Do you have questions about the Bible or about Christianity that you are having a hard time getting answered?
In the past, we have highlighted some great resources for getting your questions answered, and today we wanted to highlight another one that we have found.
GotQuestions.Org has 157,276 answers to Bible questions, and it is a great resource for finding answers for those obscure questions about our faith.
So, if there is a particular Bible question that has been bothering you, go check out their site and see if they can help.
And don't forget to go over to the sidebar and to subscribe to this blog so that you can come back frequently and learn more about the evidence for Christianity.
Mankind has had greater advances in education and science over the past 100 years than ever before. Once upon a time the horse and buggy were cutting edge technology, but now we fly around in jet aircraft. Our knowledge of physics, astronomy and other sciences has absolutely exploded. So why does anyone still listen to an ancient religion that is thousands of years old?
Everywhere you go on the internet today, and I mean EVERYWHERE, there are debates going on about Christianity, and these debates can get incredibly heated. Some of the best minds and some of the best educated people in the world claim to have the answers. Atheists, skeptics, philosophers, preachers, bloggers and other self-appointed religious experts are constantly battling for the intellectual high ground.
So who is right?
Do logic, reason and modern science have anything to say about religion?
Can religion survive in an era when most of the people are educated and when many people look at religious claims with skepticism?
When skeptics attack most religions, they DO indeed have the intellectual high ground. For when one closely examines such "faiths" as Islam or Hinduism one does find that logic, reason and real, hard evidence are directly contradictory to these religious systems.
However, Christianity is the one faith that is different in this regard. It is our assertion that there is absolutely no conflict between Christianity and the truth.
If you make the decision to actually investigate these matters objectively, you will find that Christianity has a MOUNTAIN of evidence to support it. Those who have actually studied these things with an open mind know the truth.
Dr. Simon Greenleaf (Harvard University - one of the greatest professors of Law in U.S. history) once said: "According to the laws of legal evidence used in courts of law, there is more evidence for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for just about any other event in history."
Have you ever spent much time wondering if Christianity is true or not?
Perhaps you should.
We have studied these matters for over 20 years, and we have come to the conclusion that after you have asked all the questions, and after you have done all the research, the evidence does lead to an overwhelming conclusion:
Christianity is true.
But the sad reality is that the vast majority of Christians do not know how to defend the Christian faith. Why? Because the church has done an absolutely MISERABLE job of teaching people about the evidence for Christianity. So when Christians come up against atheists, skeptics and self-appointed, know-it-all "experts" they don't know how to respond to their questions.
We would encourage all of you to investigate these matters for yourself. Here are some great places to get started:
-God DOES exist. The following short videos were produced by an ex-atheist and ex-evolutionist who is a graduate of Yale Law School. These videos drive atheists and skeptics crazy, but for a more complete treatment of this topic, please read Strobel's excellent book entitled "The Case For A Creator":
All over the internet today, you will find neverending attacks on the deity of Christ. Whether it is Muslims, atheists, skeptics, pagans or liberal theologians, there seems to be a more intense assault on the deity of Christ today than ever before.
However, the truth about the deity of Christ and the history behind it is not what is portrayed in the Davinci Code and other distorted books and movies that have been coming out in the past few years.
The truth is that the historical Jesus always claimed to be God, and that Christians always believed that Jesus was God from the very earlies days of the church.....
Here are some of the scriptures where Jesus claimed to be God:
John 8:58
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
Compare the above scripture to Exodus 3:14....
God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "
Here is another passage where Jesus claimed to be God:
John 10:30-33
"I and the Father are one."
Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, 32but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"
"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."
Jesus also accepted worship as God.
John 20:28
Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Notice that Jesus did nothing to correct him.
In the scriptures, we see that whenever an angel is worshipped, the angel quickly corrects that person and tells that person not to do it, but Jesus always accepts the worship of men in the Scriptures.
Jesus also forgave sins, which is something only God can do:
Mark 2:3-7
Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
The New Testament writers also clearly testified that they believed that Jesus is God:
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
So just who was "the Word"? It was Jesus.....
John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
There are many other additional scriptures that show that the early Christians CLEARLY believed that Jesus is God:
Titus 2:13
while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ
2 Peter 1:1
Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours
Hebrews 1:8
But about the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom
Hebrews 1:3
The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
Colossians 2:9
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form
Romans 9:5
Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!
So we can clearly see that the testimony of the New Testament writers was that they believed that Jesus is God. In fact, according to Colossians 1:16, Jesus is your Creator:
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
For more information, we would urge you to watch the following YouTube video.
The YouTube video posted below clearly shows from the Scriptures that Jesus believed that He is God, and that the early Christians believed that He was God from the very beginning:
For years there has been a huge debate in American society over whether "creation" (or now "intelligent design") should be taught alongside the theory of evolution in schools. But should there even be a debate? What does the science say?
After all, shouldn't the actual science be more important than what people would like to believe?
Shouldn't logic, reason and hard facts trump any personal agenda that anyone is trying to push?
So let's look at what the science actually shows.....
"I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has."
-Malcolm Muggeridge (world famous journalist and philosopher), Pascal Lectures, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
The following are three key points which clearly show that creation science clearly fits the evidence better than Darwinian evolution:
1) If evolution was true, we should have millions upon millions of transitional fossils.
But the reality that we find in the fossil record is this:
"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?"
-Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History (and a hardcore evolutionist), in a letter to Luther Sunderland, April 10, 1979. Cited in: Sunderland, Luther D., Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems (El Cajon, CA: Master Books, 1988), p. 89.
In response to this point, evolutionists and atheists will usually trot out the same handful of incredibly weak, incredibly laughable examples of "transitional forms" that have been debunked and discredited time after time (for example Archaeopteryx):
However, the truth is that if Darwinian evolution was true there would be millions upon millions of very clear transitional fossils in the fossil record.
But there is a huge problem.
The fossils are simply not there.
"Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed. But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?"
-Charles Darwin
"In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another." The New Evolutionary Timetable, 1981, p.95.
-Evolutionist Stephen M. Stanley, Johns Hopkins University
The science shows that the "missing links" have always been missing and they always will be missing because they were never there.
2) If evolution was true, then we should see an "evolutionary tree" in the fossil record, with complex life developing very slowly from earlier, less complex forms. Instead, what we do see is the sudden, instant appearance of complex life in the fossil record (evolutionists refer to this as the Cambrian explosion):
The truth is that complex life first appeared on the earth in a very sudden, explosive manner.
"The earliest and most primitive members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous series from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed"
-Paleontologist George Gaylord
There is no denying it.
There is no getting around it.
Now which worldview does the sudden appearance of fully formed, complex life in the fossil record support?
Creation science of course.
3) In addition, evolutionists are at a complete and total loss for how to explain the creation of new information that is required for one animal to turn into another animal.
As one creation scientist explained:
"The key issue is the type of change required — to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content, from over half a million DNA ‘letters’ of even the ‘simplest’ self-reproducing organism to three billion ‘letters’ (stored in each human cell nucleus)."
Evolutionists cannot show us a single example of functional new information being added to any creature.
Evolutionist Stephen J. Gould, Harvard:
"Every paleontologist knows that most species don't change. That's bothersome....brings terrible distress. ....They may get a little bigger or bumpier but they remain the same species and that's not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don't change, its not evolution so you don't talk about it." Lecture at Hobart & William Smith College, 14/2/1980.
Christians, when you are in a debate with an evolutionist, the following is an outstanding question to ask of them:
"Do you have enough blind faith to believe that life just popped into existence from nonlife, and that such life just happened to have the ability to take in the nourishment it needed, to expel waste, and to reproduce itself, all the while having everything it needed to survive in the environment in which it suddenly found itself?"
Here are three questions which I would love to hear evolutionists try to answer:
1) Which evolved first: the mouth, the stomach, the digestive fluids, or the ability to poop?
2) Which evolved first: the windpipe, the lungs, or the ability of the body to use oxygen?
3) Which evolved first: the bones, ligaments, tendons, blood supply, or the muscles to move the bones?
Conceivably, you could continue this exercise forever. The reality is that the body has a huge variety of incredibly complex systems which completely rely on other incredibly complex systems that cannot function on their own. Evolutionists just tend to completely ignore this bit of common sense.
In addition, we have a standing challenge for any evolutionists, skeptics or atheists to go and try to debunk these videos:
If you can actually debunk those videos then you are better than any evolutionist we have ever met.
"Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless."
-Professor Louis Bounoure, past president of the Biological Society of Strassbourg, Director of the Strassbourg Zoological Museum, Director of Research at the French National Center of Scientific Research. (Quoted in The Advocate, March 8, 1984.)
