Hi, I just discovered this thread and what caught my attention is the discussion is at a somewhat higher level than the common faith vs. atheist discussion on the internet. I will probably share my views and perhaps it could give you a deeper insight to the nature of Christianity as prescribed by scripture.
I have been professing the Christian faith for about 6 years. However, I would consider to have met God only slightly over a year ago. In light of my new discoveries as I have grown in my faith, I could hardly consider myself being a real Christian during the first 5 years of my "official" status as Christian. Now I am glad that my life has changed for the better. However, it might surprise you that the stiffest critics to my faith are none other than the dogmatic Christians who by worldly standards are more educated in the christian faith.
Previously, as a professing christian, I knew some of the teachings in the bible, as well as the orthodox doctrine as defined by the church. However, I was not fully convinced that God was truly what people consider him to be. After all, if the existence of God was easily proven, then this debate wouldn't have existed in the first place.
However, all that started to change with my first supernatural encounter with God. During a session of prayer and worship, I was given two visions one after the other. Although it is impossible to describe with words exactly how the experience was like, it was like a vivid dream, yet without losing consciousness. I saw perhaps 10 seconds of total "video", but after the encounter ended, it seemed like the 10 seconds took almost no time in the sense of "real" seconds.
In the first vision, I saw a short scene of my family in the hall, and we had a peace and joy within the family unlike what I had previously experienced. In the second vision, I saw myself in the corridor outside my apartment doing some woodworking. Do note that this was my first experience of this sort, and I was yet to be convinced of God in a way that I am now. Initially I had a positive reaction to the first vision because what was presented to me was not something undesirable. However, I was skeptical about the second vision, because woodworking is considered to be something for the lowest classes of workers. Now, there could be other opinions about the source of these visions. At the time, I decided to give God the benefit of the doubt and plucked up my faith, resulting in action.
I am from Singapore, and we have a stressful education system, which had caused very poor relations within my family. My father was a teacher, and had very high expectations of me. What made the matter worse, was that I was streamed into a special "Gifted Education Programme" meant for students who have passed a few rounds of tests to show exceptional cognitive abilities. Such a course was designed to be challenging enough to maximize one's potential. Unfortunately, among the group, I consistently ranked among the bottom few, failing a high percentage of my exams. This drove my dad mad, although to me, given a more enlightened perspective, his reaction was unnecessary. Hypothetically, if a student was admitted to the University of Cambridge, and performs poorly in his course of study, does that mean the student is lacking potential? The mere fact of admission to such a university speaks for the student's capabilities.
At the time, I was studying in the main local university. What I saw in my vision led me to take a decision to withdraw from my studies, to spend more quality time with my family. Surprisingly, my dad was agreeable to it. Although he was not a Christian, he took the stand that if I believed that it was a decision based on God, he would be okay with it. Now this decision was with heavy criticism from all sides, the most disconcerting of which were Christians trying to use scripture out of context to show how I was being irresponsible in this decision. Some claimed that the improvement of family relations was not mutually exclusive with the pursuit of a degree, and some others claimed that it was not to be pursued at the cost of academic qualifications. To me, given the heavy workload of my course of study, it was one or the other.
Of course, by spending the next months with the sole purpose of being with my family, it is no surprise that the relationship improved greatly. It was also the first time in my life where I had the time to focus my study on biblical scripture to learn more about the nature of God. Alongside my development of my cognitive understanding of God according to the bible, is also a more confident spiritual relationship with God. This against hard to describe with words, but to me it is similar to a gut feeling, but yet with confidence because it resonates with my knowledge of God, and supported by my cognitive understanding of scripture.
Over this period, God was bringing me through different phases of personal character development, and there came a point where I felt that God was bringing me into a new phase of holding responsibility. Of course, I had my own ideas of what that could possibly be, but what turned out to be totally unexpected, yet on hind sight totally seems to make sense. God told me to go on a fast. This was the first time I had done so in my life (other than for the sake of some blood test/donation). On the fifth day of my fast, a piece of scripture caught my eye, and it somehow resonated with my perception of my father
(link). He was into new age philosophy and claimed to have a greater revelation of God, often using out-of-context bible scripture to attack the Christian faith, yet showing no character improvement that one would normally associate with somebody claiming to be close to God. Although there was a striking resemblance, I did not pay attention to it. However, later on in the afternoon I received a phone call from my mother that my dad was not well. I rushed back to find that he was showing symptoms of a stroke, and called the ambulance. The hemorrhagic stroke was so severe, that before reaching the hospital he was already fully incapacitated. He was put on life support, but subsequently even that failed to sustain his body and was declared dead 3 days later.
