by Scott Basham, BibleSteak Contributor

 

Do you believe in God? Or have you rejected the notion that God is real? Your view of the world is uniquely yours, molded by teachings and events tossed your way throughout your life. Across the world, there are vastly different circumstances, producing vastly different perspectives on life.

 

Each worldview defines a reality. There is one view of reality that says after you die, you completely cease to exist as a person (not including what you've left as memories or accomplishments). There is a different view of reality that says you can think and feel after you die. Both cannot be right. Reality must exist in only a single state. Other dichotomies can also be compared, knowing that only one is truth - God is or is not real as a separate thinking being; God does or does not define right and wrong; all things exist as a result of God's creation and influence or totally as an accident.

 

So the question becomes - which reality is correct? Fundamentally the basis for examination of worldviews, I believe, must start with the question about God. Does God exist as a separate thinking being who is the guide of the Universe, or does God not exist, and everything is totally an accident, bringing us to the place we are at now by chance. There actually are other shades of reality, like viewing God as a non-thinking force that guides events, but that places God as nothing more than a natural force, and in effect provides guidance to events in the same way gravity does.

 

Generally, people are lazy. I know I am. I would brazenly say that most of you are, too. If you absolutely are convinced that there is no God, that we are nothing more than an unusual combination of materials, you can be lazy, for it does not matter. But I believe there are very few people in this state, because I believe God has placed in every person the curiosity to find out who He is. I believe the only ones who are totally convinced there is no God must have suppressed His touch on their conscience of His existence.

 

Regardless, back to laziness. If you are one of those people who still has some curiosity about God, some openness to His existence, some feeling that there is more to life than leaving us no different than a pile of rocks, I expect you are lazy.

 

Think about it. If there is a God, or some extra-worldly existence, that would imply that we mean something, and have a purpose. So that begs the questions of what is real, why do we exist, and what are we to do about it?

 

We are lazy, because if God is real, those questions must be answered! If you are not sure who God is, is there anything else in life that is a more important question? If you are convinced who God is, is there anything else in life more important than knowing why you exist? If you know that, then is there anything else more important than knowing what you are to do about it? And then naturally, if you generally know what God would have you to do, is there anything more important in life than doing it? Alas, in many levels, amazingly, we don't pursue these answers with everything in our being, knowing that nothing else in life compares.

 

Think about it. What a waste not knowing who God is. If you do, what a waste not knowing why God created you and what He has for you to do. If you do, what a waste not doing it.

 

I wish you to be a bit less lazy. I cannot convince you of God's existence - I cannot lay out the evidences before you to mold your worldview to see reality as I see it. I cannot tell you why you are here, and what you are to do. These are only things that you can discover yourself. How? By looking at the evidences, by looking at the facts, by chewing over these ideas in your mind. But again, we have our laziness. Here we have the most fundamental and important questions that we can ever ask in our life, yet we don't pursue the answers.

 

Tell me your view of reality. Tell me your worldview. Are you satisfied that the answers you have within yourself are complete? Maybe you say "I'm okay, and you're okay", but... is that okay?

 

Allow me to help you create a quest that may only marginally exist in you. Allow me to start you on this journey. How? By giving you some of the reasons why I have settled on a particular worldview, my view of reality. There are evidences and arguments that cumulatively are overwhelming to me, and have given foundation to my worldview. Allow me to present these to you, for your consideration, in your quest.

 

Please note that any reasons I present are certainly not comprehensive nor complete, but at least these are included here to be the start of a reasonable list. My hope is that this may be a list that, if nothing else, motivates you to reshape your worldview; and if something more, that it stirs in you a new vista of, what I believe is, truth.

 

First, a discussion of faith. So much of life depends on faith. Here are a few examples of things that require faith. Tell me, where were you born, who helped raise you as an infant, what is the speed of light, who was the first man on the moon, who wrote Macbeth, will the earth continue in its current spin and solar revolution, and will that chair you sit in hold you without collapsing?

 

Okay, so our faith is based on evidence. What is the evidence that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth? What is evidence that the chair you are sitting in will continue to hold you? We are constantly collecting evidences that gives us secure faith in many things, yet faith in certain things evades us, due to lack of evidence. Generally, the more evidences, and the higher the quality of the evidences, the more secure the faith. Also, the more secure the source of the evidence, and the more you trust the source, then the more secure the faith. For example, if you trust your parents, then you need little more evidence of where you were born than their word.

 

The greater the value that the object of the faith has, the more important the evidences must be. I don't need a lot of evidence to believe Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, but that does not have a lot of value to me. I do need a lot of evidence for the existence of God and who He is, because there can be nothing else of more value to me.

 

Therein lies the problem. What, generally, are the reasons why most people believe what they believe? Because people they trust told them what to believe. As a person is raised, they were given evidences by their parents, teachers, and faith leaders. They were also given evidences by television, books, and advertisements. Why does someone convert (i.e. lose or gain faith)? The evidences they held close, maybe nothing more than the words of parents, no longer have the same weight they used to have, so other evidences are collected, evaluated, and new conclusions are drawn.

 

Alas, the reasons to believe in God, to accept the Bible's view of reality, and to follow God in obedience, are vague and rarely heard, and often do not withstand the constant bombardment of detractions from faith in God. Well, the lack is not in the evidences, for they are vast - the lack is in the presentation of the evidences. And thus, the need to present to you the evidences of why I believe. No evidences can ever be complete enough to produce widespread conversions, as we read Jesus saying in Luke 16 - people will not believe even if they see a person raised from the dead.

 

I cannot raise a person from the dead. All I can do is lay out the evidences. And these reasons I have listed are only the tip of the iceberg. I don't expect to convert you, but may the things that I have listed be a catalyst to begin your quest, to answer for yourself, what is truth.

 

One thing I do ask. I'm sure over the centuries thousands have avoided Christianity due solely for the implications and the consequences of belief, especially the fact that they would have to pay attention what God wants and how to live. Oh, may that not be your reason. This is not a quest for what we want to believe, but a quest for truth.

 

So, let's get started. Here is why I believe in God and the Bible, and as a result have trusted in God with my life. Many points only scratch the surface, but they are listed to give provocations on areas to research. The value of each point may be debated, but each point has substance, and as a collection has given me the secure footing that my belief rests upon.

1. There is a consistent and cohesive theme throughout the Bible, even though it was written by 40 different authors in 3 languages over 1400 hundred years, on 3 continents.


2. The Dead Sea Scrolls have proven that a significant part of the Old Testament (including the book of Isaiah), containing many prophesies, must have been produced long before the time of Jesus. This shows that many New Testaments events were predicted long before they were fulfilled in the New Testament times, and the odds are overwhelming against that being by chance.


3. The entire history of mankind revolves around the life of a simple carpenter, who must have been much more than that.


4. I do not evaluate the truth of the Bible (or any religion) based on the behavior of its followers, for I would find it lacking.


5. I believe that God would provide us a means to get to know Him, and that God would take care of it. I believe we have that in the life of Jesus and the words of the Bible. I don't believe He would leave it to men. I believe He made sure it was written and put together to reveal Him and His truth.


6. If you see a skyscraper, you must conclude that it was created by intelligent design, not by chance. If you see a book, you must conclude that it was created by intelligent design, not by randomness. I see in nature the remarkable evidence of intelligent design.
   
   
   
   1. If you do not believe in God, then humans are created by chance, and therefore every building and book ever created were totally by chance.
   
   
   2. The complexity of the eye must have been designed.
   
   
   3. The fact that your ear hears, and only hears the limited range it does so as not to create a cacophony, is evidence of design.
   
   
   4. The food processing systems of plants and animals are astounding. The way oxygen gets into our blood, the way nutrients are used to build cells, that it comes from food, that we dispose of waste, and that our body is able to maintain a balance of all that to sustain life, is beyond comprehension that this could have come together by chance. Plus, compare the different processing of nutrients for life in the air and in the ocean.
   
   
   5. See the balance of the earth in its orbit around the sun, especially that the earth maintains such a perfect temperature for life during its entire loop around the sun.
   
   
   6. There is air at a perfect density for breathing and support of clouds and birds.
   
   
   7. Mathematics is so elegant. We think nothing of how nicely numbers work, but that is by design. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."
   
   
   8. The elements of nature fit so well into the periodic table of the elements. The fact that all of matter breaks down into the elements, and yet God designed it so the physical characteristics of the elements were discoverable and useful to us.
   
   
   9. The forces of nature, like gravity. Gravity is a force on 2 bodies that have no apparent signal travelling between them. And gravity works so well to keep us on the earth but not too much so that we cannot function.
   
   
   10. The balance of nature - how all the animals and plants coexist in a way that maintains equilibrium. The cycle of life in every animal and plant fits so well in the balance of nature. I see intelligent design to make this happen, not chance.
   
   
   11. Emotions are a view into the nature of God. Love and hatred are real, and more than a chemical reaction.
   
   
   12. Sin has consequences by design from God, not by accident. There is a right and a wrong, and while we may disagree on exactly what that is, everyone agrees it exists. Right and wrong becomes absolutely meaningless without God, for we are but the same as rocks.
   
   
   13. Entropy and rust. Left to themselves, things decay - they do not come together to form much better products. How could the things we see around us exist if everything tends to decay, unless there was a designer molding it and pushing it?
   
   
   14. The existence of sexes. God designed that from the beginning, else how did sexual procreation begin?
   
   
   15. God designed sex to be enjoyable to encourage population growth. The delights of sex are by design, not a product of chance.
   