Do you still believe in the theory of evolution? Do you actually still believe that the science backs it up? Feel free to post your response to this article in the comments section.
Did you realize that there are dozens of prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament that Jesus personally fulfilled?
Most people simply do not understand that Jesus fulfilled some incredibly amazing prophecies when He came to this earth. Even most Christians do not understand that these fulfilled prophecies are incredibly powerful evidence for the Christian faith, and that they should regularly be used in evangelism and for destroying the arguments of skeptics.
Why don't even most people in the Church know about these things?
Because the dead churches have never taught them.
In any event, the truth is getting out around the world, and it is time for all of us to learn about these amazing prophecies.
Jesus even used these prophecies to tell other people the truth:
Luke 24:27-
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
Luke 24:44-
He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."
John 5:46-
"If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me."
In the same way, the early disciples of Christ also used these prophecies to persuade people that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.
Acts 3:18-
But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer.
Acts 17:2-3-
As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ" he said.
1 Corinthians 15:3-4-
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures
If you do not know about these amazing Messianic prophecies, I would encourage you to learn.
Check out this great site that lists 45 of these prophecies:
This is a little known fact that most skeptics are not even aware of.
A PAGAN historian documented the darkness that covered the earth during the time of Passover in 32 A.D.
In approximately 52 A.D., a pagan Roman historian named Thallus, who lived during the time after the resurrection of Christ, wrote about a mysterious darkness that covered the earth during the time of Passover in 32 A.D.
Thallus weakly attempted to explain it away as an eclipse of the sun.
However, Julius Africanus, a Christian teacher in North Africa in 215 A.D. wrote the following concerning the assertions that an eclipse had actually occurred:
"Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun - unreasonably as it seems to me."
Julius Africanus had good reason to write that an eclipse was an unreasonable explanation. Modern astronomers have confirmed that the full moon during which the Passover occurred (the Passover when Christ was crucified) could not possibly have been eclipsed.
Therefore, there is no known natural explanation that can explain away the darkness referred to in the Bible that occurred during the crucifixion of Jesus.
Thank you, Thallus, for recording this bit of history for us.
Today there are many "preachers" and "ministers" out there who try to convince people that if they become Christians their lives will become so much easier than they are now.
They make it sounds like everything is going to be rainbows, lollipops, ponies and endless goodies.
As a result, a lot of these same people who have tried Tony Robbins, the "Secret", and every other self-improvement course that they can get their hands on figure that they will try out this "Jesus thing" as well.
But these people find out that being a Christian can be really, really hard! When you decide to become a Christian, people may look at you weird, people may even start making fun of you and persecuting you, and possibly even your own family members may turn on you.
That doesn't sound "fun".
The truth of the matter is that if you decide to become a Christian you should expect to be persecuted.
This is what Jesus had to say on this topic:
"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." -John 15:18
The truth is that if you do decide to become a Christian you may get a whole NEW set of problems. Following Christ is not always easy and it is full of challenges.
But there is nowhere else I would rather be.
Along with all of the challenges, God will give you more love, joy, peace, passion and purpose than you can possibly imagine.
When you become a Christian, God will forgive all of your sins and will give you eternal life.
Just imagine living forever!
Life is NOT always going to be easy as a Christian, but if you are tired of your sins and your rundown life, and if you want a life of passion and purpose beyond anything you can imagine, then I would encourage you to turn to Jesus Christ while you still have time.
To learn more about how to become a Christian, check this out:
Do you know about the amazing archeological discoveries that keep confirming that the Bible is true?
Posted below is an excerpt from an article on this topic from Grant Jeffrey who is one of the top Bible scholars of our time. If you enjoy the excerpt below, then I would encourage you to go over to his website and to read the entire article.
Christianity is true, and the amazing archeological discoveries disussed in this article are just part of the mountain of evidence for the Christian faith.
Check it out:
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Startling Archeological Discoveries by Grant R. Jeffrey
Can we trust the Bible? The answer is an overwhelming YES! The reason for this confident statement is that for the past one hundred and fifty years many brilliant scholars have conducted detailed archeological examinations at thousands of sites throughout the Middle East. The results of their discoveries have proven that the Bible is reliable and accurate in every single area where its statements could be tested. In the balance of this chapter I will share some of the wonderful archeological discoveries that provide tremendous proof that the Bible is a true and accurate record of past events in ancient Israel.
