|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
[SPECIAL JANUARY PROMOTION: Spend $50+ In The FPM Store And Receive A Free Copy Of “Final Battle” By David Horowitz.]
Is God Real? Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life was published by Zondervan in October, 2023. The book has 256 pages, inclusive of twenty-seven pages of notes, fourteen pages of study questions, and an eight-page bibliography. Author Lee Strobel holds a BA from the University of Missouri and a Master of Studies in Law from Yale. Strobel was an investigative journalist for fourteen years. He won a public service award for his coverage of the Ford Pinto crash trial.
About forty years ago, Strobel’s life dramatically changed direction. His wife converted to Christianity. Strobel was an atheist and he did not approve of his wife’s new path. He determined to use his investigative skills to prove Christianity wrong. Instead, he discovered that there is evidence to support Christianity. At age 29 he converted, left journalism, and became an apologetics author. Several of Strobel’s forty-plus books are best-sellers. In total, his publications have sold fourteen million copies.
It’s easy to see why Strobel’s books sell so well. His writing is smooth and easy to read. Though Strobel’s work could be understood by the average reader, he tackles life’s big questions. In a typical Strobel book, he provides a brief sketch of his own reasons for wanting to explore a given spiritual quandary. He then travels to a university campus to present his confusion and curiosity to a world-class expert. Strobel interrogates these men who have devoted their lives to the material he is researching. Strobel, ever the investigative journalist, asks the kind of questions we would ask if we were in those elite settings. Strobel records these conversations in question-and-answer format.
In books like The Case for Christ, The Case for a Creator, The Case for Faith, and The Case for Heaven, Strobel includes extensive bibliographies that direct the reader to further resources. For example, in Is God Real? Strobel’s bibliography directs the reader not just to popular publications of Christian presses like Zondervan, but also to hefty tomes published by scholarly and secular houses like Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Cornell University Press, Michigan State University Press, and HarperOne.
I love Strobel’s books, including Is God Real? I’d like to be able to dedicate hours to reading university press books addressing the origins of the universe, the problem of evil, and support for the historicity of the Bible. I don’t have that kind of time or attention. Strobel’s books have introduced me to ideas, thinkers, and arguments I’d never otherwise encounter.
You don’t have to agree with Strobel to enjoy his books. I don’t agree with every position he takes, and I am a stranger to Strobel’s world. Almost every expert he consults is a white male Protestant, ethnically or culturally. They are economically comfortable and their life trajectories proceed from success to success. Women are mentioned in passing as wives, mothers, and refreshment servers. Again, I love his work, but towards the end of every Strobel book, I find myself wishing he would have included a woman, a Catholic, a child of immigrants, someone poor, someone who struggles.
Could a non-Christian benefit from a Lee Strobel book? Yes. In recent years, as some doomsayers put it, the West has begun committing suicide. Atheists like Douglas Murray, Roger Scruton*, and Tom Holland have pointed out that the Judeo-Christian tradition is a sine qua non of Western Civilization. Author Jonathan Van Maren observed, “One does not need to find Christianity believable to realize that it is necessary.” To be a true fan of Western Civ, one does have to appreciate what the Judeo-Christian tradition has accomplished. I am not an ancient Greek Pagan but I am very respectful of, and I certainly want to see recognized and preserved, the positive contributions of ancient Greek Pagans.
Instead of respect, appreciation, and a desire for preservation, New Atheism contributes to the erosion of Western Civilization. Atheists are smart, they insist. Christians are stupid. New Atheists peddle this toxic propaganda via straw man arguments. A typical New Atheist might repeat, ad nauseam, that Christians believe in a “Sky Daddy” comparable to the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” and that any questioning of faith quickly topples its house of cards.
Strobel quotes one such Atheist in Is God Real? Ricky Gervais, a British celebrity, reports that, as a child, he had been taught to believe in Jesus. One day Gervais’ brother Bob asked him why he believed in God. Gervais did not have an answer. “It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions and within an hour, I was an atheist.” The idea that faith is “as simple as that” and that it can be demolished in an hour by any child asking basic questions is a falsehood so transparent that only a New Atheist would believe it. It is also an anti-Western, propagandistic lie that would meet with the approval of Marxists and jihadis.
Much has been said by others about the New Atheists’ straw man arguments, their ignorance (see here and here) and even their obnoxiousness. New Atheists insist that freed of the “pox” of religion, people would become the best, most ethical versions of themselves (see for example here and here). Instead, New Atheism has become notorious for its misogyny, sexual harassment, rape, and cyber stalking (here, here and here). Directly contrary to the New Atheist narrative, Christianity and the development of science are inextricable from each other; see for example here, here, here, here, and here.
Even some New Atheists have displayed the necessary intelligence and grace to reassess. In 1996, New Atheist Richard Dawkins declared that “Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.” As Christianity’s decline began to make headlines, even as Dawkins’ expressed wish for the end of Christianity seemed to be coming true, Dawkins began singing a different tune. On March 21, 2018, Dawkins tweeted, “Before we rejoice at the death throes of the relatively benign Christian religion, let’s not forget Hilaire Belloc’s menacing rhyme: ‘Always keep a-hold of nurse, For fear of finding something worse.'”
In other words, Dawkins was acknowledging that Christianity has had an impact that he likes, and he was also acknowledging that whatever may eventually replace Christianity might have an impact that he would not like. In 2019, Dawkins acknowledged the truth of a phrase attributed to Dostoevsky. “Without God, all things are permitted.” Dawkins told the Times that the elimination of faith would give people “license to do really bad things.”
New Atheism is not the attention-grabbing trend that it once was. In 2019, atheist blogger Scott Alexander dubbed New Atheism “The Godlessness that Failed.” But it’s still popular among lower-case-a atheists to associate faith with stupidity, and to hope that the entire Judeo-Christian tradition is relegated to the trash bin.
Here’s where Lee Strobel’s books come in handy, even for folks who don’t believe in God and have no desire to be religious. Strobel makes very clear that the Judeo-Christian tradition is one of scholarship and the advancement of the human species. No serious, integral person could cling to New Atheist canards after reading a Strobel book, and delving into the ample supplemental material.
Strobel opens Is God Real? with a fascinating statistic that says much about human nature and the failure of New Atheism, and that testifies to the truth of Ecclesiastes 3:11. “More than two hundred times a second, around the clock, someone is asking an online search engine about God – often with the simple inquiry, ‘Is God real?’ If you type that question into Google, you’ll get 3.7 billion results in two thirds of a second.”
Strobel quotes an atheist on what it means if the answer is “No.” Without God, there’s no morality, there’s no meaning, and there’s no free will. Even New Atheists have trouble accepting these consequences of their dogma. And even New Atheists wish that the world were not as they believe it to be; see a 2014 piece by New Atheist Michael Shermer that expresses longing for a supernatural experience.
