are still only 7,000 kinds of land animals alive today! It's probably less due to extinction.  7,000 kinds didn't become 40K kinds and certainly not 16.000.000 kinds.

Actually, we're not exactly sure how many kinds Noah had on the Ark, but some have estimated as few as 6,000 animals (3,000 kinds) needed to be on the Ark to account for the 40K terrestrial, vertebrate species estimated to exist today. That's only around 9 new species per year for 4,000 years. If there were, say, 14,000 animals (7,000 kinds) on the Ark, there would only have to be about 4 new species per year to account for all the land species that exist today. Suddenly, it's not unreasonable at all.

In my opinion, Bill Nye failed miserably in this debate. One of his key points, a point that has been touted by some as one of his hardest hitting, is a complete bust. Seven thousand kinds did not have to become 16 million species. Bill Nye either doesn't understand the creation argument or has deliberately misrepresented it.

Happy Independence Day - God bless America

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

Francis Scott Key

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming;

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;

'Tis the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion

A home and a country should leave us no more?

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave,

From the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave;

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land,

Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just.

And this be our motto— "In God is our trust; "

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.