Throughout most of the last two thousand years, the majority of men living in the western world have accepted the statements of the Scriptures as genuine. However, beginning with the higher critical school of biblical critics in Germany and England in the nineteenth century we have witnessed a progressive abandonment of the historic faith in the Word of God. While European seminaries gradually abandoned the authority of the Scriptures, North American seminaries and Bible colleges still upheld the accuracy of the Bible to some degree. In the 1960s most North American seminaries still accepted the basic records of the Old and New Testaments as being historically true. However, in the following decades there occurred a wholesale abandonment of belief in the historical accuracy of the Bible. The attitudes behind these attacks on biblical accuracy and authority were those of complete rejection of God's inspiration of the Scriptures. In addition, many critics approach the Bible with an attitude of outright denial of supernatural events, such as miracles, and biblical prophecy. To these unbelieving critics, the presence of a miracle or prophecy in a biblical text was absolute proof that it was not genuine. Critics rejected the possibility of inspiration, miracles, and prophecy before they began their examination of the evidence.
Despite the overwhelming success unbelieving critics have had in establishing their unbelieving attitudes within the seminaries, textbooks, and popular media, something strange began to occur. The new discoveries by archeologists digging at sites in the Middle East continued to produce fascinating finds that contradicted their attitudes. Every new discovery in Israel and the surrounding nations provided tremendous confirmation of the accuracy of the Word of God in incredible ways. As a result of these continuing discoveries, Dr. Nelson Glueck, the most outstanding Jewish archeologist of this century, wrote in his book, Rivers in the Desert, this fascinating statement. "It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries. They form tesserae in the vast mosaic of the Bible's almost incredibly correct historical memory" (Dr. Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert [New York, Grove, 1960], p. 31).
In confirmation of Dr. Glueck's statement, another respected scholar, Dr. J. O. Kinnaman, declared: "Of the hundreds of thousands of artifacts found by the archeologists, not one has ever been discovered that contradicts or denies one word, phrase, clause, or sentence of the Bible, but always confirms and verifies the facts of the biblical record." The well-known language scholar, Dr. Robert Dick Wilson, formerly professor of Semitic philology at Princeton Theological Seminary, made the following comment, "After forty-five years of scholarly research in biblical textual studies and in language study, I have come now to the conviction that no man knows enough to assail the truthfulness of the Old Testament. When there is sufficient documentary evidence to make an investigation, the statement of the Bible, in the original text, has stood the test" (Dr. Robert Dick Wilson, Speaker's Source Book, p. 391).
Did you knwo that there have been some dramatic new findings regarding Yahshua in the Bible Codes?
These new extended Bible Codes regarding Yahshua, featured over at Bible Code Digest, give some amazing clues as to who the true Messiah of Israel is.
The article linked to below examines 19 startling extended Bible Codes that seem to point to Yahshua as being the true Messiah, and the ease with which it is possible to find New Testament scriptures with content similar to each of the extended King Yahshua Bible Codes is some of the most incredible evidence presented to date for the reality of the Bible codes.
His testimony is absolutely stunning, and it is yet just another NDE where someone saw the reality of hell.
After surviving severe burns resulting from an airplane crash while skydiving, Robinson had a near death experience and spiritual rebirth that radically changed his life. During the long period of time required for him to recover, Robinson not only received several miraculous healings, but also struggled with finding his purpose in life. For the past 25 years, Robinson has had a public ministry speaking in churches and to various groups of people around the world. He shares the reality of God's power and how it changes people's lives. The story of his testimony is an incredible tale of hope and courage.
All over the internet we run into Darwinists who believe that "science" is on the side of the evolutionists.
Now those of us who are truly informed know that is completely wrong, but our efforts to educate those who don't know the truth must never stop.
Below is an excellent article that we found on the irreducible complexity of blood clotting. It is a very, very long article, but we would encourage you to read it all because it makes amazing points about irreducible complexity:
Irreducible Complexity? Blood Clotting! by Robert Harsh
Editors note: We have had many questions about the concept of irreducible complexity and what it means. The following article is quite technical, but will give a good example of the concept. Robert Harsh is a biology teacher in the Pittsburgh area.