Even though Americans are leaving church, they still crave contact with that eternal something that, according to Ecclesiastes 3:11, God placed in their hearts. Psalm 42:1 says that as deer pant for water, our souls yearn for God. As Strobel points out, one bit of evidence of humanity’s yearning is that frequent Google search. A 2022 survey said that three out of four US adults want to grow spiritually. Three quarters of Millennials report that they are searching for a sense of purpose in life. The rise of “nones,” that is people identifying as not a member of any religious belief system or congregation, is accompanied by a dramatic decay in mental health and an increase in suicidal thoughts, plans, and completed attempts. Atheism has not eliminated, and never will eliminate humanity’s yearning for God, described by seventeenth-century mathematician Blaise Pascal. There is a God-shaped hole in the human heart that God alone can fill.
Strobel’s first answer to Is God Real? is “The Cosmos Requires a Creator.” His first interlocutor is William Lane Craig. Craig has an MA and two doctorates. Trained in philosophy and theology, he has frequently argued, in formal debates, for the reasonableness of Christian faith. Craig has stood toe to toe with Bart Ehrman, Antony Flew, Lewis Wolpert, as well as various Muslims. Craig has been an invited speaker at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge. For a menu of Craig’s debates, see here.
One can watch Craig debate here. I’ve spent much of my life on campuses. I’ve attended lectures by legendary scholars, creators, and authors, including Alan Dundes, Bernard Lewis, Salman Rushdie, Lech Walesa, Edward Said, and David Horowitz. I’ve never heard anyone do a better job of presenting a point of view than William Lane Craig does in this Biola University debate with the late Christopher Hitchens. Many of the comments under the video are from atheists who acknowledge that the debate was carried out at an exceptionally high intellectual level. Strobel’s Is God Real? offers just a fifteen-page discussion of Craig’s defense of his faith, but those fifteen pages are rich enough that this reader spent much time on YouTube and in other resources seeking out other material by Craig, just to be exposed to his clarity and authority.
Craig traces the roots of his “Kalam” argument back to Aristotle. Centuries after Aristotle, John Philoponus, a sixth-century Christian, argued against Aristotle, and for a beginning for the universe. In the eleventh century, Al-Ghazali, a Muslim, took up the thread of Aristotelian criticism and the universe’s origins. The word “Kalam” comes from the Arabic for “science of discourse.” Strobel and Craig summarize the Kalam argument as “Whatever begins to exist has a cause,” “The universe had a beginning,” and “Therefore the universe has a cause.” In elucidating each step in this argument, Strobel and Craig get into nitty gritty details of science and math. That the universe had a beginning is disturbing to many atheists. It was so disturbing that atheist scientists attempted to suppress discoveries that suggested a creation (see here).“Perhaps the best argument … that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists,” according to astrophysicist C. J. Isham.
“The Universe Needs a Fine-Tuner,” argues Strobel in chapter two. A fish doesn’t know it is in water. We humans, like a fish in water, tend to take physical reality for granted. We drop something; it falls. We take gravity for granted. We breathe air. We freeze water to make ice. Time passes. Air, water, temperature, time: we take all these phenomena for granted. We may recognize the miracle of a baby’s smile or a field of daisies, and not recognize the astounding physics that makes all that possible. Many physicists, though, are not as blind to the miracles of physical reality as the average civilian. We live in a “Goldilocks” universe, they say, where every aspect of physical reality appears to have been engineered to make life possible. If any aspect of physical reality were altered – if gravity or time or forces of attraction and repulsion were altered by the tiniest degree – life would have been impossible.
“Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design,” wrote British cosmologist Edward Harrison. “The God hypothesis … is the simplest and most obvious solution to the [fine-tuning] puzzle,” wrote former atheist and author Patrick Glynn. Physicist Paul Davies said, “Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astounding that I can’t accept it merely as a brute fact. I cannot believe that our existence in the universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama.”
Astrophysicist and apparent agnostic Geraint F. Lewis doesn’t take physical reality for granted. He recognizes that had the universe been slightly different, none of the realities that we take for granted, including us, would have been possible. “Playing with the laws of physics, it turns out, can be catastrophic for life … the periodic table disappears and all the astonishing beauty and utility of chemistry desert us. The galaxies, stars, and planets that host and energize life are replaced by lethal black holes or just a thin hydrogen soup … not the kind of place that you’d expect to encounter complex, thinking beings like us.“
In chapter two, Strobel interviews physicist Michael G. Strauss, author of nine hundred scholarly articles on elementary particle physics. Strauss also has performed experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. “Picture a control board with a hundred different dials and knobs, each representing a different parameter of physics. If you turn any of them just slightly to the left or right – poof! Intelligent life becomes impossible anywhere in the universe,” Strauss says. If one were to make the strong nuclear force “just two percent stronger while all the other constants stayed the same, you’d add a lot more elements to the periodic table, but they would be radioactive and life-destroying. Plus, you’d have very little hydrogen in the universe, and no hydrogen, no water, no life.” Strauss crosses over from cosmology to theology and argues that the universe indicates not just that it was created by a god, but by the God of the Bible.
Strobel moves from the universe to the human person in chapter three, “Our DNA Demands a Designer.” Strobel chats with Stephen C. Meyer. Meyer holds a PhD from Cambridge. He is a bestselling author and he is affiliated with the Discovery Institute. His book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design was named a Times of London Book of the Year. Meyer’s 2021 book, Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe was endorsed by several scientists, including occupants of endowed chairs and one Nobel Laureate. You can see those endorsements here.
Self-appointed defenders of Darwin can be fanatical. They rage against not just Stephen Meyer but also Richard Weikart, who has meticulously documented Social Darwinism’s influence on Nazism. I strongly recommend chapter three of Is God Real? so that the reader can become acquainted first-hand with Meyer, unfiltered by venomous and misleading attacks. I hope that the reader will move on to Meyer’s YouTube channel and of course read his books.
Chapter four, “Easter Showed that Jesus Is God,” makes the big leap from an argument for the existence of God to an argument for the validity of the Christian God. Michael Licona wrote his PhD dissertation on the resurrection of Jesus. His 718-page book, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, applies “the methodology of historians who lie outside the community of biblical scholars” to the question of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. Reviewer Justin Mooney writes thatLicona “models his methodological approach on that of historians outside the biblical studies community.” The book provides “an excellent example of how a scholar may strive for objectivity in his research.”
Licona has something in common with the previously mentioned Ricky Gervais. Licona went through a period of doubt. According to Strobel, after grad school, Licona came close to losing faith. Licona was different from Gervais, though. Licona didn’t stop at asking. Licona went in search of answers. This search solidified his conviction that Christianity “rests on a firm historical foundation.”
Licona walks Strobel through the methods he used to investigate the resurrection. Historians must seek out sources that are relevant, and must focus on sources that are “early, eye-witness, enemy, embarrassing, and corroborated.” Licona lists five minimal facts. Licona’s five minimal facts aren’t just agreed upon only by Christians, but by non-Christian scholars. For example, Paula Fredriksen is the former William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Scripture at Boston University. She is currently distinguished visiting professor in the Department of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Fredriksen is a former Catholic who converted to Judaism. She rejects Jesus’ divinity. Even so, Fredriksen wrote, “The disciples’ conviction that they had seen the risen Christ … is historical bedrock, facts known past doubting.”
