#59 Invisibility

You may have heard someone say at some time that “God cannot exist because no one has ever seen God.” In this article I’m going to discuss invisibility and why that does not disprove God. In fact, God has to be invisible.

Let’s think about some things that are invisible. Just because something is invisible does not mean that it is not real.

In my Proof for God #45 on The Eye [1], I noted that our eyes cannot see any light outside of a rather narrow “visible spectrum”. The visible spectrum is only 1.5% of the whole range of light rays that exist. We cannot see most of the ultraviolet or infrared parts of the spectrum. There are some animals that can see things that we cannot see.

Some people have the ability to see auras, which are energy fields that most people cannot see. There are many discoveries in the field of Kirlian photography that show life/energy forms that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Some people seem to have the ability to see and communicate with the spirits of the deceased which are invisible to the rest of us. I think most of us will admit that there are limitations to what our physical eyes can see and therefore being visible is not necessary to really exist.

There are lots of ordinary things that are very real but you can’t see them. How about a glass window? You can see very clearly right through it, but we know how solid it can be. There is even such a thing as bulletproof glass.

Air cannot be seen, but where would we be without air? However, if you have ever stood in a strong wind, you know it could blow you over. Wind can move huge ships and tornadoes cause tremendous destruction. That’s a very powerful force, but you can’t see it.

There are other amazing forces like gravity and magnetism that scientists don't know where they came from. They are invisible, but very powerful.

Other things you can’t see are carrying amazing amounts of intelligent information. Think about the radio and television signals all around you. If you tune into one of these invisible channels, you can get sounds and videos from possibly tens or hundreds of channels for music, news, or movies. All of that is somewhere in the air around you right now, simultaneously, but you can’t see it, touch it, taste it, hear it, or smell it in any way.

You probably have a smartphone that allows you to carry on an intelligent conversation with another being somewhere else on the planet. That person is invisible to you, but you don’t question whether he or she exists. Smartphones allow you to watch a movie or even live events like sports. Someday maybe someone will invent a “hotline” to God.

What about all the people in history? How can you be sure your great, great, great, great grandfather really existed? You've never seen him and neither has anyone else alive. You have to conclude that he must have existed because you exist. Otherwise you are the product of an immaculate conception some generations back.

Just because you may have never seen God, does that mean that no one else has ever seen God either? Hardly. That would be a pretty foolish thing to conclude. Most people have never seen God. But they obviously have not seen everything that could be seen. Millions, if not billions, of people claim to have experienced God and some insist they “saw” God in some form. Those who have had a “Near-Death Experience” often relate an experience like seeing God.

Testimonies of God are written down in every language all over the world and all throughout history. It’s pretty hard to discount all that evidence and call it categorically false just because no scientific experiment, based solely in the material world, can verify it. It doesn’t matter how intellectually brilliant a scientist may be if he/she is looking in the wrong place. To say that you know for sure there is no God is a staggering declaration that you know the truth beyond all these other people who must therefore be ignorant or deceived.     

Here’s something else that is invisible but still very real… ideas. They are very real and provide driving forces in people’s lives: freedom, truth, goodness, honesty. People are willing to give up their lives to gain freedom. Then there’s the greatest motivating force of all, love. It cannot be seen. You recognize it by its effects, by what is created by its power, and what lengths people will go to in order to possess it.

If God were visible, that would put physical limitations and boundaries on Him. Can we put boundaries around love and truth and freedom? Clearly not. By definition, God is the one who created the whole universe. He created time and space, and ideals. So He would necessarily be “beyond” or “outside” of time and space. Or maybe “throughout” is a better explanation. God should not be inhibited by having to be in one place. He needs to be in all places simultaneously and thus be available to every person who wants a relationship with Him. No matter where you go, you can have access to God. No matter who you are among all the people in the world, you can have access to God. If God is love, and support, and comfort, how wonderful for all of us.

