Christmas Myths SERIES: 3: Matthew and Luke

"It is not difficult to find skeptics and critics who claim that the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are hopelessly contradictory. A superficial reading of Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–3 might lead one to agree with these critics since these two Gospels include many different details, but different is not the same as contradictory. These two books are actually complementary rather than contradictory.

Matthew opens with a genealogy that traces Jesus’ lineage from Abraham through David’s son Solomon. Then Matthew focuses more on Joseph than Mary in relation to Jesus’ birth. After Jesus’ birth, Matthew includes details about the wise men, the flight to Egypt, and
Herod’s slaughter of the innocent baby boys in Bethlehem.

Luke’s Gospel is quite different. After his prologue, he begins with the events leading up to the birth of John the Baptist. Then he focuses on Mary in relation to Jesus’ birth, which he records in Luke 2:1–7. Then Luke goes on to tell of the angelic announcement to the shepherds, the shepherds seeing the newborn Savior, Jesus’ circumcision, and a visit to the temple where Simeon and Anna meet Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Finally, in his third chapter, Luke provides a genealogy beginning with Jesus and moving back in time all the way to Adam, but the names between Jesus and David are very different than those in Matthew.

Order of Events

Let’s quickly address the notion that Matthew’s events contradict Luke’s events. 

In the previous section, 

*we noticed that there was a gap of time between Matthew 1 and Matthew 2, which opens with, “Now after Jesus was born . . .” Luke 2:8–38 describes multiple events that fill in that time gap. 

First, the angels appear to the shepherds on the night Jesus was born, and then the shepherds enter Bethlehem and see the newborn Savior (Luke 2:8–20). 

Second, eight days later, Jesus was circumcised (Luke 2:21). 

Third, 40 days after His birth, Joseph and Mary took Jesus to Jerusalem to offer the sacrifice required by the law. It was during this visit to the temple that they met Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:22–38).

Similarly, following Luke 2:38, we need to insert the events from Matthew 2 before proceeding to Luke 2:39. Matthew 2:1–12 tells us about the visit of the magi. 

The next three verses describe Joseph and Mary taking Jesus to Egypt after an angel warned Joseph in a dream about Herod’s evil plot (Matthew 2:13–15). This could not have happened prior to their visit to the temple after Jesus’ 40th day. 

Matthew 2:16–18 describes Herod’s slaughter of the innocent baby boys in Bethlehem. We are told in Matthew 2:19–23 that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus remained in Egypt until Herod’s death. At the end of this passage, the events sync up with Luke 2:39, as both mention the move back to Nazareth.

Perhaps it would help to see these details in a list:

Jesus is born in Bethlehem (Matthew 1:25; Luke 2:1–7).

Angels announce Jesus’ birth to shepherds (Luke 2:8–14).
Shepherds visit Bethlehem and see Jesus (Luke 2:15–20).
Jesus is circumcised on the 8th day (Luke 2:21).
Jesus is taken to the temple where Simeon and Anna see him (Luke 2:22–38).
Magi arrive in Jerusalem, meet with Herod, and then see Jesus in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1–12).
Joseph takes Mary and Jesus to Egypt (Matthew 2:13–15).
Herod slaughters Bethlehem’s baby boys (Matthew 2:16–18).
Joseph, Mary, and Jesus move to Nazareth (Matthew 2:19–23; Luke 2:39)." 

AIG

Creation Moment 12/17/2025 - The lowdown sleazy embezzler

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 2 Peter 3:3,4

"The word “evolution” or one of its cognates (e.g., “evolutionary”) occur just three times in the article. In one setting, the data presented actually pose a puzzle for evolution, in the sense of common ancestry, but never mind that.

Here is the only context that matters (emphasis added), from the very last paragraph:
"In conclusion, chromosomes are not just passive spectator, but the very fulcrum of the spatiotemporal regulation of cell division. Why evolution selected chromosomes as a platform to integrate different signals is easily explained by the need to concentrate mitotic regulators (and their control) which would otherwise dilute in a vast cytoplasmic ocean."

