#63 Skin

Before you ever came out of your mother’s womb, you had developed a fully functioning and amazing organ covering your entire body. It is called skin and it accomplishes at least 6 functions that keep you alive. Without any one of these not one of our ancestors would have survived.

Is it even possible to imagine how skin could have evolved in a slow and gradual process taking thousands of generations? If human ancestors evolved from fish with scales, then those scales had to become skin. Looking at skin for a little while in this article should convince you that scales did not turn into skin in a godless process.

The following functions of skin are all necessary for us to survive. How could they have evolved one at a time over generations?[1]

Barrier to water loss. Our skin actually keeps us from losing moisture to the air and anything that we touch such as our clothes. It also keeps nutrients in that the cells could lose if exposed.

Healing. It has amazing immunization and healing functions. It protects us from permanent damage and blood loss.

Protection against pathogens. Our skin prevents bacteria and viruses from entering our bodies. The top layer of our skin is actually dead cells which are constantly sloughing off.

Barrier to toxins and harmful chemicals. Our skin protects us from most harmful chemicals in our environment, shielding us against any damaging effects of what we touch or what touches us.

Shield and protection against damage. It is the first line of defense against injuries.

Organ for excretion of salts, urea, and toxins. Our skin actually releases a number of toxins for us. It secretes sweat to keep us cool and lubricate the skin.

Temperature regulation. Our skin helps regulate our body temperature. When we get too hot, it allows blood closer to the surface to give off heat and sweat glands release fluids to cool us through evaporation. When we get too cold, blood vessels contract to keep blood away from the surface. Muscles in the skin contract so that we shiver in order to generate heat.

Blood pressure regulation. Mechanisms in our skin increase or decrease the flow of blood in capillaries to regulate our blood pressure.

Sense of touch and pain. Everywhere on the surface of our skin we feel touch. Imagine trying to live without being able to feel anything. We are extremely sensitive to our environment, from the lightest touch of the spring breeze to the heavy thud of a hammer on our thumbnail.

Sense of hot and cold. What if you put your hand on a hot stove and couldn’t feel it? What if you took a hot shower but couldn’t tell how hot it was? What if you couldn’t tell if it was a cold day or a hot day?

Friction grip. Our skin, especially our palms and fingertips are specially designed with thicker skin and ridges so that we can grab things and hold onto them. What if your glass of milk kept slipping out of your hand?

Identification. Not only your fingerprints are unique and useful for identification, but your face is totally unique because of your skin. Take the skin off our faces and we’d all look pretty much the same.

Synthesizes Vitamin D. We all need Vitamin D to survive. Our skin makes that for us when we get enough sunlight.

I recently watched a DVD of a scientist, Dr. David Menton [2], talk for over 2 hours just about details of the skin. He hardly “scratched the surface” as they say. It was totally amazing and way beyond what I want to cover in this article. All of the above functions are very, very complicated processes involving very specialized cells in the skin. How anyone could imagine, let alone believe, that this all came about by accident is dumbfounding to me.

Let’s just talk about hair for a minute, as just one example of the complexity of different aspects in the skin. When you are born, you already have every hair follicle you will ever have. There are 3 types of hair on your body and the hair follicles are able to change themselves so that they can grow each of the different types of hair.

Lanugo hair is the type you have in the womb. It falls out before you are born.

Vellus hair is short, fine, light-colored, and barely noticeable hair that develops on most of a person's body from his/her childhood. It grows to a certain length and then stops. Eventually a totally new hair starts to grow underneath and the old hair falls out. Most of our body is covered with this type of hair as well as most animal bodies, although it is darker on animals.

  

Terminal hairs are thick, long, and dark. This is the kind that keeps growing continuously like on your head and in a man’s beard. Humans are almost the only animal that has this type of hair. Poodles are one of the very few other animals that have it.

Each hair follicle on your body has a small muscle attached to it. (Remember my Proof for God #62, Muscles, and that nobody knows how muscles could have “evolved”. [3] Well, they didn't.) So for example, if you get a chill, that muscle will make the attached hair stand up. If evolution were true, how does this make sense?

