Chapter Content
Okay, so, having faith in God, huh? Where do I even start? I guess with a quote, right? So, uh, yeah: "I am the living God, the Resurrection and the Life; whoever trusts in me, even if he dies, he shall live." That's from John, chapter 11, verses 25 and 26. Pretty heavy stuff, right?
Um, you know, Laurel and I, after we first read the whole Bible, we started listening to this radio program, "Voice of Prophecy," hosted by Pastor Lonnie Melashenko. It was, like, our first taste of mainstream Christianity, or at least, that's what we thought at the time.
We were really intrigued, so we sent away for the Bible study guides they were offering. And, you know, for the most part, their take on the Scriptures seemed pretty much in line with our own. But then… BAM! The final lesson came along and it was… weird. It was all about the history of calendars and how Saturday, not Sunday, was the *real* Sabbath. And then it implied – I mean, *implied* – that anyone who observed the Sabbath on Sunday was, like, heading straight to… well, you know.
Laurel and I were just... gobsmacked. I mean, come on! So, our eternal fate hinges on which day of the *weekend* we decide to chill? Seriously?
So, naturally, I had to find out more, right? This was way before Google or anything, so I did some digging the old-fashioned way and found out they were Seventh-day Adventists. Okay, a Christian denomination with, like, 20 million followers worldwide. So, yeah, a tiny fraction of the two billion-plus Christians on the planet, but, you know, they are known for being friendly and having, like, this impressive outreach ministry thing going on.
So, yeah, this whole experience left Laurel and me scratching our heads. We wanted to learn more about Christianity, but now it was like, "Whose Christianity are we supposed to be learning about?"
And honestly, the more we dug, the muddier things got, you know? We found out that even fundamentalist Christians, people who totally believe in the Bible and a literal interpretation of it, even *they* couldn't agree on everything. Some disagreements were over seemingly small things, like, what counts as a proper baptism? Some think a sprinkle of water is good enough, and others insist on full immersion. It's like... really?
It kind of reminds me of this poem by William Blake. It goes something like, "The vision of Christ that thou dost see, is my vision's greatest enemy. Thine has a great hook nose like thine, Mine has a snub nose like to mine. Thine is the Friend of all Mankind, Mine speaks in parables to the blind. Thine loves the same world that mine hates, Thy heaven doors are my hell gates. Socrates taught what Meletus Loath'd as a nation's bitterest curse, And Caiaphas was in his own mind A benefactor to mankind. Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read'st black where I read white." Pretty powerful stuff, right?
And then there's the whole translation thing. Christians can't even agree on the *most accurate* translation of the Bible! I mean, BibleGateway.com, that's, like, a popular online resource, offers, like, sixty-one different translations *just in English*. And according to the American Bible Society, there are, like, *nine hundred* different English translations of the Bible. Crazy, right?
Now, some of these translations are necessary, you know, to keep up with how language evolves. We don't speak the same English today that they did back in the 17th century when the King James Version came out.
Like, check this out. In the King James Version, Job 36:32 reads, "With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt." Okay? Now, here’s the New Living Translation of that same verse: "He fills his hands with lightning bolts and hurls each at its target." See? Totally different!
Scholars, they use different strategies to translate from the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Some do word-for-word, others do thought-for-thought.
So, faced with all these options, Laurel and I felt like kids in a candy store with only a nickel. But we didn't let it stop us. We pushed on.
I, in particular, kept digging into the similarities I was seeing between the New Testament and quantum physics. I really thought, and I still do, that the NT, like quantum physics, was maybe, *just maybe*, hinting at some profound truths about the universe. Not just obvious stuff, but baffling, deep, translogical stuff. Stuff that can't be seen, proven, or even imagined.
And that, that takes a lot of open-mindedness, you know? And patience.
I knew a lot of people who'd just dismissed the Bible, but most of them hadn't even read it! Some people criticized it for leaving out certain books, but I had read those and found out there were good reasons they weren't included. Other people just wanted to argue about this word or that verse.
I knew those people would always be around, and that Christians would always disagree about how to interpret the scriptures or which translation was best. But that didn't bother me. It just fueled my intuition about the NT and quantum physics.
I mean, we physicists disagree about how to interpret quantum physics *all the time*. The "orthodox" version is called the Copenhagen interpretation, but there are a ton of others! Think of them as competing denominations, like, the Many Worlds interpretation, the De Broglie–Bohm interpretation, and the transactional interpretation. It's a mess!
So I knew I couldn't just write off the NT because people disagreed about it. And there was another, HUGE reason I couldn't write it off: I'd already seen how consistent the Christian worldview was with the best evidence we have, just like quantum physics.
It wasn't *proof*, but I've said this before, there's no such thing. Quantum physics isn't provable, either, and never will be.
Even Einstein, like, the *Einstein*, was skeptical about quantum physics. He said, "Quantum mechanics is very impressive, but an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing."
