Dear Dr. Laura:

I have heard you talk many times about the Origin of the Universe, and would like to weigh in on this issue. As a devout Christian, I have strong religious views, but as an undergraduate with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from a secular college, I can appreciate where you are coming from.

First, let me state the obvious: all scientific data is subject to interpretation. In Christopher Columbus' day, people looked around and perceived a "flat earth," and that became conventional wisdom. Anyone who dared suppose differently were castigated and mocked. The church of the time even went so far as to label such beliefs as "heresy." This illustrates a fact of human nature that is in evidence today. Within the so-called "scientific" community, people such as I are mocked, laughed at, and impugned as being backward and ignorant - yet I can assure you I am NOT any of those.

In the case of the shape of the earth, today one need only climb into a space ship, lift off, and look down to see the truth. Not so with the Origin of the Universe. There is no "time machine," in the literal sense, that we can employ to see exactly how God made the world as we know it. There is no way we can take a family of monkeys into a laboratory and evolve them into primitive humans. Therefore, how is it possible for anyone, expert or otherwise, to speak authoritatively on this matter?

The answer is, there is no way. All "beliefs" about origins are simply that - beliefs. For those of us who are intelligent, and are willing to examine the evidence and data around us, we find we must "interpret" that data, and try to fit such into a framework of theory and conjecture to explain the unprovable. It should be obvious that the world view of an individual will radically affect that interpretation. In my case, I place great store in Holy Scripture as God's revelation of Himself to Man, and therefore find it easy to accept the first 11 chapters of Genesis as an accurate, literal description of how God created the Heavens and the Earth. So, what undisputable evidence can you, or anyone else, show me to conclusively prove otherwise?

Perhaps astronomical observations via telescope? Conventional wisdom holds that as we look into the Cosmos, we are seeing things which actually occurred billions of years ago. Yet this "belief" is based on an unprovable assumption that the speed of light has been constant throughout time. We have been able to directly measure the speed of light for a little more than 300 years now, and yet one is to conclude that light's speed is the same today as it was billions of years ago? As a trained scientist, how can you justify such a conclusion based on such a small data sample?

Or perhaps carbon dating? As a fan of algebra, you should be aware that this method involves a complex formulae that requires many assumptions, and that the "age" which such calculations yield is very dependent on those assumptions. The raw measurements of the proportion of certain radioactive elements in a specimen whose age is to be determined would represent to both you and I unassailable scientific "data," but beyond that, we must diverge. You will want to choose assumptions that yield a great age, while I will want to choose assumptions which yield a much younger age. How could either of us prove the other wrong? What undisputed standard could we compare our respective results with?

If you and I were designing an aircraft wing, there exists just such an undisputed standard against which our resulting effort can be compared: either our plane flies or it doesn't. When the Wright Brothers began their quest for powered flight, they started with the tables and theories of known "experts" in the then fledgling science of flight, and got nowhere fast. The reason was that the "experts" were simply wrong. The Brothers were then forced to invent instruments and experiments to discover the "truth" about airflow speed, airfoil shape, and the amount of lift produced. Just because today's "experts" promulgate the "theory" of evolution, or the apparent great age of the world, does NOT automatically make it truth. Therefore, what we are left with is a question of faith.

I believe your listeners would be better served if you could adopt a more neutral attitude toward the subject of Origins. I have found many of your statements concerning this issue personally offensive, for I perceive them as belittling people such as I for our beliefs in Special Creation in the face of conventional wisdom.

In conclusion, I would like to ask this question: who's wisdom do you value more - God's (as revealed in Scripture), or man's?

Sincerely, James Larson

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