Weekend Bible Reflections With Jon

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Law enforcement depends on what legal authorities call prima facie evidence, evidence which establishes the presumption of fact and will legally stand as fact if it cannot be refuted. Much of this evidence comes through deduction rather than observation. I asked a friend of mine who is a police officer to give me an illustration of how prima facie evidence is used in a court of law. He told me how he came across a minor who smelled strongly like beer but was seen with no cans of beer in his possession. My friend told me that legal authorities would consider that to be enough evidence to indict the teenager with the charge of possession of alcohol by a minor.

All of us, even atheists and agnostics, use the same line of reasoning. None of us have seen, heard, smelled or touched the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Yet we confidently know Lincoln existed because we have accepted reliable testimony which verifies his existence. We deduced the veracity of his existence by examining the evidence.

For a minute, join me in using the process of deduction when it comes to considering the question of the existence of God by looking at the world around us and the way it operates. The closer you come to the equator, the warmer it gets. The further away from the equator you are, the colder it gets. Heat liquid water at temperatures higher than 100° C and it becomes steam, but cool it to a temperature of 0° C and it becomes ice.

As we just saw last week, the phases of the moon are so predictable that calendars are based on them. Every year it gets warm in the Spring, hot in the Summer, cool in the Fall and cold in the Winter. Every day the sun rises in the east and sets in the west...unless you happen to live in Alaska. However, even there the sun’s movements are predicted with regular accuracy in that during summer months the sun will stay out for longer periods of time and during winter months it will be seen for shorter periods of time, especially the farther north one travels.

Consider our planet’s position in the solar system. The 93 million miles of empty space between us and the sun help stop the destructive pressure waves produced by the sun as it converts matter to energy. If this planet were moved just 10 percent closer to the sun, we would absorb far too much radiation and heat for life to survive. If Earth were moved just 10 percent farther from the sun, too little heat would be absorbed to sustain life.

It is supremely illogical to suppose that nothing more than an accident caused the continual, precise, predictable actions of our planet and universe. Even atheists, when forced to examine the evidence to its logical conclusion, admit this.

While interviewed for the 2008 documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, militant atheist Richard Dawkins was asked about his thoughts concerning the possibility that intelligent design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in Darwinian evolution. His answer conceded the possibility of “a signature of some sort of designer... and that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe,“yet later in the documentary he very strongly refuted the notion that deity would be that designer. Instead he claimed that aliens (yes, aliens) created life on this planet, which begs another question. If aliens created us, who created them?

Reliable testimony of the evidence of God exists all around us. Simply look around and comprehend the wondrous complexities and intricate design of everything you see, including yourself.

Without that Intelligent Designer, which is God, it’s hard to explain the design seen in the world around us.