Question: Does your blood clot when you get a cut? Where did the first animal that could make its blood clot get that ability? The crystal clear answer is; it had to have the right DNA. Processes like blood clotting only happen because DNA had the right code.
Darwinian evolution demands that the right mutations happened undirected and by pure chance and one at a time. David Noonan wrote about the blood clotting process, "It is a host defense system that evolved over millions of years. As the earliest living organisms evolved from single cells to more complex forms, they developed circulatory systems to supply oxygen and other vital nutrients to their multicelled bodies. Without a clotting response to protect against injury, these circulatory systems would not have been able to prevent fatal leaks: evolution as we know it would have been impossible; and only the simplest forms of life, such as algae and bacteria, would exist" (D. Noonan, "The Perils of Hemophilia", in Blood-Bearer of Life and Death, 1993).
Creationists appeal to the argument of "design demands a designer". God designed animals with the ability to form effective blood clots. How does blood clot? When you get a cut your body tries to stop the loss of blood in three ways. First, the blood vessels around the cut contract, thus decreasing the flow of blood. At the same time platelets adhere to collagen fibers of the damaged blood vessel's wall. This produces a temporary plug of platelets. Third, damaged cells and platelets activate a series of chemical reactions that are known as the clotting cascade. The final goal of clotting is to produce intertwining threads of fibrin. These threads strain the leaking blood until enough platelets and red and white blood cells accumulate and plug the leaking wound.
Clotting enzymes are proteins called factors. In order to do anything, each enzyme must be turned on or activated. Enzymes are activated by another chemical removing the specific site on the enzyme.
A mouse trap that is set in comparison to one that is not set is a good analogy of non-activated enzymes. A set mouse trap looks an awful lot like one that is not set; but, on the other hand, it can do things the other can not. The same is true of activated enzymes. They can do things that non-activated enzymes can not.
Let us examine next, in some detail, the clotting cascade. I do not personally believe it is important for most of us to know all of these sets. I need to give all of the details so that I can make the case for irreducible complexity. Failure of a single link in this chain of enzymes can cause the whole blood clotting process to fail. I ask you to try your best to follow the flow of the cascade. You may need to read the following section several times until you gain the ability to appreciate its beauty.
The Blood Clotting Cascade
1. A cut occurs and Hageman Factor sticks to the surface of cells near the wound. Bound Hageman Factor reacts with another enzyme called HMK to produce Activated Hageman.
2. Pre Kallikrein reacts with Activated Hageman to produce Kallikrein.
3. Hageman Factor also reacts with HMK and Kallikrein to form Activated Hageman.
4. PTA reacts with Activated Hageman and HMK to produce Activated PTA.
5. Christmas Factor reacts with Activated PTA and Convertin to produce Activated Christmas Factor.
6. Antihemophilic Factor is activated by Thrombin to produce Activated Antihemophilic Factor.
7. Stuart Factor reacts with Activated Christmas Factor and Activated Antihemophilic Factor to produce Activated Stuart Factor.
8. Proconvertin is activated by Activated Hageman Factor to produce Convertin.
9. When a cut occurs, Tissue Factor (which is only found outside of cells) is brought in near the wound where it reacts with Convertin and Stuart Factor to produce Activated Stuart Factor. (Note that step 9 involves an extrinsic process whereas step 7 is an intrinsic process.)
10. Proaccelerin is activated by Thrombin to produce Accelerin.
11a. GLU-Prothrombin reacts with Prothrombin Enzyme and Vitamin K to produce GLA-Prothrombin. (Note that Prothrombin cannot be activated in the GLU form so it must be formed into the GLA form. In this process ten amino acids must be changed from glutamate to gama carboxy glutamate.)
11b. GLS-Prothrombin is then able to bind to Calcium. This allows GLA-Prothrombin to stick to surfaces of cells. Only intact modified Calcium-Prothrombin Complex can bind to the cell membrane and be cleaved by Activated Stuart and Accerlerin to produce Thrombin.
12. Prothrombin-Ca (bound to cell surface) is activated by Activated Stuart to produce Thrombin.
13.Prothrombin also reacts with Activated Stuart and Accelerin to produce Thrombin. (Step 13 is much faster than step 12.)
14. Fibrinogin is activated by Thrombin to produce Fibrin. Threads of Fibrin are the final clot. However, it would be more effective if the Fibrin threads could form more cross links with each other.