Also, each hair has a nerve connected to it that connects the hair to your brain. So when the wind blows your hair, you feel it because it registers in your brain. I’m sure you’ve noticed the wind blowing even though it is invisible. This is certainly a wonderful ability to have which makes us very sensitive to the people and the world around us.

Hair follicles have sebaceous glands [4] which secrete oils which lubricate and waterproof the skin. Specialized sebaceous glands secrete tears to help our eyes. Our hands and feet do not have these, which is a nice design feature. There are a number of different types of sebaceous glands in different areas of the body. Very, very interesting if you want to look it up.

Another amazing fact about our hair is that in some specific areas of our body there is a sweat gland which is attached to the hair follicles in that area. For example, when your body gets overheated, sweat comes out of the hair follicles in your arm pits, which helps cool you down quicker. Only one other animal sweats like humans, the horse. No evolutionist believes that we evolved from horses or that horses evolved from people, so how can they explain that we both have this amazingly complicated function in our skin. What are the odds that totally unrelated species could develop this same mechanism in their skin?

Each hair follicle is also connected to arteries and veins to supply oxygen and nourishment. Without these incredibly complex connections, we would not have hair.

Did you ever see a woman in the circus hanging by her hair and wonder why it doesn’t pull out and she falls? This is because each hair has a sheath around it which has a zigzag or ratchet pattern that is exactly matched by the surrounding hair follicle. It holds the hair in sort of like Velcro. But amazingly the hair can still grow.

OK, so I have just talked about hair so far and it's just a very small proportion of what's in your skin. But this article is getting pretty long so let me finish up quickly, but strongly note that the following, equally amazing properties of skin could all be talked about just as much as hair.

Our skin is composed of 3 layers: epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis. The very outermost layer, the epidermis, is composed of many layers of only dead cells. They are arranged in a complicated interlocking pattern like patio tiles. There are even small hook-like structures keeping them attached to each other. When a top layer of cells falls off or gets rubbed off, it gets replaced from the bottom. A layer of cells dies in the dermis and all the cells move up toward the surface. What an amazing design for replenishing the skin!

Think how amazing this is. As cells are lost on the surface, how do the cells below know to die in just the exact quantity to replace the lost cells? If your skin did not have this ability, then maybe too many dead cells would build up and clog the surface. Or maybe too few cells would be produced and all your epidermis would be rubbed off exposing the dermis where all the blood vessels and nerve endings reside.

That layer of dead cells, the epidermis, is about the thickness of Saran Wrap and yet it is totally essential to your survival. It holds in moisture so you don’t dry out. It keeps toxins and chemicals out along with bacteria and viruses.

Blood is carried into every tiny millimeter of your skin by an incredible network of capillaries. Look at this picture. There is no way this came about by random changes.

Your skin has millions of nerve endings everywhere. These are all connected to your brain and sending signals about your environment. Is it hot or cold? Are you being touched lightly or strongly? They can tell the texture of substances, whether they are soft or abrasive.

There are actually 2 types of skin. “Thick skin” is on your palms and feet. It is hairless but contains specialized nerve ending so it is much more sensitive to touch. “Thin skin” is everywhere else and contains hair.

Your palms and fingers have more specialized touch sensitive nerve endings. The name for the ending of those nerves is Meissner’s Corpuscle.[5] They are responsible for sensitivity to very light touch. How amazing that just where you need it the most, your skin provides super sensitivity. Try to imagine if your palms and fingertips were not as sensitive as they are. Read up on this type of corpuscle and how it works and tell me this is not a miracle.