The first of Licona’s five minimal facts: Jesus was killed by crucifixion. Second, Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose from the dead and appeared to them, as recorded in material that can be dated to within five years of the crucifixion, and that probably came from eye-witnesses. These disciples would have known if Jesus did not rise from the dead. With the knowledge they had, they were willing to endure torture and death for their belief in his resurrection. People, like jihadis, may be willing to suffer and die for something that they believe to be true but that they can’t prove one way or the other, like the promise of paradise and 72 virgins. The disciples, again, would have known for certain that Jesus did not rise from the dead if he had not. If they had Jesus’ corpse, they would have been much less likely to suffer and die for the claim of resurrection. Third, again, historians agree that Paul was an historic personage who persecuted the early church, had a profound conversion experience, and was willing to endure jail and martyrdom as a result of what he believed to be an encounter with the risen Christ. Licona’s fourth point is that Jesus’ brother James, who had been a skeptic, came to believe in Jesus’ resurrection after seeing him. James was martyred for this faith. His martyrdom is recorded in extra-Biblical sources. Fifth, Jesus’ tomb was empty. Clearly Christianity’s early opponents would have loved to have been able to produce Jesus’ body in order to nip the annoying new belief system in the bud. That women were the first to testify to Jesus’ resurrection also is supportive of the veracity of the claim. Women were not respected witnesses in the judicial systems of Judaism and Pagan Rome. If one were inventing a story of resurrection, one would chose male witnesses.
Chapter five, “Experiencing God,” addresses testimony from persons who believe that they have had encounters with the Christian God. These people range from motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel to Muslims living in countries where knowledge of Christianity is brutally suppressed by the state and by the wider society. Douglas Groothuis received his PhD in philosophy. He has written bestselling books that “explain the world to the church and explain the church to the world.” It’s interesting that Groothuis’ website describes him that way because the phrase has traditionally been used to refer to Jesuits, and Groothuis is a Protestant. Groothuis uses his interpretation of the Bible to assess claims of personal encounters with the divine. For example, in 2002, he published Deceived by the Light, a criticism of accounts of near death experiences. He also assesses claims as to whether or not the experiencer has changed. Such an encounter, he says, will lead to “a new moral awareness and progress, a sense of guidance or calling, a deep sense of belonging to God … increased love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This kind of transformational experience is to be expected if the Christian message is true.”
Chapter six asks, “Which God Is Real?” Strobel opens with a quote from Thomas Nagel. Nagel is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University. In his book The Last Word, Nagel wrote, “I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”
Chad Meister is a former electromechanical engineer. During a spiritual crisis and while having suicidal thoughts, Meister received a vision that steered him toward Christianity. But he didn’t know much about Christianity and he soon found himself waffling between various belief systems, including Hinduism and Mormonism. Meister visited a Christian group called the L’Abri fellowship in Minnesota. There Christians encouraged Meister to devote study to comparing and contrasting all the worldviews he was considering. The L’Abri fellows’ questions included, Which belief system “is reasonable? Which is logical? Which is livable? Which one had the best evidence?”
These questions set Meister off on an intense path of study. “I started at square one by asking the question, ‘What is truth?'” After a year and a half of study, Meister decided that “Christianity is the most reasonable, the most livable, the best supported evidentially, and it matched my own personal experiences of God.” Meister left engineering and became a professor of philosophy and theology, and author of books like The Oxford Handbook of Religious Diversity, The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil, The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, and The Cambridge Companion to Religious Experience.
In order to share with others his method and his conclusions, Meister developed an apologetics pyramid. This systematic approach to Christian belief is very much what one might expect from a former electromechanical engineer. It’s not about faith as the result of a blinding flash on the road to Damascus, as occurred to Saint Paul. Rather, it’s a systematic, brick by brick construction of a path from doubt to faith. Meister begins, “What is truth?” He moves on to worldviews, contrasting atheism, theism, and pantheism. Meister tests all three against the following criteria: their logic, livability, and internal coherence. Given his interrogation of these worldviews, Meister selects theism as the best choice. He supports theism with previously mentioned phenomena, the fine-tuning of the universe and the Big Bang. He then cites morality. “If there are objective moral values, then God exists.” The fourth level of his pyramid is revelation. Meister subjects religious scriptures to the bibliographic test, the eye-witness test, and the test of external evidence. By these objective standards, the Bible comes out ahead of other scriptures. His next level is the resurrection. The pinnacle of Meister’s pyramid is the Gospel and all that it offers the believer.
Chapter seven asks “If God is Real, Then Why Is There Suffering?” Peter John Kreeft is a philosophy professor at Boston College. He has published over one hundred books. Kreeft was raised as a Protestant and converted to Catholicism as an adult. Strobel goes out of his way to mention that the Catholic Kreeft is “widely read by Protestants.” Strobel quotes Kreeft referring to Saint Teresa of Avila’s thoughts about the problem of suffering. I was delighted. Finally, I encountered an ethnic, Catholic woman in a Strobel book!
Kreeft responds to the problem of suffering as Christians have been doing for millennia. He mentions our limited knowledge, and how we might not be aware that suffering is, in some way, contributing to our formation. He cites Augustine’s reversal of the question to, “If there is no God, then why is there good?” Kreeft refers to Jesus’ suffering on the cross. Jesus, Kreeft reminds Strobel, took on the suffering of every human and experienced it all.
Kreeft remarks that those who insist that suffering disproves the possibility of the existence of God are often themselves comfortable people exploiting others’ suffering as props to support their own worldview. Kreeft mentions Corrie ten Boom, an anti-Nazi resistance worker in the Netherlands during World War II. Ten Boom helped eight hundred Jews survive, as well as handicapped people. Ten Boom, her father, and her sister were arrested. Her father and sister died in Nazi captivity. In the Ravensbruck concentration camp, ten Boom’s sister said to her, “There is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still.” Ten Boom narrowly escaped the gas chambers. She wrote about her work after the war. Corrie ten Boom is one example of someone who has known suffering far worse than celebrity New Atheists haveexperienced, and yet remained a believer.
Chapter eight asks, “If God Is Real, Why Is He So Hidden?” Strobel’s interlocutor for this chapter is Kenneth Richard Samples. Samples’ brother Frank was a drug addict, convicted criminal, and ultimately, a suicide. Samples asked himself what in his own life was really meaningful. He had a vision in a dream, of a scarred and bruised Jesus. This dream inspired Samples to pursue a better understanding of Christianity. He is now an author and university professor.
