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PROOF
FOR
THE, SKEPTTC
i
by
Ralph Epperson
1976
peffinission is hereby
grarfied
to
copy this information
and distribute it as
you see fit
NBOUT TI.IE NUTI{OR
I am the author of four published books and nine booklets, and I have written
and produced eleven videos. Two of my books have been pubtished in five
foreign countries, and I have been selling all of these works all over the
United States for 13 years. For those of you who wish to know more about
what I written, you may view my two websites at:
RALPHEPPERSON. COM
WWW.
www. SENATORJE SSEJAMES . com
or you may write me for a catalog. My mailing address will be shown at the
end of this booklet.
EPPERSONRL@aol.com
I am not a theologian, nor a "religious" person, but I do believe in a creator
God, the God of the Bible. However, what you are about to read was written
by Ralph Epperson, the questioner. Like you, I too had questions about the
existence of a God, and one night, while I was thinking about this question
that has caused countless people to wonder, I wrote this booklet as my way
of dealing with the issue.
Ibelieve what you are about to read will convince even the most diehard
skeptic that
Page 2 of 26
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!"
That was the famous reply of Mr. Francis P. Church of the New York
suN newspaper on september 2L, t897 , to a young reader who had written
by the name of Virginia O'Hanlon who had asked him to respond to her
question:
But, today other Virginias are asking a similar question of the world:
One does not need a newspaper writer to lie about the answer to that
question: all of the Virginias everywhere can know with scientific certainty
that the truthful answer to that question would be:
There is a simple three question series that leads the answerer to the
inevitable conclusion that GOD DOES INDEED EXIST!
By his, or her, own answers to these three questions, the skeptic can
know with absolute certainty, using science, logic, reason and the Laws of
Mathematics that GOD DOES EXIST! Any reasonable, thinking person, even
though they have previously denied the presence of a Divinity in the past, will
be forced to conclude, through the use of their own mind, that God exists!
Page 3 of 26
So, if Mr. church was asked the question "Is there a God?" today by
all of the little Virginias of the world, he would not have to lie when he
answered:
With these questions, and the answers of the skeptic, it is now easier
to prove that God exists than it is to lie and say that there is a Santa Claus!
By the w&y, I would like to caution those who may want to try this
series of questions on their non-believing friends. In many instances, some
doubters will still refuse to believe what their mind tells them to be true. After
they supply the answers to these three questions, their mind will demand the
conclusion that GOD DOES EXIST!
There is something innate in certain people that will not allow them to
accept the truth even when their mind demands that they accept the new
conclusion, and reject their long-held beliefs. But if the skeptic will keep an
open mind while answering these three questions, he, or she, will have to
conclude that there is indeed a God in the universe by the time they are
finished.
Page 4 of 26
QUESTTOn # I
UNIVERSE:
I
DOES EXIST DOES NOT EXIST NOT SURE
There are philosophers of the past who have reasoned, quite incor-
rectly, that the external world does not exist, that only mind and ideas existed.
And others have answered this question with uncerlainty: it was not possible
to know whether or not the universe exists.
And a mind capable of asking the question has to exist before it can ask
the question!
Page 5 of 26
I logical, reasonable or scientific reason to believe that the uni-
see no
verse does not exist, or that thinkers on the answers to this question should
have any doubt.
Therefore,
IINIVERSE
ttt
DOES EXIST DOES NOT EXIST NOT SURE
(NOT AN OPTION NOT AN OpTIOi\r)
Page 6 of 26
QUESTTOn # 2
OR
OR
IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW?
Science proves that the universe had to have had a beginning, because
it could not have existed forever.
One of the ways that the scientists can verify this certainty is through
the study of THERMODYNAMICS, the science of Heat Transfer.
Page 7 of 26
This state is called a Heat Equilibrium.
The fact that the universe has not reached the stage known as Heat
Equilibrium means that it is not infinitely old. Since there will be a heat
equilibrium one day, the fact that it has not occurred yet teaches the observer
that it cannot be of infinite age. If it was infinitely old, it would have burned
out by now.
