Creation Moments on Oneplace.com

Many textbooks tell young people today that birds are modified reptiles. Suppose, they say, that millions of years ago the scales on some reptiles began to fray along the edges. In time, they say, the frayed scales turned into feathers and birds were born.The elegance and beauty of the feather make this story hard to believe. Can sticking a feather on a lizard produce a peacock? The bird’s feather is only a small part of the complete flying system of the bird. Even with very careful planning and redesigning, a reptile doesn’t have what it takes.A bird needs massive breast muscles for flight. In some birds, 30% of the body weight of the bird is breast muscle. By comparison, in humans, breast muscles are only about 1% of body weight. A bird also needs an extremely high metabolism and blood pressure to deliver the energy those muscles need for flight. Birds have a higher metabolism than any other creature; they also have the necessary high blood pressure. Finally, as is well known, birds need light skeletons. The man-o’-war has a wingspan of seven feet. But its entire skeleton weighs only a few ounces—less than its feathers!Even the most clever rebuilding of a reptile cannot produce a bird. In fact, birds have very little in common with reptiles. The entire being of the bird, from body to brain, has been specially designed for flight by a Creator who clearly knows everything there is to know about flight.Job 39:26“Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?”Prayer: Dear Father in heaven, the beauty, grace, and huge variety of birds You have created are some of the most beautiful creatures on earth. As I thank You for them, fill me with new wonder over the wonderful work of Your hands. Amen.REF.: Vandeman, George. The miracle of flight. Signs of the Times. 

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Spider silk begins as a liquid protein made by silk glands on the spider’s abdomen. Spiders make many kinds of silk for different uses. As the liquid silk is forced through the spider’s spinnerets, it begins to dry. The spinnerets pull and stretch the silk, creating just the right kind of silk for the spider’s use. Though the result seems thin and weak to us, ounce for ounce, spider silk is stronger than steel.Web-building spiders make two types of silk for their traps. The basic structure of the web is made of strong, nonsticky silk. Then the spider adds a sticky, elastic silk to trap its prey. Some webs are irregular, others are flat and sheet-like, while still others are shaped like funnels. All of us have admired the beautiful orb web.However, spiders also have many other ways in which they use their silk. The ogre-faced spider makes a net that it throws around its intended victim. The European water spider builds its web underwater. It stores its air supply in the web. The lasso spider twirls a single strand of silk over its head. A tiny drop of sticky silk at the end of the lasso captures its prey when the lasso is thrown. Probably the most creative use of silk is by the young of some species. When they hatch, they produce long loops of silk that catch the wind and send them floating off to new places.The spider’s skill in producing and using silk had to come from Someone wiser and more clever than the spider. Clearly, the spider has been well-equipped and instructed by its Creator.Romans 11:33“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”Prayer: Father, I thank You for the intelligence and wisdom You have so freely given to Your creatures. Help me to treasure, most of all, Your wisdom in the work of Jesus Christ for my salvation so that my life, too, may glorify You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.REF.: Pinkston, William S., Jr. BIOLOGY for Christian Schools. Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press. Image: 257-11 Pardosa spp ballooning, WanderingMogwai, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons + Ballooning spider, Cho M, Neubauer P, Fahrenson C, Rechenberg I (2018), CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia Commons.

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How many different scents do you think your nose is able to smell? The answer is about 10,000. How does your nose tell the difference between a rose and a skunk? Until only recently, scientists really weren’t sure.Now we know that humans and mammals detect smells by using at least 1,000 different genes. These genes are located in every cell in your body, but they are active only in your nose. This discovery, say scientists, gives them their first insight into how smell works. Before this, said one scientist, “We had almost no knowledge of the olfactory system and this really opens up the molecular study of smell in a very fascinating way.”They say that each of the different genes seems designed to respond to a small group of odors. As each group of genes does its part, the entire system is able to recognize everything we can smell. These genes pass signals from the nerve cells in the nose to a small region of the brain called the olfactory bulb. Now that smell genes are identified, researchers say they can begin to understand how odors are detected and how the brain interprets those signals.Our sense of smell relies on a very elegant and sophisticated system. Imagine, 1,000 genes lie at the heart of that system. Each one of those genes is information—a programmed code that is designed to make sense of what we smell. Information, programming and decoding are all terms that assume that we have a highly intelligent Creator who designed our sense of smell!Genesis 27:27“And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed:”Prayer: Dear Father in heaven, I thank You for my ability to detect scents. As scientists continue to learn how You have designed our sense of smell, cause them to recognize Your genius and so be drawn to the cross of Jesus Christ. Amen.REF.: Scientists find genes that let nose make scents of what it smells. Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Image: Head Olfactory Nerve Labeled, Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator, CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons, background replaced.