Strobel began by asking if Samples had ever felt exasperated by God’s apparent absence. Samples responded, “When I was forty-five years old, married with three children, I came home one day feeling sick. It turned out I had contracted a rare bacteria that resulted in a large lesion on my right lung and six brain abscess lesions.” Samples’ doctor told him that he had a twenty percent survival chance. “Lord, where are you? I’m in a tough spot,” Samples asked. Samples points out that a more obvious God might also be rejected. After all, Peter watched Jesus perform miracles but after Jesus’ arrest, Peter denied him three times – just as Jesus predicted Peter would. God’s alleged hiddeness is part of free will. God is like a rich man entering the dating scene. That man might hide his immense wealth because he wants to be loved for himself, not for his financial assets. God doesn’t want to coerce his creations into loving him; he wants to be chosen.
Strobel opens his concluding chapter with two quotes. Atheist Stephen Hawking said, “Heaven is a fairy story for people who are afraid of the dark.” Oxford mathematician John Lennox responded, “Atheism is a fairy story for those who are afraid of the light.” Strobel closes his book with an invitation to his reader not just to believe the arguments he presents, but to act on that belief, and to become a Christian.
Is God Real? never states that any of its arguments prove that God exists. Humans are limited and such proof is beyond our reach. Rather, Is God Real? gives the reader a taste of the knowledge and reasoning behind Christian faith. Given the centrality of the Judeo-Christian tradition to our embattled, but very worth cherishing Western Civilization, the book is doing important work that serves the needs of believers and non-believers alike.
* Roger Scruton’s status as an atheist is debated. See for example here, with a claim that he was not, but also here, “His secular friends insist that Scruton continued to be an atheist; that his Christianity was merely cultural Anglicanism.”
Danusha Goska is the author of God Through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery.
Some people want to be their own “gods,” so they can do as they please without pangs of conscience.
There are Jewish/Christian believers among males, females, black and white, in all the nations of the world.
the Bible is clear that God has His own among all nations and people He created. We are all one in Messiah.
“The heavens declare the glory of God.” God is the embodiment of love. No other God died for his people.
Without the Creator, life would be meaningless. Atheists are nihilists without hope.
Jewish/Christian believers must be a light in the world to give hope to the hopeless.
There is a verse in the Bible that God created man knowing His existence so men are without excuse.
Hi Danusha, (part 1)
Greetings from the white Rockies. Skiing in the fresh light snow on the deep & steep in the trees at 10K, I thank God daily for the beauty, serenity & joy out there. Not to mention the gear & being able to do it in old age & w/ a bum knee.
Come from a 4 gens of STEM family; applied science & atheism. My grandpa studied nuclear physics (then chemistry) in Berlin in 1925 under Otto Hahn (Nobel Price for uranium 10 y later). My uncle was a biochemist, dad a creative R&D organic chemist. All atheists. Grandpa & uncle befriended much older Mme Curie. I know that Ms. Sklodowska was a hard working genius.
Am but a lowly digging-in-mud geologist/geophysicist, formerly an atheist. Since age five, have read thousands of books. Including ten years of studying & practicing esoteric & hermetic sciences, metaphysics, kabbala, genetics, et al, in Switzerland. My dad & I escaped the Soviet tanks of 1968. Have also studied the Greek & Roman thought, all German & French philosophers, Dante, et al. B. Pascal is my fave. However, re: God, have noticed, all of that arguing & posturing are just opinions of smart yet mortal, selfish & fallen men.
In August 1970 have survived a near fatal accident in Lucern. Didn’t believe then in afterlife, yet stood (floated) at the ‘pearly gate’ – all white light space & intense pillars of golden energy. I knew being dead w/out a body & quite stunned. Went through the dark tunnel first as described by Dr. Moody. When I came back into the smashed body, I thought I was nuts & denied it for five years. Yet even today, the memory is fresh & vivid as if it happened now.
Wow! Thank you for sharing all that.
The mind does tricky things when the body is badly damaged. Nothing magical or mystical re. your experience, just a product of the mind. How is your conclusion/conversion reasonable considering what we know about the functioning of a traumatized brain?
Which god do you believe in? What proof do you have that god exists beyond a traumatized brain fart?
The Near-Death Experience testimonies are uncanny. The “dying brain producing a comforting hallucination to spare the dying person the terror of death” hypothesis just doesn’t hold water.
The heart has stopped, the person blacks out, and you’re going to tell me that precisely when the brain is dying, the person has blacked out, the brain is no longer receiving oxygen, glucose, or other nutrients, that is precisely when the brain produces a powerful, coherent, meaningful, transcendent, profound, life-changing, hallucination?
A hallucination that produces corroborating evidence of being out of the body and observing what is going on around the person that is clinically dead? A hallucination that gives the person knowledge they could have no way of knowing except if the person is actually out of body?
I don’t buy the “comforting hallucination” hypothesis at all.
Those who believe will believe, those who don’t believe will not believe.
I respect the right of those who believe, to believe. Those who don’t believe, not to believe. So long as no one initiates physical force against another, initiates no physical compulsion, or threat of violence against another, I now prefer to just leave the subject alone.
I’m pretty much out of this website. And all other political websites. I’m tired of the useless arguing. I’m going through a really rough time and all I want is peace and peace of mind.
But I do come back to read Professor Danusha Goska. She’s wonderful to read. But right now, I only read her if the subject isn’t another upsetting subject of the craziness and violence going on in the world.
” I’m going through a really rough time and all I want is peace and peace of mind.”
I’m sorry to read this. I hope that things work out. I will say a prayer for you.
Thank you so much Professor Goska. I wish you the best and I hope this coming year is a good year for you.
I am so sorry for your pain right now. To one degree or another many of us at this moment feel bereft and lost, trying to navigate a world that makes no sense and seeking faith or hope it will get better. I will think of you as you go through your own rough time and wish you well.
Dear THX, I have noticed – and been upset by – some of the hateful things that have been said to you, and wondered why?! What is it about politics that causes such division, such hate? I don’t know if you are aware of the Biblical explanation…
You say: “I’m pretty much out of this website. And all other political websites. I’m tired of the useless arguing. I’m going through a really rough time and all I want is peace and peace of mind.”
I am so sorry about the rough time. We – the damaged children of Adam – are living in a tragedy, and will be until the loving Kingdom of God is ruling over the earth. And clearly it is weighing heavily on you at the moment. Please please be sure that under the loving rule of God’s Kingdom, God will, as he has promised, wipe out every tear from our eyes. All that causes suffering will be gone, for good. Psalm 37 promises us “exquisite delight in the abundance of peace” – right here on the earth.
And the Bible not only assures us that the dead are “conscious of nothing at all” – so we neither need to fear for them, nor fear them – but it also promises a wonderful awakening from the dreamless sleep of death when the time comes.
Dear Sue, if you’ll notice 99% of the hateful attacks on me, the personal insults hurled at me, have come from one individual — “Intrepid”. Intrepid has even insulted my mother several times for having given birth to me.
There is something truly malicious, angry, and obsessive-compulsive about that individual. He has followed me to other websites and harassed me there. I don’t take his attacks personally because he does the same thing to anyone who disagrees with him.
And I don’t blame his religion for his behavior. He is just a very malicious and angry person. My advice to anyone here is don’t deal with him at all in any way. don’t get sucked into his vortex.