Let us say that the candle was exactly four inches tall and that it was
burning at arate of ll4 inch an hour. It follows that the candle will burn itself
out in sixteen hours.
The only thing that cannot be determined is how long the candle has
been burning. There is no way to determine this. The only thing that we can
be certain of is that it has not been burning forever, because it has not burned
out yet. We can know absolutely that it has not been burning forever, because
it would have burned out by the time we started our observations if it had.
Page 9 of 26
The universe is exactly like the candle. We can logically and scientifi-
cally say that we know the following about the universe:
But since the universe is still both hot and cold (the point of heat
equilibrium has not yet been reached) we can know one more thing:
Since the universe is slowly burning itself out, we can know for
certain that it had a beginning, or it wourd be in a state of Heat
Equilibrium at the present time.
UI\{IVERSE
I tt
EXISTS NOT SURE DOES I\OT BXIST
(NOT AN OPTTON (NOT AN OPTTON)
I
BEGINMNG NOT SURE EXISTED FOREVER
(NOT AN OPTTON (NOT AN OPTTON)
Page 10 of 26
THE UNIVERSE EXISTS AND IT HAD A
BEGINNING!
There is no other option!
QUESTIOn # I
HOW DID THE UNIVERSE BEGIN?
There are, once again, only three possible answers to this question.
INIYERSE
I I I
CREATED NOT ST]RE ACCIDENT
Page 11 of 26
Let us first examine the chances of Chance (accident) accounting for the
initial creation of energy.
or
If we toss up two quarters, there are now four ways that the coins can
land:
3. the first will land on "heads," and the other will land on
"tails;" or
Page 12 of 26
There are two ways that these things can be measured: scientists can
actually toss the coins into the air enough times and record their acfual obser-
vations, or mathematicians can calculate the probabilities involved by using
the laws of mathematics without actually tossing the coins.
Let us now examine the number of times that ten consecutively num-
bered cards in a deck of 10 can come up in a random fashion (meaning by
chance,) one being drawn out of the pack at a time.
There arc 3,628,000 different ways that those cards can be drawn out.
Let me explain what that number, 10(158), represents for those not
familiar with such things. The result of the multiplication of 10 times 10 is
100. When written as a square, it is written as 10(2).
100, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000,
000 ,000 , 000 , 000 , 000 ,000 , 000 ,000,000,000 ,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000, 000, 000, 000,000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000,
000,000,000,000,000
Page 13 of 26
What are the chances of any particular sequence of, say, all odd num-
bers occurring, in increasing numbers, and then all even numbers, in decreas-
ing numbers, coming out of a randomly drawn series of just 100 numbers?
The answer is, once again, one chance in one followed by 158 zeroes.
Page 14 of 26
Most mathematicians believe that this figure is much lower, about
10(50).
In other words, you could expect to get the insulin combination only
once in 10(52) years.
Sir Fred Hoyle, one of the leading scientists of this age, (he was one of
the two scientists discussed in that London newspaper article at the beginning
of this booklet) has computed the number of chances necessary for even the
simplest life imaginable to have evolved by chance to be one chance in
Page 15 of 26
10(40,000). (That is roughly comparable to the probability of rolling double
sixes, L2, on two dice, 50,000 times in a row!)
Yet any chance with less than one chance in 10 followed by 110 zeroes
has NO CHANCE!
HAS NO CHANCE!
If the universe did not originate by chance, what then are the other
alternatives?
First, we'll examine the thought that the universe was created by a
designer.
Presume that you are someone who has lived by yourself in a forest all
of your life and you suddenly decide to take a long walk into the neighboring
desert. As far as you know, there are no other human beings anywhere
because you have never seen anyone else.
As you are walking, you look down and spot a shiny object in the sand.
