Abiogenesis definition – the origin of life from nonliving matter; specifically : a theory in the evolution of early life on earth: organic molecules and subsequent simple life forms first originated from inorganic substances. – Merriam-Webster
For anyone who is not familiar with the term abiogenesis, the definition above should help. Abiogenesis is the theory that life came from things that weren’t alive.
This morning, near the top of the stories featured on Google was one from COSMOS entitled:
Looking for origins of life in hot springs…Scientists put a hypothesis to the test.
The article is almost a year old but it is very similar to many articles written by those studying how life could have possibly come from non-living things. It is written for people like me who have no authority to speak on such an issue but who think, like one of the young scientists featured in the article, that:
“The origin of life is part of humanity’s narrative.”
“Learning more about it isn’t only beneficial for science, it’s helping us develop our understanding of who we are and our place in the universe.”
After reading the article, two things are clear:
1) These scientists aren’t kidding around. They are serious about their work and seem to be trying to find answers.
and
2) It certainly seems possible that they are looking in the right places and that they may be getting close to discovering how life came form non-living things.
Thankfully, the recent series by Dr. James Tour has been a help to me in this area of understanding. The series covers many items including topics that the layman (like me) would not understand. Dr. Tour discusses “the building blocks for life, including amino acids, nucleobases and lipids,” the exact same things mentioned in the Cosmos article.
The main difference between the COSMOS article (which is a pretty good representation of many scientific articles presented for layman) and the series by Dr. Tour is the explanation of how difficult it would have been for life to have appeared “spontaneously.” (It seems that the world spontaneously is a word frequently used to describe how non-living things became living things; the problem is that no one has ever explained how this happened.)
Dr. Tour’s credentials speak for themselves. You can read about them HERE. Not only is he one of the best synthetic chemists in the world, he is a Christian. In his series about Abiogenesis, he only speaks about the science of the subject according to his understanding. He does not mention the Bible. He is well versed in the scriptures but his career has been in the field of synthetic chemistry where: “Based on the impact of his published work, in 2019 Tour was ranked in the top 0.004% of the 7 million scientists who have published at least 5 papers in their careers. He was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2015.” (Click HERE for more information about Dr. Tour.)
I have been following Dr. Tour’s work for years now. I know “appeals to authority” are often looked upon with disdain but let’s face it, everyone does it. Personally, I don’t see any problem with it whatsoever. The question in every area of life becomes: “Who do I trust to tell me the truth about this subject? “
I am thankful that someone of Dr. Tour’s stature is speaking out on this subject. He is being ignored by many scientists in the origin of life field. He is also being treated as someone who doesn’t know what he is talking about, which is only one of the reasons he has made this presentation. Much of the course is Dr. Tour’s comments on a video that was made criticizing his own past comments. Dr. Tour handles the criticism well but is clearly frustrated by the lack of clarity that he feels is presented not only by the video discussed but by many articles in the scientific literature. One of his stated goals in this course is to provide clarity to those seeking answers about the possible origin of life.
The episodes are anywhere from twenty-five minutes to 1 hour and twenty-five minutes. You may want to pick out one of the sessions which looks interesting or you may want to start at the beginning and go from there.
Chris Reimers
A Course on Abiogenesis by Dr. James Tour
1 – Introduction to Abiogenesis
6 – Building Blocks of Building Blocks
9 – Intermediate Summary & a Call to Colleagues
11 – Chiral-induced Spin Selectivity
12.1 – Cell Construction & The Assembly Problem, Part 1
Posted by Chris 
Wings of the Wind 
“I Did Not Send These Prophets”
May 25, 2021Reading through the Bible recently, I came across these verses from a true Prophet named Jeremiah:
20 “The anger of the Lord will not turn back
Until He has performed and carried out the purposes of His heart;
In the last days you will clearly understand it.
21 “I did not send these prophets,
But they ran.
I did not speak to them,
But they prophesied.
22 “But if they had stood in My council,
Then they would have announced My words to My people,
And would have turned them back from their evil way
And from the evil of their deeds.
-Jeremiah 23
Prophecy has a major role in the Bible. One source states that there are 1,817 prophecies which are found in 8,352 Bible verses. If this subjective number is close to correct, then 26% of the Bible is prophetic. If even 1% of the Bible is prophetic, its value cannot be understated.
A good example of true prophesy is found in the book of the prophet Nahum. In it Nahum wrote specific prophecies that God had given to him. He used the words “Thus says the Lord” (1:12) to describe upcoming events involving Nineveh, the great city of the Assyrian Empire.
Throughout the Old and New Testaments there are warnings about false prophets. The deceitful prophets mentioned in the verses above were not sent by God, but they ran with zest to announce self-produced words.
As I read the verses, I could not help but think of the past year and a half and how, in that short time, many of today’s false prophets have been dramatically exposed.
Many of today’s false prophets who imply or say without hesitation “Thus says the Lord” meet with or hear from God on almost a daily basis. It is a serious problem that needs to be discussed and unmasked. People are being duped.
The false prophets of our time have been consistently wrong about recent momentous events. Not one of them that I’m aware of warned us that something like the coronavirus was coming. Almost all of them stated or “prophesied” that Mr. Trump would win the 2020 election. If election fraud was as bad as some think, wouldn’t God have told them about that? I have watched videos about the messages that “God gave them” for the upcoming year as 2020 approached. Most of it turned out to be woefully erroneous. One common theme was that huge amounts of wealth would be redistributed to “God’s people.” Another theme was that God’s spirit was going to move in wondrous ways.
These modern day false prophets are nothing like the prophets in the Bible.
An evangelist who knows a lot about the subject is Justin Peters. He is featured in the two videos I have shared below. The first video discusses the problem. The second video is a round table discussion about the recently published Prophetic Standards Statement which has been signed by 685 people. They have allowed us to see some of the more “prominent” signers. The statement was designed to blunt the criticism that the “prophets” have received over the past year or so.
Some of the statement is pretty good but there are seriously flawed sections:
“WE REJECT the notion that a contemporary prophetic word is on the same level of inspiration or authority as Scripture or that God always speaks inerrantly through prophets today, since the Bible says we only know in part and prophesy in part (1 Cor. 13:9).“
Really? Then why in the world would anyone even listen to these people and why are they called prophets?
The second to the last paragraph describes three types of prophets.
There are only two types of prophets: real ones and fake ones.
The first video is aptly named and is divided into six sections (approx. times):
The “missed events” and the “presidential prophesies” are difficult to listen to. The interview with Dr. Busenitz is very interesting. The second time I watched the first video I realized that near the end Justin uses the same scripture that inspired this post.
I can’t help but wonder if this situation is going to get any worse. I recognized a number of the false prophets exposed in the first video. I also recognized a few signatures on the Prophetic standards statement but there are a lot I had never seen before. Obviously, the real Christian Church, the true Bride of Christ, needs to be informed about this sad sign of our times.
Chris Reimers
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
Matthew 7
***Evidently, I am not the only Christian blogger who has been thinking about this subject lately. “False Teachers” is the name of a poem Deborah Ann published a day before I got this post up. HERE IS THE POEM IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ IT.
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