Well, it was too good to be true. Your ego is huge you actually write a “farewell to the troops” comment.
I think what you are truly tired of is the fact that no one bought into your peculiar brand of smug religious bigotry against Jews and Christians, your repetitive lectures and your warped smorgasbord version of Western Civilization.
“I now prefer to just leave the subject alone.” Awww, poor baby. So you lose spectacularly and now you want us to feel sorry for you? After all the insults from you it just doesn’t work that way.
I don’t much care if you are going through a “rough” time. You deserve it after the way you have treated people over the years.
So as your beloved Greek buddy Aristotle might say: Σήψη στην κόλαση
Hello Intrepid – and all Here is some perfect advice, from our Creator, the Source of all wisdom: “But sanctify the Christ as Lord in your hearts, always ready to make a defense before everyone who demands of you a reason for the hope you have, but doing so with a mild temper and deep respect.” – 1 Peter 3:15
With a mild temper and deep respect. And don’t all of us, the damaged and dying children of disobedient Adam, need undeserved kindness from our Creator if we are to have back the life and perfection and paradise that they lost?
And the Bible tells us, simply and clearly, that the dead “are conscious of nothing at all” – Ecclesiastes 9:5 We do not need to fear for them, nor do we need to fear them. But, as the Book of Daniel promises, “many of those asleep in the dust of the ground will wake up”. And it will be such a wonderful awakening. When God wakes them from the dreamless sleep of death, they will open their eyes in an earth ruled by the Kingdom of God, the heavenly government for whose coming Jesus taught us to pray.
I hope we will all be there, to welcome back the resurrected dead to the restored earthly paradise.
THX, we Christians see your struggle and we pray for you. I know I do. Periods of trial are difficult, but offer an opportunity to re-examine your foundational beliefs.
Here, you muse about the unlikeliness of a particular state of consciousness, and you have had much to say about existence and consciousness, and which is antecedent.
Near-death and after-death experiences have produced mountains of evidence that consciousness survives physical death and produces coherent observations by the deceased of his near and even distant surroundings after the time of death. These “impossible” observations have been confirmed by those who were engaging in the observed activities. Several good books have been written about this topic and include evidentiary footnotes that verify the report.
You will perhaps have greater peace when you re-assemble your foundational presuppositions.
Kynarion what do you mean by “WE Christians” see your struggle and we pray for you?
Intrepid considers himself a devout Christian, have you read his hate-filled reply to my comment?
He says to me in Greek, rot in hell. Is that Christian of him? It took a malicious effort to google the Greek for “rot in hell”.
I don’t blame Christianity for his behavior and character. I think if he were an atheist he would be just as angry and malicious.
As I’ve said before, I’ve met beautiful, wonderful, kind, compassionate, people who were Christians, and some Christians like Intrepid, who were anything but.
There are many kinds of Christianity, different ways to interpret Christianity, and there are many different kinds of Christians.
When someone says “I am a Christian” I guess they mean they believe in Jesus Christ but beyond that one cannot assume anything else. One has no way to know a person’s true character and how they will act simply because the person says, “I am a Christian”.
But thank you for your respectful reply.
THX: Your point is well taken. Not everyone who claims to be Christian is one, but only God knows those who are His own. Intrepid stands or falls, like ALL of us, before his Maker.
Although we are not to JUDGE others, we ARE commanded to DISCERN. Jesus said we will discern others as we discern trees. A bad tree bears bad fruit and a good one bears good fruit. Even so, THX, people can and do change.
Commenting does not reveal more than a sliver of who you are, who Intrepid is or anyone else. I join with Intrepid in wanting to challenge you, but I choose different methods. If Intrepid is a true Christian, likely no one would be more surprised and delighted than he when you discover the Truth that eludes you.
I do think of you. I do pray for you. Most likely because I discern you passionately want to know what is true. I think you might be afraid to hope because it can make the heart sick should it be prolonged or disappointed. But, THX, what do I know of you and your life? Not much.
Take care.
I’ve been away & focused on other matters. Just stopped by to wish everyone well.
I’ll stop by from time to time.
Hope things get better.
We’ve had our differences and many battles, but that is not important. I wish you the best. You are going through a profound change. God Bless you.
Sorry you are going through a rough time. I would say that God sometimes has to bring many of us into difficulties., trials and rough times to get us to look up to Him for the answers. Once we look up to Him above, He is willing and able to bring us through to a new life in Jesus Christ. In our fallen nature we prefer to live independently from our Creator, go our own way and do our own thing. God has to remind us that this is not the path of His blessing. May God show His wonderful mercies to you.
You are not the only one. There really is plenty of evidence that points to the reality of some sort of spiritual world. See a rather curious book, The Science Behind the Christ.
I had a similar experience when it comes to divine intervention. I was on my way to a fatal accident when I drove my car across train tracks. I saw the first train and had stopped for it; but I didn’t see the second train coming from the opposite direction – I should have been shredded – but for some reason God sparred me. He is not limited by the laws of physics – He picked up my car and moved it to a save location when by human time there was not enough time to drive the car away from the train. He turned off my brain while He was doing His handy work and then He turned my brain back on – finding myself still inside the car but safely on the other side of the tracks while the freight train was still roaring behind me. I use a screen name here, so I am not drawing attention to myself by posting this. I know for sure that God is real and that the Bible is His blueprint to man on how to live on earth until one is in His presence for eternity.
God created us knowing that He exists but the sinful nature of man will deny his existence. This is why God allows pain and suffering so that mankind will come to their senses and believe.
Danusha (part 2), the portal wouldn’t let me post the whole thing…
–In 1979 quit my job & hit the road to find out the secrets & the mysteries. Ended up on Tenerife on the Canary Islands. The active volcano El Teide (almost 14K) drew me up. In early December decided to cross the island S to N over the volcano on foot. Back then, no gondola, no restrictions. Did it in three days. At ~12K at night sat on a small platform in the lava under full moon by a small fire looking around the huge caldera. Seeing & feeling the power of creation was overwhelming. Looked up into the vast sky & simply asked, Are You really there? Didn’t know it then but the answer in the affirmative was a revelation. It came in three stages. 1. Divine Power. 2. Divine Knowledge. (Have always thought, if God exists, he has to be all powerful & all knowing & immortal). That didn’t convert me since I intellectually expected that. 3. Divine Love or the Pure Love of Christ. It created the Universe, us & all there is. It holds it all together. Without it, there be nothing but primordial chaos. This unexpected experience instantly converted me. I was protected by a cocoon of gentle energy to survive the direct contact w/ the Divine. Much later have I realized it was the Holy Spirit. No mortal can survive the immense Power of God in the flesh & live.