You know what pain is. Do you know how miraculous it is that you can feel it? Everywhere in your skin are “specialized free nerve endings called ‘nociceptors’ or ‘pain receptors’ that only respond to tissue damage caused by intense chemical (e.g., chilli powder in the eyes), mechanical (e.g., pinching, crushing) or thermal (heat and cold) stimulation. Once stimulated, a nociceptor sends a signal along a chain of nerve fibers via the spinal cord to the brain. Nociception triggers a variety of autonomic responses and may also result in a subjective experience of pain in sentient beings. Nociceptive neurons generate trains of action potentials in response to intense stimuli, and the frequency of firing determines the intensity of the pain.” [6]

Notice that nociceptors have a special connection to the brain and even can trigger “automatic” reactions not initiated by the brain. Think about your “reflexes” and how quickly you pull your hand off of a hot stove. This is just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg” about how fantastic your skin is.

Imagine that you could not experience physical pain from your skin. You would never know if you had damaged any part of your body.

The skin on your face is what makes you look like you. We would all pretty much look alike without our skin. In fact the skin on your face has lots of embedded muscles whose sole purpose is to outwardly express your emotions. No other animals have anything like it.

All of us actually have the same color of skin. It is only because of different amounts of a chemical called melanin released in our skin that makes some skin black, brown, yellow, or red, or whatever. This too is an amazing process.

The idea that all these functions of our skin were not designed by a superior intelligence but happened accidentally over a few million years is impossible. That’s just assessing the incredible functionality of human skin. What about all the other animals that have skin as well? Some skin allows their owners to live in amazing environments, very, very cold or hot, wet or dry places. There are probably as many different types of skin as there animals. This multiplies the probability against evolution exponentially. The only thing that makes rational sense is that there must be a master intelligent designer.

There must be God.

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[1] Wikipedia, Human Skin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin

[2] Dr. David Menton, The Integumentary System (Skin), Body of Evidence DVD Series. www.answersingenesis.org  

[3] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #61, Muscles. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2014/05/61-muscles.html

[4] Wikipedia, Sebaceous Glands, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebaceous_glands

[5] Wikipedia, Tactile Corpuscle, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactile_corpuscle

[6] Wikipedia, Nociception, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_receptors

#62 Common Sense

All people have what is called “Common Sense” (to a greater or lesser degree it seems). This is the ability to organize our experiences in life and our observations into a coherent understanding of how things work.

This definition is from Wikipedia: “Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate. ...a type of basic awareness and ability to judge which most people are expected to share naturally, even if they can not explain why.” [1]

You’ve probably heard the expression “That doesn’t make sense”. This is based on our ability to judge our environment and make rational order of it. This is part of our intelligence. It can only exist because there is genuine order in the world around us and not chaos. There is a natural order of things and there are universal laws and principles.

Let’s take a statement like, “Rocks turned into people”. Your reaction would probably be “that doesn’t make any sense”. Yet that is a basic conclusion you would have to draw from so-called “scientific theories” that don’t include God. Atheists must necessarily believe that given billions of years, starting from rocks, eventually through purely chemical processes, then life accidentally started. Then came bacteria, and from bacteria life kept getting more and more complicated until humans came about.

Common Sense pretty much would tell you that life didn’t come from rocks no matter how long you waited, even billions upon billions of years.

If I tell you that there is absolutely nothing in a certain place, then suddenly for no reason there was a huge explosion and after that there were huge stars and planets everywhere, what would you say? “That doesn’t make any sense.” Precisely. If there was nothing, what exploded? And why?

At the same time as the Big Bang exploded and produced gigantic amounts of matter, it also produced universal laws of physics and chemistry. It also produced time and space. Does that make sense?

How about this? There was a huge explosion, then after a while, tiny particles began to move closer together. Eventually they turned into rocks, which became huge. Then they started to spin and they got hotter and hotter. “That doesn’t make any sense.” You’re right. Our experience tells us that after an explosion, matter is far apart and does not come back together on its own.

There are a lot of stars in the Universe, at least 11 trillion for every person on earth. Starting from Nothing, Nothing exploded and created huge amounts of dust which then violated physical and chemical laws by coming together trillions upon trillions of times to make stars out of the dust. Sorry, this doesn’t make sense.

Where did the energy for that explosion come from? It was an extreme amount of energy to be sure. We were taught in school that energy is “neither created nor destroyed, it just changes forms”. Does that make sense?

