Institute for Creation Research
Dear Mr. Thomas,
I've always wondered why God gave men facial hair. I figured He was trying to help us avoid temptation by providing us with a means of hiding our lips from each other, but that didn't make much sense. Some men have very thin facial hair that doesn't hide the lips at all. And of course the thought of a big hairy cop mustache tickling away like carbon deposits on a V-8's pistons is a big temptation in itself, isn't it.I knew someone in the Christ-based science community must have an explanation for this mystery of the beard, and now I've found it. Your article in Acts and Facts answered all my questions:
[I]f everything was created by a God who exists outside the physical world, there is a ready answer, one with broad application: beards present a certain appearance. Aesthetic features were emplaced by Someone who knew how things look in addition to how things work. Beards do not confer any selectable survival advantage to humankind, but they do serve to add distinction to men, perhaps as different features distinguish women.So that's the answer. God gave us beards for two reasons. First, they serve as a visual clue so we don't confuse men with women; and second, because God digs beards.
It would be consistent to think that it simply pleased the Creator to outfit humans and other creatures with certain visually appealing characteristics. "But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him" (1 Corinthians 15:38)...
In addition to this, and by His grace, God provided humans with the ability to recognize and appreciate beauty, distinguishing it from ugliness. Only with this ability can people give God proper credit for inventing human beards, lion manes, peacock feathers, salamander spots, crustacean coloration, ultraviolet color patterns in deep sea fish (where there is no ultraviolet light), and the hot-pink spiny dragon millipede discovered in Greater Mekong. All these creatures could conceivably serve their purposes and be ugly, but instead they seem to have been uniquely adorned by a Master Artist.
I suppose that also explains back hair and all the other hair I have growing on my ears, arms, and taint. Ofjoshua really hates that last one. It's like a forest down there and the hairs are very long. She's always taunting me about it, saying I'm long everywhere but where it counts.
But now, I have a response. God loves my taint hair. He thinks it's beautiful.
I think I'll braid it.
Heterosexually yours,
Gen. JC Christian, patriot
