[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 50 (Friday, April 6, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3769-S3772]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 EASTER

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, some years ago I read a story by Tolstoy 
titled, ``How Much Land Does A Man Need?'' Inasmuch as a considerable 
time has gone by since I last read this story, perhaps I shall say at 
the beginning that I am largely summarizing the story.
  The story told of a man who had land hunger. He had orchards and vast 
other properties, but he could never get enough land. One day there 
stood in his presence a stranger who promised him all the land that he 
could cover in a day for 1,000 rubles. The conditions were that he 
would have to start at sunrise and that he could travel all day and buy 
as much land as he could cover in a day for 1,000 rubles. He would be 
required to return to the starting point by sundown; otherwise he would 
lose both the land that he had covered and the 1,000 rubles.
  So the man started out at last to get enough land. He took off his 
jacket, and as he surveyed the land before him, he thought that this 
was certainly the richest soil that he had ever seen and the land was 
so level that he felt that never before had he seen such land. He 
tightened his belt, and with the flask of water that his wife had 
provided to him, he began his journey.
  At first he walked fast. His plan was to cover a plot of ground 3 
miles square. After he covered the first 3 miles, he decided he would 
walk 3 more miles, and then he walked 3 more miles until at last he had 
covered 9 miles before he started upon the second side. As he went 
along, the land seemed to be ever, ever more level, and the soil ever 
more rich.
  He completed the second side just as the Sun crossed the meridian. He 
sat down and ate the bread and the cheese that had been prepared by his 
wife. He drank most of the water from the flask, and then turned upon 
the third side. He completed the third side when the Sun was fairly 
high still in the heavens, but he was becoming quite tired. He took off 
his boots, which were becoming heavy, and he pressed on. He turned upon 
the fourth side. But strangely enough, the land became less level and 
more hilly. His arms and legs were scratched by the briars, and his 
feet had been cut by the stones. The whole landscape had changed to the 
extent that it was very adverse to his being able to continue at the 
same pace as in the beginning.
  The Sun kept dropping closer and closer to the horizon. He kept his 
eye on the goal. He could see the stranger, waiting at the starting 
point. His servant had accompanied him and had placed a stake at each 
corner as a marker for the ground that had been covered.
  As the Sun was sinking low, the man had become very tired and no 
longer could he walk upright. He had to crawl on his hands and knees. 
He could see the dim face of the stranger waiting at the starting 
point, and upon that stranger's face was a cruel smile. The man reached 
the starting point just as the Sun went down, but he had overtaxed his 
strength and he fell dead on the spot.
  The stranger, who was called Death, said: ``I promised him all the 
land he could cover. You see how much it is: 6 feet long, 2 feet wide. 
I have kept my pledge.'' The servant dug the grave for him.
  The moral of the story is this: that the love of material things and 
the greed for gain shrivel the soul and leave the life a miserable 
failure at last.

[[Page S3770]]

  As we approach the blessed season of Easter, it seems to me to be 
appropriate to reflect a bit about these things which are pretty 
mundane when compared with discussions concerning budget resolutions, 
taxes, projected surpluses, and so on. But once in a while I think it 
is good to return to the mundane--to the things that perhaps really 
count most in our lives.
  Easter is a promise. Easter reminds each of us of the promise that we 
can live again, and that we can join our loved ones who have gone on 
before. To me it is the greatest of all religious days.
  I suppose that having attained the age of 83, it becomes even more 
meaningful. I didn't used to think about these things quite as much as 
I do now. But at the age of 83, one doesn't have much to look forward 
to in this life. But there is the hope and the promise that I can see 
my grandson again, whom I lost 19 years ago.
  My grandson was killed in a truck crash, and he died on the Monday 
morning after Easter Sunday in 1982. So the day itself has a particular 
significance to me.
  I remembered that Mary and Martha in the Scriptures went to the tomb 
subsequent to the crucifixion of Our Lord. When the tomb was opened, 
they saw an angel who said to them: ``He is risen.''
  So, if we didn't have that promise to which we can look forward, life 
would be pretty bleak.
  I want to think that there will be another life. I believe it. That 
is what I was taught. As I say, if I didn't believe that, certainly at 
this late period in this earthly life the future would be pretty bleak 
indeed.
  We live now in a very materialistic age. Things are quite different 
than they were when I was a lad walking in the hills of Mercer County 
and Raleigh County, WV. Times have changed immensely.
  But there are some things that don't change. And one of the things 
that hasn't changed in my life is the belief, as I was taught in the 
beginning, that there is a Creator, and that there will come a time 
when each of us will have to meet the eternal judge and give an 
accounting for our stewardship during this earthly journey.
  I believe that.
  I find myself quite out of step from time to time in this 
materialistic age and this increasingly materialistic society, for to 
express one's belief in a Supreme Being who created the heavens and the 
Earth, who made man in his own image, and made provision for a life 
beyond the grave, is looked upon by some as a lack of cultural 
sophistication.
  One who adheres to traditional religious beliefs these days will 
quite often find himself the possessor of views that are incompatible 
with a modern outlook.
  Traditional religious beliefs are a thing of the past in some 
quarters. Our intellectual culture in this country, as we stand at the 
beginning of a new century, and at the beginning of a new millennium, 
appears to be dominated by skepticism, cynicism, agnosticism, and, 
alas, to some degree atheism.
  Not too long ago, a majority of the Kansas State Board of Education 
acted to ban the teachings of Darwin--Charles Robert Darwin, a great 
British naturalist, concerning evolution in the classroom. There was an 
aroused interest in the subject. A new Board of Education recently 
restored evolution to the state science curriculum.
  Several years ago, I read Charles Darwin's ``Origin of the Species.'' 
I also read his book ``The Descent of Man.'' I wanted to know what 
Darwin was saying. My intellectual curiosities were piqued. I wanted to 
read firsthand his theory about natural selection.
  But reading Darwin did not shake my faith in a Creator. Reading 
Darwin only strengthened my belief in God's word, and strengthened my 
belief in the Creator, strengthened my belief in the Bible as a book 
that was written by man, but written through the inspiration from God.