By the way, the Big Bang produced ONLY the elements of Hydrogen, Helium, and maybe Lithium. [2] [3] This took roughly 300,000 years. Somehow those 2 or 3 elements eventually became all of the 100 plus other elements of the Periodic Table all by themselves. I'm having trouble. This is not making sense.

You’ve probably heard that scientists do not believe in “Spontaneous Generation”, the concept that life can spring up from non-life. [4] [5] Atheists must necessarily believe in Spontaneous Generation. Clearly there was no life at one time and now there is. If it wasn’t spontaneously generated, then where did it come from? Common Sense is against spontaneous generation.

Or how about the idea that if you take lots of different rocks and rain on them for a long time until you have soup, out of the soup comes life. The goo became you. This violates the principle that all particles in water become dispersed, not organized. Probably many other laws are violated as well.

So what if you zap it with a lightning bolt? Our Common Sense will tell us that the energy added from a lightning bolt creates more chaos, not complexity. Adding energy creates an explosion, not life. (See my article on the First Living Cell. [6])

Do you believe that over a long, long time everything got more complex all by itself? Doesn’t make any sense to me. Over time everything rusts, decays, or falls apart.

Do you believe that adding energy in the form of sunlight will cause more complexity and organization? That doesn’t make any sense. Adding random energy hastens decay. Only adding energy PLUS adding intelligence creates better organization.

Intelligent scientists trying for 40 years could not mutate a fruit fly into anything else but a fruit fly. Do you believe if given enough time that it could randomly happen WITHOUT intelligence? Doesn’t make any sense. (Check out my article #27 The Truth About Mutation [7])

If I told you, “My house built itself over thousands and thousands of years. There was no creator. It happened slowly and gradually, one small piece at a time.” You didn’t see what happened over thousands of years and you’re not a scientist, so how do you know the truth? A house is not all that complicated, especially when compared to a human body, so maybe “It could have happened.” The odds are against it, but it could have happened. The house got there somehow, obviously because it’s there. I’m sorry, no. Even billions of years is never enough time for my house to build itself. It had to have a creator.

Here’s my point. I’m not denying that the Big Bang happened. But I am denying that it could have happened without God. Common Sense will also tell you that every step of the way from the Big Bang to human beings, adding more and more complexity, going against the laws of chemistry and physics, would never have happened UNLESS there is an outside force and intelligence acting.

There must be God.
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[1] Wikipedia. Common Sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense

[2] Wikipedia, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis

[3] Berkeley University, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, http://astro.berkeley.edu/~mwhite/darkmatter/bbn.html

[4] Wikipedia, Spontaneous Generation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
“Disproof of the traditional ideas of spontaneous generation is no longer controversial among professional biologists.”

[5] Encyclopaedia Britannica, Spontaneous Generation, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/560859/spontaneous-generation “By the 18th century it had become obvious that higher organisms could not be produced by nonliving material. The origin of microorganisms such as bacteria, however, was not fully determined until Louis Pasteur proved in the 19th century that microorganisms reproduce.”

[6] Jim Stephens, Proof #41 The First Living Cell, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/07/41-first-living-cell.html

[7] Jim Stephens, Proof #27, The Truth About Mutation, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/27-truth-about-mutation.html

#61 Muscles

If you are a fan of any sport, I’m sure you are amazed by what human beings can do. How strong and how fast they are and how coordinated they can move is astounding. It is almost incomprehensible that their eyes can see a ball moving over 100 miles an hour and through the brain coordinate their arms, legs, and hands to catch or hit that ball with precision. Also, I’m sure you know that many animals are capable of feats that humans cannot begin to duplicate.

All of these movements are accomplished by specialized cells called muscles.