Have a blessed & inspired new year 2024 A.D.
to Robert of Prague
Want to hear about another near- death experience? Bryan Melvin’s soul went thru a vortex like you experienced, but this vortex went down instead of up – and landed Bryan’s soul into the pit of hell. God ordered the demons of hell to give Bryan a tour of hell – explained in his book “A Land Unkown: Hell’s Dominion”. Bryan saw that the first 1000 years of one’s life in hell is spent in a 10′ X 10′ prison cell where one is tormented by demons constantly. After the 1000 years are up, God has His White Throne Judgment where unsaved souls are removed from their cell, judged by Jesus, and then thrown into the lake of fire for eternity. God returned Bryan’s soul to his body and then told Bryan to warn others of this reality.
Thank you, Professor Goska- a most interesting, thoughtful and thorough review.
We have way too many Nit-Wits trying to force their Atheism on us with the ACLU/SPLC and the rest leading the way. Newdow and his self centered group and the Pledge of Aligence the Question Authority/Me Generation types of useful idiots
We have WAY too many nitwits who believe in imaginary, supernatural beings.
I find your lack of evidence disturbing.
Trust me, Everyone has a “god”, whether it be Secular Humanism, Science, “Evolution”, the “Self”, Lucifer, Madame Blavatsky, “Gaia”, filthy lucre, or a fifth of Old No. 7. Post your evidence that the REAL, TRUE God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob doesn’t exist.
One cannot explain the creation of man and our universe without the biblical account given to us in Genesis. The theory of evolution?? What bs. The second law of thermodynamics disproves this theory – case closed.
Apologies Mrs. or Miss. Goska, but I had to comment before I delved into your article, just from the title.
The evidence points to God. The universe He created originated from a singular point in space and time, and is expanding from there. We don’t yet understand why it’s accelerating, or the missing mass, but that’s only because we don’t yet understand all the physical laws governing it. Science has done far more to reinforce my religious beliefs, than discredit them.
Since adulthood, Ive not been able to understand why some have such a problem being able to clearly see that we have a creator.
The evidence is all around us, it starts first thing in the morning as the earth turns toward the sun. Its the first sign of the day that we have a creator that loves us.
“Strobel’s first answer to Is God Real? is “The Cosmos Requires a Creator.” ” Yes. Isn’t it the creation that tells us that we have a Creator? As the Bible puts it, simply and logically: “Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but the one who constructed all things is God..” – Hebrews 3:4
If we want to know who that Creator is, and what his purpose for us and the earth is, then we need to read the Inspired Scriptures, which have one consistent message, from Genesis to Revelation.
Another great and enticing review by Dr. Goska. Thank you FPM for proving her the necessary space for them.
I wished you could have Dr. Goska’s thoughtful,well researched articles spoken as a podcast/part of a podcast, so more people can enjoy them!
If you accept the idea that there was a “creation,” and if you also accept the idea that “something” cannot be created from “nothing,” it begs the question, “What “existed” before the creation?” It seems to me that it was the so-called “Singularity” from which the universe emanated. Substitute the word “God” for the Singularity… … …
Very good question. I’ve mused over the same for years, finally came to the conclusion that the only thing created from nothing is a thought. Wouldn’t it be interesting if our universe and our existence were nothing more than a passing thought in the mind of another being? What an intellect it would have to be!
Hello Jeff, and that is the question. I wondered about it for many years – putting my brain cells (both of them) under severe stress. Yet all the time the Inspired Scriptures – both Hebrew and Christian Greek – had the answer.
They describe our Creator, the God of Abraham, as “the King of Eternity”. God is uncreated – he never had a beginning, and he will never have an end.
Now, as a created being, please don’t ask me to explain that. It makes me dizzy to even try to understand how there could be anyone or anything without a beginning. But surely it is the only explanation for why there is anything at all?
As the Psalmist said: “Before the mountains were born, Or you brought forth the earth and the productive land, From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.,” – Psalm 90:2
From everlasting to everlasting – without beginning and without end. Doesn’t there have to be such a Creator for there to be a creation? How else is it possible?
Evvidence of a divine and powerful creator is all around us. People don’t want to admit that there is a higher power than man’s to be accountable to, thus the deception. As this earth passes away people will wish they acknowledged the Creator of this universe and were redeemed and saved.
One doesn’t need to accept the religion or the arguments of either Mr. Strobel or Ms. Goska to find this a fascinating article.
“Since adulthood, Ive not been able to understand why some have such a problem being able to clearly see that we have a creator.” I hope these scriptures help you to understand why people are resistant to see the obvious.
John 3:19, men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
1 John 5:19 the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.
Revelation 12:9. that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world;
Scripture is clear , man is universally evil, ( Romans 3: 10- 18.) But God is a compassionate, loving, gracious God.
John3:16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in
Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 14:6. Jesus said to him, “ I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Luke 18:13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying , God be merciful to me a sinner!”
If you don’t know Jesus Christ yet, cry out to Him likewise, He is your only hope !
All of us are living on borrowed time, tomorrow or even the next second, minute ,hour or day is not promised to us.
1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18. But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain util the coming of the Lord will by no means prececd those who are asleep.
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.
And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
And thus we shall always be with the Lord. “Therefore, comfort one another with these words.
There are so many people who are oblivious to the times we are living in.
Any ‘god’ capable of creating the Cosmos would not create or tolerate its imperfect creations like angels or humans. If there were imperfections in its design, it would have fixed them. If it exists and if it cared, it would ensure that its word was memorialized by all civilizations and beyond manipulation by humans.
Your lack of evidence is troubling.
“The rise of “nones,” that is people identifying as not a member of any religious belief system or congregation, is accompanied by a dramatic decay in mental health and an increase in suicidal thoughts, plans, and completed attempts. Atheism has not eliminated, and never will eliminate humanity’s yearning for God, described by seventeenth-century mathematician Blaise Pascal. There is a God-shaped hole in the human heart that God alone can fill.”
This is so true. I will attest to this. Life was far easier and more magnificent when I was a believer.
I wish with all my heart I had never even heard of or collided with Ayn Rand and her atheistic philosophy.
But I must say that when I was a believer my faith was not a doctrinaire, theological, strict kind of faith. My faith was a simple, unintellectual, innocent, unquestioning, complete, and completely taken for granted faith.
I believed there was a God, I believed in Jesus Christ, I believed in the Eternal Soul and Eternal Life. I rarely if ever went to Mass or Church because I simply believed that God was everywhere and He was with you at all times, and you didn’t need a church to pray, you could pray anywhere and God would hear you.
How I do wish I could have that kind of innocent, simple, and complete faith once again. Life was so much more beautiful and it was easier to endure the hardships with that simple faith.
I’ve had what I would call three uncanny, mystical, experiences in my life, and I hold unto the memory of those experiences DEARLY. One was an out of body experience where my energy body, what can be called a soul, merged with another soul-energy-body, and I telepathically received knowledge and information which came true a few years later. When our two souls merged, our two out of physical body consciousnesses merged, it was pure ECSTASY and JOY. My thought was this, “Oh wow! This is what it really means not to be alone! When we are in our physical bodies we are always necessarily alone and apart from others, but out of our bodies we can actually MERGE in consciousness and truly not be alone!”