Many years ago, William Dembski said that one of the most objectionable aspects of modern evolutionary theory was the undeserved, unearned credit it steals from the exquisite, transcendentally elegant work of the Designer. Put more bluntly, evolution is a credit thief, a lowdown sleazy embezzler." 

EN&V

Christmas Myths SERIES: 2: Three Kings Visited Baby Jesus on the Night of His Birth

"One of the most beloved Christmas hymns is titled “We Three Kings.” At least three common errors arise from the singing of this song at Christmas time.

First, the Bible does not identify these men as kings. They were magi, from the Greek μαγοι, a term better translated as wise men.

Originally, the magi belonged to a priestly class, and they would have been known for studying the night sky for signs or omens. Since they were from the east, they were probably from the Parthian empire.

Second, the Bible never tells us that there were three magi. The Greek μαγοι is plural, so we know there were at least two of them. The tradition that there were three magi is almost certainly based on the three gifts that they presented before Jesus: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Finally, the wise men definitely did not arrive on the night Jesus was born. The hymn does not specifically make this claim, but since we often sing this song at Christmastime, it has contributed to the belief that the wise men were at the nativity. This is shown in movies like Ben-Hur (1959), The Nativity Story (2006), and Son of God (2014). Many nativity scenes also include the wise men. These are just some of the reasons why many people believe the wise men arrived on the night Jesus was born, but the Bible clearly teaches otherwise.

If a person only read Matthew’s Gospel, then it is not hard to see why they might think the wise men were at the nativity. 

Consider the words from the end of Matthew 1 and beginning of Matthew 2.

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw His star when it rose and have come to worship Him.” 

(Matthew 1:24–2:2)

If you are not paying close attention, you might think that the events in Matthew 2 follow immediately after Jesus’ birth. However, did you notice that Matthew 2:1 opens with the words, “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem . . .”? While Matthew does not tell us how much time has passed, we can learn from Luke that there were more than 40 days between Jesus’ birth and the appearance of the wise men in Jerusalem." 

AIG

Paul SIMPLIFIES the Gospel

Giving thanks unto the Father, 

I.

---which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:

---Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, 

---and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son:

---In whom we have redemption through His blood, 

even the forgiveness of sins:

II.

And He is the head of the body, 

the church: 

who is the beginning, 

the firstborn from the dead; 
---And, having made peace through the blood of His cross, 

by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; 

by Him, I say, 

whether they be things in earth, 

or things in heaven.

SUMMARY:

---And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, 

---yet now hath He reconciled

Colossians 1:12-14,18,20,21

Creation Moment 12/16/2025 - Brain still better than AI

And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after our likeness... Genesis 1:26

"Artificial intelligence can now produce acclaimed essays and support medical diagnoses with impressive precision, yet biological brains still outperform machines in one essential area: flexibility. Humans can absorb new information and adapt to unfamiliar situations with very little effort. People can jump into new software, follow a recipe they have never tried before, or learn the rules of a game they have just discovered, while AI systems often struggle to adjust in real time and to learn effectively “on the fly.”

A new study from Princeton neuroscientists offers insight into why the brain excels at this kind of rapid adjustment. The researchers found that the brain repeatedly draws on the same cognitive “blocks” when performing different types of tasks. By recombining these blocks in new ways, the brain can quickly generate fresh behaviors.

“State-of-the-art AI models can reach human, or even super-human, performance on individual tasks. But they struggle to learn and

perform many different tasks,” said Tim Buschman, Ph.D., senior author of the study and associate director of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. “We found that the brain is flexible because it can reuse components of cognition in many different tasks. By snapping together these ‘cognitive Legos,’ the brain is able to build new tasks.”

People often learn something new by building on related abilities they already have. Someone who knows how to maintain a bicycle, for example, may find motorcycle repair easier to pick up. Scientists refer to this process of assembling new skills from simpler, existing ones as compositionality.
“If you already know how to bake bread, you can use this ability to bake a cake without relearning how to bake from scratch,” said Sina Tafazoli, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the Buschman lab at Princeton and lead author of the new study. “You repurpose existing skills — using an oven, measuring ingredients, kneading dough — and combine them with new ones, like whipping batter and making frosting, to create something entirely different.”

