#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. 

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[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