Of course, if you believe God is mean and nasty or repulsive, then you don’t want that kind of God anywhere near you. That would be a horrible reality and you would fight against it. If God is more powerful than Santa Claus, then He can “see you when you’re sleeping and know when you’re awake.” If you do something wrong, then He can see you, judge you, and punish you. That needs to be revolted against, right?

God has to be real. Everywhere around us is the evidence. People have been experiencing God throughout history. All of nature is a testimony to God because we can’t even dream of how to duplicate such beauty and complexity.

In our lives, the most valuable things are not our worldly possessions, but are all the invisible and intangible things like love and freedom. It is impossible that those invisible things originated from rocks and chemicals by random accident.

There must be God.

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[1]  Proof for God #45 The Eye. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/11/45-eye.html 

#58 The Cambrian Explosion

We have all been taught by the Theory of Evolution that all species came into existence by small incremental changes over a long period of millions of years. Diversity came about over time from the beginning as various mutations created many new species. The various species branched out like a giant tree. Diagrams of the development over time would look like this. With more time, there would be more phyla (categories of species).

This "tree of life" structure is Darwin's prediction that all species evolved from one original being. 

Would it surprise you to know that the fossil record is not like this at all? Would you feel betrayed by the scientific community and media if you found out that the truth is totally different?

Here are diagrams of what the actual evidence in the fossil record looks like. All the major phyla appeared in less than 1% of time and a number have gone extinct since then.

There is no Darwinian Tree of Life in the fossil record. The true record looks like the above diagram of 2 phyla out of the many phyla that exist. Each phyla appears suddenly and without any connection. 

The diagram below shows what Darwinian Theory predicts by showing little circles where fossils should appear. NONE have ever been found. His predictions are wrong, so therefore the theory must also be wrong.

The best fossil records available on earth actually show that the majority of phyla suddenly appear, FULLY FORMED, within a very narrow period of time and with no precursors about 540 million years ago.

The name given to this phenomenon is literally an “explosion”. It happened during the Cambrian Age and hence it is the Cambrian Explosion.

Time magazine called it Evolution’s Big Bang. "New discoveries show that life as we know it began in an amazing biological frenzy that changed the planet almost overnight." [1]

"The fossil record - in defiance of Darwin's whole idea of gradual change - often makes great leaps from one form to the next. Far from the display of intermediates to be expected from slow advance through natural selection many species appear without warning, persist in fixed form and disappear, leaving no descendants. Geology assuredly does not reveal any finely graduated organic chain, and this is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against the theory of evolution.” [2]

Suppose you make a time line from the beginning until now and convert it to a 24 hour clock. On that clock almost all of the species on earth appeared in their early forms, each with their unique “body plans”, all within just a 2 minute span of the clock. That should forever debunk Darwin’s slow and gradual in my opinion.

Note in this picture that the major fossil beds with the best fossils are located throughout the world. The beds in Chengjiang, China, include extremely well preserved soft-tissue specimens. Note also that they all exhibit the same explosion of species in the Cambrian Age, during the same time frame. The period is 0.14% of the time clock mentioned before, absolutely not slow and gradual change. There are various calculations about how big that window is ranging from about 5 to 10 million years out of billions.

The Theory of Evolution is totally disproved based on the evidence in the fossil record. However, if you are a true believer, you deny the evidence shows what it clearly shows. You either make up a story of why you are still right or try to destroy the messenger.

Evolutionists have been grabbing at straws to hold on to their theory for years despite the Cambrian Explosion.

1. Not enough fossils have been discovered yet. Darwin used this reason too. "The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record." That was back when we had just 1% of the current fossil record. Unfortunately for them, every time new fossils are discovered, it just further substantiates the evidence of the existing fossils and the Cambrian Explosion.

2. Missing links and the precursor species didn’t fossilize. How that could possibly be true all over the world is a gigantic mystery. It’s especially problematic since there are existing fossils of many species before the Cambrian Explosion with soft bodies and even single-celled animals.