  Now, let me say, I do not claim to be good. My Bible says that no man 
is good. But I do claim to have been reared by two wonderful persons. 
They were not very well educated. They did not have much by way of this 
world's possessions. They could not give me much of anything. But they 
gave me their love, and they taught me to believe in the Scriptures.
  And so the chronological account of the Creation--and I hold it right 
here in this book--as related in the Book of Genesis, seems to confirm 
my understanding of the chronology of Creation as outlined by science. 
I have done considerable reading of both--these Scriptures, and books 
and theses and materials on science.
  I have three wonderful grandsons and two granddaughters remaining 
after the death of the oldest grandson. Two of those grandsons are 
physicists. They have their Ph.D.s in physics, not political science, 
which would be much easier, I suppose.
  I have two fine sons-in-law, one of whom came to this country from 
Iran, the old Biblical country of Persia, and who, by the way, is also 
a physicist.
  So my family is well equipped to help maintain this country's cutting 
edge in physics.
  I am not a physicist, and I am not a scientist, and I am not a 
minister. I do not consider myself to be worthy of standing behind any 
altar in a church. But I do steadfastly believe in the Bible. I believe 
in its teachings. And I believe that the account in Genesis is, in my 
way of looking at it, the greatest scientific essay that was ever 
written. That Book of Genesis seems to confirm my understanding, as 
limited as it may be, of the chronology of Creation, as outlined by the 
scientific articles that I have read.
  And, after all, how God made man is not so important; but what is 
important is that God, a superior intelligence, did make man. The 
doubters, the skeptics, the non-believers, all of these go out of their 
way to dispute the account of the Creation as presented in Genesis, but 
to the doubters and the skeptics and the cynics, I would refer them to 
that ancient man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. And, there, we 
find the question: ``Canst thou by searching find out God?''
  So, let the cynics, the doubters, and the skeptics answer God's 
challenge: ``Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? 
Declare, if thou hast understanding.
  ``Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath 
stretched the line upon it?
  ``Whereupon are the foundations thereof? Or who laid the cornerstone 
thereof;
  ``When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy?''
  My reading of the theory promulgated by that great English 
naturalist, Darwin, leads me to conclude that there is something to 
what Darwin is saying, but let us not carry it too far. I have no 
problem in putting God's word as revealed in the Holy Bible right up 
against the teachings of evolution. I have no problem with that. So I 
have no problem with teaching the theory of natural selection, as 
suggested by Darwin, Huxley, and others. But I believe that if the 
Darwinian theory of evolution is to be taught in the classrooms of the 
Nation, the biblical account of Creation and other teachings of the 
Bible should likewise be presented so that the inquiring young man or 
woman may have a better understanding of both. Now, I understand the 
constitutional problem that might arise from such.
  True it is, that ``Congress shall make no law respecting an 
establishment of religion,'' but I take this first amendment 
prohibition also to mean that Congress shall make no law respecting an 
establishment of ``anti-religion''. If high school students are to be 
taught a theory, such as evolution--I have no problem with that--which 
may result in non belief concerning God, non belief in religion, it 
seems to me that if we are really interested in the search for truth, 
the search for knowledge, the search for wisdom, then the student 
should have equal access to the account of Creation as set forth in the 
Book of Genesis.
  I believe that, just as children should be taught the difference 
between right and wrong, they should also be exposed to the teachings 
of Holy Writ as well as the claims made by proponents of Darwin's 
theory of evolution.
  Now, I am not here today suggesting that anybody else needs to be a 
Baptist just because I am a Baptist, or be a Methodist or be a 
Presbyterian or be an Episcopalian or be a Catholic or be of the Jewish 
religion, or of the religion of Islam. I have already stated

[[Page S3771]]

that one of my sons-in-law is an Iranian. His father was a devout--a 
devout--worshiper in the religion of Islam.
  I am like Samuel Adams. I am not a bigot. I can listen to anybody's 
prayer and will listen to anybody's prayer. But now, back to the 
subject.
  I personally find the theory of evolution as set forth in Darwin's 
book ``The Origin of Species'' to be an enormous piece of work, a 
marvelous, marvelous display of knowledge on the part of that great 
naturalist. It reflects great scholarship. It also contains--I am not 
hesitant about saying it at all--but it also contains a great, a huge 
number of guesses, hypotheses, conjectures, presumptions, assumptions, 
mere opinions, and considerable guesswork.
  For example, such phrases as the following are sprinkled throughout 
Darwin's Origin: ``We may infer,'' ``has probably played a more 
important part,'' ``it is extremely difficult to come to any 
conclusion,'' ``seems probable,'' ``this change may be safely 
attributed to the domestic duck flying much less and walking more, than 
its wild parents,'' ``I am fully convinced that the common opinion of 
naturalists is correct,'' ``hence, it must be assumed,'' ``appears to 
have played an important part,'' ``seems to have been the predominant 
power,'' ``something, but how much we do not know, may be attributed to 
the definite action of the conditions of life.'' ``Some, perhaps a 
great, effect may be attributed to the increased use or disuse of 
parts.''
  Additional examples are these: ``It is probable that they were once 
thus connected;'' ``that certainly at first appears a highly remarkable 
fact,'' ``it may be suspected,'' ``we have good reason to believe,'' 
``it may be believed,'' ``these facts alone incline me to believe that 
it is a general law of nature,'' ``I conclude that,'' ``we must 
infer,'' ``we may suppose,'' ``I do not suppose that the process ever 
goes on so regularly,'' ``it is far more probable,'' ``nor do I suppose 
that the most divergent varieties are invariably preserved;'' ``if we 
suppose,'' ``but we have only to suppose the steps in the process,'' 
``thus, as I believe, species are multiplied and genera are formed,'' 
``may be attributed to disuse,'' ``we must suppose,'' ``we may conclude 
that habit, or use and disuse, have, in some cases, played a 
considerable part in the modification of the Constitution and 
structure;'' ``I suspect,'' ``it seems to be a rule that when any part 
or organ is repeated many times in the same individual, the number is 
variable, whereas the same part or organ, when it occurs in lesser 
numbers, is constant;'' ``the fair presumption is,'' ``it must have 
existed, according to our theory, for an immense period in nearly the 
same state;'' ``the most probable hypothesis to account for the 
reappearance of very ancient characters, is that there is a tendency in 
the young of each successive generation to produce the long lost 
character, and that this tendency, from unknown causes, sometimes 
prevails;'' ``by my theory, these allied species are descended from a 
common time;'' ``if my theory be true,'' ``must assuredly have 
existed;'' ``may we not believe . . .?''
  I could go on and shall, indeed, go on for a brief moment. How long 
is a brief moment?
  Here are some more: ``it is inconceivable'', ``it is therefore highly 
probable'', ``it may be inferred,'' ``nor is it improbable,'' ``these 
organs must have been independently developed,'' and so on, and so on, 
and so on and on.
  Strange, isn't it, that, while many of the devotees of Darwinism are 
agnostics, or even outright atheists, their idol shows no compunctions 
with reference to a supreme being?
  Let me quote Darwin. I have been quoting Darwin, but I want to quote 
Darwin to show that he has no compunction with reference to a supreme 
being. He says:

       May we not believe that a living optical instrument might 
     thus be formed as superior to one of glass as the works of 
     the creator are to those of man.

  Darwin himself poses the key question. This is the key question, and 
it is meant for all of us. It will make us stop and think.
  This is what Darwin asked:

       Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by 
     intellectual powers like those of man?

  That is the question. That is where so many of us in this 
intellectual age, this cynical age, that is where so many of us trip 
over ourselves because we attempt to square God's intelligence with our 
own. And thus, we become unbelievers or doubters simply because we 
can't conceive of all of the marvels of creation and how they came 
about. Therefore, again, I cite this question by Darwin:

       Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by 
     intellectual powers like those of man?

