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Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it (Psalm 139:14, NLT).
After one of my many youthful indiscretions, my mother said, “Use your entire brain, Grant!” A teacher told me after one of my high school pranks, “Sometimes you need to use the other half of your brain.”
And then, while watching the movie Lucy, I learned that humans use only 10 percent of their brains.
HHHHMMMHHM? In my case, if I only use 50 percent of my brain, and of that 50 percent, I’m only using 10 percent — it’s a wonder that I can write Interruptions, and it’s a greater wonder that you would read it!!
Fortunately, the “we only use 10 percent of our brains” theory is a myth. Any modern MRI would show the entire brain actively working, even in our sleep. Whew — you can confidently continue reading this blog!
Not that we comprehend the brain. Eminent brain scientist Dr. Christof Kock from the brain research organization Allen Institute, when asked how close we are to understanding the brain, said. . .
We don’t even understand the brain of a worm!
Of course, my “half-brained and used at only 10 percent” thought would be, “Wow, I don’t feel so bad now.”
What scientists do know is that our brain contains 86 billion neurons woven together by 100 trillion synapses, and they all work. During the day, our brain, though only two percent of body weight, consumes about 20 percent of our daily caloric intake. And using all those neurons, synapses, and calories — the brain can think up to 50,000 thoughts a day!
Also, our brains don’t fully develop until we are 25 years old, so there might be some truth in my mom’s accusation that, as a teenager, I wasn’t using my entire brain.
Let’s consider the Bible’s description of our brain’s creation. . .
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born (Psalm 139:13-16a).
It boggles intellectual credibility that our brains were created by an evolutionary process. The brain has a “fight or flight” mechanism for emergencies and a contemplative “see the big picture” part enabling perspective. Our brains can recognize individual personhood and experience emotions.
Questions I’ve asked are, “Why would our brain be able to conceive God if there wasn’t a God? Would we be able to understand color if the world was colorless?”
Our brain gives hope for eternity. Which leads to our brain’s highest function — praising
God forever!
A side note: I sometimes think atheists, agnostics, and their ilk were created by evolution, and the logical processing components of their brains got stuck in their “salamander crawling out of the ocean” stage of development.
But that’s only the opinion of a 50 percent, operating at 10 percent, brain.