If you do an Internet search for “evolution of muscles”, you will come up with almost nothing. The articles have totally speculative statements or are just a description of a supposed sequence of development, but there is no explanation. If they are honest, they will admit they have no idea of the origins of muscles. For example, “The structure and function of vertebrate striated muscle, which can be contracted at will, has been studied in detail, but its evolutionary history remains obscure.” [1] Here is another, “While the structure and function of muscles, especially of vertebrates, have been intensively studied, the evolutionary origin of smooth and striated muscles has so far been enigmatic.” [2] Even Wikipedia, which is pro-evolution, admits this with a disclaimer at the top. “This article has multiple issues.” [3]

The tiniest movements we make, like the “jitter” of each eye over 30 times a second [4], like every beat of your heart, like large jumps with your legs, are all accomplished by muscle(s). Every time your mind wants your body to do something, it calls on specific muscles to accomplish it.

Not only movements, but our minds have so many emotions they need to be able to express. So our faces are designed with all the muscles we need for that. Why would all those facial expressions we can make be necessary in order to be the fittest to survive as evolutionists claim?

I like this description from How Stuff Works. “Because muscles are so crucial to any animal, they are incredibly sophisticated. They are efficient at turning fuel into motion, they are long-lasting, they are self-healing and they are able to grow stronger with practice. They do everything from allowing you to walk to keeping your blood flowing!” [5]

Many things inside your body happen automatically to keep you alive, but they happen without you having to think about it. Muscles move your food down your esophagus, through your stomach and intestines, and all the way out. Your lungs suck in air. Your heart beats almost every second. This is all done by muscles.

Wikipedia has a list of 642 “skeletal muscles” which are the ones controlled by our consciousness and the list includes their location in the body and their purpose. [6] But some other sources may count muscles differently and come up with as many as 850.

Muscles exist in 320 pairs. According to Wikipedia’s sources, “almost every muscle constitutes one part of a pair of identical bilateral muscles, found on both sides,...” [7] Remember this point. It will be important later.

There are 3 distinct types of muscles.

            Skeletal muscles, also called “voluntary”, are ones which can be controlled by the mind. These are the 642 mentioned above.

            Smooth muscles, or “involuntary”, are ones which we cannot control. They are contained in our digestive system (esophagus, stomach, intestines), blood vessels, bladder, bronchi (lungs), arrector pili (skin), and, in females, the uterus (childbirth).

            Cardiac muscle is found only in the heart and is very unique. The cells are specially designed and connected so they can all contract at the same time at the command of cells called “pacemaker” cells in the heart.

42% of a man’s body mass is muscle. For women it is 36%. While we are on the subject, it could be noted that men and women have many differences in their muscle systems, particularly in the reproductive area. If you want some fascinating reading sometime, check out how the uterus works.

The Skeletal muscles can be further subdivided into “slow twitch” or “fast twitch” muscles. The slow twitch muscles contract for a long time but with little force. The fast twitch muscles can contract rapidly and with strong force. The fast twitch muscles are even subdivided into 3 more categories.

Muscles are made up of many, many muscle cells which are arranged together in bundles inside a sheath called a sarcolemma. Furthermore, many of these sheaths are again bound together in a large bundle which is surrounded by another sheath called a fascicle. Then again many fascicles are bound together in another sheath called an epimysium. This reminds me of the steel cables used to make the Golden Gate Bridge. This design gives amazing strength.

Inside every muscle there are numerous arteries and veins to bring blood with oxygen and nutrition and carry away waste products. There are also many nerve endings coming all the way from the brain that initiate contractions. There are also many mitochondria in the cells to process oxygen, fats, and carbohydrates as fuel for energy.

The whole process of chemical reactions and how a muscle is able to contract and relax is super complicated and over my head. But you can research the details yourself if you are interested.

Common sense will tell you that our muscles were designed by a super intelligence. The abilities of man-made robots are miniscule in comparison.

Remember I noted that muscles all come in pairs. If you put your arm out, you need a complementary muscle to pull it back. If you look up, you need a complementary muscle to pull your eye back down. If you step forward, you need a complementary muscle to keep you from falling over.

