Contest at Christian Website

I recently sponsored a contest at a Christian website by donating some nice gifts, such as:

• Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance
• Thompson Study Bible, Millennium Edition
• Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary
• Sansa MP3 player
• Les Paul electric guitar

Participants where to submit content titled “Message for an Atheist”. Basically things that a Christian might say to an Atheist friend.

The turnout was quite good, but I’m sorry to say that the submissions were weak.

One of the perks of sponsoring the event was that I got to pick the judges, and I did, as follows:

• The owner of the best known Christian bookstore in this small metropolis
• A Christian cartoon artist who’s work has been featured in various Christian publications
• A popular Atheist YouTuber who goes by the name of KingHeathen
• Yours truly

I’m particularly excited about KingHeathen casting his votes. I know he “pulls no punches” and am eager to see what he has to say. He might even make a video asking his over 7,600 subscribers to given their opinions, even if they come in well after the end of the contest.

They’ve yet to tally the results, but we’re expecting them soon.

Here are the finalist submissions, which I’ve translated into English, in no particular order:

Submission #1

God sees you not with indifference, but with love. Christianity is not dogma, it’s opportunity based on love and truth. Believe and accept!

God need legitimize himself in a political party, is not science nor fiction. He’s reality and love. a beautiful world of perfect synchrony and majestic cycles could only have been made by someone exemplary, a source of love. To think that it would be the product of an evolutionary theory, of an explosion, or the acceleration of particles would lack any sense.

The Latin poet Ovidius, before the Christian age, said in his own way that it was given unto man, contrary to the rest of the animals, a face lifted toward heaven and the stars (he recognized the existence of God).

Without faith it is impossible to please God. God is an expression of courage that drives people to do what is right.

Death? Pain? The origin of life? The sense of anxiety for truth, happiness and fulfillment? For each and every one of these questions, God is the answer. God is life, God is truth, God is happiness, and you will reach fulfillment with God.

The atheist is not isolated nor miscomprehended in society, on the contrary, it sounds attractive and tempting to live a life without inhibitions, of joy and not worrying. What worries me of a society in decadence is the lack God and forgetting the fundamentals of love. Human existence is inhabited by the presence of God that elevates man’s life and gives it potential to an unexpected horizon. He does not impose with his love. He offers himself as a source of life to all who open up to Him. He is the hidden treasure that fills with joy he whom discovers it (Matthew 13:44).

What does atheism guarantee?… Happiness? Love? Hope? Eternal life? Comprehension? I don’t think so. These are concepts on which it is not founded upon, because it lacks principles worthy of a healthy and true life. Because God is not harmful to life, is not harmful to happiness, and is not harmful to love.

Words where not invented by man, God put them in our hearts. God is not a subject for philosophical speculation nor grammatical abstracts, as many believe. This goes beyond mere words, in reality, we need not hold something in order to obtain some benefit (physical, mental or spiritual). The reality is that God is the “what”, “when” and “how”, that which revitalizes the soul, that inspires the heart, that sometimes you cannot identify and much less define… How many times, after crying in the solitude of bad days, has comfort found you? But, where did it come from? Where does the strength after a failure come from?

I’ve seen campaigns around the world in favor of the propagating atheism without a single convincing argument that appeals to reason. It hurts me as a human being and as a son of God because God is not an institution but goes well beyond the temple and social movements. There are empty spaces in our lives that we know not how to fill, that you know not how to identify. It’s not a matter of psychology nor psychiatry, otherwise how could one explain that all of us as human beings always arrive at the same places at which we are being waited for? Chance? Coincidence? I don’t think so! I remember the life of Paul, married to his creed with the idea of a distant god of a cruel system, planter of terror… totally convinced of this, and later discovering it was not so. The intervention of God was crucial, but it was at the exact moment and the ideal time. Paul converted into that which he pursued, from pursuer to being persecuted himself. Why? Because of conviction! Paul’s life was never the same again, he realized the error and amended his life if favor of a life of quality, of truth , of love for God… And it’s because God is not a social movement, it’s not someone’s invention… Not a product of wisdom, chance, nor ignorance. Today’s man believes he’s intelligent and wise enough, but the reality is that he’s no different to what he was in the caves, when man gave himself to God without fear of losing anything, received it all, when he left control in the hands of God and stopped being who he was to find himself. Today the manipulation continues at the hands of the pillars of humanity, but we have a right… to believe and accept!

