An intelligent person should follow the available evidence with an open mind wherever it takes them.  They should reach their own conclusion about God with sound logic. If you want to know if God is real, or if you want more confidence in your current belief, the following discussion provides several lines of exploration you can and should pursue.

It Matters

The most important decision of your life is whether to believe God is real and worthy of your worship and devotion, or whether to ignore God and focus all your energy on you and your earthly life. If God is real, this decision has major ramifications for you and those around you, both now in this life and for eternity.  And if God is real, and this decision does have major ramifications, and you risk spending eternity in some lake of burning fire if you don’t get with the program, then it would be appropriate to invest some time and energy to explore the evidence, find out what is going on, and align yourself to avoid such a scenario. If God is not real, none of this really matters and the worst you will have done by exploring this is to waste some unimportant time learning about the most popular and pervasive myth ever concocted by mankind. This is called Pascal’s Wager… are you willing to bet an eternity in hell that it is ok to continue not believing in God.

God Hides, You will find Him only if you truly want to find Him.

God hides himself just enough that you must decide to spend some of your precious energy to pursue Him. If He was obvious and standing right in front of us, we would not require faith to believe in Him. The spiritual world operates on faith, and our free will decisions to pursue and believe. If you want to find reasons not to believe you can, and it is your choice, but beware, there just might be some serious consequences.  Once we decide to explore beyond the physical world in front of us and commit to explore the evidence for God with a truly open mind and open heart, He promises you will find Him.  I am highly confident based on my experience, If you truly want to find Him, You will, and I am happy to help.  

Faith should not be blind

The God of the Christian Bible never asks us to have blind faith. He is very clear that He left ample evidence of His handiwork in creation; The heavens reveal His Glory, his fingerprint can be seen in the world all around us, and He has written Himself in our hearts. He boldly claims that no one has an excuse to be ignorant of Him. He expects us to be able to gather up the evidence, figure it out, and make a sound conclusion. 

We should be able to defend our position

He also asks us to be ready and able to defend that decision with convincing logic any time.  Do you believe in God? What is the basis for your belief? What are your top 3 reasons?

The Evolution of Science

One interesting aspect of mankind’s spiritual journey is the evolution of science. The scientific community spent most of the 20^th century trying to prove that we do not need a supernatural God to explain how everything works or how we got here in the first place. Over the last 50 years, scientific discoveries have made that much harder to do at almost every level. Open minded researchers can see that the evidence points more and more towards the existence of a supernatural God.  Those researchers who are committed to a materialist world view, who categorically refuse to consider God as a potential hypothesis, remain hopeful for an alternative explanation to emerge even when the odds are astronomically low and going lower with every new discovery. The interesting thing to understand is that this materialist approach is a new thing born within the scientific community. Science was originally founded out of Christian pursuit to better understand God. Based on His promise in the psalms.

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Psalm 19:1

They expected to learn more about Him by studying his orderly creation. The early scientists were Christians, and the first universities grew out of monasteries. It is fitting that following the science is taking us back to God where it started.

What evidence is available to support a Belief In God, Sometimes Called a God hypothesis?

These are my Top Ten +1 reasons to believe:

1. The order and design of the universe points to an intelligent source.
2. Evolution explains adaptation, but it does not explain the explosion of species or how we got here. There is another force at work
3. Simple Cells are Not so simple. The more we learn, the harder it is to imagine them emerging from a soup of chemicals. None of what happens in a cell is random.
4. DNA is information telling each aspect of each cell what to do, how to do it, and when. The only known source for information is an intelligent mind. 
5. Life only comes from life, We have no evidence of life coming from non-life. The chemical building blocks of life are unstable and assembling them into useful structures is not non-random. Life only comes from life.
6. Every painting has a painter. Everything that has a beginning has a casue outside of it. The big bang happened before space, time and matter, so the cause must be something super powerfull and outside of space, time and mater. 
7. The Bible is a very remarkable document with powerful wisdom when understood and applied. There is more and more archeological evidence to support the reliability of what has been preserved since it was originally written, and to substantiate the people, places and activities described in its stories.
8. Jesus was a real person, and the evidence for His crucifixion is remarkable
9. Superntural experiences such as Nead Death Experiences are more and more well documented and yield very practical insights.  
10. Personal experience interacting with God, guiding and shaping me along my journey, and working through me to help others
11. There is an objective morality written on our hearts, an objective morality demands a morality writer.