Now, many people consider it to be a great tragedy in my life. However, what amazed me is that after I did an objective evaluation of my life up till then, I was never better prepared for such an event. I am the only child, and my mother is a dependent due to health issues. Had I continued my studies, I would not have learnt how to operate in a healthy family environment, and would not have learnt as much about my mother's needs. It could have possibly disrupted my studies anyway, with the difference being I was totally unprepared for such a situation. Excluding the consideration of delaying the death of my father till a later time, you could say that I could not have been in any better position than that time to handle such an event. The supernatural thing is that the reason why I was in such a position was because I had decided to act by faith on a vision which I had chosen to assume that it was from God.
I also have a hobby in music production, and was participating in an electronic music interest group in the university. To cut a long story short(er), as a result of my free time I was able to explore more in this field and improve my technical capabilities and knowledge. I ended up having to do woodworking in my corridor as part of the initial phase of my journey in this direction. Even now, sometimes I still have to do some DIY manufacturing outside my corridor. The skills I was able to pick up is in high demand and in short supply in my geographical region, and due to the high positive market response thus far, starting a business seemed to be the best choice to make. I am glad to say that I am still being able to sustain my operation thus far without spending a cent on marketing. At any point in time there are either committed projects or many sales leads. In the process, I have learn so much more than I would have if I had chosen to continue my academic course. Through this process I have been able to improve my skills and knowledge in building, interior design, electro-acoustics, sales, business management, and most importantly living a life as a follower of Jesus.
Evaluating my career path quantitatively, God has led me to exchange a 4 year course which would have costed in the region of $70000 dollars in total cost incurred, to (thus far) a 1 year journey which is already generating revenue for me. All because I had chosen to act by faith on a vision which I had attributed to be divine.
Now, I can choose to either believe that God truly exists, and truly is looking out for me according to the promises as described in the bible, or my entire experience is a combination of delusion and coincidence. Everybody has his/her own right to take either stand, but to me the sequence of events is sufficient to convince me to believe in God.
I strongly believe in the scientific method when applied in order to find the truth. I see that some Christians are anti-science because they are afraid that scientific discoveries will (and already have) shatter the dogmas considered to be pillars of the Christian faith. However, perhaps these Christians don't really believe in God, but merely subscribe to the theological and dogmatic structure as given by the church? If God is really the creator, and the supreme being, then shouldn't he be in control of the situation? To fight against science only shows the lack of confidence in God being who God is supposed to be. In addition, if one was truly practicing the faith as Jesus has taught in the bible, you wouldn't frustrate the logical minded by baseless arguments. Some Christians I have come across have said that you can't have a deep relationship with God being logically minded. However, my opinion is that to take that stand you either don't understand God, or you don't understand what logic is. The key to a logical approach for somebody who wants to live a life following Jesus, is to simply replace the premises as assumed by the world, with the premises as promised in scripture. With the new premises in place, following sound reasoning would result in the logical (but supernatural) results.
On the other hand, the scientific method can be, and has been widely abused when the core intention is not in search of the truth. Numerous food and drug safety incidents have been caused by "science" proving the safety of etc etc.. However, this is not a failure of science, but the wickedness of men driven by greed. The methodology and conclusions were twisted and distorted for the sake of biasing the apparent result in favor of proving the safety of a particular drug. This is not even a close-kept secret, as one can easily find a large amount of official information regarding these events.
From the perspective of creationism vs. atheism, I take all arguments with a pinch of salt because the core intention is not to find the truth, but only to support a view which one is already convinced of. Even if one would want to try to remain neutral, it is difficult to avoid unconscious bias in selecting your sources. If one would want to find the truth, he/she would have to try to fully understand BOTH sides of the argument, and try to filter out any inaccurate sources by following sound academic methods.
It is sad but true, that in this case, the creationists are more guilty of bending facts and misrepresentation in order to defend their viewpoint, which is what appears to me to be a traditional understanding which should be revised or appended to in light of new scientific discoveries. If God is the supreme creator, and he created (some of) us with an intellectual mind, how can exercising this gift threaten his own existence? I believe in developing an understanding where God and Science not just co-exists but work towards convergence, because God is ultimately the creator of science.
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