If there is no God, and all muscles came about by accident, mutation, and natural selection, how can you account for complementary pairs of muscles? Mutation would have to guess right 340 times. Suppose you evolve a muscle (which isn’t easy) that will move your arm out. What good is that? How many generations will it take with all people having their arms hanging out until some individual evolves a muscle to bring his arm back in. If it’s a man, he has to wait for a woman to also evolve that same muscle to pull in her arm, find her, marry her, and have children. Then they become the Adam and Eve for all mankind because we all have both those muscles. All the people without both those muscles have died out. Oops, I almost forgot that we have to repeat that process 339 more times to account for all the pairs in our bodies. And that’s just the voluntary muscles. How we could possibly evolve the cardiac and involuntary muscles is still not accounted for.

Remember evolving a muscle is not going to be simple. You have got to also evolve the nerves (connected to the brain) and arteries and veins (connected to the heart) inside the muscle and then surround it all with 3 layers of sheathing. You also have to evolve the tendons to connect the muscles to your bones. This is not even in the realm of possibility.

Natural Selection would theoretically prevent the evolution of muscle pairs anyway. Survival of the fittest would eliminate single muscles before their complementary muscle could evolve. You can’t close your eyes and not be able to open them. If you stick out your arm and can’t bring it back, you would not be one of the fittest that could survive.

I’ve already discussed in other posted articles the explanations of how mutation [8] and natural selection [9] have never been shown to be processes that can produce new species. So to, they are not processes that can even begin to explain how muscles originated either.

We discussed human muscles above, but every other species of mammal, fish, birds, and insects has muscles as well. Most all of those muscles are in pairs. We’re talking about several million species that would have had to evolve their own unique muscles to accommodate their unique skeletons.

All those species also have hearts and involuntary muscles as well. Those would all have to evolve separately too inside every animal species. This is astronomically impossible.

Think about involuntary muscles for a minute. If evolution were true, then at some point before our lungs worked automatically we would have to think “breath in, breath out,” all the time. Ridiculous. Before our esophagus evolved to automatically push our food down, we would have to think about it. At what point after many generations of evolution did we have to stop telling our stomach to move the food along and our lungs start breathing on their own? Equally ridiculous. It was all in place from the beginning or we would have died out as a species.

What about the cardiac muscle in the heart? How did that muscle accidentally “evolve” and start beating. At what point did the arteries and veins get connected and then blood was created to move around the body or up to the lungs for oxygen and back again?

The masterpiece of the human body is not the result of ad hoc, random additions over many generations.

It was designed from the beginning.

There must be God.

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[1] Evolution of muscles, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/news/newsarchiv/2012/2012_woerheide.html

[2] Searching for the origin of muscles, Science Daily,   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628145626.htm

[3] Muscular evolution in humans, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscular_evolution_in_humans

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

[5] How Muscles Work, How Stuff Works website, http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/musculoskeletal/muscle.htm

[6] List of muscles of the human body, Wikipedia,   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_muscles_of_the_human_body

[7] List of muscles of the human body, Wikipedia,   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_muscles_of_the_human_body

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

#60 Water

Of all the treasures that we could talk about on earth, the number one most valuable substance is water. Every living being requires water. As a matter of fact, every living cell requires water.

The water molecule is so unique and special among all substances. It is so finely tuned and ideally suited to foster the existence of life that it is impossible to rationally conclude it was a cosmic accident. It is much easier to accept that it was miraculously designed.

A water molecule is totally different from the normal properties that would be expected from the patterns of similar compounds in the Periodic Table of Elements. Its freezing temperature and boiling point are way too high. It should be a gas at room temperatures. It should turn from ice to liquid at around -100°C (instead of 0°C) and then from liquid to gas at around -80°C (instead of 100°C). This would mean almost all the water on Earth would not exist (and neither would we).

Water is everywhere on Earth, covering 71% [1] of the Earth’s surface. “Earth is the only known planet to have bodies of liquid water on its surface.”[2] No other planet in the known universe has even the tiniest fraction of this much water. Think about the implications of that truth and the specialness of our “home” in the vast universe.

