My Atheist to Christian Testimony - unfinished

Once Upon a Godless Self…

Part 1: Knowledge vs. Understanding

I was raised by a scientist. A research and development chemist to be precise. At age five I started reading and otherwise grew up with his college textbooks, a set of encyclopedias, and an overall personal library. Secular science and thinking were hardwired into my brain. I had a natural inclination towards scientific questioning, pursuit of advanced knowledge, and scientific methodology. As children, humans grow up asking “why” about anything and everything. As someone inclined towards the sciences, I was fortunate that my dad always had an answer. So I had great knowledge from a young age but also recognized a personal lack of understanding when it comes to those must fundamental and existential questions of “why”. For those questions, which seemed endless, I found knowledge but no understanding. There is a big difference between the two. Let’s take the universe for example. How did it start? I have knowledge that ~14 billion years ago a single point of infinite density but without spacial dimensions was disturbed which resulted in that point expanding rapidly, creating spacial dimensions as it grew along with matter and physical law as dictated by quark-gluon plasma cooling under the influence of thermodynamics. Someday this ever accelerating expansion will create so much vacuum pressure that the universe will simultaneously rip itself apart and create a new space-less point of infinity density which will then begin the same process over again. I have knowledge that this process never had a beginning. I also have knowledge that one day the expansion of the universe will slow down, ultimately reversing until it collapses back down to that same point of infinite density and that the creation process will repeat. I have knowledge that this big bounce process has always been going on and never had a first start. People once had the knowledge that our universe was itself infinite in space and time. That knowledge has been replaced. We now have knowledge that the universe is an expanding bubble in an ocean of other bubbles that are themselves universes. I have knowledge that this multiverse never had a beginning, there was no first bubble, and it is infinite in size and space. I also have knowledge that the statistical probability we are living in a computer simulation is so overwhelming it seems unlikely to be any other case. I have knowledge of the simulator itself likely lives in a simulation. In fact, there was no first simulator. I have knowledge that all of string theory is officially dead, eliminating our knowledge of most things in astrophysics. The 98% of the universe we cannot see or detect only gets further away in the face of our greatest efforts to detect it. Astrophysics in general has been labeled the “crisis era”. In the recent era of super-technology in physics, the more we discover, the more things we thought we had a firm grasp on fail to add up.  “Crisis era” is a fairly new term. It is not my label, but that of secular scientists. This is something I will return to.

There is a reason our very cognitive capabilities are limited to infinity but no greater. Infinity is a property of time. Our minds cannot venture past that because time is a creation that we are tied to.

Once up on a time, I would have brought this up offensively. I would have laughed at the convenient “easy way out” offered by religion. It is our very secular society, that by design breads contempt against God while demanding we have what it takes to satisfy all of knowledge and understanding to some secular final extent. Anything less is blasphemy against humanism.

There is an alternative. Stretching your mind to reach into this alternative is something we are programmed to avoid. The burden of proof is on me to prove that, and this is my effort to address that matter. Every concept you can think of is an expression of creation and from being a created people of some small importance. There are some concepts that I can only explain by talking about the Holy Spirit. For most, that’s enough. Trying to communicate what “Holy Spirit” means ← needs work.

Where did the universe and time come from? This is where knowledge fails but an understanding can be achieved. Space-time is a continuum. You cannot have one component without the other two. For the universe to exist at all, time, space, and matter must have all come into existence at the same time.

A single statement brought them into being. This created one of the bigger problems in astrophysics. If you have matter but no space, where do you put it? If you have space and matter but know time, where do you put it. Those problems are just the surface, it gets worse from there.

Despite red shifting data and radiometric dating this all happened recently. I will address scientific dating techniques later in this document.  Time as a creation comes from a place where it does not itself apply. This is why we fail at knowledge and understanding when we hit infinity. But how can we have understanding that biblical creation is true and accurate? If understanding without knowledge makes no sense to you, then you are off to a good start.

Here is a simple solution:

“In the beginning” This is the creation of time.
“God created the heavens” This is the creation of space.
“and the earth” Solid, liquid, gas.