3. Punctuated Equilibrium. This idea basically says that all the necessary evolving of each of the different species must have taken place in tiny, isolated groups. Also they believe changes take place in spurts separated by long periods of no change. Hence there are no fossils found for this yet. During the Cambrian Explosion all these species suddenly come out to the world. Clearly this is a repudiation of Darwin’s idea of slow and gradual. Also they have no explanation of why or how it happens in spurts. This idea has been proven false by statistical analysis. To get the very large number of changes that are required to evolve all the different species, you must necessarily have huge numbers of mutations. There must be enough individuals reproducing in order to account for all those mutations. This model has nowhere near enough in their populations. 

The paleontologists have all the evidence right before their eyes, but they won’t take the “leap of faith” away from accepted dogmas. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

Verbalizing publicly that the fossil evidence is totally against the Theory of Evolution is likely to get a professor fired or his/her funding taken away.

When scientists have a hidden agenda, truth suffers. They will not go where the evidence leads them. They are not being true scientists. And we are all the worse for it. Think what amazing discoveries await us once scientists stop wasting energy pursuing and/or defending a fraud and devote that same energy to discovering more about the true loving source of all things and the amazing creation.

There is truly a God.

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[1]  Time Magazine. December 4, 1995 issue.

[2]  Steve Jones, University College, London, Almost Like A Whale: The Origin Of Species Updated, p. 252, 1999

#57 17-Year Cicadas

How many animals can count? Probably you have seen dogs and horses count, maybe even elephants. Of course they were trained by intelligent beings (namely humans) to do that. Also they are considered among the “higher animals”. But have any of them counted up to 17. You probably would not ever think than an insect can count, let alone count up to 17.

Even people might have a little trouble counting up to 17 if you counted so slow that it took you 17 years. That’s a little more difficult because you have to remember your place for a whole year before adding 1.

Well, let’s talk a little about the 17-Year Cicada. There are over 2,500 species of cicada that have been described and they are still counting. [1] Different cicada species emerge on different schedules. Some species come every year. Some every 13 years. But the most famous and largest “brood” comes every 17 years to the eastern part of the United States and may number 1 trillion individuals. As many as 1.5 million cicadas of this species may emerge from a single acre of land. 

They are 1½ inches long and basically harmless, just annoying. The adults which emerge do not eat at all. They will climb a tree, molt/shed their skin exposing their wings, then fly around to find a mate.

Within 6 weeks the females have all laid their eggs in a slit they carve in a tree and they all have died. When the eggs hatch, the larvae drop to the ground and burrow in, never to be seen again for 17 years.

By the way, the cicada emerge when the ground temperature is exactly 64 degrees. Also, the males emerge first and are out there with their very loud mating calls when the females come out. Females do not make noises. They all have two big red eyes and 3 smaller black ones. Each species has a distinct mating call which is made inside the male abdomen by “clicking” parts while a type of echo chamber magnifies it. The sounds can get as loud as 120 decibels, among the loudest of all insects. Wikipedia has some sample sounds. [2]

17 years is a really long lifespan for an insect. Even more amazing about Cicadas is that each generation only mates once, and it's at the very end of their life after 17 years. If evolution were true, you would only have 6 generations every 100 years so only 6 chances to get a beneficial mutation (which I have already detailed very rarely happens). In my article on “The Truth About Mutation” [3] I wrote how scientists have mutated fruit flies (on purpose using intelligence) for over 40 years and thousands of generations without ever producing a new species. If the scientists were studying the 17-Year Cicada, there would only be 2 generations in that same 40 years.

How did the 17-Year Cicada learn to count to 17? Have you ever heard of any case where a number emerged where there was no intelligent origin.