You pick it up, and examine it carefully. You do not know what the object is
because you have never seen one before. (It is a wrist watch, but it is an
Page 16 of 26
unknown object as far as your experience extends.)There are only two ways
that this shiny object could have gotten there:
You examine the unknown object and notice that parts of it are moving,
and if you examined it long enough, you would discover that every time one
*
little moving part got to the unknown symbol I2," it was either totally dark
or the sun was directly overhead.
Your mind starts to tell you that this is no ordinary object. It seems to
have some function, one not associated with a random happening.
Your mind has got to start thinking that it could not have come together
there by chance.
You look around the area and find no other objects of a similar nature.
If the object did not get there by chance, it had to have been created by
something or someone more powerful than chance. But you see no one in any
direction, nor anything capable of making such an object.
Yet, your mind tells you that it was actually created; it could not have
gotten there by chance!
Even though you can not identify who or what made this shiny object,
your mind tells you that it was not created by accident.
Page 17 of 26
It had to have been created!
The universe is far more complex than that watch. Yet we are being
asked by some to believe that it got there by accident, by some random
happening known as chance!
Yet, it appeared that those who wanted to believe that the face had been
created by some sort of conscious design, had excluded the possibility that the
face could have been created by chance. Anyone would have had to conclude
that there was at least a possibility that the face could have been created by
wind, erosion, or just simply by chance.
Page 18 of 26
by anyone, they were created by wind or water erosion. They were created
by chance!
Lets just say that one day when I was visiting the "Punch and Judy"
stone objects, a UFO landed and two little green men got out and asked me:
"Who made these two puppet forms?rr
The two aliens would get back into their UFO, one saying to the other:
"Let's get out of here. There is no intelligent life on this planet!")
But the scientists who examined the face on Mars were quick to point
out that the face had been made by an intelligent form of life.
The possibility that the face had been created by chance was almost
dismissed as having no chance!
Many of these same scientists look at the universe, with all of its pre-
cise laws, and claim to see no evidence of design, nor any designer!
They had to know precisely just how far it would have to be so that it
would not fly by into an trajectory that would not allow it to orbit.
Page 19 of 26
Yet, they reason that the universe was not created! As we have exam-
ined, there is absolutely no chance that the universe was created by chance!
A universe that could not have occurred by chance, had been created
by chance
A "monkey" face that could have been created by chance had been
created solely by intelligent life!
America's founding fathers said that the fact that man had human rights
was a "self-evident truth." They recognized that certain things were self-
evident! That meant that they understood that they were not debatable. They
were true simply because they were simply true!
The fact that the universe was created by a Master Designer is a "self-
evident truth. "
Page 2A of 26
The human mind is compelled to conclude that there is a creator, a first
cause! That thought is a "self-evident truth!"
OUESTION # 1=
DOES THE UNIVERSE EXIST?
Answer to question # l: The universe exists!
OUESTION # 2=
Page 21 of 26
OUESTION # 3:
Page 22 of 26
The first ten words of the Bible are found in Genesis 1:1.
They read:
"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. "
There is no debate.
Notice that the first 10 words in the Bible are nearly identical with the
conclusion reached by the answerer's answers to the three questions:
There is a God!
must be:
Page 23 of 26
There were three courses of action detailed in Mr. Epper-
son's article. These were:
PUBLIUS PRESS
3100 South Philamena Place
Tucson, Arizona 85730
the united States of America
Page 24 of 26
GST} EXESTSI
TFIERE IS
NO OTHER OPTION!
The Humanists, those who believe in the Humanist retrigion, tell us
thatthey find "insufficient evidence for a belief in the existence of
a supernatural fmeaning a God.]" They also proudly boast that "the
time has passed for theism [a belief in God.]"
This booktret wiltr prove to you that John Dewey and the I{urnanists
are dramattca.Ily wrong. This booklet asks the reader three ques-
tions, and by your own answers, YOU will prove it to yourself!
So John Dewey and the Humanists are wrong! You can know with
scientific certainty that there is a God, and that there is no other
option but a knowledge tnrat FIe is real !
A belief in God can now be based upon science, logic and reason!
This booklet will prove that this statement is true even to the rnost
skeptical atheist!