   
   16. Mammals producing milk to feed their young, and only in the females - this could not have come from survival of the fittest, as evolution teaches.
   
   
   17. The properties of water that are so unique (e.g. ice floats, it's a universal solvent, it is chemically neutral, and is required to sustain our environment and life). I see that water was created for these purposes, and therefore ubiquitous.
   
   
   18. The brains and nervous systems in animals that have so many functions that are complex and work well together, like the ability to think and detect pain.
   
   
   19. The structure of cells, including DNA, holding the instructions of life in such a complex structure.
   
   
   20. Obviously, there are numerous other examples of intelligent design in our world, which I find mind boggling. There is no way, to me, this could have come together by the forces of nature over time - it was designed to be the way it is!
   
   
   
   
7. The existence of the theology of hell shows that religion is not just man-made for a feel good experience.


8. The presence of a conscience in each person, an innate acceptance that there is a right and a wrong and that wrong should be avoided. This is not an accident - this was placed in us.


9. The start of the universe requires faith, no matter how it started. I find that believing in God who created it more palatable than the big bang starting from literally nothing, which also had no catalyst to get it started. It is either in the beginning was nothing, or was God.


10. Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. Everyone fails or lets people down over time. No one could have people live with them for 3 years and still be so convinced as to their perfection, enough to give their lives - and all the apostles did. (Note that Judas never denied who Jesus was.)


11. The New Testament was written while many people were still alive who spent time with Jesus. The New Testament makes many extreme claims about the life of Jesus. If these were not true, they could have easily been shown to be false, but there seemed to be no effort for this.


12. I believe that miracles were actually miracles, not explainable by science, because God's work was by His hand, like the parting of the Red Sea, Jonah living in the whale, and the raising of the dead. If He was the creator of the Universe, He certainly can make minor interventions. These do not need to be explained, because they cannot. I don't feel any need to determine how miracles happen.


13. Scientists who do not believe in God rarely examine the evidences for God. They mock and debunk Christianity without any real evaluation of the facts, with an open mind. Two examples of atheists who did, and found the evidences so overwhelming that they converted, are Lee Strobel, former science editor for the Chicago Tribune, and Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project.


14. I believe God created the earth less than 10,000 years ago, and that there was a flood, as the Bible states. This is not critical for belief in God, but I believe is what the Bible teaches. There are many evidences, but here are a few.
    
    
    
    1. The amount of dust on the surface of the moon shows it was only collected for thousands, not millions, or years.
    
    
    2. The charted growth of the human race tracks back to a recent beginning.
    
    
    3. The charted decrease in the earth's magnetism tracks back to a recent beginning.
    
    
    4. Fossils of ocean-dwelling fish have been found in large quantities on the tops of mountains - they were left there by the flood.
    
    
    5. There is fossilized evidence of the co-existence of dinosaurs and humans.
    
    
    6. Celestial objects are spinning in different directions. With the conservation of circular momentum, when the universe was created, they should all be spinning in the same direction. They do not - even the planets spin in different directions.
    
    
    
    
15. The Piltdown Man hoax showed how flawed scientific conclusions can be of the small supposed evidences for evolution.


16. There is no evidence that species can evolve into other species. If it were true there would be an overwhelming amount of evidence, not small pieces that are forced to fit the evolution mold. You would see it in recent history (the past 4000 years), and, you would see examples of it happening again, considering how many species have been identified - over 1.5 million.


17. I have seen that the Bible works. Its laws are very much like the laws of nature. When they are followed, the results are desirable.


18. I have seen direct answers to prayer. Some might argue it is coincidence, but seeing it so many times, that is a stretch.


19. I take a look at my life. God has given me a peace and joy that doesn't make sense. God has given me a fulfilled life. I have seen God do things in my family, my career, my finances, and even in many little events that show me His presence. This cannot be evidence for you, but it is for me.


20. In the same way, I see the evidences of God in other's lives - the same peace and joy that doesn't make sense.


21. See http://www.x-evolutionist.com/ for a list of material for research on the evidences.

Since I believe in God, all evidence, to me, points to Jesus being the barometer and presenter of truth. Since I believe in Jesus, I believe that God provided the Bible as our source of truth. And since I believe in the Bible, that is my foundation for my life. But alas, I still am lazy, and need to improve my quest for knowledge of God, how He would have me live, and what He would have for me to do.

 

The funny thing is that no worldview is easy to comprehend. There are many things about the Christian worldview that are hard to grasp, like the eternal nature of God (He has always existed), why is the universe so vast to support us, and how can God pay attention to every person at the same time?

 

I hope and pray (because I believe that God influences our lives due to prayer) that He will make Himself obvious to you, if you would be willing to take a look. And I hope and pray that God will lift some of this dreadful laziness from my being