This much water allows for gigantic numbers of species to live in the water, especially the tiny life giving organisms like algae and plankton which produce a lot of the oxygen and nutrition for most species. “It is estimated that marine plants produce between 70 and 80 percent of the oxygen in the atmosphere.” [3]

What is the origin of water? It is so absolutely essential to all life that without water there could never have been any life. The properties of water are so chemically unusual and yet so absurdly complementary and coordinated with life that it is impossible to conceive that this is an accidental relationship. The most rational conclusion is that water and life were designed.

All of your needs for Oxygen, down to the last cell, are provided by the water in our blood. The way you get rid of Carbon Dioxide is provided by water. Water does the same thing for plants, but in reverse.

Even the smallest variation in any of the properties of water would be the end of us. It is all functioning miraculously on the tiniest cellular level.

“If the angle between hydrogen atoms in the water molecule were different, there would be no complex life-giving molecules, and no life on earth.” [4]

This property is one of my favorites. When water freezes, it expands. Only a small handful of other substances do that. But because it does that, frozen water, i.e. ice, floats. The density of ice is almost ten times lighter than liquid water. [5] If water were a normal compound, its frozen form would sink. But imagine if ice were to sink, then in winter when all the lakes would freeze, then the ice would sink to the bottom. Then new water on the top of the lake would freeze and sink to the bottom. Soon the whole lake from the bottom up would be frozen solid, killing all the fish and plants. When could it ever thaw out? It would take a really long time if ever with the sun only melting the ice on the surface. But fortunately that’s not what happens because of how water is designed. The ice floats and actually provides a protective layer against the cold for all life under the surface. Doesn’t that sound like it was designed by a brilliant, loving intelligence that was concerned for the life it created?

You probably realize cooler water sinks. This creates what is called “stratification”. You might have noticed this when swimming in a lake, that the water down deeper is colder. However, when water becomes ice it rises to the top. This causes a churning effect in the spring and fall that circulates and oxygenates the lake waters. That effect is very beneficial for plant and animal life in the lakes. Also because the warmer water stays on top, the sun’s heat cannot penetrate so deeply that it would harm the animal and plant life below.

An important property of water due to hydrogen bonding is called “cohesion”. The hydrogen atoms are constantly bonding and breaking bonds in tiny fractions of a second. “Cohesion due to hydrogen bonding contributes to the formation of waves and other water movements that occur in lakes. Water movements are integral components of the lake system and play an important role in the distribution of temperature, dissolved gases, and nutrients. These movements also determine the distribution of microorganisms and plankton.” [6]

Water has a high degree of surface tension. This also creates a protection effect, not only for lakes and oceans, but even in our own bodies. “Water has a greater surface tension than all other liquids except mercury.” [7] That surface tension is what makes water drops take the shape of spheres. Water falling from the sky takes the shape of drops. These can act like little bullets to penetrate and refresh plant life and the earth. They can dissolve and wash away toxins. It mixes up soils and fertilizes. It erodes rocks over time, making soil. It churns the oceans, benefitting fish and plant life.

Water rains down to the earth to nourish all life. It then flows towards streams and rivers to the sea where it evaporates and goes back into the atmosphere to repeat the cycle. The unidirectional flow of water in the evaporation/condensation cycle enables water all over the earth to continuously cleanse itself and renew the earth and all forms of life.

When water is heated in hot climates, the water vapor can carry large amounts of heat energy away to cooler locations and then release it in the form of rain. This cools the hotter climates and warms the colder ones, while at the same time refreshing and oxygenating the atmosphere.

"Water is called the ‘universal solvent’ because it dissolves more substances than any other liquid. This means that wherever water goes, either through the ground or through our bodies, it takes along valuable chemicals, minerals, and nutrients." [8] This allows water to carry nutrition throughout your body to every one of your 100 trillion cells. It also allows the water to extract the waste products from your cells and carry them to the organ that is designed to eliminate them.

Colloidal action is another special property of water. The inherent vibration by the H₂O molecules pushes around any dissolved substances so they are evenly distributed throughout the water.

Capillary action and surface tension are also important properties. This means that water goes into the tiniest of cracks and crevices automatically. This makes your life so much easier because your heart does not have to provide huge amounts of force to get your blood to circulate through all the tiny capillaries to supply all your cells. Blood carries nutrients to every cell in the bodies of all animals and then removes waste products. Water in the sap in trees and plants carries nutrients for their life.