Compositionality is considered central to human flexibility.
These cognitive Legos could explain why humans can learn new tasks so rapidly. Instead of generating each behavior from the ground up, the brain reuses existing components and avoids redundant work, something current artificial intelligence systems generally lack." SciTechDaily

The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES PAGE

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 

‘Did God actually say, 

“You shall not eat of any tree in the garden.

 Genesis 3:1

Who Is the Serpent?

Dig Deeper: The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: Who Is the Serpent?

Should Eve Have Been Surprised to Hear the Serpent Speak?

Genesis 3 SERIES: Should Eve Have Been Surprised to Hear the Serpent Speak?

How Did the Serpent Tempt Eve?

Dig Deeper: The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: How Did the Serpent Tempt Eve?

Was Adam with Eve When She Spoke to the Serpent?

The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: Was Adam with Eve When She Spoke to the Serpent?

Did the Serpent Originally Have Legs?

Dig Deeper: The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: Did the Serpent Originally Have Legs?

What Was the Forbidden Fruit?

Dig Deeper: The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: What Was the Forbidden Fruit?

Christmas Myths SERIES: 1: Joseph and Mary Could Not Find a Room at an Inn

"One of the most enduring and endearing retellings of Christ’s nativity is that He was born in a barn or cave because the inn was full and it was the only place available. 

This idea is based on a misunderstanding of Luke’s Gospel, and it involves some embellishment of the details as well.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:4–7)

Unlike the common portrayal of these events, Joseph and Mary did not need to frantically search for a place that night. Luke 2:6 states that while they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to give birth, so it is rather likely that they had arrived in town well before Mary went into labor.

If that is the case, then why does Luke mention a feeding trough?

While it is difficult to understand this based on the way most English Bibles translate verse 7, the Greek text makes no mention of anything like a hotel or inn, and it certainly does not mention an innkeeper. 

Luke used a term that refers to the guest room or upper room of a house (Greek καταλυμα, kataluma). Many first-century Judean homes had a guest room on the second floor. 

A portion of the lower level could be used to keep animals safe at night, so it would not be uncommon to find a feeding trough in the home’s first level." 

AIG

IN the NEWS - Governor Newsom: Modern Poster Child for Genesis 6:5

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Genesis 6:5

"A post from the Governor Newsom Press Office account shared a

snippet of Newsom taking part in an interview on The Ezra Klein Show.
During the interview, Newsom said he wants “to see trans kids” and highlighted how there is “no governor that’s done more pro-trans legislation” than he has." 

Breitbart

Creation Moment 12/15/2025 - Assumption-Heavy & too Simplistic

Remember, much of what those of evolutionary cosmology teach and reach is usually based on Assumption-Heavy & Simplistic analysis.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools... Romans 1:22 ESV

"For generations, school posters have sorted the Solar System into tidy boxes: four small rocky planets near the Sun, two huge gas planets farther out, and, at the edge, a pair of “ice giants” – Uranus and Neptune – packed with water, ammonia, and methane.

Using a fresh kind of interior model, researchers from the University of Zurich argue that Uranus and Neptune could be far rockier than those posters suggest. In many valid solutions, the planets are just as compatible with rock-heavy interiors as with the classic ice-rich picture.

“Both Uranus and Neptune could be rock giants or ice giants
depending on the model assumptions,” said Ravit Helled, a professor from the University of Astrophysics and one of the researchers involved. “Current data are currently insufficient to distinguish the two, and we therefore need dedicated missions to Uranus and Neptune that can reveal their true nature.”

Standard diagrams show them with thick mantles of “planetary ices” — mostly water, plus ammonia and methane — sitting above a rocky core, all wrapped in a light atmosphere that contains hydrogen, helium and a bit of methane gas that gives them their blue color.