  Of course, with man's finite, limited intellectual powers, man finds 
it difficult to conceive of that which his own puny mind cannot 
embrace. Hence, while the skeptics doubt the Biblical account of 
creation, they seem to go out of their way to find alternative 
theories. The problem is that the alternatives they propose border on 
the absurd.
  Beyond all credulity is the credulousness of atheists who believe 
that chance could make a world, when it cannot build a house.
  Some scientists say that life, and man himself, was the outcome of 
random mechanisms operating over the ages. It is my belief that there 
is, and always has been, a super intelligence, an intelligence that 
foresaw the necessity of preplanning human life on earth.
  In order that life might be produced, everything had to be just right 
from the very start--everything from the fundamental forces, such as 
electromagnetism and gravity, to the relative masses of various 
subatomic particles. And I have read that the slightest tinkering with 
a single one of scores of basic relationships in nature would have 
resulted in a very different universe from that which we know. It would 
be a universe with no stars like our sun, or even no stars, period. 
Life was not accidental, but appeared to be a goal toward which the 
entire universe, from the very beginning nanosecond of its existence, 
had been orchestrated and fine-tuned. In other words, there never was a 
``random universe.'' But before its origins in the Big Bang, life was 
preplanned from the very first nanosecond of the cosmos' coming into 
being. This is the cosmological anthropic principle, and it marks a 
turning point, in that it takes us toward, rather than away from, the 
idea that there is a God.
  I believe that the universe is the product of a vastly superior 
intelligence and that in the absence of such a superintelligence having 
provided guidance for millions of details, vast and small, this world 
would not exist, this universe would not exist, nor would we exist.
  The materialistic paradigm, which is the fundamental modern concept 
of the random, mechanical universe, is coming apart at the seams. It is 
not a universe that is random and mechanical; instead, it is a universe 
of intricate order that reflects an unimaginably vast and intricate 
master design. The laws of physics that undergird the universe had to 
be fine-tuned from the beginning and expressly designed for the 
emergence of human beings. Human life did not come about by accident, 
the byproduct of material forces randomly churning over the ages, the 
fundamental constants of gravitational force and electromagnetic force 
necessary for producing life in the universe.
  I have to believe that the evolution of the universe over many 
billions of years had, from the beginning, apparently been directed 
toward the creation of human life. From my very limited reading, I find 
that even the slightest tinkering with the value of gravity, or the 
slightest alteration in the strength of the electromagnetic force, 
would have resulted in the wrong kind of stars, or no stars at all. Any 
weakening of the nuclear ``strong'' force would have resulted in a 
universe consisting of hydrogen and not a single other element. That 
would mean no oxygen and no water--nothing but hydrogen. Even the most 
minuscule tinkering with the fundamental forces of physics--gravity, 
electromagnetism, nuclear strong force, or the nuclear weak force--
would have resulted in a universe consisting entirely of helium, 
without protons or atoms, a universe without stars, or a universe that 
collapsed back in upon itself before the first moments of its existence 
were up. Even such basics of life as carbon and water depend upon 
``fine-tuning'' at the subatomic level.
  Think for a moment about the very nature of water, H2O, which is so 
vital

[[Page S3772]]

to life. Unique among the molecules, water is lighter in its solid form 
than in its liquid form. Ice floats. Every country boy knows that--a 
country boy like Robert Byrd. I learned a long time ago that ice 
floats--not just Ivory soap, but ice floats. If it did not float, the 
oceans would freeze from the bottom up, killing all forms of life 
therein, and the Earth would now be covered with solid ice.
  Witness the vast order that pervades the universe! Could random 
variation have, even in the longest stretch of the imagination, created 
such magnificent order in the universe? Could chance have hit upon the 
order that we see all around us? To believe that it could is to believe 
that a monkey with a typewriter would eventually type the complete 
works of Shakespeare. But would he? Would he not more likely produce an 
infinity's worth of gibberish? Regardless of the number of days or the 
length of time available, what monkey could ever provide a single day's 
worth of typing Shakespeare--by random, by accident, by chance--let 
alone the complete works? The works of Shakespeare are complex enough, 
but they are small potatoes compared to the universe.

  Random selection is not the magic bullet that some biologists would 
hope. One cannot explain away the order in nature by reference to a 
purely random process. To pretend otherwise is the stuff of science 
fiction.
  Mr. President, as we depart this city for the holidays, let us 
remember the old, old story. Let us pause at Easter time and think on 
these things. I close with the reading of the 23rd psalm:

       The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
       He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me 
     beside the still waters.
       He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of 
     righteousness for his name's sake.
       Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
     death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and 
     thy staff they comfort me.
       Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine 
     enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth 
     over.
       Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of 
     my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. 
     Happy Easter!

  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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