An effective change process is needed. The process was not easy in the life of Paul, the truth is that it’s not easy for anybody, however the result could not have been any better. I once read the following of John Maxwell: “Personal triumphs begin with a change in what you believe in.” Why? Because your beliefs determine your expectations? Everything has a foundation, a cause… that is where God’s power is. Psychology says that my beliefs are in the subconscious and that it is the subconscious that determines my decisions (that’s what any psychoanalyst would tell me). The truth is that I consciously decide, like Paul once did. Radical change brought about radical decisions.

There are two tough proofs on the spiritual path that I consider very important?

1. Conviction and patience on a path that is not easy, but correct.

2. Courage to not be disappointed when things don’t go right, the courage of Joshua when he took down the walls of Jericho, when God backed him up. The lack of courage of people to be different goes against their nature to believe, to accept and to assume their need for God.

There exists a spiritual and cultural reality, that is the truth, and the fact is that many of the incomprehensible claims of atheists against the true arguments of the Christian faith begin there. God is love, this summarizes it all, and this is my following description: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love (God), I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love (God), I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love (God), I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. But Love (God) will never cease.

The God that comes to men through Jesus Christ is forgiveness without limits, total love, free and unconditional mercy. To believe in God, revealed in Jesus Christ, is to have set root in an original love that offers a joyful existence that fills the expectations of the human heart. That is why the Gospel of Jesus is the good news: It’s grace, strength and joy to live. I hope you like it.

I was once the dear atheist friend.

Submission #2

The world in which we live in cries out for an explanation. How can we sustain the existence of all that surrounds us? We can’t simply close our senses to reality and say it doesn’t exist. Regarding the origin of the universe, we can only maintain one of two positions. Everything that surrounds us has always existed or the universe had a beginning.

When the atheist faces these two options, he has to struggle with inescapable problems, regardless of his choice. In saying that the universe is eternal, he’d have to go against modern science that establishes an origin for the world. And if were to declare that it does have a beginning, then he needs to explain what caused it to originate.

According to the dictionary, la word atheism means “the belief that God does not exist.” But this declaration is irresponsible and presumptuous. To be able to say something like that with so much certainty I’d have to be God myself, I’d have to knowledge of all things and have been in all places in the universe. Only that way would I be able to say such a dogmatic and religious phrase like: “Goes does not exist.”

Don’t be surprised that I’ve called it religious. After all, atheism is a religion, a blind faith that is born in the stubborn heart of the human being. The question to my atheist friends is not then: “Why do you not believe in God?”, but rather: “Why do you not want to believe in God?”

Submission #3

You know…

I could cite the Bible from the beginning of Genesis to the last word in Revelation, but maybe it wouldn’t be enough.

I’d like to cite the words of the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson when he said: “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen”, but maybe it would have no meaning to you.

Or cite the words of a Pastor when he tells us it’s easier to have faith in God than to believe in the curse of witchcraft and divination, but maybe you’d not find the solution.

And maybe none of this would make any sense to you if I didn’t understand the reason behind your decision to not believe in God, even when you were close to Him many times, even when you thought He spoke to you during a sermon or during worship, even when during prayer you felt that He listened to you and you could get off of your knees and walk confident and in peace.

Then…

I would sit at your side and would try to understand the forces that have surrounded your pain, and would even cry with you if I was unable to speak and would remain silent until I heard why your heart is shattered, why your circumstances led you to that decision, why you could not go on.

And I would show you the love of God through my words, would look for words of comfort, wisdom and advise to sweeten the bitterness of your heart and would speak to you of the miracles of a person who is love, who is real and who is the reason for all existence… that being is Jesus.

At that moment…

I would say a prayer to God in my heart to soften your heart, and ask the only true God to give me words meant only for you so I could speak them to you with words of truth and life for you, words that go through the thoughts and intentions of the heart, powerful and wonderful that cause a revolution within the human being. For you, those words would be only for you, the only ones you need to hear and would come from the very heart of your Creator.

I wouldn’t be able to finish speaking to you without expressing the greatness of his mercy and grace, of his power over human life and the passion of knowing a God that lives, the only true God and Jesus whom he sent to give us life, and life in abundance.