The catch is that no one has ever actually seen the insides of either planet. Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989, measuring gravity and magnetic fields during quick flybys, then moved on. There has never been an orbiter to map their interiors in detail. So everything beneath the clouds comes from computer models that try to match a limited set of observations.

“The ice giant classification is oversimplified as Uranus and Neptune are still poorly understood,” said Luca Morf, Ph.D. student at the University of Zurich and lead author of the study. “Models based on physics were too assumption-heavy, while empirical models are too simplistic.” ZME

The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: What Was the Forbidden Fruit?

"In Genesis 3:2–3, Eve repeats God’s command about eating from the tree of knowledge: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

In church tradition, the fruit has often been identified as an apple

probably because the Latin word malum, “apple,” sounds like the word malus, “evil.” 

However, Genesis does not tell us what the fruit (pǝrî, Genesis 1:11-12) was. The only fruit mentioned in the passage is the fig (Genesis 3:7).

The fact of the matter is that it is not that important to know what the fruit was. What is important is that by taking of the fruit both Adam and Eve sinned against God. Because of Adam’s disobedience, God drove him out of the garden so that he could not eat from the tree of life and live forever (Genesis 3:22–24)." 

AIG

Health Note - Hospitals are Sounding Alarm about Cannabis use

Beloved,

I wish above all things that thou mayest...be in health...

3 John 1:2 

"Hospitals are seeing a striking rise in people with sudden bouts of intense vomiting linked to long-term cannabis use, a condition now formally classified as cannabis hyperemesis syndrome.

Over the past ten years, emergency departments have treated a growing number of people seeking help for abdominal pain accompanied by severe or persistent vomiting. A shared characteristic among many of these patients is long-term cannabis use.

Clinicians only recently gained a standardized way to document this issue. Last month, a diagnostic code for “cannabis hyperemesis syndrome” became available, describing a gastrointestinal condition that begins within 24 hours of the most recent use and can continue for several days. People who develop the syndrome often face three or four bouts of symptoms each year.

On October 1, the World Health Organization added the new code, R11.16, to its International Classification of Diseases manual (ICD-10, currently). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also incorporated the update for U.S. health care providers.

Even with a proper diagnosis, patients are sometimes reluctant to accept that cannabis is causing their symptoms, said Dr. Chris Buresh, an emergency medicine specialist with UW Medicine and Seattle Children’s.
“Some people say they’ve used cannabis without a problem for decades. Or they smoke pot because they think it treats their nausea,” he said. “It seems like there’s a threshold when people can become vulnerable to this condition, and that threshold is different for everyone. Even using in small amounts can make these people start throwing up.”

Standard anti-nausea medications often do not work well, he said,

leading physicians to try second- or third-line options such as Haldol, which is usually prescribed for psychotic episodes.
Several factors can slow a patient’s recovery. Because the syndrome appears intermittently, some cannabis users may believe a recent episode was unrelated and continue using cannabis without problems until they suddenly become very sick again. 

For those who accept the diagnosis and try to stop using cannabis to improve their symptoms, addiction can make that process challenging, Carlini said." 

SciTechDaily

Creation Moment 12/14/2025 - A Billion-Year Revision: "narrative triangulation"

Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 

Romans 1:22 NLT

"A team from the University of Bristol argues that gene-duplication events shared by all eukaryotes push the origin of complexity far deeper into Earth history than anyone expected.
Ho-hum. So far, so ordinary.
But then comes a revision of staggering proportions: eukaryotes were apparently evolving complex features for a billion years before mitochondria arrived, all while living in oceans devoid of oxygen.

Evolutionary biologist Philip Donoghue summarizes the surprise:

“One of our most significant findings was that the mitochondria
arose significantly later than expected. The timing coincides with the first substantial rise in atmospheric oxygen… The archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes began evolving complex features roughly a billion years before oxygen became abundant, in oceans that were entirely anoxic.”