Let’s also remember that you have to have a male and a female for mating purposes to get a next generation. The male and female also have to both be alive in the same 6 week window and in the same vicinity on earth to be able to meet and mate. If one or the other stays in the ground longer by just 6 weeks in 17 years, then they can’t mate. If there is a mutation of the genome for the time the species stays under the ground, it has to be simultaneous in both male and female so they can still come out at the same time. How is that possible to be coordinated? Not only would the mutation in both the male and female have to be in the same direction (longer time or shorter time), but it would also have to be of exactly the same length of time in weeks. I suppose you could say there are billions of them and enough randomly could meet up for mating. But somehow you still have to get to the end point of all of them staying in the ground exactly 17 years at the end of the evolving.

Another problem is the temperature of 64 degrees. How could the male and female have mutated separately but still somehow decided jointly on that exact temperature and never mutate away from it? And here is an even bigger problem. How do they know what the temperature is? Are you able to tell me what the temperature is at any time or even when it hits 64 degrees? We all know the Cicadas stay underground for 17 years and then when the temperature hits 64 degrees, they come out. Oh and by the way, the males come out first. Also they have a mechanism for making a gigantic noise, which the females don’t do. So if you believe in evolution, you have to believe this is all accidental mutations and natural selection for them to have different body mechanisms, but the same timing.

Of course, we all know that males and females of all species are astoundingly different in body parts.  New research is showing they are even more different than was thought in the past. There is no possibility that they could have evolved slowly in incremental changes because they would have to have made complementary changes in the same generation and live in the same vicinity of each other, meet, and mate. The Theory of Evolution should have been debunked at the beginning. [4]

How does an insect tell that the temperature is 64 degrees above the ground? How did that kind of mechanism evolve? Even if you somehow had an organ to tell the temperature, it somehow has to be wired to the brain and send a signal. Once the signal arrives in the brain that the temperature is 64 degrees, so what? Somehow the brain has to figure out that it now has to dig upward, climb a tree, shed its skin, find a mate, copulate, and then die all within 6 weeks.

When an insect can do something that no human can do, even the greatest genius among us, there is no way to convince me that this evolved from nothing.

There must be a God. 

_______________________

[1]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada 

[2]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada

[3] Proof for God #27 The Truth About Mutation. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/27-truth-about-mutation.html

[4] Proof for God #1, Male and Female. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2012/05/male-and-female.html 

#56 Snowflakes

This past Tuesday was March 25^th, 2014, 5 days after the start of Spring. Still we got 2 inches of snow and it’s been freezing cold. In fact, snow has been a regular weekly occurrence this whole month. This winter has been one of the coldest on record in the last 100 years.

So this article will be a tribute to the lowly snowflake. May I not see another one until next winter!

In reading the Wikipedia article on snowflakes, it says that scientists aren’t really sure how snowflakes get made or what holds them together.

In warmer clouds an aerosol particle or "ice nucleus" must be present in (or in contact with) the droplet to act as a nucleus. The particles that make ice nuclei are very rare compared to nuclei upon which liquid cloud droplets form; however, it is not understood what makes them efficient. [1]

The exact details of the sticking mechanism remain controversial. Possibilities include mechanical interlocking, sintering, electrostatic attraction as well as the existence of a "sticky" liquid-like layer on the crystal surface. The individual ice crystals often have hexagonal symmetry. Although the ice is clear, scattering of light by the crystal facets and hollows/imperfections mean that the crystals often appear white in color due to diffuse reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the small ice particles. [2]

It’s amazing that something as simple as some frozen water is a mystery to today’s scientists. Whoever claims that scientists have discovered all the truth is either not digging deep enough or intentionally deluding themselves.

Snowflakes are absolutely fascinating. Here are some amazing photos of snowflakes to remind you of what they can look like. These are by a famous snowflake photographer. [3]

Some photos from CalTech. [4]

Here is a link to some time-lapse photography of snowflakes being formed. It is almost like they are alive. [5]

Your typical snowflake has about 10¹⁹ (10 quintillion) water molecules.[6] Since there is an unbelievably huge number of molecule combinations going into a snowflake, it pretty much guarantees that old saying that “no two snowflakes are identical.”

