The Air We Breathe: A Miracle
Oxygen’s Role: Divine Design or Evolutionary Chance
Without oxygen, the human brain will cease to function within minutes. Every individual cell in an adult human, estimated at 30 trillion, needs the energy transferred from oxygen. We breathe 23,000 times a day to fulfill 90% of our energy quota, with the remaining 10% being food and water. There is plenty of oxygen on this planet because the atmosphere is composed of 21% of this essential element for you and the enormous amounts of different living forms with leftovers for many more years to come.
Oxygen has impressive chemical properties and is one of the most reactive elements that can bond with almost every element. It easily reacts with metals like copper, iron, aluminum, and many others that form minerals found in the Earth’s rocks. It can also bond with nonmetals like sulfur, chlorine, silicone, and, most importantly, carbon, making essential compounds found in all living things. Rust is an excellent example of how oxygen is an active element that bonds with iron and becomes one of the worst enemies of machinery, automobiles, or other items manufactured from iron. This process is easily witnessed on Earth but not so much on the space station. Our atmosphere is mostly 78% nitrogen, a stable gas that blankets oxygen’s chemical reactivity.
Another unique property is that oxygen at average earth temperatures stays somewhat nonreactive. It would help if you had heat and combustible material to ignite oxygen to produce fire. Increasing the oxygen levels in the atmosphere from its present composition significantly will cause forest fires to grow exponentially. When oxygen levels increase, it lowers the nitrogen composition of the air which provides dangerous conditions for us here on Earth. One strike of lightning could then extinguish all living things from our planet.
Oxygen, the breath of life, is a divine gift that sustains all living beings on Earth, with its remarkable properties and delicate balance holding profound significance in the grand design of creation.
Our atmosphere appears to have an ideal mixture of oxygen and nitrogen for humans and living forms to live comfortably on Earth. Oxygen is consumed by complex living forms as a primary energy source, demonstrating its excellent chemical properties. Fungi, plants, and animals use it for respiration. This is witnessed everywhere on Earth, which compels us to conclude that this is hard evidence of superior outside intelligence.
Oxygen is one of the most widespread elements found on Earth. It is the most predominant element found on the Earth’s crust, taking the most considerable portion of the pie at 46.6%, followed by silicone at 27.7%. The composition of the entire Earth which includes the core, mantle, and crust is made chiefly of iron (33.3%) and then comes 29.8% oxygen, followed by silicone and other elements. Oxygen’s reactivity is observed in the composition of minerals and rocks deep in the Earth’s mantle under the crust.
The inner part of the Earth, identified as the mantle, is made of many stable rock structures that contain silicates, which is when silicone and oxygen form strong bonds. This observation also suggests that there was always plenty of oxygen around when the Earth was formed. A protective layer of air called the ozone shield is made from a high concentration of very reactive oxygen, identified as ozone, that protects the Earth from the Sun’s high-energy ultraviolet radiation. It is in the lower stratosphere from 9 to 18 miles altitude and thins at the Earth’s poles. Without oxygen, we would not have the ozone layer to protect us from this dangerous radiation that results in malignant melanoma, cataracts, and clouding of the eye lens. It would negatively affect plants, marine ecosystems, and many biochemical cycles to degrees that can cause a significant loss of biological life.
Water is made of oxygen in the ratio of one part of oxygen and two parts of hydrogen. Oxygen is so reactive that it pulls the two hydrogen at a 104.5-degree angle, making a molecule that looks like Mickey Mouse with two ears standing up tall made of hydrogen and a face made of oxygen.
The molecule becomes polar with a negative charge where the oxygen resides, and a positive charge where the hydrogen is located. Because of these opposite charges, water molecules can dissolve many substances, which is essential to life. Water is considered the universal solvent because it can dissolve so many things. Water stays together because of its polar nature and has the unique ability to recycle because this property makes it so stable.
Perhaps this is the reason why this planet is filled with water. The surface of the Earth is 70% water. All biological life needs water because of its remarkable molecular properties. Living forms are composed of water, like humans for example, which are 60-75% water. Without water, there is no life. Without oxygen, there is no water.
One concludes that this was not an accident but subject to a design by a designer who is much bigger than you and I. It points to our Creator and Savior showing His mark of love.
Evolutionists ponder the appearance of the abundant supply of oxygen in the air we breathe and how it appears everywhere on Earth. Darwin and his evolutionary followers are forced to leave the divine intelligent designer out of the equation because they want to take over the Kingship of Christ. Through their arrogance, they must contrive other means for the origin of oxygen, the planet Earth, its atmosphere, single-cell organisms, and multiple-cell organisms, and go up the evolutionary ladder of the complexity of life that reached humanity as we know it today.
There are a variety of theories on how biological life arose with the aid of oxygen. Evolutionists have produced fancy graphs and charts that demonstrate the ups and downs of the availability of oxygen over a long period of time. They believe that this is linked to the evolutionary process.
Presently, there is no agreement with so much speculation. It is easy to forget where we are in the cosmos and all the details that make this home we dwell on, Earth, such a unique place. In every detail, we see how He has taken care of us; even in the air we breathe, we can see the fingerprint of God. It was the prophet Isaiah who proclaimed to us whom all our worship and praise should go to, as it states,
“For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the Earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD, and there is none else.” –Isaiah 45:18