The Metabolic Problem:
Readers familiar with basic bioenergetics may pause here. Mitochondria are not decorative extras, they are the ATP engines that make eukaryotic complexity metabolically possible. An archaeal cell attempting to evolve membranes, cytoskeletons, phagocytosis, and all the other high-energy traits of eukaryotes without mitochondria is like a stone-age village attempting to develop skyscrapers before the invention of steel.
The metabolic math simply does not work.

The Narrative Method Revealed:
Q: So what do the researchers do with this contradiction? 

A: They do not open the obvious question – how a metabolically impossible cell could evolve for a billion years – they expand the narrative. The timeline is redrawn, the mitochondria are repositioned, and the new picture is carefully fitted into the broader evolutionary story.

Study coauthor Christopher Kay makes the method explicit:

“It has required the combination of a number of disciplines to do this: palaeontology to inform the timeline, phylogenetics to create faithful and useful trees, and molecular biology to give these gene families a context. It was a big job.”

Indeed, it was.
Each discipline listed already presupposes the evolutionary timeline used to calibrate the others. Fossils inform the molecular clocks, which structure the phylogenetic trees, which reinterpret the fossils. 

The appearance of interdisciplinarity becomes 

a kind of narrative triangulation.

The story confirms … the story:
This is why the metabolic impossibility of billion-year pre-mitochondrial complexity does not register as a conceptual red flag. It becomes a storytelling opportunity. The contradiction is absorbed into a more sweeping arc where complexity, oxygenation, and the rise of mitochondria are harmonized, even if the harmony exists only at the narrative level.

Evolution once again shows itself as a self-correcting story, not a self-correcting science." 

CEH

The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: Did the Serpent Originally Have Legs?

"In Genesis 3:14, God curses the crafty serpent for his role in tempting Eve, “The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.’” 

Q: Does the fact that God says to the serpent “on your belly you

shall go” indicate that the serpent originally walked on legs? 

A: Many believe the curse on the serpent “on your belly you shall go” is symbolic, as the rest of the verse states “and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” Since serpents do not literally eat dust, the curse is not speaking about a physical change in the serpent but is a way of stressing the humiliation of the serpent (Isaiah 65:25; Micah 7:17). 

Later in Biblical history, a creature that goes on its belly was seen as unclean (Leviticus 11:42). As part of the same curse against the serpent, Genesis 3:15 also uses symbolic language (“he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel”), which the Lord Jesus fulfills when he defeated Satan through his death on the cross (1 John 3:8).

Nevertheless, the words of Genesis 3:14 containing a symbolic meaning does not necessarily mean that the punishment did not alter the serpent physically. As part of God’s judgment, a physical change took place to the ground so that it becomes more difficult to plant (Genesis 3:17), a physical change took place in plants so that they produced thorns (Genesis 3:18), and a physical change took place with Adam as he would return to the dust of the ground and physical death would come into the world (Genesis 3:19; Romans 5:12). Since these physical changes were part of God’s judgment, it is possible that the serpent also went through a physical change: being reduced to crawling on its belly." 

AIG

Creation Moment 12/13/2025 -What do tRNAs tell us?

For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible...Colossians 1:16 NIV

"What is it about the simplest living things that needs to be explained? For example, all self-reproducing (‘living’) cells have a set of very complex chemical units called tRNAs (‘transfer RNAs’). There must be at least one unique tRNA for each of the ~20 amino acids that make up proteins.

These tRNAs are essential for the manufacture of all proteins since the cell’s machinery uses them to interpret, from the DNA code, which amino acid is to be used at each position of a protein. 

But these are just a small component of the genetic equipment needed! Dr. Truman researched the biochemical source of tRNAs and noted that their manufacture was coded for on DNA and they must be extracted by special proteins. 

But these proteins could only exist if functional tRNAs were already available to help decode instructions for their manufacture. 

He concluded that tRNAs and proteins could never arise by any natural (evolutionary) process." 

CMI

The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: Was Adam with Eve When She Spoke to the Serpent?

"In Genesis 3:6, Eve invites Adam to join her in disobedience: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” 

Q: Does the fact that Genesis 3:6 states that Adam was “with her”

mean he was a witness to the entire conversation between the serpent and Eve? 

