Did Jesus Christ Really Rise From the Dead?

This Easter Sunday, when more people pack churches around the country than any other Sunday morning to hear the story of Easter, we should all take the time to examine both the story of Jesus and evolution through the eyes of objective reality.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

It's known as Resurrection Day in the church, or the day that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion at Calvary. But did it really happen? Did the so called son of God really die and come back?

This Easter Sunday, when more people pack churches around the country than any other Sunday morning to hear the story of Easter, we should all take the time to examine both the story of Jesus and evolution through the eyes of objective reality. In other words, put your emotions on the shelf and look at the facts through critical thinking.

The majority of scientists believe in evolution. An even more staggering statistic according to a recent Gallup poll is that only 16 percent of American's believe in an evolution that is unguided by God. Why do so many people reject the evidence? The answer is simple: the promise of eternal life that's written in the Bible that neither you nor I can prove to be true. Not a bad product to be selling. Who wouldn't want to believe you're going to live forever in a mansion in the sky, as opposed to darkness after death? Who doesn't want to be reunited with loved ones in the afterlife? Religion markets a more attractive product, and that's the reason it sells.

So the scientists have a mountain of irrefutable evidence supporting evolution, and the creationists have a 2,000-year-old book. Is this really an intelligent debate, or an exercise in wishful thinking? Are most Americans really looking at the facts or simply following the religious dogma they've been brainwashed with since childhood? The delusion is that evolution is still a theory, which, according to scientists, it's not. It's a fact, and it's time for Americans to grow up emotionally and stop pretending the evidence doesn't exist.

Believe me, if there was serious evidence of a supernatural creator, I'd be thrilled. I miss my late friends and family and would love to see them again. The problem is there's no evidence to support such a being. We all have the choice of operating from emotion-based faith without evidence or logic-based science with lots of it. When it comes to evolution vs. creationism, Americans almost always choose to ignore science and operate from blind faith.

To exacerbate the issue, many American's wear this disbelief in science as a badge of honor, exhibiting arrogance for their ignorance. Can you imagine if we did this in other areas of life? What if we choose not to believe in the laws of gravity? How about atomic theory? How about the Theory of Relativity? We laugh at the notion of ignoring these scientific theories, yet when it comes to religion, we stick our heads in the sand and believe in tales of a talking snake, burning bush and a boat with every species of animal on it. And to think some people see America as a socially progressive country!

Not accepting evolution as a fact is engaging in the willful suspension of critical thinking. Wishful thinking is nice for children, but when you're the most powerful country on the planet it's a little embarrassing. We need to teach our kids the facts about evolution and present the evidence with the same fervor as the preacher delivers his Sunday sermon, and then challenge them to think for themselves.

How many of us can actually explain the theory of evolution in a coherent manner? My guess is very few, because in some circles it's considered blasphemy to even discuss it. It's time we educated ourselves and learned to separate facts from fiction. Once a person is educated enough to explain the basic tenets of both evolution and creationism, he or she is capable of making an intelligent, emotion-free decision based on the evidence. Unfortunately, this is not going to happen anytime soon. The product of eternal life is simply too alluring to call into question, even if it appears to be a fabricated fantasy designed to control society.

America is marginalized by socially progressive countries around the world due to this lack of critical thinking, and will never be taken seriously by more sophisticated societies until we overcome our addiction to superstition. George W. Bush proclaimed on national television that God wanted all people around the world to be free. I guess he missed the part in the Bible that endorses slavery and subjugation of women. You'd expect this statement from an uneducated third world leader, but from the leader of the free world?

Politics is also contributing to America's widespread confusion about evolution. Major political parties in the United States are more willing to make opposition to evolution a prominent part of their campaigns to garner conservative votes -- something that does not happen in Europe or Japan.

The evolution vs. creationism debate won't end in our lifetime, but hopefully enough people will engage in critical thinking long enough to educate themselves on the evidence and stop believing everything they read in the Bible and hear in church. Education and science are the only things that will eventually solve this debate.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot