Who I am, What I was, Why I Changed

From Unbelief to Faith

I am a person who holds to the faith introduced by Jesus to the world in the early part of the first century. I am commonly known as a Christian and pejoratively by some, a Southern Baptist. For the most part of my life I would have laughed if someone told me that I would become a Christian. The reason is, I always viewed the truth about the universe as within our grasp, able to be gained through reason and observation even if it was not already known. I was interested in scientific answers and considered faith to be a rush to judgement about poorly understood questions. What is this life, and why are we here? I saw Christians who were so sure of their beliefs crumble at the first sign of serious questioning of their faith. They would say that you just have to have faith. Faith? I considered that to be an unverifiable leap from what is actually known, namely information discovered through empirical means. My early experiences biased me against Christians and I openly viewed them as anti-intellectual. Later in life I learned otherwise. Anyone who knows a serious minded Christian will hopefully recognize that Christians do not diverge from unbelieving folks in terms of intelligence but in terms of pressuppositions. The starting point of your belief system is the most critical point. The events in my life that led me to faith challenged my most basic assumptions.

Science Did Not Answer My Metaphysical Questions

I have a vague memory from when I was about 5 years old where I said a simple prayer, "God, I'm not sure if you are there, but I can't believe now, because there are too many things I need to know before I can decide." I wanted to be sincere to this when I was a kid because I thought if I try hard God will understand if I don't believe just in case He's there. I followed a path of questioning the things around me, searching for some order or reason for all the things we see. I realized that science had answered so many questions that had been mysterious for centuries. In high school I took Chemistry, Biology, Physics, and Math seeking some answer in these things. I learned many details of the How of this life, how molecules bond, how plants photosynthesize, how gravity exerts influence through space, but always lurking was the big question: WHY? Whenever Christians offered me their answer I would question them about how their beliefs can be consistent with evolution or I would challenge them that faith without evidence is irrational. I loved to argue about these things but rarely did any answers emerge that satisfied me. I considered myself tough enough to face life even without answers to these basic questions. I would rather be honest with myself then believe in a fairy tale to make myself feel better.

In college I took a philosophy class and got some lingo to throw around at cocktail parties. I decided I was an empiricist agnostic. I absorded the popular assumption of Naturalism (i.e. the universe is material, there is no Super-Natural). As a naturalist I dismissed supernatural explanations a priori because histroy had shown that science will eventually produce a natural explanation (so it seemed). Given this flawed assumption, I began reading quantum physics books hoping that the fabric of reality would yield a glimpse of the truth. I am no expert mind you, but I am an Engineer and can understand some math, graphs, etc. I thought if I could nail down what the universe IS then I could begin to answer how it got here. Sure the Big Bang is a theory of how the stuff got here but how did the forces that caused the Big Bang come into existence? And what is this stuff? One thing really stuck out to me, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. When a subatomic particle is being observed in a physics lab, it's properties can only be known with a limited accuracy. This is because any measurement disturbs the system and changes the location, speed, or rotation of the particle. Since we can't see these things all we can know is what we measure. Since our measurements come with automatic error there is a limit to how much we can know. At this point I realized that science just might not be able to answer every question. However, I wasn't ready for a religious answer yet.

Living La Vida Loca, er I mean Estupida

As a college student with independence I set aside all these ponderings that kept me busy and frustrated to seek more 'uplifting things'. I think the uncertainty really started to get to me because I was feeling depressed and unmotivated with life. I mean what is the point? If there is no answer or it can't be known then life has no meaning. My transcript is a clear record of this period in my life. I began hanging out in bars, pool halls, etc. with my friends, drinking to forget about the meaninglessness of it all. At the bottom of this period I became a regular user of marijuana. It was quite odd to me that on occasion when I was under the influence that my thoughts would return to these questions I always had. There was almost a spiritual sense about the experience that made me wonder about whether I was a strictly material being or if there was an immaterial part such as a soul. Sober, I pushed that aside chalking it up to the intoxicants. I remember one late night laying in bed long after I had come down from getting high that evening that my mind turned toward God. I was depressed and feeling hopeless when I had this indescribable sense of the presence of God. I was amazed since I thought it was impossible. Though I was a naturalist I could not deny that something big and powerful outside myself, had made itself known to me. At that time I thought a half prayer that if God was there I want Him to help me believe. I still thought it may have a natural explanation so I didn't go get a Bible or run to a Church. It happened and then the memory began to fade.

Some time after this experience I was partying with some friends and we decided to take something harder than marijuana. I took a hallucinagenic drug and settled in to see what would happen. At first the effects were mild and I was somewhat enjoying it. But after it hit my brain full force I was very disturbed by the effects. I had a sickening feeling that I was about to die. Under this strong delusion I recalled that experience some weeks before where I felt some Power was revealing itself to me. My first thought was "But God, I didn't know...." Before I finished the thought I realized I wasn't serious. I always had a suspicion that God was real. I tried to follow the 10 commandments 'just in case' but eventually started living my own way for me and not God. I was flooded with thoughts of my life where I had wronged people, lied, stolen, or blasphemed. I considered myself good but faced with this list I knew I could not stand before God. Well, it happened, I died. So it seemed. Immediately after my heart stopped I was facing the judgement of God right there in my friend's apartment living room. I felt myself as a spiritual being detached from my normal existence but still clearly myself. God was speaking to me through a person on the television telling me that I was guilty. I did not argue. I continued to sit in that living room thinking I was in hell and that the overwhelming feelings of guilt and condemnation would stay with me forever. At some point I fell asleep after what seemed like hours.
The next day I was shaken and not sure I was alive or dead. I wasn't ready to believe yet because I thought this could still have a natural explanation. I processed this experience for about a week. The pressure to know if it was real was tangible. I mean if Hell is real then I knew for sure I was going there. That was clearly the point of the vision if it was even from God. I couldn't shake that it seemed so real and one night I said a prayer like this, "God I know you are there and that you will send me to Hell. If there is any way that you can forgive me..." My mind was flooded with the reassuring presence I felt so many weeks before lying in bed. The thought of Jesus stood out to me and I felt a sense of cleansing and renewing over my whole body. I knew something had just happened to me and I grabbed my dusty bible given to me years before and began to learn about this God who had just saved me from Hell.

Who I Am

Reflecting back to that time I have decided that I can't say with certainty whether God caused me to have that vision directly or if it was merely the drug. The point of it all was that I discovered that throughout my life I had some knowledge of God but that I suppressed it. I lived as if there might be a God but I wanted sins that I knew I could not have if I believed in God. So I developed my elaborate excuse and used science to avoid having to deal with the Christian message. However it works out, I know God was behind it all and He is able to use any means to bring a person to recognize their sins and trust in Jesus Christ.

Now I trust Jesus as Lord, believing with historically orthodox Christians that Jesus is the Son of God, who took on a human nature to die for sins and declare the good news to this world. I believe as the Bible teaches that on the cross he suffered and died for my personal sins even though I was His enemy and a blasphemer of Him. I believe as John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." I believe He was resurrected which is historically verifiable. I worship the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who are 1 God manifested as 3 eternally distinct persons. I still love to argue, only now I make the case for Jesus instead of against Him.

I strive to be holy and I confess my sins to God. I hope for perfection after Jesus resurrects me to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. After my experience and the subsequent study of the Bible I can't not believe. I believe that the Bible is demonstrably divine in origin, though the Spirit of God must be working to convince someone it is true. Jesus commanded that His disciples make disciples of every nation and I seek to engage others with Jesus' teaching through whatever opportunities come to me.