Q: Or does it indicate that Adam had only just arrived on the scene the moment Eve took the fruit?

Those who believe Adam was with Eve during the entire conversation point out that when the serpent speaks to Eve, the plural form of the verb is used: “You shall not eat . . .” (Genesis 3:2), “you will not surely die . . .” (Genesis 3:4), “when you eat of it . . .” (Genesis 3:5).

When God speaks to Adam after the fall, He addresses him alone (Genesis 3:9, 11). Yet Adam blames God for giving him Eve to be “with him,” which may also suggest that when Eve was being tempted by the serpent he was, at least passively, “with her.”." 

AIG

Creation Moment 12/12/2025 - Entanglement

He existed before anything else,

and He holds all creation together.

Colossians 1:17 NLT

"At COSM this week, author Louisa Gilder spoke about her book The Age of Entanglement (2009), about the bizarre quantum mechanics phenomenon where two particles become linked, such that they share the same quantum state. But it gets a lot weirder, because the distance between the two particles doesn’t affect their entangled behavior.

Under entanglement, measuring a property of one particle determines

the outcome of the measurement on the other particle. It’s been proposed that the correlation between entangled particles happens instantaneously — certainly faster than the speed of light. Einstein famously called this “spooky action at a distance.” This non-distance-related relationship is called “non-locality.”

Initially, many scientists felt that non-locality or “action at a distance” was too spooky to be correct. They proposed that there were “hidden local variables” that cause particles to behave in the same manner. So quantum entanglement wasn’t actually a thing.
This idea of hidden local variables was famously tested in 1972 in the Freedman–Clauser experiment, conducted at Berkeley, which proved that there was no pre-determined, local-variable-governed behavior in quantum particles. Quantum entanglement is real.

But again, it gets weirder. Measuring the state of one particle in an entangled pair destroys the entanglement. All of this has implications for materialism.
First, quantum mechanics shows that the old materialistic conception of a universe composed of billiard-ball-like particles bumping around is wrong. The famous wave-particle duality of matter/energy refutes

that model, but certainly so does quantum entanglement, where particles separated by vast distances behave in the same manner through what appears to be an instantaneous link.
Second, quantum entanglement shows that materialistic, mechanistic causation is not enough and you need to be open to other deeper, layers of reality and causality. These implications are precisely why materialistic scientists initially opposed the reality of entanglement and believed (wrongly) there were alternative “hidden local variable” explanations.

Q: Does this point to unseen dimensions or deeper realities, even immaterial ones?
Louisa Gilder remarked that “The world is so much more mysterious than what we just see.”
Gilder closed by quoting the famous mathematician and physicist

John von Neumann who said, “If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it’s only because they do not understand how complicated life is.”

Yet also mysteriously, the behavior of nature is elegantly described by mathematics — by what was famously called by the Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist and mathematician Eugene Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics.” As he put it: “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and … there is no rational explanation for it “

Q: If these points don’t reveal design in nature, what does?"

Casey Luskin

The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: How Did the Serpent Tempt Eve?

"In his temptation of Eve, the serpent begins by distorting God’s Word, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). The serpent’s words are designed to get Eve to debate God’s command and entertain the possibility that God did not know what was best or that he was withholding something from them.

Eve probably knew of the command through Adam (Genesis 3:2–3).

This would indicate that Eve was the most susceptible of the first couple, and evidently, the serpent knows this. 

It appears that Eve is uncertain about the command God has given Adam, as she replies to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die” (Genesis 3:2–3). Although Eve is partly correct in her response to the serpent, she also shifts the emphasis in several places:

Eve omits from the original command the word “every,” which places the command in the context of liberality.

Eve identifies the tree according to its location rather than its significance.

Eve adds the phrase “neither shall you touch it,” which makes the commandment stricter.

Eve weakens the penalty of death to “lest you die.” The Lord God had said “you shall surely die.”

Eve’s response to the serpent shows that his distorting of God’s Word leads her to doubt God’s Word. The serpent goes on to call God’s truthfulness in question (he denies God’s warning) and his trustworthiness (by challenging his motives).

