{"chapter_no":"5","chapter_title":"Establishing Scientific Fact Through Credible Witnesses","book_id":"5","book_name":"Truth Management","subchapter_no":"0","page_no":"741","page_number":"1","verses_count":0,"total_pages":3,"page_content":"

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Chapter 5<\/p>

Establishing Scientific Fact <\/h1><\/p>

Through Credible Witnesses<\/p>

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A single spiritual transaction at any point along the timeline of world history is sufficient to
overcome the arguments of atheism—The miracles of 1492, 1776, and 1989.<\/i><\/p>

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To overcome the logic of the atheist, and the arguments that underlie fundamental
scientific theory that counter the existence of God, only one supernatural event in the history of
the world is needed, any one of the kind of things that are commonplace to us every day in the
Church. <\/span><\/p>

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We mentioned the appearance of an angel, but far less than that is actually needed. As we
sit reverently or bear testimony in sacrament meeting, or when we attend a session in the temple,
the Spirit of God frequently touches our soul, filling us with peace and giving us an obvious
warm feeling inside. This single event, a routine spiritual transaction linking God and man (or
woman, or child), while not as dramatic as the ministering of an angel, basically accomplishes
the same thing—invalidating the theories of man that deny the existence of God. That’s how
shaky the ground is under those who reject the idea of a supreme power in the universe. Their
settled philosophy of life is only a single manifestation of the Spirit away from being turned
upside down. <\/span><\/p>

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The scriptures we have as Latter-day Saints are presented to the world as scientific
evidence––documentation of miracles and the revelations of God to man. But outside of the
scriptures, the evidence is even greater. Billions upon billions of unrecorded miracles and
instances of direct intervention from God have occurred within the lives of people throughout the
earth, including instances among many who had never previously believed in God. <\/span><\/p>

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We acknowledge that among these billions of people, there will be a good number who
were mistaken in their testimonies and in what they perceived to have experienced in their lives,
persons who are, perhaps, driven by old superstitions and do not fully understand everything
about themselves, the physical world around them, or the true nature of God. There will also be
among these some who lied outright, creating or embellishing facts to suit their own purposes—
self-serving teachers of religion and false prophets who seek financial gain, political power, or
notoriety from among the very same people they might have otherwise served with honor and
distinction. This is in stark contrast to the sincere and humble men of faith characterized well by <\/span><\/p>

Father Mulcahy of the TV show MASH<\/i>. <\/span>So yes, we are very much aware of these things and
understand how one would be justified in looking upon the testimonies of some in the world with
a skeptical eye.<\/p>

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Nevertheless, the vast majority of the people of the earth instinctively believe in God in
one form or another. And the great body of evidence among the humble and sincere God-fearing
masses is that miracles and faith-supporting events do happen and, in fact, happen in fantastic
numbers every day. Within the worldwide membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints, for example, these things happen in the millions every day. But as members of the
Church, we also realize that God performs miracles and diverse manifestations of the Spirit
among all peoples of the earth, rewarding righteousness, humility, and faith even when only the
lesser light of the gospel is present. <\/span><\/p>

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Let’s do the math. One person makes an honest mistake in what he or she believes to be a
manifestation of the Spirit of God in a Church meeting (like a nondenominational religious
gathering at a military base). Fine. You say there are two people with testimonies of spiritual
experiences? No problem, they are both wrong. Three or four? Fine, they are all wrong. One
hundred? Probably still wrong. One thousand? Hmm, getting harder to ignore, but still wrong.
One million? Well, let’s see, that’s a million witnesses (some of the first-person experiences
counted within this group may even be reported by scientists themselves). And we can pull these
out from many different religions to get a more diversified sampling and throw out the outliers––
the less credible persons who are surely not to be believed under any circumstances. On the other
hand, among this one million, there may also be many who have enjoyed not just one, but
multiple spiritual experiences in their lives, which further strengthens our argument.<\/p>

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We can easily go beyond this first million, but this is probably enough to make our point.
The mathematical odds of a mistake being made in this matter where one million people are
sampled across all countries, all religions, all education levels, all ethnic groups, and all income
groups, each reporting unique, individually-experienced spiritual events in their lives, is pretty
low. Low enough, in fact, that we don’t need to go further; we have already gone beyond that
which is needed to establish fact in a court of law and in the court of public opinion. In fact, as in
the case of the Book of Mormon, three witnesses or eight witnesses is probably enough already.
But we only need one. The accurate, documented testimony of a single manifestation of God by
just one individual is sufficient, all by itself, to wipe out atheism.<\/p>

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You could point out that the types of experiences had by individuals in different religions
may differ, but the sheer numbers involved when combining their testimonies together is
strongly corroborative. It should be noted, also, that there are different camps and wide
disagreements among scientists on a whole range of issues in the new frontiers of scientific
research, so that is hardly a valid counterargument. Thus, if it is not considered this way already,
the power of God––indeed, the existence of God––is a matter of public record and is
substantiated by literally billions of first-person testimonies of people living today and of people
who lived in past centuries. <\/p>

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On this point, consider the following example.<\/p>

One day a scientist––one of good reputation among his peers––is working in his lab when
suddenly an angel appears and testifies to him of the existence of God. Being the good scientist
that he is, he immediately writes down notes, detailing all the information he can about the event,
and then he later submits a scientific paper to other scientists for a thorough review. The other
scientists will most likely not be able to replicate his findings themselves, but they can
substantiate that the scientist has always been truthful and honorable in his scientific
methodology in the past and, therefore, should be considered a reliable witness to believe in this
case. The question then becomes: Can a credible, first-person witness of an event be considered
as fact when preparing papers for publication in scientific journals? If not, what if there are two
or three credible witnesses? Or what if there are hundreds, thousands or millions of witnesses?
The conclusion here is very straightforward. Scientists need to accept that while facts can be
established by replicating a given process in a lab, they can also be established by one or more
reliable witnesses and, most certainly, by millions and millions of them. This is called the law of
witnesses. It is applicable not just to courts of law, but also to scientific research. <\/p>

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The manifestation of the Spirit to one’s bosom is one example of the power of God, but
there are many more we could point to––the answer to a personal prayer, the urgent help we
receive from the Lord to solve a small or large problem (how many testimonies of these have
there been over the centuries?), a miraculous healing of someone that goes unexplained by
medicine, a tragedy averted by a city or small town when a major storm suddenly changes
direction or softens up when it actually hits, a premonition or other insight that comes to
someone through a dream that is later confirmed in real life, a person in the mission field able to
speak or understand someone in another language with little or no training, a brilliant new idea
that comes suddenly to an inventor’s mind, a composition of music that seems to be out of this
world (and probably is), or an inspired masterpiece on canvas created by an artist.<\/p>

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<\/span>And what about the great miracles of human history? The masterpiece of civilization—
the founding of an inspired nation by God in 1776? The founding of a much-improved nation in
1865? The amazing discovery of a whole hemisphere by man in the year 1492? The dramatic
collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, which hopefully ended the debate as to
whether a free society––founded on the Judeo-Christian principles of Western civilization––was
morally equivalent to a closed, captive society? On that particular point, we should also note here
that, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries at least, these closed societies have been
generally totalitarian regimes built on the principles of atheism or of non-Christian religions. <\/p>

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To summarize, a single miracle or spiritual event among men changes science forever
and confounds all of those who kneel and worship at its altar.<\/p>"}