Lets take each of them in a bit more detail:

1) The order and design of the universe points to an intelligent source.

Everything about the universe is organized and highly tuned to allow life on earth. Astrophysicists have identified dozens and dozens of characteristics of the universe that are critical to life on earth; These include the laws of nature like gravity, the constants of physics like the cosmological constant, and the initial conditions of the big bang like how much energy. In recent years they have learned that these constants and quantities are so precisely tuned that the odds that they came into being randomly are astronomically low. If the universe had more initial mass, it would collapse back into itself. If the physics laws that govern molecules were any different, we would not have developed stable galaxies. If the earth were only slightly closer to the sun we would burn up, if any further away we would freeze. If the mass of the earth were any greater we would be crushed by gravity, if it were less massive we would not have a protective atmosphere.  If Jupiter were not exactly where is, we would have been destroyed by asteroids. These are just a few examples.

Learn more:

Video from J Warner Wallace: (Link)

Video from Dr William Lane Criag Videos – The Fine-Tuning of the Universe (Link)

Video from Stephen Meyer: (Link)

2) Evolution explains adaptation, but not macro evolution

Evolution theory does a wonderful job explaining minor adaptations to environmental conditions. There is no evidence for macro evolution. Darwin’s theory demands incremental changes over time. There is no fossil evidence showing increments of one species gradually becoming another. Instead, the fossil record shows many species emerging very rapidly in explosions of change. The explosion of new species is even more challenging to evolutionists now that we understand how DNA controls animal architecture and cell function, and any new body plans require significant new chunks of DNA to cause the animal to produce the proteins needed ot create the cells for the new features, and then assemble the new cells into tissues and fibers, and then arrange them into structures, then to know how to use the new structures once they arrive. Many species share common characteristics, but rather than evolving randomly over time in a long chain from a common ancestor, these common characteristics could be genetic building blocks used and reused by a creator who intervened with His creation along the way.

Learn more:

Video from Hoover Institute, “Mathematical Challenges to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution” with David Berlinski, David Gelernter, and Stephen Meyer (Link)

Video from Hoover institute ” By Design: Behe, Lennox, and Meyer on the Evidence for a Creator”  (Link)

3) Simple Cells Are Not So simple

Advances in Microbiology now reveal that each cell has a vast array of molecular level machines opertaing to perform the functions encessary to keep it alive, and the cell wall has a multitude of very specific structures and features that allow it to bring in the necessary mix of nutrients and export the necessary wastes so that it can survive and mmultiply. The more we learn about simple cells the harde rit is to imagine that they could emerge randomly from a soup of chemicals. 

Learn more: 

Video from Tomorrow’s World Viewpoint:  Darwin’s Not-So-Simple Cell (Link)

Video from Science Communication Lab – Ron Vale: Molecular Motor Proteins (Link)

Video from  Clockwork: Your Unstoppable Copy Machine｜DNA Replication (Link)

4) DNA is information, and information only comes from an intelligent source.

Each living cell has DNA which is basically a computer program for organizing the entire organism and running all the processes in each cell. DNA in each human cell contains approximately 3 million base pairs which represent approximately 1.5Gig of data. The DNA coding includes instructions for controlling replication and repair of itself. DNA is Information, Information is not generated randomly, it is highly specific and very complicated. information only comes from an intelligent source.

Learn more:

What kind of information is in DNA – Stephen Meyer  (Link)

5) Life only comes from life, life never comes from non-life.