Instead of obeying God’s Word not to eat from the tree, Eve sees “the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6). 

The serpent’s deception leads the first couple to judge the fruit apart from God’s explicit command to them. This was an attempt to be like God, and their rebellion resulted in their knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:22)." 

AIG

Creation Moment 12/11/2025 - Bipedalism

And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, 

after Our likeness: 

Genesis 1:26

"The supposed evolution of bipedalism continues to be a major obstacle in the narrative that humans evolved from apelike ancestors.

For example, in 2024, researchers from New York University reported, “While scientists have long been intrigued by the question of how humans’ bipedal stance and movement evolved from a quadrupedal ancestor, neither past studies nor fossil records have permitted the reconstruction of a clear and definitive history of the early evolutionary stages that led to human bipedalism.”

Recently, evolutionists from Harvard allegedly found “the genetic

clues that let humans walk on two legs,” stating that “two small changes in human DNA may have played a big role in helping our ancestors walk upright.”

According to their interpretation, one of these supposed changes caused the ilium (hip bone) to shift 90° in humans. This is significant because muscle attachment to the pelvis would also have needed to radically change.

Terence Capellini, an evolutionary biologist and study coauthor at Harvard, said these alleged changes were “essential for creating and shifting muscles that are usually on the back of the animal, pushing the animal forward, to now being on the sides, helping us stay upright as we walk.”

Evolutionary explanations are often filled with such just-so stories. 

Q: What are the specific links in human evolution that document such a transition? “Creating and shifting muscles”? How could all of that happen at the same time?

To investigate developmental differences, the scientists examined samples of developing pelvic tissue from chimps, mice, and people, pairing the microscopic samples with CT scans. 

Q: What did they find?

A: Analysis revealed that the difference came from subtle changes in gene regulation—the “on-off switches” that control how and when certain genes are active.
In humans, cartilage-forming genes switched on in new regions, prompting horizontal growth, while bone-forming genes activated later, slowing the hardening process.

Furthermore, sharing many common developmental genes is hardly surprising since humans also share genes with other organisms for breaking down and digesting proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. 

This is evidence of a common Designer,

 not a common ancestor.

God designed people as people, including our distinctive pelvic cartilage that grows sideways, while it grows vertically in apes and chimps. A Nature article addressing the evolution of hominin bipedalism described the difference of the ilia of humans and apes: “One of the earliest and most important shifts was an ilium, or superior pelvic bone, that became shortened cranial-caudally, widened anterior-posteriorly, and aligned parasagittally compared with the ilia of apes.” 

Exactly.

But there was no shift from one into the other. The scientists were simply describing the human ilium as it exists today. They also observed “a unique perichondral pattern of bone formation (both radial and non-internalizing) in human ilia that differs from and is delayed (underwent a heterochronic shift) compared with all studied non-human primates and the mouse.” These descriptions highlight additional anatomical differences between humans and the animals listed.

The same Nature article went on to say, “The ilium changes compared with living primates are an evolutionary novelty,” and it claimed these “innovations facilitated further growth of the human pelvis and the unique formation of the ilium among primates.”5 But terms like “novelty” and “innovation” have no single agreed-upon definition in evolutionary biology. Evolutionist Michael Denton stated that “explaining how novelties come about is one of the major unfinished tasks of evolutionary biology.”

Q: But did the ilium slowly change as unknown primates became human? 

A: No. At least, there is no fossil evidence for this. The human pelvis is designed for upright walking, and that of the chimp is designed for climbing.

Evolutionists are still stumped trying to explain any human-chimp

connection. One evolutionist said, “How and why natural selection favored the transition to bipedal posture and locomotion are likewise ongoing subjects of scholarly debate and conjecture.”

To conclude, chimps have always been chimps and people have always been people. Without fossil evidence, evolutionists do not know what the common ancestor of humans and chimps was, nor when this divergence occurred. 

Q: If that is true, how can they be so sure that our upright walking was due to “two major developmental genetic innovations that shaped the human ilium ”? 

