Do You Believe What You Want to Believe,

or What Is Believable?

By Errol Hale

Chinese paleontologist, Professor Jun-Yuan Chen, gave a lecture to American scientists at the University of Washington, which happens to be one of the premier research universities in the world. He explained that new fossilized animal finds in the Maotianshan shale in Southern China have turned Darwin’s “Tree of Life” upside down. He explained that Darwin’s tree postulates that life evolved from simple to complex. But the fossil record shows that the earliest forms of fossilized life come into the fossil record fully formed with an extraordinarily integrated complexity. Chen’s discourse expressed concern and even skepticism about Darwinian theory.

At the end of the lecture, Professor Chen opened the floor to questions from the audience. One of the professors from the University of Washington raised his hand as said, “Professor Chen, thank you for a fascinating lecture, but aren’t you a little nervous about expressing skepticism about Darwinian evolution, coming as you do from a communist country?”

There was an awkward silence in the room. Professor Chen smiled wryly. After a moment he responded: “In our country, we can question Darwin, just not the government. In America, you can question the government, but you cannot question Darwinism.” It was his way of asking, Whose country is more free, really?

Walk along the beach with any elementary-school aged student, and ask him if the footprints on the sand got there by chance, as the result of wind and waves — over any duration of time, and he will quickly (and correctly) state that the footprints in the sand are the result of someone walking on the sand.

Why is it that a school-aged child understands that something as simple as a footprint can’t happen all by itself while so many of the world’s most educated would have us believe that something as complex as life happened all by itself? What do they take us for? Can we actually believe that before anything existed, nothing exploded and became everything? And just how does nothing explode? Doesn’t the fact that it is nothing mean it does not exist? And are we supposed to believe something that doesn’t exist can explode? And become everything?

Whether or not you believe that the intelligent designer who created the world is the God of the Bible, let’s be honest. Nothing does not become anything all by itself. And the supposed randomness which followed the exploding of nothing cannot become complex design, no matter how long it is given. No matter how many times one shuffles a deck of cards, the cards do not go back to the order they were in when they came from the manufacturer — much less put themselves into the box and become wrapped with cellophane.

To reject so-called intelligent design is to reject the obvious in favor of the impossible.

So someone says, “I only believe in what I can see, that’s why I believe in evolution.” Have you ever seen evolution? And I am not asking about microevolution in which a bird’s beak changes shape but the bird remains a bird. I am asking about the kind of evolution in which a species turns into a completely different species. Have you ever seen that? Has anyone ever seen that? In technical terms, the answer is an emphatic Nope!

So again, let us be honest. To believe in evolution is not to believe in what one has seen. To believe in evolution is to believe in what we have heard in the lectures and read in the textbooks written by so-called “experts,” none of whom have ever seen evolution either.

Critics often reject the Bible, asking why we should believe what is written in it. “After all,” many assert, “it was written by men.” So are all the science textbooks.[i] And what about articles that people receive by email, believe without checking, and forward to others? I am not saying the Bible is nothing more than a forwarded email. I am asking that we be honest: The reason people reject the Bible, and the God presented in the Bible as the Creator of everything, is not because they only believe what they see. It is because recognizing God as Creator means that, as His creation, we have to answer to Him, and people generally don’t want to do that — as if rejecting truth will make truth disappear.

Here is what I am postulating: There is a God. He created everything and everything answers to Him. He has revealed Himself in Creation, but because people do not want to answer to Him, they worship the creation instead of the Creator. He has further revealed Himself in the Bible, but those who don’t like Him as Creator certainly do not like Him as Lord. That does not, however, get rid of God the Creator or God the Lord over all. It merely puts those who reject Him in a precarious position. Please think about that and do not deny what you know in your heart to be true in favor of what simply isn’t.

[i] We are not agreeing that the Bible was merely written by men. The Author of the Bible is God, though it was written down by men under God’s inspiration.

e:\Documents\Prime Times\2014-3 Fall\Do You Believe What You Want to Believe.doc