So, despite all the skeptics and arguments, I knew I had to at least *respect* the Christian worldview. I needed to investigate it carefully, like I had with other religions, but also with an open mind, without any prejudice.
If it held up to my scientific scrutiny, then I was pretty sure I could see past the arguments and find, not just the obvious stuff, but the essential, inscrutable, translogical truths, too.
It's like listening to music, you know? I've heard a bunch of Beethoven's symphonies, and some performances were terrible. But even then, Beethoven's genius still shined through.
So, to really understand the heart of the New Testament, I knew I had to focus on its main character: Jesus Christ. That meant taking on the big claims about him. You know, like...
* Jesus is the human form of God who made the universe.
* Jesus actually said and did what the NT says he did, including all the prophecies and miracles.
* Jesus is the Messiah that the ancient Hebrew texts talk about.
* Jesus was born to a virgin.
* Jesus lived a perfect life.
* Jesus was, you know, killed for something huge, like, to fix the break between us and God caused by our constant rebelliousness.
* Jesus came back to life after he was killed.
* Jesus is part of a Trinity, which includes God and the Holy Spirit.
* If you believe in Jesus, I mean really believe, not just know he exists but turn away from the bad stuff and accept that he gave his life for you, then you will be with God forever, no matter who you are or what you've done.
So, to tell you the full story of all the years I spent digging into Christianity would be a whole book in itself. But here are some of the highlights.
Okay, prophecies. The Bible claims to be more than just history. It says it tells the story of humans for all time.
It explains, like, how we got here, why we're so messed up, and what the future holds for us and the Earth.
And here's the thing: it points out this remarkable thing about Christianity, it believes in *linear* time.
That's a big deal. Other religions, like Hinduism and Buddhism, believe in circular time. And so did science, believe it or not, long before Christianity.
And, the sacred writings of other religions usually happen in a timeless place.
But the Bible is really specific about dates and places.
And, even better, archaeology backs up a lot of the Bible's history. Experts say that science has confirmed at least fifty-three people in the Old Testament alone and that number keeps growing. Their names appear in writings from the time the Bible talks about.
The Bible also makes predictions about the future, which is no small thing.
In science, we only trust an idea if it makes predictions that can be tested. Saying the moon is made of cheese is a legit idea because you can go there and check. But saying you dreamt you would win the lottery isn't because there is no way to test that.
A lot of religious claims can't be tested that way. That doesn't mean they aren't true, just that they aren't scientific.
And that applies to science, too.
Like, the idea that multiple universes exist or that science can explain everything can't be tested. So, it's a philosophical belief, not a scientific one.
Okay, so among all of the Old Testament prophecies, there are a bunch about a Messiah. It seems to predict two Messiahs, one who suffers and one who wins. Or maybe just one person who does both.
Christians believe that Jesus is that Messiah. That he had to suffer to win and that he'll come back for good at some point in the future.
Some of the Old Testament prophecies are vague and only make sense when you look back at them. But others, they're testable, kind of like science. And those ones caught my attention.
For instance, scholars say these prophecies were written between 470 and 735 BC, so hundreds of years before Jesus.
Alright, "The Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel," Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 14.
"But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf," Micah, chapter 5, verse 2.
"Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey—riding on a donkey’s colt," Zechariah, chapter 9, verse 9.
"They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died," Zechariah, chapter 12, verse 10.
"He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. . . . And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all. . . . He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. . . . Unjustly condemned, he was led away. . . . He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave," Isaiah, chapter 53, verses 3 through 9.
"After this period of sixty-two sets of seven, the Anointed One will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing, and a ruler will arise whose armies will destroy the city and the Temple," Daniel, chapter 9, verse 26.
"As my vision continued that night, I saw someone like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence. He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him. His rule is eternal—it will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed," Daniel, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14.
"The LORD will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore," Isaiah, chapter 2, verse 4.
These prophecies, and others, line up with the NT stories about Jesus. Does that prove he's the Messiah? No. Is the Christian way to read these the only way? No.
But, like I said, you can't really *prove* something like this. The best you can do is say that it's consistent with the best evidence you have.
So, the idea that Jesus is the Messiah is consistent with the best available evidence. Which, as we'll see, includes the NT and other stuff.
Okay, so, the NT story of Jesus's birth always got me because of the star of Bethlehem, that astronomical event. I'm not going to get into that now, but I am working on a project about it.
I was also intrigued by the idea that Jesus was born to a virgin. The angel Gabriel tells Mary, "You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus," Luke, chapter 1, verse 31.
And her reaction is, "'How will this be,' Mary asked the angel, 'since I am a virgin?'" Luke, chapter 1, verse 34.
That lines up with the prophecy by Isaiah from a long time before. "Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel." Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 14.