THX,
I share with you a similar path, “colliding” with Ayn Rand in my early 20s and becoming a more-or-less fashionable atheist, attracted to her systematics. This contributed significantly to problems in marriage and family relationships and, I’d say, near disaster. All I can tell you is that reading the gospels was as powerful and actual an experience I’ve ever had, indeed a real encounter with a real person. I taught in college art departments for 44 years and my most memorable encounter with a student was with a very brilliant and talented disciple of Rand. He and I had many conversations and I was able to overcome his initial “pegging” of me as a betrayer, or “Robert Stadler” type. I was, at the time, a recovered Christian. I am not sure what opened his mind to Christ as it happened after he left the school, but he contacted me one Christmas, in a short letter. We were like brothers, though, even while on other sides of our discussions. What attracted to me with Rand was the worldview scope of her outlook. For a number of reasons it fails to deliver what it promises (as it did for her). Intellectually, I find the Biblical outlook much more coherent and satisfying to both mind and emotions. The most important issue, though, is not whether something “works,” but whether it is actually true. I am a believer (again) not because things always work or even make acceptable sense in every matter, bot overall I experience the gospel as having the ring of truth, short of absolute proof. But the element of faith is present in any meaning system, even Rand’s (although she or Dr. Peikoff would deny that, I’m sure). Best regards. R.T.
If God takes your soul out of your body, that’s divine intervention, which of course is ok because it’s God’s will.
If you try to have out of body experiences on your own, that’s witchcraft and demonic, which God forbids.
I find it funny when actress Shirley McClaine had her out of body experience while practicing witchcraft- because she confirmed Ecclesiastes 12:6 without knowing it. While her soul was out of her body, she could see a silver cord going from her soul back to her body below. The verse mentioned says “to remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed” – which I think means that at the time of your death, your silver cord, which can only be seen in the spiritual world, is cut by God – thus separating your soul from your body for eternity. Therefore, accept Jesus as your Savior before your silver cord is cut.
It wasn’t witchcraft, I wasn’t looking for the experience whatsoever. It simply happened. It has never happened again. I wish it would. It was simply so glorious an experience. It certainly would restore my faith if it happened now.
At the time I had never heard of the Near-Death Experience or out of body experience. At the time I was in no way interested in the mystical or the occult.
I simply know that it did happen, that the experience was pure ecstasy, pure joy, pure love. And that I was given some details that came true a few years later.
To this day I can’t explain it scientifically or in any secular way. But I’m not going to deny that the experience was intensely real and it did happen.
As usual you whine about me to others since don’t have and never did have the stones to take me on directly. As your useless life ebbs away you want us to feel sorry for you?
Maybe others will be suckered. There are many compassionate and misguided people.
I most certainly will not pray for you. Your “know it all” arrogance precludes that. But I may just dance a jig as you slip away.
Personally I thought the Greek/Aristotle translation thing was kind of clever. It’s good to know that it is so easy to rattle you.
If anyone needs to know what you are really like I will be glad to provide a few salient comments from you to them. (Yes I still have them, including the latest one.)
“Atheist Dies; Shocked by What She Saw on the Other Side (Powerful NDE)”
THX:
The Bible teaches that “ … all things work together for good to them that love God …” – – Romans 8:28
I, and many Christians like me are praying for you.
I am not being patronizing when I suggest you read “Is God Real?”
The “faith” you carried in your youth is not what the God of the Bible is asking of us as rational adults.
True Christian faith amounts to:
Confidence or Trust in God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and His Word, based solely on evidence presented to us down through history.
You were once persuaded by Ayn Rand’s teachings; why not give Lee Strpbel’s facts and reasoning a chance to speak to you?
In closing please meditate on one indispensable fact:
Because the universe had a beginning, there is a reality beyond it.
“If God is Real, Then Why Is There Suffering?” Ah, this is where the rubber hits the road. I wish I had a dime for every time someone asked that question/accusation. It really cuts to the heart of questions about existence. It presupposes that the questioner has a better idea of what God should have done. If we were playing poker, I’d call that a pretty weak hand.
So, I am a believer, and a Catholic. In a lot of circles, that makes me a two time loser. I wasn’t always Catholic. I used to be an Episcopalian, one end of a little sub-continuum, with Catholic being the other. In the middle I met myself at a crossroads that place that some of us end up after half a life wandering and struggle. My own conversion was what William James would have described as a gradual conversion:
“It may come gradually, or it may occur abruptly; it may come through altered feelings, or through altered powers of action; or it may come through new intellectual insights, or through experiences which we shall later have to designate as ‘mystical.’” Lecture VIII, Varieties of Religious Experiences, William James.
I have had throughout my life what some may call ‘mystical experiences.’ And I have known people who have had abrupt, blinding white light experiences that have transformed them outright, but that is not my own personal experience. But the crossroads are patient, and they invite all.
What I think is important is the question, “Is God Real?” This is the question that has been with me my whole life. It is the root of my drive, inquisitiveness and creativity. The question leads me through life. It causes me to look into that void that H Richard Niebuhr speaks of in Essay Three part 2 in Radical Monotheism and Western Culture. Thank you for this wonderful essay, and book tip.
I made confession to a priest for the first time in many years, Fr. J. M. He was holy, simple, kind, cheerful. When he said Mass, he held up the Host in the Elevation for a long time, transfixed. I could see the love passing between him and God. I made confession in his office, nothing dramatic, it was calm and pleasant. I was already thinking about what I needed to do when I got home. Nothing mystic or profound. He gave me absolution. At that second I felt something enter me through my head and pass down through my body. I was amazed, and just experienced it. It was like a cool breeze. I didn’t feel love or any other emotion, just that it was absolutely clean, and other. I knew it was God. When it was over, I didn’t say anything. In the car driving home, the name Holy Spirit came to me, but I thought that that would be tongues of fire. At home I googled it, and found that the Holy Spirit often comes as a cool breeze, and that the Hebrew word ruach means both wind and spirit.
I don’t know why He came to me. I have always believed in God and loved Him. But now I know that He is there and waits for us to seek Him.
I hope this enough on topic, for everybody. Lately I’ve been listening the Charles Spurgeon’s sermons on YouTube. I think Spurgeon was Britain’s greatest orator. One sermon was written during the Chinese flue outbreak of the 1860’s. The topic was mortality.
Interesting, as usual. One of the issues that interested me is how does a theist decide on a religion. There are many. Most importantly they advise their believers to do different things. In a sense with faith, a belief in anything is possible. You might became a pacifist or a jihadi.
Most Christians that I know will say look at the fruits of Islam and you will see that it is evil. But to judge which religion is good or evil, you have to have standards of good before picking a religion. Merely believing, i.e. faith, can result in a horrible choice.
Now the big question: if you have standards of good & evil prior to picking a religion, do you still need a religion?
You’re a fool. A blind leader of the blind. Religion is not the issue. Payment for sin is.
I am a big fan of Front Page Magazine. David Horowitz is a hero and role model for me even though he himself is not a man of faith, Christian, Jewish, or any other. This book review is substantive and helpful to readers who may want to expose themselves to religious faith, specifically the claims of Christianity. Many thanks for not wanting to close the minds of readers, no matter their current faith.