15. FSF (Fibrin Stabilizing Factor) is activated by Thrombin to form Activated FSF.
16. When Fibrin reacts with Activated FSF many more cross ties are made with other Fibrin filaments to form a more effective clot.
Well now, I am wondering to myself whether you are experiencing frustration or intrigue, weariness, or exctiment. There are a lot of details but let me ask you a leading question. Is this intricate system something that man developed or is it something that man has discovered? Blood clotting is not an invention of man. It is the invention of either God or "Mother Nature" (i.e., it invented itself). Regardless of how you believe the clotting cascade came to be, the fact remains that blood clotting is a clear example of irreducible complexity.
Let us next consider that this irreducibly complex system of blood clotting must have a way to remove the clot once the wound has healed. How is this done?
17a. A blood protein, Plasminogin is activated by + - Pa to produce Plasmin. This acts like tiny chemical scissors which cuts up the Fibrin filaments of the clot.
17b. The rate at which the clot is broken up is controlled by yet another blood protein named Alpha 2 Antiplasm, which in turn inactivates Plasmin. One of the most important parts of this whole blood clotting machine is the ability it has to keep the clotting localized to the area of the wound and to stop the clotting cascade. What is the biggest killer of human beings? That's right, blood clots. Most heart attacks and strokes are caused by blood clots lodging. I believe the way your body shuts down the clotting cascade is a fascinating as the clotting process itself.
18. Antithrombin inactivates Activated Christmas, Activated Stuart and Thrombin.
19. Protein C is activated by Thrombin to produce Activated Protein C.
20. Activated Protein C inactivates Accelerin and Activated Antihemophilic.
21. Finally, Thrombomodulin which lines the inside of your blood vessels prevents Thrombin from activating Fibrinogin. A logical question is : How do we know that we have to be able to produce the whole set of enzymes or factors in the clotting cascade in order to successfully accomplish the procedure?
Probably the best answer is illustrated by the disease hemophilia. Hemophilia A is the form of the disease that 85% of hemophiliacs have and it is caused by a deficiency of Stuart Factor. The 14% that have hemophilia B are deficient in Accelerin. People who have severe hemophilia A are able to produce 2-5% of normal levels while another 15% are mild and are only able to make 5-30% of normal levels of Stuart Factor output.
Like all enzymes, Stuart Factor is produced by protein synthesis. As you know, amino acids are joined together one at a time by this orderly process. The gene for Stuart Factor contains 186,000 base pairs and occupies 0.1% of the X chromosome. Note that this does not translate into Stuart Factor having 62,000 amino acids because only the "exon" portions of the DNA molecule are expressed. The largest portion of the DNA in this gene is found in the "intron" base pair sequences. The gene for Accelerin contains 31,000 base pairs.
Why can a hemophiliac not stop bleeding? They cannot stop because they either do not produce enough Stuart Factor or they produce defective Stuart Factor. And why do they not produce the right amount to type of Stuart Factor? The answer is, because their body does not know how. Their parent passed on defective information on their X chromosome, and incidentally, they will pass on the same defective information on to their offspring.
No one knows how this defective genetic condition got started but it probably got started by a mutation or a change in the DNA. Possibly a deletion, addition, or substitution at the exact site where Stuart Factor protein must be cleaved to become activated. In this case sufferers produce the normal amount of Stuart Factor in their blood but it cannot be activated.
What is our reasonable conclusion? It seems like it is very important to have the proper amount and type of Stuart Factor and I see no reason why we could logically conclude that proper blood clotting would be performed without each step in the clotting cascade.
The rat poison called Warfain works by substituting itself for Vitamin K. You will recall (step 11a above) that in order to be activated, Prothrombin must be changed from the GLU form to the GLA form. Without Vitamin K, Prothrombin cannot be activated into Thrombin. Without Thrombin, Fibrinogin cannot be transformed in Fibrin and the animal will bleed to death. This again illustrates the fact that none of the steps in the clotting cascade can be eliminated and still have a functional system.
But how did this intricate system get its start? Did one step get a foothold and then step by step the whole system evolved by pure, undirected, chance mutations in which these complicated enzymes were captured for posterity by the influence of natural selection? Or is this process so irreducibly complex that it had to come as a package deal created by God?