When you looked at the snowflakes in the pictures, do you get some type of feeling in response? What is that feeling? Do you have any thoughts about where such amazing patterns could have come from? Do you marvel at the intricate details? Do you think, “Wow, what an amazing accident!!!”, “What an amazing accident”, “What an amazing accident,” over and over and over again every time you look at a different snowflake? Hardly.

Scientists may not be able to explain it yet, but one thing we can be sure of is that the ability of water to turn into snowflakes has been a property of water since the very origin of water. It could not be something that was added or “evolved” at a later time.

Long before there was life on earth and long before any inkling of “evolution” existed, there was water. And surely that water had the capability to make snowflakes.

If there is a creator of water, that intelligent being endowed it with the capability to make snowflakes long before we came along to look at and appreciate them.

If there was no creative intelligence, then it must have all come from NOWHERE. All of it. Then, of course, there is no purpose to anything? Without a purpose, what value is there? When you look at something that has no value, it does not inspire you. Think of a piece of junk. You don’t feel inspiration or amazement.

The joy that is experienced from the beauty of a simple snowflake is almost universal among human beings. We all feel it. How could that be? That we all have a reaction of awe and wonder at snowflakes is not accidental or a mistake. There was no ancient “natural selection” for only people who could appreciate snowflakes and they were the only people able to survive.

There is an overall design built into human beings so we can appreciate the precious gifts around us, all the way down to the lowly snowflake. Even one scientist, Dr. Masaru Emoto, goes so far as to proclaim that humans by using thought energy can change the patterns of ice crystals. [7] Very interesting research (but controversial of course). His pictures are really interesting and he has been featured in movies like What The Bleep Do We Know. [8]

Not just snowflakes, but all of the tiniest particles of the universe are awe inspiring. DNA is a beautiful spiral staircase. At the other extreme are the largest entities of the universe which inspire awe as well. The amount of beauty we can discover is mind boggling, possibly even infinite.

There must be God.

______________________________

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake

[3] Famous snowflake photographer: Alexey Kljatov http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaoticmind75/with/10152925944/

[4] http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm

[5] Time lapse photography of snowflake. http://twentytwowords.com/?s=snowflakes

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake

[7] Website of Dr. Masaru Emoto. http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/water-crystal.html

[8] Website of movie: What The Bleep Do We Know? http://www.whatthebleep.com/

#55 Jigsaw Puzzles

I’m sure you must know what a jigsaw puzzle is. Probably you have put together many in your life starting from really simple ones with maybe only four pieces when you were a child.

Some of the most challenging jigsaw puzzles can get up to 1,000 pieces or more and take hours and hours to put together.

Piece by piece you put them together. For the whole puzzle there is only one way to put it together. The two pieces that are supposed to fit together next to each other must be arranged that way or the whole puzzle will not be correct. No two pieces are interchangeable. Every piece has exactly one other piece that fits on each side.

Once the puzzle is completely put together, then you can see the whole picture. There is a total uniqueness of each of the individual pieces, but they make up an intricately interconnected whole design.

When they assemble a jigsaw puzzle, most people look at the picture on the box. Why? It’s because it helps them to know the overall design and get an idea of where certain features and pieces go. This makes the assembly easier. Imagine how much harder it would be if you never ever saw the picture on the box and didn’t know what you were making. It would be a lot harder.

Now imagine how much harder it would be if there were no picture glued on the pieces to start with. In other words, all the puzzle pieces are the same color or blank. That probably makes putting the puzzle together 10 or even 100 times more difficult.

Not let’s go another step more difficult. Take 5 or 6 different puzzles with no pictures and mix up all the pieces. How much longer would it take you, an above average intelligent being, to correctly assemble all those 5 or 6 puzzles?

Here’s the point. The Theory of Evolution is essentially saying that in the beginning there are only pieces of the puzzle. There is no big picture. Somehow, magically the pieces are assembled into this amazingly interconnected, complex universe.