I will qualify this statement of biblical creation for later in this document. For the moment, please take the time to meditate on the concepts I have provided. Meanwhile, here is a little bit about myself as a former atheist.

For a good solid two decades, I am was loud mouthed, know it all, argue anyone of any spiritual belief any time and “win” type. I took being an atheist very seriously. My life’s ambition was to rid humanity of “fairy tales” so we can grow up before we destroy ourselves. There is not an atheist argument that can be made which I have not already driven into the ground. In that sense, I really am a know it all. In the late 90’s I spent 8 hours straight dismantling the beliefs of a preachers daughter. She was about 18. Well before the full 8 hours was up, she was in tears. I had destroyed her knowledge and exposed her as a hypocrite. I was only able to destroy her knowledge because she had no understanding. Being raised in the church is a dangerous thing. Salvation is to often assumed when it was never present. Jaclyn Glenn is a great example. Since you are an atheist I am assuming you know that name. Her father is a pastor. The presence of God’s grace was assumed to be with her but was not. It cannot be said that she fell away since she was never really there. She, like me, has a head full of bible. Science and philosophy aside, as a western atheist I made Christianity a special focus. I studied the bible relentlessly just so I could drag things out of context and show how “completely stupid” the whole things is.

Part Two: Intellectual Dishonesty

There is some irony to the title of this section. The reader has probably noticed that I am employing logical fallacies. By the time the reader is finished with this document, you will understand why.

Over the decades I spent studying to become an “always win” atheist, my studies inevitably led me to discover that I had been spreading a lot lies in the form of knowledge I took for granted but had no understanding of. How did I handle that? I doubled down knowing I would not be brought into question.

One example that sticks out is the idea that early Christians borrowed build upon the mythologies of other religions. For example, Horus the Egyptian god of the sun. Born of a virgin on December 25th. He was baptized up Annop the baptizer before being crucified and raised from the dead three days later. Absolutely all of those statements are an absolute lie. The date of his birth was not recorder, he was born of the Egyptian goddess Isis. Nowhere in Egyptian mythology is there a figure called Annop the baptizer. Further, there is no crucification narrative in the mythology. It’s made up. I spent over a decade making these claims and other “Christianity is made from borrowed mythologies” claims knowing full well that I was lying. All I had to do was speak as though I had great authority and articulate well. No one wants to look stupid, so these arguments were left unchallenged.

Next up we have Mithra. This argument all true atheists know. Mithra was born of a virgin, he had 12 disciples, and  had a last supper event mirroring Christianity among other false details. Nope. Mithra was born from a rock, he had two companions, and feasted on a bull with a sun god. Also, Christianity existed for a long time before stories of the Mithric cult ever reached Christians.

Then there is Baldur. This is more of the same.

I have to give a special shout out to Quetzalcoatl. This is funny because you can point out vague parallels between Christ and Quetzalcoatl, however, no Christian would have even heard of Quetzalcoatl until the 16th century. Leave out that fact and once again the argument goes without question.

I could go on and on with this. Intellectual dishonesty is not limited by mythos. It can be found everywhere.

The following are just notes. This is unfinished.

(geological column, radiometric dating, red shifting, and how we measure the universe goes here. Objections to theory of evolution. Noah’s ark: yup that happened)

???Part Three: How I Obtained Understanding and How You Can Too.???


    • The question of where did God come from, assumes that you are thinking of a limited God. God is not effected by time, space, or matter.

    • The God who created these things must be outside of them. If he is limited by time, he is not God. The God of this universe is above it, beyond it, and through it. He is unaffected by it.

    • The concept of God as spiritual force must be absent of the need of physicals law. All of physical lay is a creation.
    • Here cite scripture that backs up these truths

    • If your brain is just a random collection of chemicals that formed by chance over billions of years, how can you trust your own reasoning process and thoughts that you think.

    • Where did God come from, assumes a limited God.

    • The God that I worship is not limited by time, space, or matter. If I could fit the infinite God in my three pound brain, he would not be worth worshiping.

    • If he is affected by time space or matter, He’s not God.

    • Our human limitations.