Bird Brains and Atheists

In mid-2011, Markus Fischer and his creative team at Festo built "SmartBird"--a large, lightweight robot, modeled on a seagull. This amazing flying robot was unique in that it flapped its wings like a real bird. When Fischer spoke about his creation, the large audience sat quietly and listened to his every word. However, after they saw it fly around the room in which they sat, they gave him a standing ovation. They praised him for his brilliance.

Plagiarism is the copying of someone else's ideas, and representing it as your own original work. Fischer copied his bird directly from God's design, and humbly took praise for it as if it was his own creation.

Despite this copyright infringement, it is understandable why they praised him. He did something no other human being had managed to do. He made a flying, flapping, swerving bird. Sort of. It couldn't think breath, think, eat, and reproduce of itself. It couldn't even blink. Not that it needed to, because this was a blind bird.

There are some who accuse God of being the ultimate egotist because they think that He demands worship. Scripture says "You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve." However, to praise God for the gift of life—-for birds and all the amazing creation that surrounds us, is the right thing to do. To fail to praise Him and love Him with all of our "heart, mind, soul, and strength" for what He has done and Who He is, is to be guilty of the sin of ingratitude. Worship is commanded because we are dull in mind, selfish in heart, blind to reality, and so ungrateful that we need to be directed to give God due praise.

Despite Fischer's genius, there is no comparison between his flying robot and God's design of the bird. The model they copied has eyes that can see and relate images to an incredibly complex brain, that in the smallest of birds shames our most complex of computers. It has an amazing heart that sends life-giving oxygenated blood at just the right temperature, through a myriad of tiny blood vessels into complicated layers of perfectly designed muscles that are fastened onto hollow multifaceted bones that are curved especially for flight, and layered with amazingly shaped feathers that twist and turn as directed by the brain of each bird.

So what sort of crazy person could believe that there was no evidence that Fischer's robot had a creator; and what sort of bird-brain could believe for a moment that the one he plagiarized had no Maker?For Evangelism Resources, please visit LivingWaters.com.