Weighing Extraordinary Claims

When extraordinary claims arise in science and religion, how their validity is determined is about as different as could be. Science has a systematic way of determining the truth of extraordinary claims. Religion has no reliable means at all. A few examples will illustrate the stark contrast.

       In 1989 a University of Utah professor and a University of Southampton (England) professor reported in a lecture in Salt Lake City, Utah, that they had teamed up to achieve nuclear fusion at room temperature. Nuclear fusion was only known to occur at extremely high temperatures, in millions of degrees. The tabletop-sized apparatus used by the researchers contained a palladium cathode submerged in a container of heavy water (deuterium). An electric current was run through the cathode, which supposedly resulted in the generation of more heat energy than could be accounted for by the electric current and any chemical processes. Trace amounts of fusion byproducts were allegedly detected, leading to the claim of nuclear fusion. The implications were staggering—the world’s energy problems could be solved by cheap, cold fusion. The scientific community was more than a little skeptical and anxious to replicate the experiment. After numerous failed efforts worldwide it was generally concluded that cold fusion had not been achieved, although a few experiments had produced some anomalous heat. The two researchers continued to stand behind their claim; nevertheless, their reputations suffered irreparable damage.

       In 2011 the European Organization for Nuclear Research reported that it had detected nearly massless subatomic particles exceeding the cosmic speed limit, the speed of light. Researchers had sent beams of subatomic particles called neutrinos on a 454-mile journey from Geneva, Switzerland to an underground detector in Italy (neutrinos very rarely interact with matter and couldn’t care less when something is in their way). The neutrinos arrived 60 billionths of a second sooner than they would have if traveling at exactly the speed of light. That is 0.0025% faster than light. The tiny difference in speed had major implications in physics. The team of physicists involved in the experiment did everything they could think of for months to find an error. Then they asked for help from physicists and labs around the world to either verify or disprove their results.

       In the meantime, some folks of a strong religious and conservative inclination seemed delighted that science might be in for a comeuppance. I heard two televangelists speak in almost giddy terms of how science might be in serious trouble. Conservative political pundit Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) wrote a newspaper article titled Speed of Light Discovery Might Rock Our World. He seemed elated to write, in grossly overstated terms, that if the measurements were proven to be accurate, “The world as we know it is on the brink of disintegration, on the verge of dissolution. … It means that Einstein’s relativity … is wrong. Not just inaccurate, but deeply, fundamentally, indescribably wrong. … It means the ‘standard model’ of subatomic particles that stands at the center of all modern physics is wrong. This will not just overthrow physics. Astronomy and cosmology measure time and distance in the universe on the assumption of light speed as the cosmic limit. Their foundations will shake as well.”

       It turned out that the elation oozed by Krauthammer and others was for naught. Experiments by other research groups around the world found that neutrinos travel a teeny bit slower than the speed of light. The original problem was traced to a faulty fiber-optic timing system. The nuclear research center’s research director, Sergio Bertolucci, had this to say: “The story captured the public imagination, and has given people the opportunity to see the scientific method in action. … An unexpected result was put up for scrutiny, thoroughly investigated and resolved in part thanks to collaboration between normally competing experiments. That’s how science moves forward.”

       Now let’s look at a couple of extraordinary claims made by religious leaders in the U.S. and see what was done to verify them. In January 1987 renowned evangelist and faith healer Oral Roberts (1918-2009), in an impassioned, tear-filled speech, said that God had told him he wanted the Oral Roberts University medical school to establish a medical mission to third-world countries. To accomplish that, God told Roberts he must raise $8 million by March 1 or God was going to “call him home.” Roberts made the claim on his TV program Expect a Miracle. He was coming up short on the $8 million commandment as March neared. He made additional, deeply emotional appeals for supporters to save him. Later Roberts was able to report that by April 1 he had raised $9.1 million and that the money would be used for scholarships for medical missionaries. That’s hardly what happened. In the fall and winter of 1987-88, Roberts’ City of Faith medical clinic was closed, the Oral Roberts University free medical scholarship tuition program was canceled and the medical scholarship fund went bankrupt. I doubt that God was pleased with Oral Roberts or with what had happened to the millions of dollars, but he did not “call him home.” What Roberts created was, in all likelihood, a hoax to raise money. He based his fund raising on an outlandish claim about God that was completely unverifiable and unfalsifiable, as long as Roberts stuck to his story, which of course he did.

       Well-known televangelist Jesse Duplantis claims that in 1988 he was supernaturally transported to heaven. You can view his YouTube testimony on the Internet, or read about it in his book Close Encounters of the God Kind. Says Duplantis in his book: From a hotel room, “I felt a suction as if I was being pulled up out of the room, zooming along at a phenomenal rate of speed, being carried in something like a cable car. It was a chariot without a horse.” There was a blonde-headed angel with him in the chariot. Duplantis asked the angel, “Where are we going?” The angel smiled and said, “You have an appointment with the lord God, Jehovah.” Duplantis described in detail the things he saw in heaven: Babies flying around, singing and playing little harps; lots of animals—dogs, cats, cows, horses and other farm animals; people dressed in robes (those who had seen God face to face) and other people dressed in gowns (those who had not seen God because they weren’t quite worthy yet to withstand his glory); and many people traveling in the same type of chariot he was in. Jesse saw Abraham, Peter, King David and Jesus. He asked Jesus why he had been brought to heaven. Jesus’ reply: “I want you to tell my people I am coming. But they won’t believe me.” Duplantis was even taken to the throne of God. Upon arriving at the throne, “I heard a massive Whoosh! Then I saw God’s finger barely move and when it moved, an angel that was flying near him was thrown up against a wall. BAM! It didn’t hurt the angel, but I felt if God barely moved a universe could be annihilated. I guess God better not move, otherwise angels and people will be flying elsewhere. Looks like the slain in the spirit goes on in heaven in a greater calamity than earth.”

       Did Duplantis actually visit heaven, or was his journey an elaboration of a dream or a hallucination he had, or was it an end-justifies-the-means invention to boost his ministries? Jesse Duplantis Ministries bring in a lot of money, and Duplantis isn’t the least bit shy about expounding on how God has blessed him with great financial wealth (wealth you too can have if you’ll sew a financial seed in his ministries).

       Science has built-in safeguards to expose extraordinary claims of the false kind. Religions, with belief and faith being paramount, don’t have anything that is comparable. Claims about supernatural events are wide open to fabrication with little to deter a religious leader from being dishonest in an effort to achieve an assumed greater good. The practice is called lying for God.