Whether you’ve heard of it before or not, this Sunday is the annual “National Mustard Day.” If you didn’t know, don’t feel badly; after all, it’s considered as a “food holiday that might get overlooked.” Yet, there are people all over the country who will celebrate by using their favorite variety of the yellow condiment at lunch and dinner, and perhaps even invite their friends over for a mustard-tasting party. If mustard is your favorite condiment, you might like to know the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin, is taking their annual parade online for 2020, so you can get in on the uber-celebrating too!

Reading about this “holiday” reminded me of an object lesson I once did with my homeschool drama class. It was in the spring semester of 2014 when I directed a Kathie Hill musical called “AmeriKids,” which was the story of the founding of the United States of America. The object lesson was that when we have faith even the size of a mustard seed, great things can happen. (Matthew 17:30; Luke 17:5-6) In this context, we know our founding fathers had a dream and, in faith, planted a seed that has flourished into a great nation. At the start of the semester, I brought a single mustard seed to class and planted it in a pot of soil in front of my students. Every week I carted that little plant to and from class, and every week my students and I marveled at its progress. On the night of our musical I carried that leafy green plant on the stage and introduced it and the musical. The audience was as impressed as we were. But in the gospels, we find that the Lord Himself tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like the mustard seed because even though it’s smaller than the other seeds, it can grow to be larger than the other plants. (Matthew 13:31-32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:16-19). Isn’t that amazing? Even without a spoken word, we can see in God’s created nature signs and symbols of both His love and His kingdom.

And what about the rocks? Isaiah tells us, “You will indeed go out with joy and be peacefully guided; the mountains and the hills will break into singing before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” (55:12 HCSB). And Jesus Himself told the Pharisees in Luke 19 that even if the disciples stopped singing His praise the “stones would cry out!” (v. 40 HCSB) Indeed, God has created our world in such a way that if we never read a word of His Word, we could see Him revealed in nature.

At no time in my life was this truth more real to me than later that year. In May we did our musical, and in June my son and I were given an opportunity to travel to Europe and to do some sightseeing. We visited some long-time missionary friends in southern Austria who took us on a day trip to Slovenia and Italy. Just inside the Slovenian border we stopped and walked around a site of a former concentration camp. While the somber reality that we were walking on a ground that once was the foundation of horrible atrocities was gripping, across the street was a metal sculpture by Boris Kobe depicting a prisoner with his arms raised to the heavens, crying out for relief. But on that day what accosted my emotions the most were the giant tree-covered stone mountains that encompassed that little valley. I remembered the verses from Isaiah and Luke and thought not so much about the prisoners but about their captors. Even if those men had never heard the truth of God’s love for all from John 3:16, or the definition of sin from James 4:17, or the wages of sin from Romans 6:23, even so—they had God’s majestic creation surrounding them, crying in chorus with those prisoners, telling them that God is real and that God is in control of this world.

Paul tells us this same thing in Romans 1. In fact, through the ages, philosophers have offered a picture of Paul’s passage of verses 18-23 as humans having been created with a “God-shaped vacuum.” How true this is! God made us for the purpose of knowing and worshiping Him. As humans we crave and desire to do that, and the created world around us points our attention to the Creator Who can fill that vacuum. So that brings us to our first Bible verse Fun Fact:

According to Paul, why is no man excused from knowing God?
In Romans 1:20, Paul says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (NKJV).

Nobody is without excuse. Nobody. God has given us all the ability to know Him.

In the world of creation science and apologetics, this passage pops up a lot. Of course, Darwinian evolution has become so commonplace, and the “accepted science” of the public schools in our country. But as I mentioned briefly in my July 17 post about the incompatibility of the Big Bang and the Bible, the idea of Darwinian evolution is simply that: an idea. It is not scientific fact and doesn’t even fulfill the requirements of being called a scientific theory. We will discuss this more with future Fun Facts, but this week I want to remind you that when it comes down to it, evolution—as a scientific model—was developed to try to find a way to explain origins without a Creator, without a God to Whom each one of us is accountable.

But what does God’s Word say? It says everyone--everyone—knows God exists. And verses 21-22 say, “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools” (NKJV).

Faith the size of a mustard seed is all it takes to fill the God-shaped vacuum you have in your heart, and then you can sing along with the rocks. Don’t forget to mention that to your friends this Sunday as you’re topping your hot dogs, mixing your egg salad, or seasoning your tofu with your favorite yellow condiment!
 
Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/bibleVerses/romans120.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

July 26 is “National All or Nothing Day,” and while the origin of the “holiday” is unclear, the philosophy is “seize the day!” Be all in or be all out. What dream, goal, project, or bucket-list item have you been putting off? This Sunday is the day to commit, make a plan, tell your friends, post it to social media, and get it done!

My goal is to remind my friends, family, and as many others as I can that this world and everything in it is owned by its Creator. (Psalm 24:1)

But the phrase “all or nothing” reminds me of my favorite Fun Fact:
What is irreducible complexity?
Sometimes referred to as “all or nothing,” irreducible complexity is a system of interdependent parts: parts that rely upon each other in order to make the whole function.

In this case, “all or nothing” is about the design of systems that require certain parts that depend on each other in order to function. And, when one or more of those parts are missing, the system cannot operate.

One great example I like goes back to a sermon I heard as a young adult, when my pastor mentioned that an airplane is made up of so many parts—wings, stabilizers, rudders, flaps, engines, etc.—none of which can fly on their own, but when put together, the whole system can transport almost anything you can think of.

God, the creative Engineer, built complex systems too: He designed us, the animals, and most of nature around us, both visible and invisible!

We’ve already discussed some examples of irreducible complexity, such as the giraffe and the bombardier beetle. Both are animals that defy evolution because their complex designs could not have gradually evolved to what they are. In the giraffe, if his heart didn’t beat as powerfully as it does, and if the spongy tissue at the base of his brain was missing, and if the valves didn’t have a pressure-check system, then the supposed ancestor of the giraffe we see today would not have survived long enough to produce offspring to evolve. All those features had to be in place at once. All or nothing.

Similarly, the bombardier beetle, with his gas chambers and his high-pressure nozzle sprayer, could not have evolved one part at a time. From the beginning, the complex system had to be designed just that way. In future weeks, we’ll discuss other amazing examples of irreducible complexity, such as the chuckwalla lizard, the woodpecker, and the human eyes, ears, heart, and brain.

But this week, let’s talk more specifically about irreducible complexity in the cells of living beings. Did you know that the average human body is made up of at least 30-40 trillion cells?! And that within each cell are compartments called “organelles.” These compartments are not only carefully organized, but they are interconnected and networked to move calcium, lipids, proteins, sugars, and more to keep you alive! Scientists are discovering that these organelles cannot function independently. Right from the start they had to be designed to work together. Someone had to design them that way!

There are many more examples of irreducible complexity even outside my Fun Facts. I would encourage you to visit the page on my website for this Fun Fact, and explore the links I have gathered that will take you to articles, videos, and audio clips about the complexity found in human tears, the knee joint, hemoglobin, blood clotting, the electrical design of the nervous system, weedy plants, fungi, and even the long-time debate of the chicken vs. the egg.

In my mind, irreducible complexity is just about the strongest evidence for a Creator. Just like engineers have to design an airplane with all its required parts in order for it to be able to fly, the Engineer had to design our cells, our bodies, and countless systems in animals and nature all over the earth in order for them to function properly. That’s why this is my favorite Fun Fact! And that’s why I wanted to seize the opportunity to tell you about it!

Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/humanBody/complexity.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

July 17, 2020, marks 126 years from the day Georges Lemaître was born. I know what you’re wondering: Who on earth was Georges Lemaître, and what does this have to do with our Fun Facts? Let me tell you: Georges Lemaître was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and—believe it or not—a Catholic priest. It might be hard for some of us to believe the last one because he is also the scientist credited with the formulation of the modern “big bang” philosophy of the origin of the universe.

Unfortunately, that isn’t such a leap for some Christians because there are some who actually believe God may have used evolution—and specifically the Big Bang—to execute His creative process. And that is what this week’s Fun Fact is about:

Is the Big Bang compatible with the Bible?
Not even remotely. . . . The Big Bang is the naturalistic explanation for how the universe came into existence over billions of years, whereas the Bible makes it clear that God specially created supernaturally over six days.

There is one similarity between the Genesis account of Creation and the big bang scenario: both models acknowledge the universe had a beginning, at which point nothing existed. Beyond that, there really is no comparison between the two. From a scientific viewpoint, I could present all sorts of reasons why the big bang conjecture—although taught in secular textbooks as fact—isn’t even a valid model.  However, the naturalistic principle, “from nothing, comes nothing,” is proof enough.  The big bang model is built on non-falsifiable, speculative hypotheses that cannot be tested, repeated, or observed.  It cannot explain the origin of matter, galaxies, or stars.  It cannot account for the lack of antimatter in the universe, and even many secular scientists and atheists are skeptical of the big bang model.

​Instead, I want to consider three questions: One, what are some of the differences between the two models? Two, what would the theological implications be if the big bang model were true?  Three, why do some Christians want to make the two models match?

First, what are some of the scientific differences between the big bang model and the Genesis account of Creation?

• Natural vs. Supernatural: The big bang philosophy was designed as an attempt to explain the origin of the universe from an atheistic, or naturalistic, view. Naturalism is the belief that everything that happens in this world is the result of natural processes. However, the Bible tells us repeatedly that God, Who is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God, has supernaturally caused things to happen. Creation was just the beginning. We read accounts all through His Word about rivers being held back, signs and wonders being performed, bread falling from heaven, dead people being raised to life, and so on and so forth. As Christians, we believe in a supernatural God, but to limit His supernatural wonders to only after the origin of the universe is not only an illogical and inconsistent worldview, but it discredits His Word from the very beginning.
• Timescale: The big bang model is built on a timescale of 13.8 billion years, with a suggested 9 billion years between the sudden appearance of space, matter, energy, and time, and the existence of the earth. However, a straightforward reading of the Genesis account of Creation tells us that God created everything in just six ordinary days, and the Bible confirms this in Exodus 20:11 and 31:17. Reading the genealogies throughout the Bible then gives us an approximate timescale of about six thousand years since Creation.
• Order of Events: In the big bang model, the stars appeared long before the earth came to be. Genesis 1:1 (Day 1) tells us, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and in verse 16 (on Day 4), we read, “God made the two great lights—the greater light to have dominion over the day and the lesser light to have dominion over the night—as well as the stars” (HCSB). Additionally, big bang cosmology suggests reptiles evolved into birds, but Genesis 1 tells us birds were created on Day 5 (verse 20) and reptiles were created on Day 6 (verse 24). The big bang model says that the sun came to be before any vegetation on Earth, but Genesis 1 tells us God created vegetation on Day 3 (verse 11) and didn’t create the sun until Day 4 (verse 14).

These are just a few examples of many inconsistencies between the big bang philosophy and the Bible’s record of the origin of the universe. On top of these, throughout the entire Bible, we have repeated confirmations that God created everything: Nehemiah 9:6; Isaiah 42:5; Jeremiah 32:17; John 1:3; Acts 4:24; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:16; and Revelation 4:11 are just some of the examples.

Indeed, the glaring differences of the naturalistic vs. supernatural beginning, the timescale, and the order of events display, scientifically, that the two models are not only incompatible, but in direct contrast to each other. But the most important things that would be out of order are death and sin. That brings us to the next question.

What would the theological implications be if the big bang model were true? In last week’s blog post, I wrote about the fact that God originally created everything perfect. We read six times in Genesis 1—at the end of each working day of Creation—that “God saw that it was good” or “very good.” I mentioned that Deuteronomy 32:4 tells us that God’s “work is perfect.” We know that status changed at the curse. Adam and Eve, who were given free will by their Maker, sinned. Romans 5:12 tells us, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned” (HCSB). God’s creation was perfect, but the first sin introduced death.

As a contrast, the big bang philosophy teaches a history of the universe that is full of decay and destruction. Generational cycles of death and evolution would have had to take place before humans ever came on the scene. Death would have come before sin, and this undermines the whole foundation of the gospel.

It was man’s sin, with death as its wages (Romans 6:23), that necessitated our redemption by Christ’s death on the cross. If death came before sin, that would totally negate Romans 5:12 and our need for salvation. Indeed, the consequence of subscribing to a big bang model is not only removing God as a Creator, but even as a Savior.

Finally, why do some Christians want to make the two models match? And that is an important question to answer, isn’t it? I think, for some Christians, they have been taught by public-school textbooks and teachers that evolution is true, and they haven’t stopped to recognize the implications. Some probably don’t understand what the big bang model actually says and what the inconsistencies are in believing it. Hopefully, if I have any readers who fit that category, you will be able to see now how contradictory the big bang conjecture is to the Bible.

Still, I think there are others who, at least when it comes to science, have not digested what John says in 1 John 3:13: “Do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you” (HCSB). Instead, they want to find a way to be friends with the world, to compromise the plain reading of Genesis in order to accommodate what “real scientists” speculate could have happened if there were no God. But here’s the secret: This is not a battle between science and the Bible because God gave us science as a tool, and the Bible as His Word. In fact, real science is the friend of the believer, and we can rest in His Word as our authority rather than changing it to match what fallible scientists see or think about nature. Scientific philosophies come and go, but God’s Word will never change. And that is the biggest contrast between a model that itself continues to evolve and a standard that has been provided by the only Eyewitness to the origin of the universe.
 

Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/astronomy/bigBang.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

July 11 is an international day of observance: “World Population Day.” This annual event began in 1987, inspired by the public interest in “Five Billion Day,” when Earth’s population had crossed the 5,000,000,000 mark. Today, there is an estimated global population of over 7.5 billion, which means that in 33 years, the population has increased by approximately fifty percent. Should we be concerned that the global population will ever exceed Earth’s capacity?

If we were concerned about such a predicament, what types of humanitarian causes might we be inclined to endorse? Before we wander down that trail too much further, I think even as Christians, with a biblical worldview, we can acknowledge there are great humanitarian causes that help restore the dignities of population groups and help us demonstrate God’s love, pointing people to Him.

But, unlike many secular (humanistic) humanitarians, as Christians our focus really should not be on what the human race has done, is doing, or will do to impact the earth, but rather on what God has done, is doing, and will do to and with His creation.

Six times—at the end of each working day of Creation—we read in Genesis 1 that “God saw that it was good” or “very good.” How good was it?  In the Song of Moses recorded in Deuteronomy 32, Moses says of God in verse 4 that His “work is perfect.” As far as the planet itself goes, science confirms God created it perfectly to sustain life (something we will explore in a future Fun Fact). Based on Moses’ song and our studies of DNA, we can believe the first set of animals created—be they air, water, or land—were created flawlessly. God saw that His work was “very good,” and “very good” meant “perfect.”

We also know God gave a command to Adam and Eve, as well as to Noah’s family, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Genesis 1:28; 9:1; 9:7), so we know His intention for this planet for this time we are in was that the population should continue to grow, just as it is doing.

Finally, we also know that God has an expiration date (which only He knows) for this temporary home of ours (Matthew 5:18, 24:35; Mark 21:33; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 21:1; etc.).

But what about the expiration date of the people God has created? This is an interesting Fun Fact from the biology category:
What is gene depletion?
Gene depletion, also known as genetic entropy, is the observed fact that many variations within one kind are caused by mutational losses.
This Fun Fact has some terms that might be unfamiliar to many people, especially those who didn’t particularly enjoy their high school science classes. Let’s break it down a bit:

• Entropy is a measure of disorder. When something is orderly (or “very good”) and it becomes disorderly, the amount of change in order can sometimes be measured by its entropy. Most often, we see this in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which we will discuss at a later time this year.
• The term “gene depletion”—and the basic principle of this Fun Fact—I learned from my friend Russ Miller, the Off-Grid Creationist and founder of Creation, Evolution & Science Ministries. He argues that, when combined with natural selection, gene depletion makes Darwinian evolution a scientific impossibility. Gene depletion is a loss of information, and the idea of Darwinian evolution is predicated on a gain of new (beneficial) information. We will discuss this more later this year too!
• Finally, Dr. John Sanford, retired Cornell geneticist and the President of Logos Research Associates, coined the term “genetic entropy,” and wrote a book on the topic. He explains that genetic entropy, or genetic degeneration, demonstrates that we are experiencing a mutation, or erosion, of our genes at a high rate. Our genetic coding, or DNA, is becoming more disorderly. Genetic entropy happens at a personal level, throughout the course of a person’s life, but genetic entropy also happens from generation to generation. We inherit mutations from our ancestors.

So, putting it all together, when creation scientists study DNA and the law of entropy, they see that over time our genetics have been withering and decaying. It’s kind of like making a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. By the hundredth copy, there will be many flaws, or mutations even if the original was “very good.”

Just how many more generations does the human race have left before no more legible “copies” can be made? That’s an answer scientists have not been able to officially pinpoint yet. But when we consider what the Bible says, it is certainly evident that God does not intend for unlimited generations of the human race. Indeed, we can trust that just as Earth has an expiration date, Earth’s population has a maximum. Both are numbers that only God knows. And both are situations that humans, in our limited and finite capacities, have no ultimate control over. We are the creation, and the Creator is not only omnipotent and omniscient, but also true and loving when He tells us in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, . . . plans for your welfare, not for disaster; to give you a future and a hope” (HCSB). In these days of confusion and chaos in the world around us, is your hope in the God Who made you?
 
Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/geology/geneDepletion.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.

