A Skeptic's Question

“Michael Shermer was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home. He presumably came home one day and told his parents something like this: ‘Mom and Dad, I've been studying biology in college and you know what you and Pastor Bob taught about how everything was created all at once? Well, as it turns out, there's a couple of centuries worth of evidence to show that it didn't happen that way.’ If you were in their place, what would you say to your kid?” (Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine).

Michael, I know that we encouraged you to give your heart to Jesus when you were a little boy. We were wrong to do that. That is the recipe for a false conversion. We should have instead taught you the Ten Commandments--that God considers lust to be adultery, and hatred to be murder; that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. Then the fact that Jesus paid your fine--by suffering for your sins to save you from Hell, would have made sense to you. You need to repent and trust the Savior to escape God’s eternal justice. When you do that, you will come to know God. Not know "about" Him, but you will know Him personally. He will transform your life and grant you the gift of everlasting life. John 14:21 is either true or it isn't: "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." As you obey Him, His presence will become more real to you than the early morning sunlight. That’s the first thing you should know son.

The second, my boy, is that there is a theory out there that contradicts God’s Word. It says that man wasn’t made in God’s image, but that we evolved, over a long period of time, from primates. When you are told this, I want you to ask questions about it. I want you to be the ultimate skeptic. Don’t just believe it. The entire theory stands or falls on whether or not there is proof. So, ask for scientific proof.

They say that all the animals we have now were not as we see them. They were radically different. Dinosaurs, over millions of years, became birds, fish became lizards, dogs were something else, primates evolved into human beings, etc. So, when they tell you this, ask why there are no species-to-species transitional forms in the fossil record. Why is there no evidence anywhere (in the billions of bones of dead animals) of any species becoming another species?

When they maintain that there are masses of fossils that prove this, don’t take their word for it. Press the issue. Blind faith is another word for ignorance. Say you want facts. Ask for specific scientific evidence of species-to-species transitional forms in the fossil record. When they say that museums are full of them, don’t just believe it as they do. Press the issue again. They will talk about variation (evolution) between species. That's not Darwinian evolution. It's a rabbit trail. Ask again for just one example of species-to-species evolution.

They will try and sidetrack you by talking about moths being stuck to trees, vestigial organs, mutations, bipedalism and mitochondrial DNA. Or they will maintain that there is something called "observed speciation," or try and dazzle you with names like Sinosauropteryx and Ambulocetur and other pseudo-intellectualisms. Then they will say that they aren’t experts, and use words like “maybe, possibly, perhaps, probably.” When they say that science has the proof, somewhere, push it. Demand evidence like your life depended on it. Tell them that you want to use your God-given brain to make a rational decision regarding evolution. You want to know if it's true. Stay open-minded. If it is true, then embrace it. If it's not, reject it.

If they maintain that there’s just a “handful” of bones to prove it, don’t believe them. There are none. They don’t have any evidence anywhere for their theory. None. It’s all blind faith, conjecture and a wild imagination.

So Michael, you will have a choice between the two beliefs of the origin of mankind. There is no fence to sit on. Was it evolution or were we intelligently designed by God? You can either rest in the evidence of the God you know personally, or you can turn your back on Him (and His gift of everlasting life), and blindly have faith in an unscientific theory. And why would an intelligent person do that? However, the choice is yours son.