The Battle for Creation Begins

The epicenter of evil gets revealed.

I have often asked myself; how did we all get here and why is there so much evil in the world? We discussed the battle in heaven and how Satan became the epicenter of evil. This battle of good and evil has spilled over into creation and has taken on many forms throughout history. There are philosophical battles between theists and atheists over who we are and how we got here. There are social battles over the concept of a governing system that gives us our sense of morality. There are even battles waging over whether we were created by God or just evolved from random chemicals. But there is one more battle to consider, and that is the spiritual battle waging over creation.

The idea that we have a spirit conflicts with the naturalists, as we previously discussed. In review of this philosophical difference, naturalism is the "idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world”. The question of whether God exists is heating up in the 21st century. The advances of atheism peddled through science and our academia have given rise to its growth trend in society today. But what does the evidence we’ve uncovered so far suggest? Is it such a stretch to call the Intelligent Designer God? Also, can it be proven that we each have a soul and spirit that s unique? Let’s further explore this concept.

The you that wakes up every morning is unique and one of a kind. There may be someone in the world that looks like you like a twin, but they will never be you. You may have the physical characteristics of your parents or ancestors, but the consciousness within you is unique. So, is this consciousness a spirit?

Let me ask you this: have you ever walked into a room and felt a heaviness? Or felt someone was angry at you even though they showed no visible signs of that anger? Have you ever felt fear for no reason only to have the feeling disappear as quickly as it came? Believe it or not, these are spiritual reactions to your environment. They don’t come from your brain but come from a spirit you were given at birth that lives forever. More about this concept later.

Mainstream science will argue that this awareness is merely a function of the brain. These are the same folks that tell us that something came from nothing, which we know now after our previous reviews can’t be true. Knowing for sure about your spirit is critical because if you have a spirit and a soul that live forever, the next question is, Where does that spirit or soul go after you die? While neuroscience has made tremendous progress illuminating the functioning of the brain, why we have a subjective experience remains mysterious.[1]

Could it be that we really do have a soul that emanates the spirit inside you, which is the real you? New scientific theory suggests that you do.  If this is true, and if that soul or spirit is eternal, then the ideas of heaven and hell become far more relevant. Given what we have just reviewed, let’s further explore the spiritual side of this struggle or war between good and evil, starting with the Bible’s illustration of where life began.

The Garden of Eden

Was there a Garden of Eden? The Bible references this garden in Genesis 2:8, with verses 10–14 providing clues to its location. The garden was also referred to as the "Garden of God" in Genesis 13. Many people are familiar with the Tigris and Euphrates in the Middle East and have tried to identify Eden and the other two rivers somewhere around them and then stretched their search to Ethiopia in Africa without success.

These attempts, in my view, are futile given that the flood of Noah's time redistributed the earth's land masses and ushered in an ice age. Given the flood's description of events, which we will cover later, the topology of our planet drastically changed. Due to this, there is no part of the world today that fits the description from Genesis well enough for us to identify with certainty the exact location of the Garden of Eden. That, of course, does not mean it didn't exist at one time in history.

God Makes Man & Woman

So, what is "man" and what makes us so unique? In Genesis 1:26 we read then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all [Syriac reads all the wild animals of] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” This verse also contains one of several references to the Judeo-Christian triune God (i.e., three unique characteristics in one God).

Mankind was the crowning point of creation. He and she were made in God's image to rule or have dominion over creation, and unlike Darwin’s claims, we are unique and separate from the rest of creation. Man is a living being capable of communicable attributes like God. In his rational life, man was like God in that he could reason and had intellect, free will, and emotion. In a moral sense, he was like God in that he inherently knew the difference between right and wrong and good and evil as we do today. The command to rule separated man from the rest of creation. Why is there such an effort to reshape our understanding of this?

What I find interesting is that out of all the creation events in Genesis, there is only one creation that is repeated twice—the creation of woman. Women are indeed special and unique. Adam thought so too, as his jaw, I'm sure, dropped when he saw Eve. All he could say was, “this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman.” Ah, the laws of attraction.

Men and women were created to be a coequal team with different roles. Man’s responsibility was to lead and protect. Women’s responsibility was to support and nurture. Our society today seems intent on emasculating men and blurring women’s roles. You see this occurring in the media, and it has seeped into society.

