Sunday, October 19, 2014

Largest Land Animal Found - Behemoth!

For many Christians, when they read of the Behemoth in Job 40, they cannot imagine what animal is God referring to. They may not believe that God made dinosaurs with man. For those who believe in a literal 6-day creation of Genesis 1, accepting that God made the Behemoth on Day 6 together with the other land animals and man is taking God at His word. You do not need to explain away Job 40 to be a hippopotamus or elephant. It is a sauropod dinosaur, the biggest of its kind. It lived with Job at the time God spoke to him in the whirlwind.


Just read Job 40 carefully and you will discover its corresponding similarity with the story of discovery of this behemoth that God described there.


15¶Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.
17He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.
19He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.


The Discovery

Recently, Drexel University professor Ken Lacovara unveiled a new supermassive dinosaur species he discovered and unearthed with his team between 2005 and 2009 in Patagonia, south Argentina. Weighing in at nearly 65 tons, Dreadnoughtus schrani is the largest land animal ever found of calculable mass and also the most complete skeleton ever found for a dinosaur in this mass range (read here).



To put it into perspective, this behemoth is heavier than the Boeing 737. It is about a dozen African Elephants squished into one, explains Ken.


However, it may be interesting to note Ken's observation of this behemoth:

- that it does not walk much given it can eat easy with its long neck

- that it cannot support such a heavy body weight

- that once it falls over, it will not be able to get up



Luis Chiappe, director of the National History Museum of Los Angeles's Dinosaur Institute observes that this behemoth must be eating all day long to produce enough energy to mobilize such a huge body.


They appear to scoff at the design of this behemoth which baffles their human knowledge. How can God make such an animal? The behemoth is a type of sauropod, the type of dinosaur with a long neck and a long tail. Ken notes that it has an immense tail, 18 feet of muscular protrusion that can defend itself from predators. He has such large skeleton that is larger than all previously discovered fossils. He notes the rib cage, the femurs, and understands how much weight the legs must carry. In his naiviety of God, he thinks that this behemoth is flawed in design.

(The Washington Post video here).

God has the last laugh

God must have purposedly created and designed such animals that defy man's logic. This behemoth and even the T-Rex with its short forelimbs are generally thought that they have great difficulty to get up after they fall. Look at the elephant. It gets up quite well and carries itself very well. God knows how to build such massive creatures that even man today fails to understand and appreciate. Look at the bumblebee that scientists feel is wrongly designed and should not be able to fly. But fly it does.


God's creation is to show how foolish man is and how wise and powerful God is. This discovery is yet another point to give glory to God.

(Listen to Bob Enyart on this discovery here. I also agree with him that if the paleontologists check for soft tissue materials, they will find it. And more importantly if they check for existence of C14, they will find it. These will prove that this behemoth is recent, not hundreds of millions of years.)

Monday, October 13, 2014

ISIS Challenge to the World

In a span of a few months, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has caused a massive upheaval around the world with their fast paced attack which is ruthless and criminally horrible. Backed by a large number of non-Arab fighters who came from all over the world, they have quickly established their might and presence in their Islamic style of fighting. First, under the guise of defending hapless Syrians against President Assad and suddenly the next in taking over large portions of Iraq and declaring a Caliphate.


The western world is appalled at their brutality of killing the men, raping the women and beheading anyone who stands in their way. In recent times, the public beheading of western captives who are innocent civilians and provoking anger of the western world. Finally, they get together to participate in a US-led bombardment of ISIS positions in Iraq and now in Syria. On the ground, the Iraqis and Kurds are regaining their territory but this is not enough. The only reason the western world is keen to stamp out ISIS is to prevent these foreigners from engaging in similar attacks back in their home countries, if they still have home countries to return to.