Does it require a Creator to decree how the universe began? Or is the initial state of the universe determined by a law of science (alone)? Are human beings spiritual creatures, or can the laws of science explain the void that we feel without God.
I grew up in a Christian family, going to church on Sundays, and generally around religious people my whole life. I wanted to believe in God, but I just couldn’t let myself get past some of the questions that it seems some Christians can’t answer.
I remember as teen cringing to myself when someone would give “I felt the Holy Spirit” as a reason for having faith in God and in the Bible. I thought, “That’s a stupid reason for having faith in something.”
Still, I didn’t want to deny God. I knew enough about the Bible to know that it might be very bad news for me to do so “maybe”. That’s how I used to believe. Just in case God was real, I wanted to be a Christian.
I called myself a Christian, although I had never felt the Holy Spirit personally. My life up to this point has been a miserable mess of bad decisions that were nobody’s fault but my own, but I started to blame God. I started to really question my faith, about two years ago. Mostly, because I was watching a lot of biased shows on television about our Creation.
I learned some things about the universe and about our little planet that would seem to go against some of the stuff that I was taught to believe by other Christians. This is what made me question my faith. I thought that the Bible and science conflicted. The Earth seems to be much older than 10,000 years old (the Bible gives no age to Earth or our Universe, BTW). The universe itself must be even older.
The more I started to learn about the universe, the more I questioned my faith. However, I could still rationalize what little faith I had left, by saying, “Even if we started from a Big Bang, where did the matter and energy come from to cause the bang?” I mean matter can create energy and vise versa, but even if only one of the two (matter or energy) had existed before the Big Bang, who created that?
Many people at this point will say simply, “Nobody HAD to create us”. That’s one point of view. It was my own for most of my adult life. I never actually ruled God out, though. It was more illogical to me to believe that none of this was planned, than it was for me to believe that we are what God designed us to be (no matter how long it took us to get here).
I was on another website recently, defending the faith that I didn’t really have yet (sounds funny to me now, but all part of a plan). Some less than open-minded people were bashing Christians left and right. It seems that everyone thinks that you must be stupid to believe in God.
I stepped in (as did many others) and explained to them that I didn’t believe that the Earth was 10,000 years old; I didn’t believe in dragons; I’ve never tried to leave science out of my beliefs; and I didn’t think that dinosaurs were put on Earth to “test our faith” or that they aren’t alive today because they wouldn’t fit on Noah’s ark.
Believing in a certain particular way that the Earth was made and how exactly we got to where we are now is not what makes a Christian – the belief in God and the Divine purpose of Jesus Christ’s life is. The Bible doesn’t go into great detail about how the Earth was actually made. God wants us to figure out His mysteries for ourselves, although some of His mysteries (the Bible says) will never be explained by science.
In the process of putting down my own personal beliefs as text, I began to consider my faith in God more seriously. You have to understand that I had not been to church in about 8 years or so. It’s been even longer than that since I have gone to church with any regularity. At the time, I hadn’t even read the Bible in almost 10 years.
The church and the Bible aren’t what showed me true faith in God. God presented himself to me through science. Some of the smartest people in the world believe in God, because the more they discover about our universe, the more it seems unlikely that all of this started without a Divine plan (This site will go into more detail about that in future).
After I actually searched for the knowledge myself, I could not deny God’s evidence throughout our own planet Earth and the rest of the Universe. When you are searching for the truth about life, you are being guided to a decision – whether you believe that now or not. If you are not seeking God’s true answers when you are searching, you are being led by something other than God.
My searching led me to believe that God positively cannot be ruled out as the explanation for why we are here. He was not done fighting for me, though. I believed in God a little more than I had in the past, but I was starting to question the Bible. I didn’t want to make up my own opinions about the Bible until I had read it myself, so I started really reading it for the first time.
It turns out that my interpretations of the Bible are slightly different than others that I have heard in the past, but the Bible is not even close to being contradictory, like some people say it is. You really don’t know until you’ve read it for yourself. I’ve heard non-Believers say, “the Devil is in the details” when it comes to the Bible.
If they only knew the irony of what they are saying. The Devil is actually in placing so much importance on details in which they do not understand. To do so is to grossly misinterpreting the purpose of the Bible.
I realized that the Bible is meant to be a guide for us, and to explain the life and Divine purpose of Jesus Christ. Another person’s view (especially a non-believers view) of the Bible should have an effect on your own. The Bible is the living word, and each individual gets the meaning that God wants them to out get of it (provided that you are seeking Him with an open heart).
The Bible doesn’t conflict with science, but the Bible is not about science… it’s about faith. Life is about our individual journeys and personal growth; but more importantly, life is about who we chose to grow with. The Bible says that since we now know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil… we must all make a choice.
I didn’t even realize that I was making a choice (thought I was a Christian), but God works in mysterious ways. I used logic and reasoning to arrive at my decision about God and Christ, but I didn’t know if it was FACT until I felt the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit, God has given me happiness, peace, clarity, understanding, and great faith in Him.
Being a Christian doesn’t require that you shun science in any way. You don’t have to be like any other Christian that you have ever seen or met to accept God. Read the Bible. Let God show you what to believe about Him.
If you accept God and you accept Jesus Christ, then you will feel the Holy Spirit. You will know without a shadow of a doubt what your purpose is, and you will have peace and understanding, clarity and true happiness.
God showed me the truth, and I finally believe in Him as FACT. If you ask me how I know God is real, I will tell you it is because I have felt the Holy Spirit. You (just like I did) will probably cringe or say, “that’s a stupid reason to believe in God… that’s not good enough”.
My challenge to you, however, is to seek God with a truly open mind and heart. Stop assuming that the Bible and science conflict, and read it for yourself. If you do, you will be surprised at what God shows you.
Science does not have the cure for what ails us. God has a perfect plan for your life. It is your own free will that will determine if you ever realize His purpose for you. Doubt does not come from God, but is used to keep us from God. Remove doubt, and truly seek God. He WILL speak to you, if you are ready to hear Him.
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