Decide…

Now you have the opportunity to give his your heart once again, return to Him, because He is life for you. Give to him your situation and trust in a God that loves you and will never stop loving you… Believe, believe that He has plans for you, plans of blessings and not of evil, to give you a future full of hope. Just trust, He knows everything about you, your thoughts, your emotions, your sorrow, your disappointment, your cry, your pain, and nothing is greater than Him. Return to your God, He is waiting to help you to walk each day, in times of pain and of happiness. It’s not too late… Your God awaits you.

Submission #4

The fact that someone believes not in God, does not make Him cease to be. Believe it or not. God has existed yesterday, today and forever, amen. Jesus Christ loves you and wrote about you in the Bible. “The fool says in his heart, ‘there is no god’.” Psalms 14:1.

I spoke many times about the word of God and of eternal life to my father in law, a very intelligent person, but who was not a believer. He would listen to me but would tell me, “Look, mija, that’s only a story, a very pretty one, but only that… a story.” I would answer him, “Look, Don C, I prefer to believe in what you call a story, because when God calls me to settle scores, just like He will also do with you, if it was only a story I will have lost nothing, but if it’s true and I have not believed, I will have lost it all.” I know that my father in law is in heaven with God because in his last breath of life, a tear rolled from his eyes and I believe that it was when he was face to face with his Creator, a tear that one of my sons picked up with his finger.

Atheist, I hope to meet with you in heaven also. God bless you.

Submission #5

Believer Vs. Atheist…

Atheist: Accept it, God does not exist and your faith is a vane hope that serves you to go on.

Believer: The truth is that there are different ways to prove that God is not an invention, he loves you, wants your life, and the reality is that He exists:

1) The Bible speaks of Jesus, the whole of the Old Testament speaks of prophecies about Him, and the New Testament is the story of His life. The Bible says that it’s the word of God and He is the creator of everything. If we can prove that Jesus existed and that what the Bible says is true, the consequently you must believe that God is real. To this day the Bible is the best substantiated historical book, and with the most proof that it’s exact in it’s details. It has been proven by archaeologists, historians, etc. If Jesus existed, died on the cross and rose from the dead, it means that the NT is truthful, so it follows that the OT is also, and of course, God.

2) One of the proofs that I like the most is that in which what is subjective of God becomes objective in every transformed life because of His salvation, power and love. An infinite number of people can tell stories of how their lives have been rescued from misery and are a living miracle today.

3) Scientifically, believing in God is saner than not doing so.

Atheist: Yeah, right! Lets see, that third option sounds interesting, you have my attention.

Believer: Ok, I’ll make it as simple as possible, check this out:

1) Everyone believes that the human being exists, right? You can feel, see, and smell yourself. Undeniable proof that the human being is an inhabitant of this earth.

2) The problem is that the human being came from somewhere. There are several theories to address this: creationism, evolution, the big bang, etc. We could start of with the theory of evolution and related theories that basically end up telling us that nothing exploded one day and made everything, that after millions of years it came to be what we see today, with life and all. The only problem with this is that it’s basically very, very fortunate bet of chance, and unfortunately this contradicts the law of thermodynamics and entropy: The second law of thermodynamics says that isolated systems tend towards disorder. Entropy can be interpreted as a measure of the aleatory distribution of a system. It is said that a highly aleatory distributed system has high entropy. Given that a system in an improbable state will have a natural tendency to reorganize its self to a more probable state (similar to a random distribution), this reorganization will result in increased entropy. It seems like a tongue twister, but in the end it says that all systems tend towards disorder unless external forces bring balance. Your body, considered as a system, has increasing entropy, although you can reduce it with certain care. Are we understanding? Random chance cannot create something good, my friend, and the well versed on the subject tell me that random chance created what I see today… hmmm… I’m sorry, but I believe I have not that much faith.

Atheist: Hey, I’ve read that if you go back to the beginning of time, for example when the big bang happened, those laws of physics don’t apply.

Believer: Yes, I’ve read about that. What they say is real today, won’t be real tomorrow because it ceases to fit. We must accept that science continues evolving, and that what is true today will not necessarily be true tomorrow, contrary to the word of God that simply never changes. Simply put, the complementary theories are even more far fetched, I invite you to read more about it. Lets talk about Bertrand Russell, whom I’m sure you also know.

