Sometime ago an American businessman told a very long but amusing anecdote at a luncheon in Seoul Korea. The translator repeated it to the audience in just a few words and the audience laughed and applauded. Later the businessman commented to the translator, “I think it is wonderful the way they appreciated my joke. It’s amazing how you were able to shorten the story in Korean.” The interpreter replied, “Not at all. It was easy. I merely said ‘Man with big cheque book has told funny story!’”.
Every so often programmes are shown on television regarding the origin of life. The problem with these documentaries is that they always try to cover an immense subject in a short time without giving the full picture. Just like the American businessman, the full story rarely if ever gets told.
The reality is that there’s really only one of two choices regarding “origins”. Either one believes that the universe and life is the result of a vast number of the most unlikely random accidents or one believes it is the result of deliberate planning and design by a Great Intelligence. It’s either one or the other. It’s a very simple choice, it’s not a complex problem and one doesn’t need to be a philosopher to see its simplicity.
The nucleus of every cell in the human body contains as much data as that found in thousands of volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Think how many cells there are in the human body! Think how many volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannia you are carrying around as you drive to work! Human DNA is such a colossal biological database that it contains no fewer than 3.5 billion “letters”. Where did this complex information come from? By chance? Or as the result of deliberate design by a Great Intelligence? Commonsense gives the answer. Its not difficult to work out. In fact as things now stand, atheists need to have FAITH THE SIZE OF A MOUNTAIN to believe all this occurred by chance. This is the real truth about “origins” yet how often does one hear these facts put so simply? How often does one have “the full story” told? Sadly, the answer is rarely if ever and our society is suffering greatly because due to the lack of this information. Society is suffering because there is a direct relationship and link between disbelief and a whole range of social problems.
Just think for a moment about the state of our society. Prisons are bursting, people are frightened to walk the streets and normal family life is virtually a thing of the past. Again, over a million children now suffer mental health problems whilst depression in adults has reached epidemic proportions. Why is this? What has gone wrong? What has happened to people’s behaviour and outlook on life? The answer is very simple. Most people in this country are now taught to think they are just an accident of nature, without any meaning or purpose to their existence. They are taught that they appear for a brief moment of time before endless extinction, that there is no accountability for their behaviour on a day of Judgement, and no God who loves and cares for them personally. They are taught that they are of no particular value or worth and this short life is a survival of the fittest.
The Bible explains that “what a person believes in his heart so is he” (Proverbs 23v7). In other words, you become what you believe yourself to be and act, think and behave according to that belief. With the kind of personal beliefs many now have, it is little wonder that Britain has broken down with many suffering depression or living just for themselves no matter who they harm. “I’m only here for a short time – why shouldn’t I behave as I want?” Deny the existence of a Designer, throw out the Ten Commandments and this is what society turns into – a free for all with a lack of self discipline, moral meltdown, confusion, despair and greed. In Luke ch 11v 35 Jesus warned “Take heed that the light in you is not darkness.” We must all make sure that what we believe is based on “the full story” because believing and thinking the wrong things about ourselves only leads to ruin and despair.