In my article on DNA [1], I talked about how the human genome has 3 billion characters. Every living being has its own genome with hundreds of thousands or billions of characters uniquely arranged. In my article on Trophic Cascade [2] I talked about the intricate interconnectedness of every living creature in nature from the top of the food chain down to the organisms in the dirt. In my article on the Moon [3], I talked about the incredible precision of its placement in the sky and beneficial effects on the Earth. Those are just some examples and there are hundreds more.

Now think of a jigsaw puzzle with 3 billion pieces that you are trying to assemble. It would take a while wouldn’t it, especially if there were no pictures on the pieces? But, now the most important part, try to subtract any and all intelligence before the assembly starts. Without any intelligence, how long will it take to assemble the picture?

We know that just in nature on Earth alone there are way more than 3 billion pieces of complexity. That’s not to mention the rest of Universe. There are 8,000,000 to 100 million species of living beings [4] which each have their own DNA. All of those millions of species are intricately connected within their local ecosystems which magnifies the complexity in quantum leaps.

Evolutionists believe all of this came about without any intelligence anywhere to be seen.

Someday maybe they’ll step back and see the big picture. When you see an amazing design, you know there must be a designer, even if you don’t see him.

There must be God.

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[1] Proof for God #21, DNA. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2012/09/21-dna.html

[2] Proof for God #54, Trophic Cascades and Wolves. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2014/03/54-trophic-cascades.html

[3] Proof for God #49, The Moon. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2014/01/49-moon.html

[4] Proof for God #36, The Zoo. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/05/36-zoo.html

#54 Trophic Cascades and Wolves

Here is a very eye-opening story about a relatively new discovery in research on ecological systems.

Scientists used to believe that conservation efforts to restore ecosystems must follow the pattern of evolution. In other words, you had to start at the bottom in the lowest “trophic” levels. The term, “trophic”, refers to different levels of the food chain, for example plants, insects, etc.

A “cascade” is like a stream falling down a waterfall and breaking into more and more streams with each rock it splinters against.

The concept of “trophic cascade” describes when a large carnivore at the top of the food chain has a cascading effect down to all the lower levels and it spreads out in many, many directions and has many diverse, even unexpected impacts.

The most stunning example to date comes from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. There had been no wolves in the park for 70 years until they were re-introduced in 1995 to 1996. If you have 4½ minutes to watch this video, I think you will be astounded:  How Wolves Change Rivers. [1]

Synopsis of the video: Wolves kill some species of animals for sure, but we now know they give life to many others. Elk populations had built up until by grazing they reduced much of the vegetation to almost nothing. Wolves killed some of the elk and it radically changed the behavior of the elk and they avoided certain parts of the park where wolves could kill them easily, especially the valleys and gorges. Vegetation in those areas started to regenerate immediately. [3] The heights of some of the trees multiplied 5 times. In just 6 years aspen, willow, and cottonwoods came back. [4] Birds then started moving in. Songbirds and migratory birds moved in. Beavers started to increase because of the young trees. [5] Beavers built dams in the rivers and provided habitats for otters and muskrats, ducks and fish, reptiles and amphibians. When the wolves killed coyotes, the number of rabbits and mice increased. Then came the hawks, weasels, and foxes to eat those prey. Also badgers, ravens, and bald eagles came to feed on the carcasses left by the wolves and other available small prey. Bears came back too. Bears also killed some of the elk and reinforced the impact of the wolves. Even more amazingly, the wolves changed the behavior of the rivers. Because of the new vegetation, the rivers meandered less. The river banks had been stabilized and collapsed less often. The channels were straighter and became deeper. There was less soil erosion. Pools formed for all the wildlife to drink from.