Atheist: Sure, good ol’ Russell. What about him?

Believer: Well, your famous atheist philosopher who was a first satisfied with the idea that the universe came from God. When he studied further, and thought about the problem, he concluded that this is not valid, for “Where did God come from?” Then, says Russell, it’s obvious that using the origin of the universe as proof of the existence of God is not philosophically feasible. We’re only substituting one thing without a beginning with another thing without a beginning. No matter how many universes we propose (the universe came from another universe that came from another universe… here you can fit many crazy theories that are practically incomprehensible for simple mortals without several PHDs) or how many gods (the universe came from a god that came from another god that came from another god…), we always end up with “Where did the first one come from?”… Russell did not answer this, and nobody really has, they have only given us incomprehensible theories.

Atheist: Hmmm… But not knowing the beginning of things doesn’t prove that God exists.

Believer: Maybe, but it takes you to another philosophical problem:

1) In order for something to exist, something must have existed forever.

2) Why is this a problem? Well because it makes no sense but it seems to imply that nothing exists. Nothing can begin to exist without the intervention of something that already exists. Nothing can create its self. Then, there can logically never be a first thing. There can only be a second or third thing, but never a first thing. Nothing can create its self. Something cannot come out of nothing. Then there has to be something that does not have a beginning, something that has always existed. But that doesn’t make sense either!… At least not from a scientific perspective.

Someone once said that upon lacking proven answers regarding the origin of life, there are currently only two ways out: Spontaneous generation or divine creation. Spontaneous generation has already been proven false, but when you don’t believe in God you choose it as being more probable. What’s your choice?

Atheist: But…

Believer: I can’t prove to you that God is real either. You can include creation among the theories, but because of the evidence, including the beginning of it all, the wonderful creation its self, the life of Jesus, my own life and of so many restored friends, I choose to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and God, close my eyes, pray, and listen to His voice. My God is real.

Note: I must admit that much of the above comes from my pastor and Roberto Haskell.

Submission #6

Some answers to atheist questions and claims.

Atheist: Is it reasonable to believe? How am I to believe in a God that I can’t see?

Almost all the important things in life are of the kind that we can’t see. The senses are very important. They are constantly indicating data through the ear, sight, touch, taste, but those senses can lead me to error. For example, I see the Moon. It’s very small, but with my intelligence I deduce that it’s not small, but that it’s at a great distance from me. The same is so when I submerge a broom stick in a pool and see it bend, it doesn’t mean that it changes physically, but that there is an optical effect that we all know involved. God is spirit, He can’t be seen just like our senses, like our thoughts, my memories.

Atheist: How can we say that God exists if we can’t see Him?

With our intelligence we can know laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc, etc. With it we can know the existence of God. Plato and Aristotle came to the conclusion that God aught to exist. The human being has lived on the earth for a certain amount of time, the earth has its age, be it as it may everything has had a beginning. The question is: If everything has had a beginning, what was there at the beginning of it all? The answer is nothing, but nothing comes out of nothing. The reasonable thing to think is that at the beginning there was a being that has existed forever, a being that has created it all. There was once a scientist who spoke of random chance. Imagine a kilometer long hangar filled with airplane parts, and having a tornado mix everything inside of it for 100 million years, and finding at the end of the tornado’s onslaught some totally built airplanes within the hangar. This is the percentage of random chance that this scientist affirms. Null.

Atheist: Could there have been some particles in the beginning that where the origin of all that exists?

In the observed reality we find order. Order is very important. We can walk into a room that is very neat and not know who put things in order. A room does not magically become neat. A number of bricks do not form a building by themselves, an architect is required to give it shape until the building is built. We can have a chairs and tables in disarray inside a classroom, we can set then in such a way as we please or as it meets our needs, or we can even take them out of the classroom. The orderliness in which we leave the chairs and tables in the classroom reflects the orderliness of our intelligence. The laws of the universe are precise like the machinery of a watch. We can predict an eclipse of the Sun hundreds of years in advance, and with mathematical precision. Scientists can advance their studies because there’s an order to things, they don’t create the laws, they only discover them. Like the law of gravity. To attribute everything to blind destiny would be remember the scientist and his tornado built airplanes.

Atheist: Today science can explain many natural phenomenons.