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Mastodons were distant relatives of the elephant. Modern science says that one of the main parts of their diet was conifer needles. Supposedly, they died out at the end of the Ice Age because conifers became scarce as the world warmed.Now the discovery of the last meal of one mastodon calls this theory into question. Living bacteria have been found in a mastodon that died during the Ice Age. The bugs were found in the remains of a mastodon’s last meal, preserved with a skeleton that was discovered while preparing a golf course in Ohio. Scientists think the bacteria normally lived inside the mastodon, working as part of the mastodon’s digestive process.What scientists discovered about the mastodons’ diet could upset some theories about what drove them to extinction. The scientists said the four-ton mastodon had spent its last day eating a salad of swamp grass, moss, and leaves, a bit of seed, and a garnish of water lily. What was left of these plants, as well as the bacteria, were separated from a mass of reddish-brown matter found near the mastodon’s ribs and vertebrae.Scientists who believe in evolution claim that the animal died 11,000 years ago. But how sure can we be about that? After all, evolutionary scientists were wrong about the mastodon’s diet. As a result, their theories about why mastodons became extinct seem to be wrong. The facts that the bacteria were still alive and the stomach contents were not fully decayed tell us that this evolutionary date, too, is greatly exaggerated.Joshua 24:15“…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”Prayer: Dear Lord, so many people prefer to reject Your Word and then do their own speculating about things You have clearly revealed to us. I ask that through Your Holy Spirit, You would help me not to speculate where Your Word has spoken so clearly. Amen.Image: Mastodon excavation, Burning Tree Golf Course, Ohio, James St. John, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

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Could the giant flying fox be a primate? In the 18th century, scientists weren’t quite sure what to do with bats. Some wanted to classify them as primates, while others thought they should have their own category. Since 1780, all 950 known species of bats have been classified in their own category. The bat order is divided into microbats and megabats. Microbats have an average wingspan of less than a foot. Megabats are larger. The giant flying fox has a wingspan of six feet!The evolutionary link between microbats and megabats is dissolving as scientists learn more about them. Although megabats and microbats are very clearly bats, they are constructed in importantly different ways. Microbats rely mainly on echolocation to navigate. Megabats have very large eyes, so that they can see like owls in low light. The nerves that connect the eyes of microbats to the brain cross. As a result, the image from the right eye goes to the left brain, and the left eye feeds its image to the right brain. However, megabats are wired with both eyes feeding into both sides of the brain. This arrangement is otherwise unique to primates!If bats evolved, these new findings mean that bats must have evolved at least twice! It also means that some bats evolved from monkey-like creatures!It makes far more sense to admire God’s unlimited creativity. We can logically reason that God gave His larger bats eyesight like that of a monkey, because their needs are similar.1 Corinthians 2:9-10“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.”Prayer: Dear Father, I thank You that what You have made is so pleasing to the mind and to the eye. I ask that our growing scientific knowledge would continue to make it more difficult to deny You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.REF.: The eyes have it: megabats are primates. Discover. Image: Grey headed flying fox, Andrew Mercer (www.baldwhiteguy.co.nz), CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

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A revolutionary design in metal-cutting blades has changed the metal-working industry. These blades don’t cut like a knife. Instead, the blade is fixed in one position while the metal to be shaped spins on a lathe. This new-style blade stays sharp six times longer than the old blade design. And where titanium used to make the old-style cutting blades dull almost the second they were used, the new blades last up to 30 minutes.This wonderful new blade was developed by two engineers who got the original idea from a rat. You see, rats’ teeth always have a sharp edge. Engineers learned that this is because their teeth are hard on one side and soft on the other. So as they wear, they always keep a sharp edge. Using this principle for metal-cutting has lowered costs and increased productivity, since the blades don’t have to be changed as often.Beginning in Job 39, God humbles Job with several chapters of questions about the wise designs found in the animal kingdom. God’s message is, “Job, if you think you’re so smart, who created all of this with such wisdom?”Even rats’ teeth are created with such wisdom that, once we learned the principle, our technology was greatly improved. In view of this, it doesn’t seem at all scientific to say that there is no Creator!Job 38:4“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.”Prayer: Dear Father, help me not to think that I am wiser or smarter than I really am. Help me to seek Your wisdom and knowledge in Your Word, which is as high as heaven and as real as the creation. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.REF.: Self-sharpening blade has edge. Science Digest. Image: White domesticated rat, Envato + Rat teeth (overgrown), Alexey Krasavin, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

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Many cultures around the world have legends about creation and a great Flood that have been handed down from generations in the distant past. Most of these creation and Flood stories support the biblical story of creation and the Flood.The Wallam Olum is the story of creation and the history of the Delaware Indians. It predates the coming of white people or Christianity to North America. The Delaware creation legend reveals an all-powerful creator who began by creating an earth without dry land, and the heavens, including the sun, moon, and stars. After dividing the waters from the land, he made all living things, including the first mother. This world was full of joy and had no sorrow until the snake brought wickedness. It concludes by saying that all this happened beyond the great ocean.The Delaware story of the Flood begins with the world filled with evil because of the activity of the evil snake. While the Delaware legend blames the Flood on the snake, a few were saved through the Flood at an island called “Nana,” a name very similar to Noah.While the Wallam Olum is not Genesis, the similarities with Genesis are too many and too exact to be accidental. Similar legends from all over the globe have the same or similar details that they, too, share with Genesis. This can only be explained by the fact that the Bible is accurate in describing how all cultures have shared this common history together.Acts 17:26“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;”Prayer: Dear Father in heaven, fill me and all believers with a greater concern and spirit of sacrifice to do what is needed to bring the good news of salvation to those who are without it. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.REF: Branscome, Gary R. The Delaware Indians and the Creator. Bible-Science Newsletter. Image: Left: Leni Lenape Indians print 1702 HSP, Thomas Campanius Holm, PD, Wikimedia Commons. Right: Excerpt from Walam Olum.