“Since wild wolves have returned to Yellowstone, the elk and deer are stronger, the aspens and willows are healthier and the grasses taller.  For example, when wolves chase elk during the hunt, the elk are forced to run faster and farther.  As the elk run, their hooves aerate the soil, allowing more grasses to grow.  Since the elk cannot remain stationary for too long, aspens and willows in one area are not heavily grazed, and therefore can fully recover between migrations.  As with the rest of the country, coyote populations were nearly out of control in Yellowstone before the wolves returned.  Now, the coyotes have been out-competed and essentially reduced by 80 percent in areas occupied by wolves.  The coyotes that do remain are more skittish and wary.  With fewer coyotes hunting small rodents, raptors like the eagle and osprey have more prey and are making a comeback.  The endangered grizzly bears successfully steal wolf kills more often than not, thus having more food to feed their cubs.   In essence, we have learned that by starting recovery at the top with predators like wolves, the whole system benefits.  A wild wolf population actually makes for a stronger, healthier and more balanced ecosystem.” [2]

The ecosystems we are seeing are definitely not “survival of the fittest” or a “dog eat dog” world. Even the prey of the wolves, the elk population, was not harmed. As a whole they were hardier and more disease free. [6]

All of the species benefitted: the plants and trees, the insects and birds, small, medium, and large animals, even the fish and amphibians. [7] Even the rivers and streams benefitted.

Scientists following evolutionist models got it wrong. All aspects of nature fit together harmoniously.

Just as I explained about how the intricacies of the First Living Cell [8] had to have been designed, we can see this interconnectedness and co-dependency of all creatures at higher levels of nature and conclude it must have been designed as well. Chance and blind mechanisms could not create such complexity, especially not in such a top-down cascade model.

The wolves in Yellowstone are a marvelous example of an intricate ecological system that is impossible to conceive happened randomly or even by Natural Selection. (See my post on how the mechanism of Natural Selection loses variability not gains it. [9]). When something is designed by intelligence, the final goal is known and all the building block steps support the end goal. In this case, the wolf at the top of the mountain of the trophic cascade was already conceived of before all the other creatures ascending up the food chain were put in place. Otherwise the benefits cascading down would not exist.

But scientists are discovering more and more trophic cascades all the time. [10] Every time a new one is discovered it reinforces the evidence for a designer by new orders of magnitude. It is exponentially more difficult to create two trophic cascades than one.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” – John Muir

There must be God.

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[1]  How Wolves Change Rivers.  http://sustainableman.org/how-wolves-change-rivers/

[2]  A Wolf's Role in the Ecosystem - The Trophic Cascade.  
 http://www.missionwolf.org/page/trophic-cascade/

[3]  Wolves and Ungulates.
 http://www.greateryellowstone.org/uploads/WOLVES_AND_UNGULATES.pdf

By altering elk browsing patterns, wolves have enabled riparian vegetation to regenerate for the first time in decades, creating habitat for beavers, songbirds, fish, amphibians, and a host of small mammals.  Additionally, wolves have improved the herd health of prey species by selecting young, old, diseased, or physically-impaired animals.

[4]  Wikipedia: Trophic Cascade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_cascade

Examples of this phenomenon include:

A 2-3 fold increase in deciduous woody vegetation cover, mostly of willow, in the Soda Butte Creek area between 1995 and 1999. Heights of the tallest willows in the Gallatin River valley increasing from 75 cm to 200 cm between 1998 and 2002. Heights of the tallest willows in the Blacktail Creek area increased from less than 50 cm to more than 250 cm between 1997 and 2003. Additionally, canopy cover over streams increased significantly, from only 5% to a range of 14-73%. In the northern range, tall deciduous woody vegetation cover increased by 170% between 1991 and 2006.

[5]   Wikipedia: Trophic Cascade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_cascade

Importantly, the number of beaver (Castor canadensis) colonies in the Park has increased from one in 1996 to twelve in 2009. The recovery is likely due to the increase in willow availability, as they have been feeding almost exclusively on it. As keystone species, the resurgence of beaver is a critical event for the region. The presence of beavers has been shown to positively impact streambank erosion, sediment retention, water tables, nutrient cycling, and both the diversity and abundance of plant and animal life among riparian communities.

