New Personal Story: Making it Back Home: An Atheist Scientist Gets Baptized

Faith & Science Conversation
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This month, we are going to be focusing on personal impact stories on the website, that provide the hope of Jesus Christ.

Today’s story features CJ, a biology graduate student, who shares with us his pursuit of knowledge of Christ and his journey to conversion and baptism.

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This is a nice story! Glad he found some peace. But for those of us who were in the church for 10+ years and have deconverted, Matthew 7 is a slap in the face. Myself and many others have pleaded with God for some sort of relationship, experience, etc and yet god remains silent. Who can answer me that? Why, in the midst of sincere, heart-wrenching seeking, would god not answer a prayer like that?

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Hi Austin -

Thanks for speaking up. I have no doubt that your question is sincere and your quest is earnest.

I am glad that you are bringing your poignant question here to a community where many like myself can engage with you on a personal level. You have made a good step in doing that, because – as I have learned from much experience – God often works through a community of imperfect people who seek Him nonetheless.

I would like to learn more about your journey, if you would care to share it. You can contact me directly with via personal message on the forum if you would rather not share publicly.

To give you a little background on myself, here’s a blog post about my journey:

You might also find these thoughts about faith and doubt to be helpful:

Best,
Chris Falter

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Thanks Chris! Science never bothered me. I always held that with an open hand until seminary when it was drilled into me that 6-day creation was the only legitimate way of understanding the world and the bible. But when I began to deconstruct that simply faded away and science was never really a cause for doubt or anything like that. I’ll have to read your other post as well.

Thanks

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Thst was a great read. I am glad he found someone to teach him the gospel and that he submitted to it and got baptized into Christ being forgiven of his sins and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38

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It is the observation of Scott Peck and others that people gain advantages in both conversion and deconversion. We get stuck in a rut of a certain kind of thinking and the only way to improve is by shifting to a completely different paradigm. As I have said frequently, just because I am a Christian doesn’t mean I think or agree that any Christianity is better than no Christianity. Quite the opposite. There are reasons why such as Weinberg have said that for good people to do evil, that takes religion. And even a good portion of the Bible is all about what is wrong with a great deal of religion.

I think it is a scientific fact that a belief in God is not of benefit to all people. So if God exists then perhaps making people believe is not His highest priority. And if God belief is just something evolved to help people cope and survive then perhaps this is not helpful to all people all the time.

If God exists then perhaps He thinks it is better in this case for you to find your own solution if any at all.

Of course, I only say “if God exists” in order to cover different possibilities and different ways of thinking. I am theist myself… 1.5 on the Dawkins scale. Though… I can also be considered an agnostic with respect to objective knowledge of the existence of God.

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Hi, everyone.

Thanks so much for reading this, I’m so glad I have found you all! This organization is truly a blessing to young scientists finding their way in faith.

CJ

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did you notice that no where in the story does the scientist explain how he became convinced that a God exists?

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I did not notice that. I noticed a place in the story where he flat out says in great detail how he became convinced God exists. It started with Jordan Peterson lectures. Then there was a church visit. Then meetings with a guy whose arguments for God’s existence convinced him.

When I tell you this man knew what he was talking about, I mean that. We talked about thermodynamics, the cosmological argument, the problem that “the things that make proteins are made up of proteins themselves,” particle wave theory, and moral relativism. He destroyed every point I had in my head on a reason why a God could not exist. Brent’s faith in God is so strong he often says, “If the Bible is not true, I will go looking for the other God. There is no way there is not one.” That was a powerful statement that struck a chord in me. “If someone of this level of intellect was convinced, then certainly there is enough evidence,” I thought to myself after our discussion.

I wrestled with Brent’s arguments in my head for about three weeks. It came to be that I was convinced by the evidence.

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Been baptized not atheist believing in something or someone is a higher power it’s not you key point it’s not a New Testament you get to buy like a Harry Potter book it comes from what’s inside you the real you if you go out and buy and spend 15000 on old books and new of all religions ancient and rare then read how they change but only a few religions do depending on what kind of audience they want to capture this time