“Water also has the ability to pass through cell membranes and climb great heights in plants and trees through osmosis and capillary force. Osmotic pressure and capillary action enable water to climb hundreds of feet to the tops of the highest trees. The mystery of osmosis enables plants to feed, and plants and animals to carry on a multitude of life processes.  Osmosis enables marine creatures to absorb fresh water in an increasing salt-water environment.” [9]

Water has a highest heat capacity of any liquid, [10] meaning it can absorb relatively huge amounts of heat. This means it is slow to increase in temperature and to eventually boil. It also releases heat very slowly. The whole planet and everything on it benefits from this. The sand on the beach can get so hot you can’t walk on it, but the ocean stays cool and doesn’t turn to steam.

The oceans keep our entire environment from getting way too hot and conversely from getting way too cold. Water makes a “womb” for all life, a protective habitat. It’s almost analogous to the female womb that lovingly supports the growth of new life. Near large bodies of water, the winters are warmer and the summers are cooler.

Because water can absorb great amounts of heat and our bodies are mostly water, it means our body temperature is much easier to regulate and there are not huge swings to deal with. Our body even has a mechanism to release sweat that will evaporate from our skin taking heat with it and keeping us cooler.

“"More energy is required to evaporate liquid water than most other substances. To evaporate each gram of water at room temperature, about 580 calories of heat are needed, which is nearly double the amount needed to vaporize a gram of alcohol or ammonia." [11]

Water remains a liquid over a very large range (0°C to 100°C, 32°F to 212°F). Most other substances have a much shorter range between solid and gaseous states. This range allows life to exist over a large spectrum of temperatures.

One source noted that water has "at least twenty-one anomalies, properties that the laws of chemistry and physics say it should not have." [12]

This doesn’t cover all the amazing properties of water, but let’s get to the point. Does this prove that God exists? Suppose every morning when you wake up, you go outside your front door and there waiting for you is exactly all the food and water that you will need for the day to live. The next day the same. The day after that the same. It never fails. All your essential needs are provided for in exactly the right proportions. If any of the ingredients were to vary slightly, you would starve or die of thirst. Could this be just a cosmic accident? The odds are so infinitesimally small as to be non-existent.

There must be God.

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[1] How much water is there on, in, and above the Earth? U. S. Geological Survey http://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html

[2] Are there oceans on other planets? National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U. S. Dept. of Commerce. http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/et-oceans.html

[3] The Most Important Organism? http://www.ecology.com/2011/09/12/important-organism/

[4] Twenty Three Unique Properties of Water. http://www.intelligentdesigntheory.info/unique_properties_of_water.htm

[5] What happens to marine life when a lake or pond is frozen? http://www.myuniversalfacts.com/2005/12/what-happens-to-marine-life-when-lake.html

[6] Student Reading - The Unique Properties of Water. (The ensuing discussion is adapted from Campbell, N.A. 1996. Biology (4th edition))  http://www.waterontheweb.org/curricula/bs/student/water/unique.html

[7] Student Reading - The Unique Properties of Water. (The ensuing discussion is adapted from Campbell, N.A. 1996. Biology (4th edition))  http://www.waterontheweb.org/curricula/bs/student/water/unique.html

[8] Water Properties and Measurements, U. S. Geological Survey. http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/waterproperties.html

[9] Twenty Three Unique Properties of Water. http://www.intelligentdesigntheory.info/unique_properties_of_water.htm

[10] Water Properties and Measurements, U. S. Geological Survey. http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/waterproperties.html

[11] Student Reading - The Unique Properties of Water. (The ensuing discussion is adapted from Campbell, N.A. 1996. Biology (4th edition))  http://www.waterontheweb.org/curricula/bs/student/water/unique.html

[12] Twenty Three Unique Properties of Water. http://www.intelligentdesigntheory.info/unique_properties_of_water.htm

#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