More From Frank Turek

Fr. Mike Schmitz (the great ) once said, “Jesus does His best work in caves.” Obviously, referring to the cave where He rose from the dead, but it’s true: that was in a tomb with a boulder rolled over the entrance. It was dark. A dark period. And well, you know what happened

Read more at : A Photoless Past | BeautyBeyondBones

Have these researchers provided us with a key insight into LUCA’s identity? Have they identified the locale for the origin of life? Not necessarily. Here are some points to consider: If life originated under high temperatures, the genetic code should reflect life’s hot heritage, yet the genetic code shows no indication that it is suited for a high-temperature environment. From an evolutionary perspective, the genetic code must have arisen under moderate, mesophilic conditions. Based on this result, it’s reasonable to conclude that life also arose under mild conditions as well. The guanine-cytosine (GC) content of rRNAs for the hypothetical LUCA would have been too low to support a thermophilic lifestyle.  Organisms that live in a high temperature environment characteristically employ higher amounts of GC in DNA and RNA molecules. Life’s building blocks and RNAs’ three-dimensional structures are highly unstable under hydrothermal vent conditions. Again, this makes it unreasonable to think that life originated at these ocean vents. This work also highlights the complexity of the first life-forms on Earth. This complexity is too great to be accounted for by evolutionary origin-of-life scenarios.

Read the entire story at: Reasons To Believe : Science News Flash: Has the Last Universal Common Ancestor Been Identified?

By Natasha Crain My son Nathan wasn’t feeling well recently so we all prayed together for him to feel better. The next night at prayer time, Kenna pointed out that we prayed for him already but he wasn’t feeling better. She had a look of simultaneous confusion and disappointment on her face.  In a total of about 3 seconds I had the thought that this is the beginning of a lifetime of seeking to understand why God does or does not answer certain prayers AND replied, “We’ll keep praying and trust God that Nathan will feel better.” I felt a giant theological error well up in my throat. How often we casually imply or even consciously think that if we just “trust God” for a specific prayer outcome, He will answer the way we want! “Everything will be OK! Just trust in God!” Yes, everything will be OK . . . perfect actually . . . when Christ returns and God is glorified in His kingdom for eternity. In the meantime this life is a mess. We are sinful people with free choices, surrounded by other sinful people with free choices. There is illness, there is death. There are natural disasters. Christians live in this fallen world and are affected by its consequences as much as non-believers.

Read more at What To Teach Kids About Unanswered Prayer