[6]  Wolves: Good News for Yellowstone Wolves  http://greateryellowstone.org/issues/wildlife/Feature.php?id=38#.UxejV_ldXy0

The return of the wolf has changed elk behavior and reduced some herds, but overall numbers remain strong in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. According to Yellowstone biologist Doug Smith, the Yellowstone herds remain healthy despite its smaller size. The number is more in line with historic levels since wolves were reintroduced and grizzly bears and mountain lions returned naturally. Overall elk populations in the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming remain healthy. However, elk populations are now more dynamic with the return of large carnivores and elk distribution has shifted to areas of refuge which make them more difficult to hunt.  Elk populations are affected by many variables including weather, disease, predation, and human mortality.

[7]  Wolves: Good News for Yellowstone Wolves.
 http://www.greateryellowstone.org/uploads/wolves_statementNEW_final.pdf

Wolves are critical to the overall health of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as a keystone species, restoring ecological balance. Most notably wolves improve the health of their prey through selecting weak, old, diseased and injured animals. Wolves also change the habits of prey such as elk by reducing their numbers and changing distribution. These changes have contributed to a rebirth in the growth of cottonwood, willow, aspen and shrubs, subsequently benefiting grizzly bears, pronghorn, beaver, cutthroat trout, songbirds, scavengers and small mammals.

[8]  Proof for God #41 The First Living Cell. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/07/41-first-living-cell.html

[9]  Proof for God #35 Natural Selection.  http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/05/35-natural-selection.html

[10] Wikipedia: Trophic Cascade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_cascade

One example of the cascade effect caused by the loss of a top predator has to do with sea otters.

#53 Rules

Everywhere around you are thousands of rules you follow every day. They are all invisible, but they none-the-less exist and are real. We human beings will come and go, but the rules will continue indefinitely.

There are rules of the road for driving, rules for cooking our food, rules for the games we play, rules for the structure of the sentences I’m writing, rules for social interactions at home and at work, rules everywhere all day long.

The so-called natural world, untouched by the power of human beings, has hundreds of rules. Think of all the rules of mathematics. Did you ever take a class in chemistry or even have a chemistry set as a kid? Lots of rules there. Physics too has lots and lots of rules. Simple things like gravity and magnetism control our lives by their rules.

Most of the rules are very beneficial to us. Can you imagine a life without rules? How much longer would it take you to drive somewhere if there were no rules?

Often there are consequences involved if you don’t follow the rules. In our games you get a penalty for breaking the rules. In our society you get a punishment for breaking the rules which might even mean getting thrown in jail. If you break the rules of good health, you are likely to get a disease.

All these rules are invisible. They exist in our minds and in the laws of nature. Where did they come from?

The rules of games were obviously created by the inventor of the game. Rules for driving are established by the people in authority in the government. Rules for good manners are set up by the leaders of a society. All the rules come from intelligent sources.

Here’s a question. Can rules come into existence spontaneously from nowhere? Have you ever seen that? Do rules create themselves? Hardly. If we recognize rules, we can be pretty certain that they originated in an intelligent source.

What about the rules of nature? Look at the very basics of the Periodic Table, its order and symmetry. There are so many rules in chemistry. Look at the rules of motion and force in physics. Where did they come from?

Scientists used to tell us that the universe always existed. That’s just the way things are. There was no beginning. But it’s is now generally accepted that the universe did have a beginning at a certain point in time. Everyone clearly accepts that there are rules. Where do they say that those rules came from?

Who made the rules?

We already concluded that the rules did not make themselves. What does an atheist say at this point? It just happened. I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Most of us have a somewhat rebellious nature where we like to break the rules once in a while to see what happens. That’s when we find out what the penalty is. If we break some of the more serious rules, then the consequences are more serious, not only for ourselves, but for others.

The most important rules to follow are the rules of love because that is the pathway to happiness and peace. Why do we want to be happy? Why is love important? Scientists will eventually find the source of the rules if they keep studying. It will be undeniable. The source is invisible. It is intelligent. It is loving.

Because there are rules, there must be God.