“Is God real”. When I was in prison in Moberly Missouri at age 20 I became aware of just how screwed up I was. I was a habitual criminal that could not stop committing crimes. Not “would not”, but could not.
I had never prayed but at that point I told God “I didn’t ask to be born, and I didn’t ask to be the way I am, you created me this way”. And when I said it, it was not in a respectful tone. In that prayer I also told God that I am not going to believe the Bible and I am not going to believe what any man tells me. If Jesus Christ is who people says he is then you’re going to have to prove it so me personally.
Soon Jesus came to me, in a vision I heard him speak to me in a non-human, non-English voice that sounded like a trumpet. In the vision I was in a pit. He reached down his had to me and said in that trumpet voice “Come up here”. That was the end of the vision. After that I had no bondage to being a criminal, no drugs, no cigarettes, no alcohol, nothing bad. Other subsequent visions and smaller miracles occurred. That was January of 1981.
You tell me – “Is God real”. You can find out by doing what I did as written above.
The thing is this world, in this dispensation is a sort of “Game of Thrones” and God is the episode writer. We don’t know what each episode is going to contain but we do know, just as we know how Game of Thrones ended, how the game ends.
God Intends for us Christians to suffer persecution, physical harm, and to even be murdered JUST LIKE JESUS WAS. If you do not believe that then there is a very rude awakening coming for you.
That is the part I struggle with. I am not on board with the “suffering with Christ” parr. I never asked for that and I do not want it, no matter what is promised as my reward. I just do not want to do it. It’s a real problem for me.
The Scriptures:
Philippians 1:29 – “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me”.
John 15:20-22 – “Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep your’s also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me”.
Matthew 10:19-22 – “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. 20For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. 21And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. 22And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved”.
Is God Real? Romans 1:20 (NLT) answers:
“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God”.
If you have life and you look around at creation and you conclude that all this wonderful stuff wasn’t created by a higher intelligence then you have no excuse for being ignorant, and no excuse for being period.
People who reject God do so when they notice the men that seems to speak for God, the Popes, Imans, Rabbis, Priests, etc as they espouse the notion that God speaks to them over their morning Coffee and they just have to tell us what he said.
God is a voice you have created within your own mind and now you are asking this voice for guidance… is that not the definition of insanity ?.
I believe there is most certainly a sense of divine with Life, as the Chinese call it Qi, the Indian Hindus call it Phrana, a Life Force within all living things.
Not a God outside myself but a pure light within me that guides me through this life.
Those who fear death are living their life in fear.
As a person who was picked up by this un named Life Force many years ago as I was trapped in the world of drugs and alcohol and that showed the power of such Life Force.
What you believe in your mind is as true as watching the Sun rise or set.
Some years ago I met an Englishman who told me those Christians that believe 100% for sure of a God are just Christian fundamentalists so I asked him if he was 100% sure there was no God and if so then that makes him a fundamentalist atheist and he freaked out, started screaming at me as I sat there smiling at him.
I start with nobody really knows what time it is, I inhale, I exhale, after that everything is speculation.
As the Zen Master says… Walk gently but carry a big stick….
Life is not a dress rehearsal
I can begin at the end, but why bother? Let’s begin at the beginning …
The Established Religion of the West is Leftism aka Communism aka Nastism aka whatever you want to call it …
… and since the Progressives failed to exterminate a certain group of people …
… the wicked villains of all villainy have been straight white males … or to be more precise – poor white trash or the equivalent in whatever anglo-american banana republic you happen to live in …
(and yes, we are all sorry – but not surprised – that the ‘world’ has begun to revert to form since 10/7/23) …
So … all that place setting to say this …
Atheism is communism. It is Nazism. It is, in fact, responsible for all of the crimes, death, and destruction of the 20th Century … that cannot be blamed on Islam. It’s a religion, and I’ve often pointed out … it is not the same as “unbelief” or “skepticism.”
Atheism is a bundle of beliefs that are largely – if not completely – false.
Just one of these beliefs … always present, but ever-changing … is the obligatory and ubiquitous hatred of a target group of people for some stupid reason pulled from the Useful Idiot’s caboose.
Jews, blacks, Catholics, non-Catholics of various kinds – including Orthodox Christians and Protestants and Mormons have all felt the wrath of the Atheists in charge in the West over the last 200 years or so … some more, some less …
… but “Whitey” became the Monsters De Jour … at just about the time for little ol’ me to run into the buzz saw …
I’ve run into many people who don’t like this assessment. But there is no way around it.
Judaism and Christianity do not have an imperative to hate others for no fricking reason.
Islam does. Progressivism does. Communism does. Nazism does. …
And so does Atheism. Because they’re all the same religion.
If you’re an Atheist – get over it.
The first step is to just use the term ‘agnostic’ … and leave the Atheist plantation.
As for the rest … G-d and Satan will take care of the rest of your walk.
I do not disagree with the non-materialist concept. But I find Christianity has some difficult problems. One is the belief that everyone can know that its postulates are true regardless of when or where they were born. Supposedly this is because God has placed a type of knowing conscience deep within each person that if they seek it it will reveal this truth. But then we’d expect the majority of persons doing such seeking, while living in Moslem or Buddhist dominant countries, for example, to all become Christians. But we don’t see that. People primarily adhere to the dominant religion of their culture. Second,, Christians need to clarify if Christians, when they die, wait in the grave for the resurrection or travel in a spirit body to heaven. It seems that the original belief is that they would wait in the grave. We see this also in the various saints coming out of their graves to walk the earth again at the death of Jesus. Walking even through the city of Jerusalem. One would think that this miracle would have been recorded by somebody at the time. And then what, did they all walk back to their graves and cover themselves with dirt again to wait for the ressurection? Then at other times they are shown in spirit bodies talking with Jesus. Third, if Jesus and the saints go bodily into heaven. then do they still have earth bacteria in their guts? And if not then how do their physical bodies in heaven get all. the material nutrients their bodies need? Fourth, bible clearly says there were conspiracies taking place then, like those of the priests who said that the followers of Jesus were or could conspire to fake the death of Jesus. Could one or two of his followers have committed such a conspiracy and then convinced the others of something that didn’t actually happen? This should at least be examined honestly. Fifth, I don’t see it as necessary for his followers to believe that he was resurrected before they would travel and share his story. The desire to go to heaven itself by following his desires might have been enough motivation for them to spread his message.
1 Corinthians 15:12 – holds that if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then our faith in Him and in what He preached is in vain.
This is because His death on the cross and subsequent resurrection served to validate that everything He ever said was true.
That is the basis for all of Christian doctrine and belief.
You’re wrong. Men reject God from birth. The natural man cannot receive the things of God for they are spiritual things. Man is born as a sinner and is at enmity with God. Why? Becuase of the sin of Adam which corrupted human nature. All men inherit corrupt human nature from their father and from Adam.