Aside from procreation, can a woman do some of the same things that a man can? Yes. Can she do them as well? Sometimes that answer is no. Conversely, can men do the same things that women do? Yes. Can he do it as well? That answer is also no. They may both get along in those roles, but the results will never be optimal. These facts play out in clinical sociology and in child rearing. There is considerable evidence that characteristics of families, and particularly parent-child relationships, have a major influence on young people's lives.[1]

Unfortunately, gender-based discrimination is part of our American culture. However, men and women were created to be unique and have designed strengths and weaknesses. Aside from the obvious reproductive differences, men and women have several unique characteristics:

1. Men and women carry fat cells in different places: men tend to get that belly, and women tend to gain in their bottoms and thighs. God had mercy on women and allowed them to wear this extra weight behind them instead of in front of them like men.

2. Men and women see things differently: men have the edge when it comes to depth perception, distance vision, and lighted environments. Women have better night vision, better visual memory, and can see more of the red side of the color spectrum than men can. Women blink twice as often, and men are about ten times more likely than women to be colorblind. Men's eyes are more sensitive to small details and moving objects, while women are more perceptive to color changes. Also, men's eyes are better at focusing on a target and weak on objects on the periphery. The peripheral vision of women is better.

3. Men are stronger and larger than women. Generally speaking, men are roughly 10% larger than women are, but have less endurance. Men are generally more physically active, muscularly stronger, and have a higher death rate at every stage of life. At birth, male infants tend to be larger than female infants. Men are stronger due to more muscles and higher testosterone levels. Estimates vary wildly, but the average estimate is that men have about 30% more upper body strength than women do. It has been estimated that only one in twenty women is as strong as the average man.

4. Girls mature more quickly than boys do: Girls generally reach puberty two years earlier than boys do.

5. Aging: Women live longer. There’s an old adage, men age like a fine wine, while women age like a glass of milk. It's a stereotype that men age "better" than women. However, there is some science behind this. Statistically speaking, in the USA, women live an average of five years longer than men do. They age differently through mind, body, and their emotional capacity. The aging pattern for each gender greatly depends on the society an individual was raised in and their personal smoking, alcohol use, infectious disease, nutrition, poverty, access to education, work conditions, violence, and health care. [2]

6. Men are much more prone to nearly every illness than women: Women are thought to have more resistance to disease due to the fact that their adrenal glands produce more cortin than men’s do. The only three diseases that women die from more often than men are breast cancer, female reproductive disorders, and benign tumors. Otherwise, every other disease, including, of course, cancer and heart disease, kills men at a higher frequency.

7. Men’s and women’s vital organs differ in size and efficiency: Men have larger hearts and lungs than women. Women have larger livers, stomachs, thyroid glands, and kidneys than men. Women have lower blood pressure and a faster heartbeat than men. I bet that’s why they are warmer.

8. Men’s fertility lasts longer: women enter puberty [2] sooner than men do between the ages of 10 and 14, while men don’t enter puberty until ages 12 and 16. Many men can reproduce well into their 70s, while female fertility starts decreasing after 35. They simply run out of eggs.

9. Fingers are different: In general, a woman’s index finger [3] is longer than the finger next to her pinkie; with men, it’s the opposite.

10. Men have more body hair: After puberty kicks in, men seem to grow hair everywhere, and as they age, they grow hair out of places they never thought of like their nose and ears.

11. Men burn calories faster: Yes, that’s why he’s losing weight faster than you are.

12. Men’s bones are different than women’s: On average, women have broader hips and facial bones, a smaller chin, a longer mid-section, and shorter legs.

13. Women have more erogenous zones: It may be because they are sexier, but more regions of their body are susceptible to sexual stimulation than men.

Unlike other species, men and women are more physically similar [4] than we are different. Physiological differences [5] between men and women affect the way that their respective bodies handle stress and physical demands. Women in general have a reduced O2 carrying capacity, among other metabolic differences. Men tend to offer solutions to problems that women bring up in conversation; the women are not necessarily interested in solving those problems, but mainly want to talk about them.

The strengths and weaknesses of men and women can be used as an advantage when working together as a team, as they should. Men tend to think in terms of hierarchy, with respect and value placed on authority.[7] Women focus on relationships and a common understanding of a shared goal. Women can withstand more heat, can hear higher pitched sounds, and can generally tolerate pain [8] more than men can.

Even though each sex has its own strengths and weaknesses, both provide critical balance in child rearing and family life. A social trend has developed where both men and women feel that they can adequately raise children alone. Nothing can be further from the truth. Fathers and mothers both bring a special quality to the rearing process that is critical for a child’s health and balance.  Only a man can teach a young boy what it means to be a man, and only women can properly train a young girl what it means to be a woman.

Now that we have explored the uniqueness of men and women, let’s explore in greater detail the first man and woman.

The Genetics of Adam & Eve