Which is bigger? The red one or the blue one?
In this picture, which one is bigger? The red one or the blue one?
Would you believe me if I said that they are exactly the same size as each other? Here are a couple of pictures with one on top of the other to provide the evidence.
Now, of course, you may think that I did some “magic” with my camera to make this happen. We actually use these cards to share a message of good news to people. You see, even when people hold these cards in their own hands, they often cannot figure out why they look a different size even when it is obvious that they are exactly the same size when laid upon each other. (I scooted them apart a little when laid on top of each other to show that both cards are there… because they really do completely hide each other when laid on top of each other.)
I am no photographer and I struggled to try to get the pictures to look exactly like I was seeing them in front of me. I had to be careful about how far the camera was from the object when I snapped the picture and I had to resize the photos as I didn’t have them the same size when brought into this document… making it very difficult to demonstrate what is EASILY demonstrated in person… when we can touch and feel and see something with our own eyes.
Now, you have two choices at this point. You either believe me when I say that they are the same size and here is my evidence, or you don’t. Why would you refuse to believe? There are, of course, a couple of reasons. Maybe you know me to be a fraud. That would definitely make me doubt someone if I already knew that their word was questionable. Secondly, you may refuse to believe because you have some preconceived notion that this cannot possibly happen. We have all come to some conclusions in our lives that we are not willing to easily depart from, even when presented with the evidence. The third reason is simply because you believe it but you don’t want to accept it. Maybe by stating that you accept that the cards really are the same shape and size, you would have to accept something else… the fact that I am not lying, the fact that it doesn’t matter what you previously thought, or some other reason.
Here is the point I am trying to make. I had a conversation with someone not too long ago. They were trying to express why they believed something to be true. I realized that the evidence they were giving seemed to me to be something that they would only believe because they saw it with their own eyes. No amount of other evidence from someone else was going to make a difference. However, as these cards demonstrate easily, our eyes are not reliable. For instance, let’s say someone measured your hand and they did not give you the dimensions of your hand. Now, put your hand right in front of your face. Your eyes would tell you that this hand is HUGE. Next, hold your hand at arm’s length from your face… now your eyes would tell you that your hand is smaller. Now, assume that you won’t believe anyone unless you see it with your own eyes, but someone who measured your hand tells you the measurement of your hand and tells you that it is the same size whether it is close to you or not. Would you believe them? If you were only going with what your eyes are telling you, you would have to answer honestly that you could not believe that person. However, you have other evidence that this person may be telling you the truth. You have personal experience to suggest otherwise. You took this experience and now you can know that when a tree is close to you, it looks huge and when it is far away, it looks small. You have most likely come to believe that the tree is the same size either way… but your eyes deceive you.
Somewhere along the line in our lives, we have to discern when to trust others and when to only trust our eyes. Why? Well, can you be all over the world all of the time? How do we know what other parts of the world look like? Someone had a camera, probably a movie camera, and they filmed these things. We come to believe that what we see is true, even if we are only looking at a machine with electronics in it that accepts signals, and figures out how to display them based on an algorithm. But, for some reason, we trust that we are seeing something that someone is saying is truly there. Yes, we are using our eyes, but we are also trusting the one that is saying they are filming some place. We cannot see it directly for ourselves, but we trust because for some reason we have evidence… evidence outside of our own direct experience.
Now, we can turn to things like politics and aliens and … think of something you find hard to believe… and we can use the same rationale. I have not personally seen the things being expressed on the news with respect to our politicians… so how can I trust any of these people, if I have not personally SEEN with my own eyes? The same goes for aliens. How can I trust those that say they see them when I have not seen them with my own eyes?
This leads me to the real point I am trying to make. At some point, something outside of ourselves has to be trusted for our information. We cannot possibly know everything because we cannot see everything with our own eyes. We all have to make judgment calls, or trust, or believe, based on the evidence that is presented to us. When we refuse to look at the evidence, then we are really saying that only things that I see with my own eyes can be true. The fact of the matter is your hand does not change sizes when it is close and when it is far away. At some point, our eyes cannot be trusted. So, who do we trust for the “truth” in different matters? We must look for the evidence. We will find that the evidence often lies outside our sphere of “expertise”. I have never studied the stars in heaven or the intricate workings of my body. When a doctor tells me that I need to take a certain medicine to feel better… or even a friend of mine who will give me different advice… I have to decide who I will believe. I will have to weigh the evidence to come to a conclusion. I will look for education, accountability, motives, facts that others can attest to, and so on. In short, I will gather the evidence and weigh it against what I have experienced in my life and found to be true.
My concern, the reason I am writing this, is that there are people who will tell you that they will not even look at the evidence… or even when the evidence is presented to them.. they will not believe it. They have already made up their minds not to believe. Why? Because they haven’t seen it with their own eyes! Do they know, then, that their great grandparents lived in a certain place? Did they see it or did they hear that from their parents and have to weigh the evidence to find the truth? Can we believe that Abraham Lincoln or George Washington lived? How would any of us know if we didn’t accept the “evidence” of the historical writings of them? I am not saying that we are to believe everything everyone tells us. But, I am concerned that far too many people decide in their minds that they believe something to be true ONLY if they see it with their own eyes. How does knowledge pass from one generation to the next? How do cultures sustain themselves? How do we learn to survive in an ever changing world? How do we come to know the truth, if we reject any evidence outside of ourselves? Doesn’t that simply make us a god unto ourselves?
All this is written simply to challenge those that hold views and are not willing to weigh the evidence and come to their conclusion based on the evidence. No, we will not all have to understand every field of expertise. I’ve been blamed for not understanding everything going on in our American political situation. I’ve been blamed for not TAKING the time required to understand everything about the drugs presented to us or the food or the cultural ideas or the music styles and so on. The fact is, not all of us have the time to discover everything on our own. Sometimes we have to operate on little evidence with no time to investigate beyond what we can see. But, when it comes to the big questions of life (Where did I come from? What is my purpose here? How should I live? Where am I headed?), shouldn’t we take the time to investigate? We may not SEE all of the evidence with our eyes alone. But, if God is real, don’t we believe that He would want us to understand the questions we assume He put in our hearts. Why do we all have these questions and seek for these answers? We may need to trust history, science, archeology, eye witnesses, circumstantial evidence, etc. in order to find the answers. My challenge is this… don’t just assume that you can only know something is true if you SEE it personally yourself. You just might fool yourself into believing that your hand actually shrinks as you pull it away from your face.
Holding Forth the Word 