Ricky Gervais is a popular, frankly hilarious, and talented actor and comedian. Whether you like his particular brand of non-pc humor, you cannot deny his success, bravery, and wit. Personally I like most of his stuff, other than the poignantly anti-Christian stuff, but as a person who appreciates free speech, and a free market, I support his rights to speak on whichever topics in whatever way works for him.
I bring Mr. Gervais up today, on my little blog, to verbalize a thoughtful retort to one of his famous challenges against religion: “If you took all the works of fiction and holy books and destroyed them, in a 1000 years they would still be gone. But if you took all the works of science, in a 1000 years they would have all come back. Because all the tests would bear the same results.”
He has stated this multiple times in interviews, and remains one of the funniest and most likeable atheists, but upon hearing this over and over for years, I felt compelled to provide contrary ammunition for the Christian who may not know how to respond. The assertion itself is faulty, and as is usually the case with atheists, they paint themselves as logical, reasonable believers in empirical data and truth alone, while the religious appeal to unprovable magic and miracles.
I have explained the difference between empirical and historical or forensic sciences before, but a quick recap of how we must interpret data.
The Eiffel tower has testable attributes. Some of these are:
1,063 ft tall
Wrought Iron Lattice Tower
Weight is 10,100 tons
Located on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France
If one were inclined, one could test and re-test for the accuracy of any of these statements. In Mr. Gervais’ example, yes, if these facts were all lost, they could all be recovered again, and restated in books as demonstrable, observable, repeatable, without any deviation, just like the boiling point of water. But what about these facts?
The Engineer was Gustave Eiffel-
The Tower was finished in 1889-
How do we know these are correct? If this information was lost, what would the tower be called? What date would be attributed. We might try to date the metal based on rust, and chemical tests, get some some spectrum of years with a tolerance between 1715 and 1940. If we do not have trusted historical sources to conclude facts from, we would be lost on all lost forensic data! This means that for many disciplines, we must find those historic, written sources, accurate, not tampered with, and found to fit the proper historical context. No one questions these two historical facts today, but it brings about an interesting point. The facts in this case must be believed; they are not testable, and repeatable.
All history is this way, including Biblical history, Cryptology, Archeology, Criminal forensics, Geology, Paleontology, and Cosmology.
So to Mr. Gervais’ assertion, would we indeed have the exact same books with the exact same facts? Yes, the math, experimental physics, chemistry, engineering, all empirical books would be recreated almost exact, and learned the same by Christian and atheist alike.
But what if we look at a couple of presuppositions disappearing, such as evolution, or the Big Bang Theory. Take dark matter as an example. This supposedly bountiful material, made up, and totally untestable, is used as an explanation of how first generation stars were formed in a vacuum of space (still very unclear how that process would work even if this imagined material existed). Dark matter is also needed to explain the gravity keeping spiral arms in tact on a spinning galaxy such as the Milky Way, because when you apply billions of years to it, actual science and math determine that it should have dissipated into a blurry mess by now.
Is it conceivable that if Dark Matter theories were destroyed, and a new people in a thousand years were offered the same exact data points, they might conclude that first generation stars could not have organized themselves naturally, and no mysterious material was aiding the impossible process? Is it conceivable that upon building back up all the lost observable data about the visible universe, and its motion, scientists might have to conclude that the spiral arms can’t be that old, that the clock like precision of the solar system looks designed, and that comets are young? Perhaps these scientists rebuilding all lost scientific knowledge in the future would refrain from invoking make-believe fudge factors to bolster a naturalist point of view. Afterall, that is exactly what the fathers of modern scientists thought when they first began to discover these things! It was obvious to them that a Creator organized the universe! Were they not in the exact same position that Gervais was describing once upon a time? And they concluded that God was a reasonable, and more likely answer!
What about scientists stumbling across the Grand Canyon 1000 years from now, and having to determine a geological cause? Without dedication to presupposition of deep time, a non-empirical belief, they would have to draw conclusions from what they observe, yes? Perhaps these scientists of the future would note data such as:
Middle is higher elevation than the head waters (Kaibab Plateau)
Both sides agree uplift of center occurred before the river was there (water doesn’t run uphill; another great observation for second graders)
Gargantuan river delta that should be present is missing if the 1000 cubic miles of mud and rock were washed away slowly
Stable, shear cliffs, little rock fall – not slow erosion, but washed out
No Talus at base of cliffs – Amphitheaters hundreds of feet of sheer Cliffside over one mile from water, with no debris (washed out)
It is relict – unchanged from what formed it, stable in current condition.
Perhaps without the tainting of modern uniformitarian paradigms, these hypothetical scientists would indeed conclude that this geological feature is quite obviously the result of a massive flood. Slow erosion could not have created it, nor could any river system imaginable, or observable on this earth.
This is only two of MANY examples of how present day scientists interpret facts to explain an observation. Using wisdom, and maturity, Mr. Gervais, and anyone who is touting this clever statement as a dismissal of the religious as illogical, can quickly see that it does not hold water. In fact, many new conclusions would be present, some I’m sure closer to reality, while others would inevitably be even more ridiculous than the Big Bang model, and evolution.
Luckily, all out historic knowledge HASN’T been destroyed, and we do indeed have not only a well-recorded history of when the Eiffel Tower was built, but also of the lineage, prophecies, and narratives of the Jewish nation. We have the religious, moral, and social result of a historic Resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And we have centuries of Christian and secular writings verifying a long and rich history that helps us interpret and understand the data we find. If not for these histories, all present data and understanding would be so fractured, it would be almost impossible to be certain of anything.
So no, this statement, while it does sound clever initially, has no bearing on Christianity. In fact, the discovery of the organized universe has led many to belief in a Creator God. “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” – Rom.1:20
J.R. Cooper - Author 