What is the state of the art explanation offered by evolutionists for the development of blood clotting? Russell Doolittle is a professor of biochemistry at the Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of California at San Diego. He is one of the most prominent people who is interested in discovering how blood clotting evolved. Professor Doolittle wrote an article in Thrombosis and Homeostasis in which he attempted to answer the question, "How in the world did this complex and delicately balanced process evolve?"
In his article, meant for other professionals, Dr. Doolittle used the following phrases in his explanation: "Tissue Factor appeared...", "Prothrombin appears...", "Fibrinogin is born...", "Antithrombin appears...", "Plasminogin is generated...", "Antiplasmin arises...", "TPA springs forth...". "Proconvertin is duplicated from Stuart Factor." If you duplicate this sentence do you get anything different?
"Protein C is genetically derived from Prothrombin." Unless Dr. Doolittle has Lamarkian evolution in mind, proteins like Prothrombin cannot influence the animal's DNA to produce a different enzyme known as Protein C. "Prothrombin engages in an exchange (of gene pieces)." Prothrombin is a protein and as such it cannot influence any specific "gene exchange."
Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, has the following observations about Dr. Doolittle's explanation of clotting evolution: "At no step--not even one--does Dr. Doolittle give a model that includes numbers or quantities; without numbers there is no science. When a merely verbal picture is painted of the development of such a complex system there is absolutely no way to know if it would actually work. When such crucial questions are ignored we leave science and enter the world of Calvin and Hobbes" (Behe, p. 95). Dr. Behe's major objection to the "state of the art" evolutionary models is his concern for irreducible complexity. Darwinian evolution is theorized to be directed by "natural selection." Natural selection only selects from the structures and biochemistry that are present and cannot work on some kind of future structure.
The engine of Darwinian evolution only works if there is something to select--something that is useful right now, not in the future. Even if we accept his scenario for purposes of discussion, however, by Doolittle's own account no blood clotting appears until at least the third step. "The formation of tissue factor at the first step is unexplained, since it would then be sitting with nothing to do. In the next step (prothrombin popping up already endowed with the ability to bind tissue factor, which somehow activates it) the poor proto-prothrombin would also be twiddling its thumbs with nothing to do until, at last, a hypothetical thrombin receptor appears at the third step and fibrinogin falls from heaven at step four. Plasminogin appears in one step, but its activator (TPA) does not appear until two steps later. Stuart factor is introduced in one step and somehow tissue factor decided that this is the complex it wants to bind. Virtually every step of the suggested pathway faces similar problems" (Behe, p. 95). In order to have a controlled clotting mechanism you have to have two proteins for each step. Both the pro enzyme (non-activated) and its activator are required. Dr. Behe calculated that the odds of getting factor TPA and its activator to be 1/10 to the thirty-sixth power! To compound the problem, if "...a protein appeared in one step with nothing to do, then mutation and natural selection would tend to eliminate it." To prevent this from happening, evolutionists are forced to imagine large clusters of proteins evolving all at once. This reminds one of Goldschmitt's hope monster in which a reptile laid an egg and a bird hatched out.
Is it not much more satisfying to simply believe that God created the whole mechanism fully functional and ready to go? It does not go against reason to believe that intricate design, especially when irreducible complexity is involved, demands an intelligent Designer. On the other hand, it does go against reason to "believe" that natural, pure chance changes in DNA (mutations) are capable of producing a process that is so irreducibly complex such as "simple" blood clotting.
The first mousetrap was not invented by assembling many parts, each part capable of, at least, almost catching mice. No, a person (an intelligent designer) conceived the notion of the entire mouse trap in his mind. The first mousetrap that could indeed catch mice was a full blown trap with at least eight distinct parts. If a Darwinian type of evolution (punctuated equilibrium included), invented blood clotting, physical precursors to each step were required. Each step had to actually work in order for natural selection to have any positive effects. If any organism is to thrive, all of its parts must at least be minimally functional.
An animal that is missing even one of the sixteen steps to a functional clot will not survive. If it does not survive it cannot contribute its genes to the gene pool to be selected from, no matter how much they are needed.
Today atheists, skeptics and opponents of Christianity believe that they have the intellectual high ground when it comes to matters of logic, reason, science and faith. The reality is that the exact opposite is true, but our churches are doing a miserable job of equipping us to defend the faith. Hopefully blogs such as this will change all that. If you like what you see here, then please help spread the word about this site.
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