---What they discovered are two more genetic differences uniquely found in human DNA, furthering the divide between man and chimps." 

ICR

The Serpent in Genesis 3 SERIES: Should Eve Have Been Surprised to Hear the Serpent Speak?

"For many modern readers of the Bible, perhaps the most surprising feature of Genesis 3 is the talking serpent. This is partly because of the naturalistic worldview by which they interpret the text. 

Q: But would a talking serpent have surprised Eve? 

A: Some believe Eve’s lack of surprise is an indication that the

serpent itself had the ability to speak. However, Genesis 3 gives no specific explanation for the serpent’s ability to speak, other than it was “crafty.” There is no clear indication in the early chapters of Genesis that animals had the ability to speak. While some animals today can mimic human speech (African grey parrots; beluga and orca whales), there is no animal that can speak in the sense of creating complex abstract language.

Q: Why is it that man can speak but animals cannot? 

A: In creation week, God not only spoke creation into existence but He spoke to Adam and Eve who were made in his image (Genesis 1:26–27, 2:16–17). 

As an image bearer of God, Adam had the ability to speak; he named the animals and thereby exercised his dominion over them (Genesis 2:20). In naming the animals, Adam showed how different he was from them as the animals could not name themselves. This is because animals were not made in the image of God, and unlike Adam, they did not have the ability to speak. 

This is why Old Testament scholar E. J. Young states,

"The actions of the serpent, however, constitute a denial that God has made him. The serpent speaks; it does what animals cannot do. Only man, of earthly creatures, possesses the ability to speak. Yet the serpent acts as a man; it raises itself above the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made and it elevates itself to an equality with man. There is something wrong and Eve should have recognized this as soon as the serpent began to speak."

The very clear distinction between man and the animals shows that a speaking serpent is strange in the context of the creation account. The Bible doesn’t say how Eve reacted when she heard the serpent, but to us, it’s a signal that something strange is going on. And the fact that the serpent immediately attacks God’s Word tells us that Satan is behind the serpent’s speech." 

AIG

Creation Moment 12/10/2025 - A "finely tuned biological dance"

"Little by little, piece by piece, man’s knowledge of the internal workings of plants is growing—akin to the putting together of a large jigsaw puzzle. And speaking of jigsaw puzzles, plants actually manufacture their own—in the leaves. All pavement cells in the leaf epidermis “grow into interlocking patterns resembling jigsaw puzzle pieces.”

Researchers have now identified some of the molecular processes

regulating cell growth so as to form the jigsaw pattern “in a controlled and ordered way”. A group of enzymes known as GTPases (guanosine triphosphatases) play a key role in “a complicated and coordinated series” of chemical interactions. 

In simple terms, these proteins tell one part of a cell to grow outward to form a ‘lobe’ while correspondingly telling the neighboring cell at that point to recede or indent itself so as to form a ‘neck’ that interlocks perfectly.

Controlled, ordered, complicated, coordinated. While there’s still much more to learn about how construction of the jigsaw pattern can be coordinated in such an orderly manner, what is already known about the phenomenon has been described as “a finely tuned biological dance”.

This is not the only time that scientists have referred to the workings of plants in such terms. For instance, when they discovered roots grow in rhythmic pulses, one researcher said, “Everything’s coordinated. It’s like a dance,” with the “entire complicated ballet” repeating every three minutes.

Of course, such finely-tuned, coordinated ‘dances’ don’t fit the no-Designer-was-necessary evolutionary storyline so often paraded today. 

Rather, a very different ‘big picture’ emerges, for those with eyes to see. 

Orderliness, where every piece of the puzzle fits in perfect and strengthening juxtaposition with its neighbors, cannot arise by itself from disorder, but only by design. 

And contrary to atheistic scoffing, recognizing God as Creator gives

more impetus and motivation for undertaking scientific research, not less. 

Q: For who would not want to explore and admire the intricacies performed by the Hand of the Master Designer? As the Psalmist wrote, “Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them” (Psalm 111:2)." 

CMI