Life propagates, it is never created from non-life. The popular story that life was sparked into existence by lightning striking a primordial soup of chemicals is a myth. The building block chemicals for life are naturally unstable and cannot wait around for lightning, and the complex chemical reactions to build chains of amino acids and other necessary complex molecules cannot be executed randomly in nature, these processes must be guided in a very precise way.

Learn more:

Hoover Institute Interview with James Tour and Stephen Meyer: (Link)

Creation Ministries Interview with Dr Stephen Grocott: (Link)

6) Every Painting Has a Painter.

We know from science and practical experience that everything that has a beginning has a cause from outside of it. This is called the Cosmological Argument. Science discovered in 1929 that the universe is expanding. If we run the clock backwards we know that the universe started in a big bang. The big bag was a tremendous release of pure energy before there was matter, space and time. The universe had a beginning so it must have a cause. The cause must be bigger and more powerful than the entire universe and it must be able to operate outside of matter, space, and time. A creator God is the most logical and elegant solution for that cause, and it happens to be consistent with Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God.

Learn more:

Video From drcraigvideos – The Kalam Cosmological Argument – (Link)

7) The Bible is an Extraordinary Document and A Reliable Source of Wisdom, and History 

The Bible is remarkable in many ways, as the most popular literary work of all time, for the remarkable wisdom it contains, for how well it has been preserved over time, for how acurately it has captured the past, and how well it has predicted the future, and the impact it has had on individuals, nations, and society as a whole.    

Remarkable Literary Work

The bible was created to document the great acts of God over time to redeam and save His people and the world He created. It is the most popular book of all time with over a billion copies published.  It is a collection of 66 different works (Books), inspired by the Holy Spirit and recorded by 40 different authors from various walks of life from kings to soldiers, to prophets and priests. It was compiled over the course of more than 1500 years but has a consistent narrative ark throughout and has a remarkable number of interlinked passages; there are over 63,000 “Hyperlinks” in the bible. The layers of meanings in the bible become more and more significant as you read and re-read them over time. 

Learn More:  

Video from Tim Mackie – Where did the bible come from and why should we care (Link)

Chris Harrison visualization tool for seeing the 64K interlinks (Link)

Jordan Peterson describing how the Bible as the first hyperlinked text (Link), Deeper discussion (Link)

 Video from Mark Ashton at Christ Community Church  – 10 Reasons the bible is extraodinary (Link).

Profound Wisdom

The bible is full of profound wisdom; It is moving, and it has a broad influence on the way we see, think, and act at the individual levle and at the leve of society.  It offers timeless guidance on a wide range of life situations, including morality, relationships, and personal conduct. The biblical teachings have shaped western society with concepts like – we are each individuslly are created in God’s image and are worthy of respect. The bible has several books dedicated specifically to imparting wisdom to those who are willing to learn and apply it: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes.  The other biblical stories often share lessons by example; people following God’s commands and being rewarded or choosing to ignore God, pursue their own agenda and suffer serious consequences. Many of the biblical writings have layers of meaning, The literal story can be informative, but it can also be symbolic of other deeper meanings.  Many of the teachings are done in the form of metaphor and parable, where you must think about the story and figure out how the deeper message applies to your situation, but the deeper meaning is always profound when you figure it out and apply it. The bible reveals God’s nature and purpose.  As you embrace it’s teaching, you can be molded more and more into His image. 

Learn more:

The Bible Project – Wisdom Series Videos (Link),  Intro to Wisdom Literature Podcast (Link). 

The HIGHEST Truth Of Them All | Jordan Peterson Deconstructing The BIBLE (Link)

Well Preserved

The bible is the best preserved piece of anchient literature we have. There are over 5,300 copies of the new testament in the original Greek, and hundreds of manuscripts of the old testament. The original writings were propogated by monks using a meticulous process. Detailed analysis of these documents and scrutiny of the variations that propagated allows us to understand when each variation was introduced and which is the most likely original. None of the variations impact the essential message fo Christ’s virgin birth, sinless life, sacrifice by crucifixion, and resurrection on  the 3rd day. The dead sea scrolls discovered in 1947 provided an even earlier copy of old testiment documents dated to 200 BC, and these further confim we have good traceability to the original writings.