Technological advances are incredible, man dominates matter more and more each time, but not all that exists is made of matter. There are realities that are not material, for example, friendship. I could be surrounded by many people who are not my friends. I could not go the store and order 6 kilograms of friendship. Friendship is a reality that is immaterial. It cannot be bought nor measured. Sometimes we forget that the most important realities in this life are the ones that are not material. The senses, love, our fears, our future projects are not material things but they have a very important place in our lives. Scientists know that the scientific method, measuring and quantifying, does not exhaust all of reality, nor is it useful to give meaning to life. The scientific method tells me that I weigh 68 kilograms, but I’m not just 68 kilograms of meat, I have feelings and anxieties. We can’t get a joke, not measure the love we have for those around us with the scientific method.

Atheist: If scientists and people that study through science don’t believe in God, why should I believe?

It’s very important not to confuse science with what is scientific. A scientist can give us his personal opinion about something that’s out of his area of expertise. That personal opinion has no scientific value. There are scientists that are not believers. We’d have to see why they aren’t. Maybe they don’t know the answers to the questions they have posed, and that profound believers could answer firmly. Be it as it may, there is no scientific truth that can assure that God doesn’t exist. Otherwise there would have never been any scientists that are believers, but there have been and there still are scientists that are believers. Einstein said: “Religion without science is blind, but science without religion is lame.” The scientist that put the first man on the Moon said that each time we know more and more about nature we find more reasons to be amazed by the creation of God. One of the Nobel prize winners in physics spoke of God as the creator of the universe. There are scientists that are believers, just as there are scientists that are not believers. Any serious scientist knows that when he speaks of something that is not his forte, his opinion is worth just as much as the opinion of any one of us.

Atheist: Society does not need to believe in God in order to function, we are capable of organizing ourselves and to set our rules regardless of God.

Man is a social being… thanks to God we have made laws with our intelligence that allow us to live more in harmony with ourselves, but these laws turn against man if we relieve them of God. Unfortunately we have events in our modern history in which atheist societies, such as Nazism and Communism, have ended up having tyrannical leaders that have led their countries to hunger and misery. Terrible stories of concentration camps where thousands of lives where lost in horrendous crimes throughout 70 years of the history of Communism. It’s not true that man makes a more human society when he distances himself from God, man does not occupy God’s place. Far from growing, it makes man smaller. Man ends up attacking other men. Society without God does not work, a better world cannot be built without God. Science does not give meaning to the life of man, nor does science solve societies great troubles: Racism, drugs, violence, etc. Belief in God brings out the best in us.

Atheist: If God exists, why does He allow evil? There’s no reason for people to suffer.

What is suffering? According to an author, it’s the megaphone that God uses to awaken a world of deaf people. It’s not easy to understand suffering. Of course, many times things that we qualify as bad happen to us. A baby that grabs a pair of scissors. If his mother sees him, she’ll take away the scissors from him and he will question why his mother has done that. He will not understand why they have been taken from him. He’ll begin to cry and might even think that his mother doesn’t love him. How many times does that happen to us? We catalog a fact as bad, only to find out that it has served to mold our personality, it has taken us to maturity. Suffering helps us mature, and suffering, when it happens to someone else, moves us to give ourselves to others. Suffering is a mystery. Let us always keep in mind that God knows best.

Atheist: I’d rather not consider the existence of God.

You can live with your back turn against God, although it’s not a reasonable nor recommended posture. There exists the need to seek out truth and to reach it. If we don’t seek it, we could be guilty of our own ignorance. A boy that misses school is obligated to communicate with a classmate if he suspects he’ll have a test the next day. It would not be valid to simply say that he missed school as an excuse. Surely he’d ask his friend if there where plans for the next day. It’s a matter of having interest. We all have interest. He aught to be interested in knowing God in order to know truth because this has influence in our lives, because it makes us be more of a realist. The belief in God makes us be more of a realist, the Christian man is a very realist man. We know we’re on this earth to make it better, through our work. We also know that this earth is not our permanent dwelling place, that we’re only passing by. The Christian knows his limitations, but also knows his most intimate truth, the Christian knows he’s a son of God. He knows that he’s not called to just any happiness, that he’s called to live with God… live by faith. Living without faith is living in a totally dark house in which we’d be constantly hitting things and falling. Living with faith is living with light that allows us to see obstacles and advance to the proposed goal.

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