OUCH! A SORE POINT

We can guess what these guys are doing and we can be sure that little baby is an 8 day old boy.
Let’s hope the mohel and his assistant washed their hands thoroughly, that his instruments are sterile for this brit milah and ….that he hasn’t got ‘the shakes’!

Here is what the Jewish Torah claims God said to Abraham:

"This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger…."                      Genesis 17

So why at eight days old??                                                        

Let’s give the cultural, ethical and religious arguments a miss and just look at the medical aspect…
Vitamin K was not identified until 1929 when Danish scientist Henrik Dam named it Koagulationsvitamin. Together with calcium, Vitamin K is used to convert the blood-clotting protein prothrombin to thrombin but the low level of Vitamin K at birth can lead to the rare ‘Haemorrhagic Disease of the Newborn’ (HDN) in 0.25% to 1.7% of births.

Prothrombin levels reach normal level in 5-7 days but then….           

increase on Day 8 to 110% of normal – the highest level that will ever be reached in the life of this child!                                       

(Just by the way, it is claimed that the dosage of Vitamin K now administered to newborns as a standard procedure is 20,000 times that required and has been implicated as a cause of child leukaemia.)       

Okay, we might think circumcision is a barbaric relic of superstition. Other nations like Egypt used this procedure as a rite of passage to puberty, adulthood or marriage BUT… a Jewish male is reminded several times each day that Israel is meant to be ‘a cut above the others’- even if it is a sore point!

Could there be a Creator God who might have had a clue or two about what He was doing?                               

 

Acknowledgements: 
mercola.com
lastrow.wordpress.com
apologeticspress.org
Photo credits: 
bethaderech.com 
blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

                                                                                                                                                       

                                                           

                                                                             

                                                                          

 

PLAYING BY EAR

Here is Nik Wallenda, 450 metres above the Little Colorado River in Grand Canyon - playing it by ear again.                    

 

Okay, he’s using his arms and legs with assistance from a balance rod to pull off his stunt ‘safely’ but we’re left wondering what he’s got between those ears.                

We’ll never really know except, like the rest of us, he must have two of these peculiar thingummies:

Whatever is this anyway?

No it’s not a three-headed snail and no, it’s not a tumor.                                

This is your inner ear that some medicos say evolved over millions of years, so let’s go exploring inside Nick’s ear like a bug…but this ain’t easy…a waxy substance is making this adventure hard-going and soon we come to a membrane completely blocking our way.

We learn that the membrane is the eardrum which receives sound vibrations that are amplified behind in the middle ear by 3 tiny bones: the ossicles (malleus, incus & stapes). Why 3?...so that loud sounds are dampened. Clever hey!...and yet another example of ‘irreducible complexity’ - leave any component out and nothing works.     

Now remember the good old days of flying when the hosties would hand out lollies to passengers?...except you were busy with ear-ache as we descended to our destination in an unpressurised airliner. The Eustachian tubes normally vent the middle ear to the throat, which prevented Nick’s ear-drums from perforating with the pressure changes when driving up to the Grand Canyon rim at about 4000 feet above sea level.

At last we reach the inner ear where the stapes vibrates an oval window in the cochlea (‘the snail shell’), sending waves thru fluid which are detected by hairs (organ of Corti), sending electrical signals for the brain to interpret as sound.

Wait!...that’s not all. The 3 semi-circular canals you can see are set at right angles to each other and contain fluid that moves tiny hairs, enabling the brain to sense movement of the body….and there’s more vestibular organs! The brain needs a reference to distinguish between movement of the body and attitude of the head so there are two sensors incorporated as well: the saccule aligned vertically and the utricle aligned horizontally.

So ladies and gentlemen, just what are we born with, between those lugs?  

Two integrated, self-cleaning, pressure tolerant, water-resistant, shock-proof, dual purpose, attenuating stereophonic microphones – complete with artificial horizons and 3-dimensional accelerometers!             
If just one component was missing would the ear be a masterpiece of bionic engineering?..... or just a ridiculous deformity for hanging your specs on?           

 

 

Acknowledgements:  
Anatomica, Global Book Publishing, Sydney 2000  
wikipedia.org    
medicinenet.com   
Gillen, A. ‘Body By Design’, Master Books, Green Forest AR, 2001  
Photo credits:   
nydailynews.com      
3dscience.com  
zrhbzeds.homeip.net