Learn more:

Video form Dan Wallace – How can you trust the New Testament when the original manuscripts are different? (Link)

Interview with Deeper discussion – How Reliable Are Our New Testament Manuscripts? Dr. Daniel Wallace (Link)

Historically Accurate

The bible has proven to be reliable source of ancient historic information and even some scientific wisdom. The bible has been used to guide archeology digs and we now have archeological evidence of hundreds of people, places, and events described in the bible stories. For example Sodom and Gomorrah were real cities destroyed by fire from the heavens, A tribe of folks worshipping the God of the bible (YHWH) were indeed wandering the desert in ancient times, There were competing cultures sacrificing babies at alters that were warned to stop and then destroyed after 400 years of ignoring the warnings, There was a King David, There was a temple and it was destroyed, King Davids descendants were held in captivity in Babylon and then released to return and rebuild, Jesus was a real person, etc.

Predicted The Future

The bible was compiled from individual works written over a span of more than 1500 years. Over that time, there were many predicitons made of future events. There were over 2500 prophesies of future events in the bible, 2000 of them have already come true, the remainder are still in the future. Only God can predict the future, and He has demonstrated that capability.

Learn more: Article from Reasons to believe – Fulfilled Prophesy: Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible (Link) 

Remarkable Impact

The Bible is the best selling book of all time. It’s teachings change individual lives; people from around the world share testimony of being freed from substance abuse, destructive lifestyles, immoral behavior, and undesired behaviors due to following biblical principles and their faith in Jesus Chris.  The bibles teachings have transformed the world: Followers of the bible created science because they believed that it was orderly and studying it would reveal knowledge.Followers of the bible lead the abolition of slavery because the bible teaches that all people are created in God’s image and are worthy of respect., Followers of the bible created the entire western world which is the most prosperous of any society in history. Teachings can be corrupted and mis-used, but when applied correctly the reulsts are amazing.

8) Jesus was a Real Person, and There Is Convincing Evidence for His Resurrection 

The entire Christian religion hinges on three events: Jesus virgin birth, His suffering and innocent death on the cross, and His resurreciton on the 3rd day. Many non-believers question if Jesus was a real person, or if He really died on the cross, or if He was actually resurrected, When you review the evidence, there is a pretty convincing case that He was a real person, he did die on a cross at the hands of the romans, he was buried and then raised from the dead on the 3rd day.

• • The Gospels provide 4 eye-witness acounts of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection
  • There are several extra-biblical accounts of Jesus’ life, death, and hoards of followers who believe resurrection
  • There were over 500 eyewitnesses willing to suffer for admitting that they had seen the resurrected Jesus.
  • There was no debate at the time, that Jesus tomb was empty on the 3rd day. The critics of Jesus accused the disciples of stealing His body from the sealed and heavily guarded tomb. 
  • The 11 remaining disciples and Jesus’s brother James were so convinced by their encounters with the risen Jesus, they were willing to devote their remainder of their lives to spreading the word, being pursecuted, and enduring torture to the point of death. People do not take lies to the grave if they know the truth.
  • There is a creed written by the early church within weeks or months or a couple years of Jesus death to capture the essence of the Gospal story for those wanting to understand and believe. This creed is captured by Paul in 1st Corinthians 15.

Learn more:

Video From Lee Strobel – The Case for Christianity in 15 min – (Link)

Video From J Warner Wallace – Cold Case Christianity (Link)

Video Interview of J Warner Wallace – A 10 year Update of Cold Case Christianity (Link)

9) Supernatural Experiences Provide Insights

Near Death Experiences provide compelling evidence for Life After Death, God, Heaven, Purpose, and Accountability for your life.  Millions of people have had experiences during trauma where they leave their physical body, travel to heaven, visit with loved ones, meet angels or God, relive part of their lives, gain insights on their purpose, are sent back to continue their life, and come back a changed person. Analysis of these experiences across diverse cultures shows they are not a random phenomenon, God is real, Heaven is real, We are each here on earth temporarily and we are here for a purpose, the goal of our life is to transform so we flow God’s love through us to the rest of creation using our gifts and talents.

