An Atheist's Journey to Jesus

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I’m an atheist. I don’t believe any god of any kind exists. Pantheists say universal energy can repeatedly assume many forms, even gods. This energy exists; it’s no illusion. But I’d hardly call it god since it’s not a personal consciousness that can know, think, feel or do anything to help or hurt me. The deist claims a Creator who abandoned us to nature’s laws. That’s no God I could respect or worship--he’s irrelevant. Six centuries after Christ, Muhammad informed us an angel revealed the Quran making him God’s final prophet. Then centuries later Joseph Smith Jr. claimed the same thing for the Book of Mormon and Mormons claime we can become gods and have our own planet. Well, I don’t believe in angels and I don’t see that any of them furnish any proof that provides a foundation for religion. Couldn’t anybody say these same things? 
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Now if a real God exists we would see evidence of him everywhere--but we don’t! The world’s evils and sufferings preclude a God of infinite love and power or he would eliminate them. The Jews believed a Messiah would come to set the world right, but he never showed. And most absurd, Christians claim Jesus is God who fulfilled prophecies, performed miracles, died on a cross to take away our sins and arose from the dead. I’m not deceived or stupid to believe the impossible. And unlike Christians, I’m not prejudiced, exclusivist, arrogant, intolerant and narrow-minded. I try to be honest and reasonable. Yet, I have doubts.
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Of course, I haven’t turned over every rock or checked out everything in earth’s history nor peered behind every star that I can rightfully conclude there’s no God; I just assume it because I don’t see any evidence anywhere. I’ll admit that if God’s not like a big man somewhere in space but is Spirit, then he could surround me and I not know it. I’m just trying to be honest.
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The amount of suffering and injustice in the world is enormous—rapes, robberies, murders, wars everywhere. A truly good and powerful God would eliminate them or at least restrict the amount. But restrict who and to what extent? We’d never agree to that. If a good God prevented our evils it would destroy our freedom, dehumanize us. I sometimes lie, cheat and steal a little, incriminate others, not keep my promises. Frankly, I throw trash on the streets, trash peoples’ lives and I don’t care! It’s just so natural--it seems to be inborn. I can’t help it!
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We’re all to varying degrees evil, so a truly good or perfect God would have to punish or remove us all. That must be what Christians mean by sin and judgment. Then grace would be God delaying justice and punishment to let us see our bad ways and make constructive changes? If there’s a perfect place called Heaven, then it must take something more than just natural living to get there--something supernatural must take place to get us there.
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Now here’s what really bothers me: If there’s no God, how can I even complain about evils, sufferings, and injustices? If there’s no God, there’s no Authority to complain to, no Judge to hold us accountable, no Lawgiver to set standards or say what’s evil. But, if a perfect and powerful God does exist, then one day our grace period will end. 
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But where is there any evidence of God? Astronomer Hugh Ross says there’s 122 constant factors designed to enable human life to exist on planet earth—earth’s size, thickness of crust, distance from and size of our sun, one moon and its distance, right atmosphere, water, gravity. Physicists say the universe is running down—heat disperses, metals rust, wood rots, motion will cease—which means it had a beginning or uncaused cause. Biologist Louis Pasteur’s experiments showed life comes only from life. Microbiologists say the DNA cell in every life form is a library and blueprint of how things must develop. All organs and systems must be complete and functional from the start; slow development of useless appendages and injurious mutations arenn’t transmittable. Mindless molecules can’t magically arrange themselves into men no matter if eternity. Then this uncaused cause of our dependent universe must be a living, powerful, eternal, intelligent cause. Oh no! It looks like what Christians call God. 
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This greatly upsets me. So what if my atheism is a biased exclusivist position! I staunchly believe in evolutionary chance origins. But whether things pop into existence by chance, or by the gods, or by fate, I can never be certain my mind is not deceiving me. It all means no rational source of things, no firm basis for truth, logic, justice, science, ultimate purpose, human dignity, life, hope, or ethics good or evil. People are on their own to decide what’s best for them. And whoever gets control forces their agenda on us. Anarchy leads to kingly tyranny as evidenced throughout history. It honestly seems atheism in practice is our ruin—it’s bankrupt slavery and poverty.

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Could it be possible that the Christians are right? Could there be a higher power to set standards, guide our lives, and hold us accountable? It would give life meaning and make sense of everything. I’ve always read books, which supported my atheism like Bertrand Russell’s Why I’m Not A Christian and Julian Huxley’s Evolution in Action. I’ve made fun of the Bible and Christians. But what I know of the Bible is hearsay and I really don’t understand the Christian faith.

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To be intellectually honest and understand what I’m objecting too, I purchased a Bible to read and the Christian books, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, Without a Doubt by Kenneth Richard Samples, and The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom by Robert A. Morey.

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In reading these books, I discovered that Jews and Christians have sharp minds, are anything but stupid, and that I’ve been entertaining false stereotypes. I’m ashamed to say I’ve been belittling and ridiculing people and their beliefs of whom I knew little about and who had shown me respect and deep concern. I would vehemently protest such unfairness, arrogance and intolerance if they did this to me.

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 I discovered there were some three hundred detailed predictions about the coming Jewish Messiah. The Rabbis knew about them centuries before as shown in Alfred Edersheim’s book The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Some Jewish scholars said Scripture taught Messiah was both a suffering servant and a reigning king, which seemed contradictory. But what’s incredible is the ancient prophecies said Messiah would be Bethlehem’s virgin-born God-man who would fulfill prophecies, perform miracles, die for our sins and rise from the dead. Now there's no way we human being could simply guess about such paticular things centuries before they occurred.

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Now opposed to critic’s claims, the Jews had no prophets for four hundred years until John the Baptizer appeared. So they were astonished at Jesus’ miracles, his fulfilling ancient prophecies, his blasphemous claims to be God--they knew nature’s laws as we do today.

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The Jews ridiculed Jesus’ disciples and expelled them from synagogue that condemned them to Hell. Then both Jews and Romans hunted them like animals and tortured them to death. It is incredible nonsense to think Jesus’ disciples would endure this all the while knowing it a lie.

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A life and death decision is required here. I don’t see Jesus on earth today, but that doesn’t disprove his past presence. Unless I unwarrantedly assume there’s no Creator God who can act in our world, I must choose-- delay too is a choice. The evidence shows our sin and willful rejection of Jesus will lead to eternal darkness, torment and fiery wrath. But to trust in the loving Lord who paid for our sins on the cross brings eternal life with Him and our believing friends in Heaven. It's true! It's all true. Jesus is the Messiah and God. Lord, forgive me a sinner. I trust You now and forever and look forward to one day walking down those golden streets. Praise God! I'm saved.