Commemorating the anniversary of the supposed 1947 UFO crash in Roswell, July 2 has been designated by some as “World UFO Day.” The purpose, as some would say, is to raise awareness to the possibility of life in outer space, to bring people together to stare at the skies in hopes to see flying objects, and to urge governments to declassify files on UFO sightings.

In keeping with the spirit, I thought this would be a good week to introduce you to my very related Fun Fact, and to raise awareness about what the Bible might have to say about life in outer space.

Is it possible that there are living things in space?
Yes, but probably only those that originated on Earth, such as bacteria and astronauts. The Bible seems to rule out any native intelligent life in outer space since they would be under the Curse with no possibility of salvation, and Christ—Who died once for all men—will only return to the inhabitable Earth.

The articles and videos I link to on my website basically cover this Fun Fact from three angles: whether science supports the possibility, whether the Bible supports the possibility, and what are the motives of people searching or hoping to find intelligent life in outer space?

I will let you explore the science angle on your own or wait for future blog posts about Fun Facts that talk about that aspect. But now, let’s skip to the third angle: I would like to suggest that at the heart of the search for intelligent—or even simple—extraterrestrial life is a difference of worldviews, and specifically, what a person’s worldview tells them about the origins of life.

By and large, the majority of people who are hoping to find life on other planets are people who are seeking to confirm their evolutionary worldview. After all, if life could have evolved by random chance on Earth, why couldn’t life have evolved—or be evolving—on other planets, whether in our solar system or beyond (“exoplanet”)? If they could find signs of life on other planets, it would help them confirm their beliefs about the origin of life on our own.

And there’s that word: “beliefs.” Because to date, there is no observable, repeatable, testable scientific evidence that something comes from nothing. So evolutionists are still looking—in faith—for solid proof. Having found none on our own planet, many are looking outward.

Additionally, philosophers through the ages have drawn on the passages of Ecclesiastes 3:11 and Romans 1:18-23 to demonstrate that people have an innate emptiness in their hearts that needs to be filled with God. When it is empty, they will search for something else to fill it. This is another search which fuels the hope to find some “greater” life outside ourselves. (We will also discuss this basic biblical concept more fully at a later time this year.)

On the other side of the worldview coin are Christians who acknowledge that life began as a supernatural and intentional event planned and designed by an omnipotent Creator. For us, it is natural that some curiosity could arise about a God Who can do anything. If He created life on Earth, couldn’t He have created life elsewhere?

And so, this Fun Fact looks to that question. In the end, while we cannot be 100% certain we will never find life on an exoplanet, we can draw some conclusions from clues in the Bible that suggest we never will.

Genesis 3 teaches us the origin of sin: Adam sinned and rebelled against God. The same chapter also explains that not only are we all descendants of Adam and Eve, but we have inherited from them a sin nature. Romans 3:23 confirms this: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (HCSB). Romans 6:23a tells us what the consequences of sin are: “For the wages of sin is death” (HCSB). Romans 5:12 also confirms these three ideas in one sentence: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned” (HCSB).

Next comes the solution. The rest of Romans 6:23 has the great news: “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (HCSB).

So how does the gospel message apply to our Fun Fact? Romans 8:22 tells us that “all of creation is groaning” because of the curse from Adam’s sin. If God had created life on other planets, the curse would be applied to them as well. Additionally, God is a holy and just God, and all through the Old Testament we find “rules” that He put into place for His people and for their redemption. Hebrews 10 tells us that the animals sacrificed in the Old Testament were not enough to pay the price for sin. We needed a blood relative to do that for us, which is why Christ had to come to Earth and become a descendent of Adam, to be our relative. This “kinsman redeemer” principle is seen in the story of Ruth. Christ became our kinsman redeemer. The redeemer of the human race.

Were there any “intelligent” life other than humans on another planet, though they would be under the curse of sin, they would not be under the redeeming grace of Christ’s sacrifice. Could Christ also die for them? No, because verse 10 of Hebrews 10 concludes by saying, “Jesus Christ once for all” (ESV).

A human sinned, bringing on a curse for all creation. Christ is the redemption, but the once-and-for-all sacrifice of His human blood is the saving grace of the human race. So, we see that the Bible seems to rule out any native intelligent life in outer space.

Don’t just take my word for it! Visit YouFormedMe.com/astronomy/ufo.html to read, watch, and listen to supporting research and commentary from scientists, doctors, theologians, and more!
This blog is from a special series of “Creation Fun Facts” by Terri Kammerzell, starting from June 10, 2020. Read the introduction at TruthOfGenesis.com/blogs/building-a-biblical-defense-of-creation.