Learn more:

My Web Page on Near Death Experiences (Link)

• • My Web Page on The works of Emanuel Swedenborg (Link)

10) Personal Experience – We Each Can Observe God’s Hand In Our Life

If we open our eyes to the spiritual world, and are willing to invest some of our time and energy, we can see how we are being impacted by it, and then if we engage effectively, how we are impacting it. We can see God’s hand in our life (Providence), We can fele a deep sense of purpose for our lives, We can see God answering our prayers, We can even feel his presence if we draw near to Him. If we are willing to yeild our lives to Him, He will lead us on a wonderful adventure (Lead By The Spirit), and when we accept the authority he delegates to us, we can see the power of the Holy Spirit moving through us and impacting peoples lives.

Providence:

God puts us in just the right spot with just the right person to experience something significant that shapes our earthly journey. These events are often related to how you met your spouse, how you chose what school to go to, or how you got a job. When you look at the scenarios you experienced, the probability that all of those aspects happened randomly is close to zero, and once you recognize that such things have happened more than once in your life, it becomes clear that there is a greater force at work.

Sense of Purpose:

We are each programmed with a sense of purpose deep inside. If we are honest with ourselves and reflect on our lives, we know we are here for a reason, we have a purpose, there is a calling on their life. This purpose is different for each person but it is not random.  Our unique calling aligns with a passion deep in our heart and the gifts and talents we have in our earthly body.

Power of Prayers:

Purposeful and fervent prayer aligned with God’s will is very effective. A simple log of prayers and results seen will reveal that God is real and He is answering your prayers. 

Presence:

When we pursue God and draw near to Him in prayer or worship, we can sense His presence inside us – As sense of connection, inflow, and peace appears in our soul. 

Lead By the Spirit:

God wants to help you grow and mature. He is a Father, Counselor, Teacher and Shepherd. God will engage in an intimate conversation with you if you engage Him with all your heart. He will teach you, coach you, and lead you onto the path He has set before you. His path will enable you to bear fruit in this life and bring Him glory. Pretty wonderful 

Power:

When we align with God’s wil and actively engage others with the authority God grants by praying into some situation they face, you can often feel the holy spirit flow with energy to effect the other person. The effect is sometimes immediately visible, and sometimes delayed, but the sensation of the Holy Spirit moving is very real.

Learn more:

How To Hear His Voice – (Link to My Blog Post)

How To Get A Word Of Wisdom to Guide your path – (Link To My Blog Post),  (My Video)

11) There is a transcendent objective morality.

If we evolved as random accidents driven by propagation of our species, we should be motivated to do whatever it takes to elevate ourselves above others for our own survival and propagation. We should be murdering our competition, stealing their resources, and having sex with as many partners as possible to maximize our propagation. Counter to that agenda however, We know in our heart that murder of an innocent person is wrong, theft of others property is wrong, and that rape, incest and adultery is wrong. These are moral absolutes that suggest each of us has some inherent value as individuals which deserve to be respected and protected. This is consistent with bible teaching that we are created in the image of God with value and purpose, and those objective morals are written on our heart.

Learn more: 

Video from DrCraigVideos – Is There Meaning to Life? (Link)

Video from Jordan Peterson – The Lie of Relative Morality (Link)

Video from Jordan Peterson – The Case Against Moral Relativism (Link)

Video from Stand To Reason – Fatal Flaws of Moral Relativism (Link)

That is a summary of my top 10 +1 reasons to believe in God. Hope you find them helpful.  Post a comment if you agree, or if you disagree with anything I have said. I want to tune up these write ups over time. 

Next up: 

What are the arguments against God? And what are the best counters to those arguments. (Link)