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Some people talk to their plants. But what do you say to a bacterium? Evidently, the soybean plant knows just what to say to make bacteria its close friend and helper.Symbiosis means a relationship between two different creatures in which they both help each other. Plants need nitrogen for healthy growth. However, while there is more than enough nitrogen in the air, plants normally can’t make use of that nitrogen. Legumes, like soybeans, link up with bacteria that are able to take nitrogen from the air and turn it into a form of nitrogen that plants, including the soybean, can use. In return, the plant creates a nice home for the bacteria in nodes in its roots and provides the bacteria with food.The bacteria need a great deal of oxygen and energy to fix nitrogen into the soil. The oxygen is supplied by heme. If that name reminds you of the hemoglobin that carries oxygen in blood, you’re on the right track. That’s why the heme in the nodules turns them reddish. Who makes the heme, the soybean, or the bacteria? When alone, neither creature has any heme. Researchers have learned that the plant performs the first part of the chemistry needed to make heme and the bacterium finishes the job. The plant and the bacterium actually communicate chemically with each other so that production goes smoothly!Communication between such different creatures, allowing them to perform sophisticated chemistry to improve both of their lives, shows how inadequate evolution is to explain life. This arrangement surely glorifies the Creator!Ephesians 2:8-9“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”Prayer: Dear Father, without Your communication to me in Your Word, my life would be without the cleansing benefits of my Lord and Savior’s blood. I thank You that my salvation is without my effort, which could never be enough. Amen.REF: Pennisi, E. Intimate chemistry of a symbiotic odd couple. Science News. Image: Root Nodule (Electron microscope image of a cross section through a soybean. Bacteria Bradyrhizobium japonicum symbiosis), Louisa Howard, Dartmouth Electron Microscope Facility, PD, Wikimedia Commons.

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Contrary to what the theory of evolution says, the history of life found in the fossil record does not show simpler kinds of living things gradually becoming more complex. Nor does the fossil record show a few kinds of life gradually becoming more kinds of life. The fossil record doesn’t even show one example of either of these claims that are universally accepted by evolutionists.Life appears suddenly in the fossil record. And the living things found in the earliest rocks are completely developed and well equipped for life. Trilobites had fully formed eyes that were apparently more sophisticated than many creatures today. They appear without ancestors.According to evolution, one of the greatest steps forward by living things was the development of skeletons. The first evolutionary step toward skeletons started with the development of calcium shells by marine creatures. Yet the fossil record shows that creatures with calcium shells simply appear fully formed, as do creatures with internal skeletons. One question that troubles evolutionists is why creatures suddenly decided they needed skeletons. Incidentally, the astonishing variety of creatures in the oldest rocks shows a greater variety than is alive today.Of course, the sudden appearance of fully formed, well-equipped life agrees nicely with the Bible’s claim that all life was created fully formed by God. When the evidence from science agrees so well with the Bible, those who insist on evolution do so only by faith—a faith that is against the Bible.Exodus 20:11“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day…”Prayer: Dear Lord, in their pride people rage against Your truth. Use me as Your instrument to make the testimony of Your truth more clearly heard so that fewer are lost to a false faith. Amen.REF: When life got hard. Science News, v. 138. Image: Trilobites Schizochroal Eye, Tomleetaiwan, PD, Wikimedia Commons, circled.

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Do your eyes ever play tricks on you? Our eyes regularly play tricks on us with the help of our brains.Repeated research has shown that the images we see are not exactly what our eyes see. Our eyes and brains work together to construct the images we call sight. It’s not that our eyes are out to hoodwink us. Most of the time, our eyes are working to help us. Working together, our brain and eyes add logical details to the images we see. Each of us has a blind spot in our vision because there are no vision cells where the optic nerve is. Instead of showing us a spot of nothing at the blind point in our field of vision, our brain invents an image from surrounding details. Your brain pulls the same trick on you when you proofread your completed manuscript. While others can still find typos, you may not. Your brain knows what you are saying, and so it automatically shows you a repaired version, making many of your typing errors invisible.Your pupils can reveal your thoughts. Studies show that when seeing unpleasant scenes, the pupils retract. Pleasant or interesting scenes cause the pupils to open wider.Charles Darwin wrote, “To suppose that the eye, with all of its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.” We don’t often agree with Charles Darwin, but this time we do!Psalm 139:14“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”Prayer: Dear Father, I thank You that the excellence of Your work in making us is so noteworthy that even those who want to deny You cannot easily do it. Teach me how to use this to lead others to Christ. In His Name. Amen.REF: McCutcheon, M. The Compass in Your Nose… Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher. Image: Blind spot test, RWhitwam, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

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