"Look!" That's a translation of the Hebrew word *hinneh*. It's like saying, "Pay attention! This is important!"
And virgin, that's *ha'almah* in Hebrew. It means a young, unmarried woman who's old enough to get married. And *ha'almah* means *the* maiden, which makes her special.
People argue about whether Mary was really a virgin because *almah* can also mean young woman or maiden. But because people were so strict back then, scholars say that any unmarried woman would almost certainly be a virgin.
I know, I know, a virgin birth sounds weird to a lot of people. But not to me.
First of all, the God of the Bible can do anything he wants. If he made the universe, he can make a virgin pregnant, right?
Second, a lot of animals can reproduce without having sex. Virgin births happen with snakes, sharks, bees, shrimp, Komodo dragons, and even turkeys!
That process is called parthenogenesis. We still don't really understand it.
One geneticist said, "It’s amazing that we do all of this work on reproductive biology, and we’re still learning something new about the reproductive modes about the animals around us."
Virgin births have never been seen in mammals, especially humans. But in 2004, scientists in Japan made a mouse that was born without a father! They named her Kaguya.
Look, no matter what you think about Jesus, he existed. That's what I found out when I looked into Christianity.
There's actually more historical proof for the life of Jesus than for other famous people like Socrates or Alexander the Great.
Besides the twenty-seven letters in the New Testament, there are, like, eighteen non-Christian writings that talk about a person named Jesus. They say that he caused trouble in the first century, that he was killed for it, and that his followers claimed he came back to life, which started a revolution that continues to this day.
One of those writings is "The Antiquities of the Jews" by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who was born around the time of Jesus's death. One scholar said that Josephus is the best source we have for information about Palestine in the first century. He also said that almost all scholars of the time agree that Jesus of Nazareth really lived.
Some scholars think that Christians changed some of Josephus's writings about Jesus. But these writings are thought to be real:
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man . . . ; a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. . . . Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross. . . . And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."
"Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others. . . ."
Peter Shäfer, who is known as the best scholar of ancient Judaism, said that Jewish rabbis didn't talk about Jesus very much because they didn't like him. They thought he was a fake and a troublemaker.
He says that the rabbis made up a story to counter the NT's story about Jesus. They said that he wasn't born to a virgin, but that he was the son of a prostitute and her lover. So, he couldn't be the Messiah.
But even those rabbis agreed that Jesus was a real person. One scholar said that Jewish rabbis who didn't like Jesus accused him of being a magician and leading people astray, but they never said he didn't exist.
But even after all this time, some people still don't get it.
One study showed that a lot of people in England don't believe or aren't sure that Jesus was a real person who lived on Earth.
That's a crazy amount of ignorance about the most influential person in history.
I liked learning about Buddhism. But I was bummed when I found out that the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, died of food poisoning from eating bad pork or mushrooms. It seemed like a pointless way for him to go.
According to the NT, Jesus's death was also not very glorious. He was killed along with two thieves. But his death wasn't pointless.
The NT says that Jesus's trial was a big deal. It showed that humans were being arrested, tried, convicted, and killed for rebelling against God.
The NT says that only Jesus, God in the flesh, could deliver that kind of justice. Only he had the power to fix the problem between us and God.
The NT says that Jesus's death was the only way God could show us how much he loved us. "The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them."
According to the Old Testament, humans have been breaking the rules since the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and he punished them.
God told the woman, "I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you."
And he told the man, "The ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made."
Yikes!
After that, humans kept rebelling, and God kept punishing them. According to the Old Testament, it happened during the time of Noah, who was a righteous man.
Only Noah, his family, and the animals were saved from God's flood.
"When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights."
According to the Old Testament, humans kept defying God and kept getting punished. Even the Hebrews, God's chosen people, went through a cycle of rebellion, punishment, sorry, forgiveness, rebellion, punishment, and sorry.
I already knew that our DNA has stuff from viruses that have infected us over time. Now I couldn't help but think that we've also inherited Adam and Eve's rebelliousness.
Christians call that original sin.
Because of all this, Laurel and I thought the Old Testament was pretty depressing. It's all about our badness and God's anger. Loving our friends and hating our enemies. Getting revenge. There's no happy ending. And there's no hope that things will ever get better.
The Old Testament was depressing for another reason, it rings true in a sad way. It doesn't give you hope that things will ever change.
I felt that way when I looked into Judaism. I learned about Tikkun olam, which means to fix the world. It's a call to arms in the face of a world that's broken.
Christianity also tells people to do good things. But Judaism relies more on us to follow the laws and do good deeds to make things right and to decide our eternal fates. It puts a lot of trust in us, in the people who broke the world in the first place and keep breaking it with bad behavior.
Judaism is rooted in the Old Testament, where God waits for us to get our act together. But that hasn't worked and never will because our rebellious nature is the problem. As long as we have a choice, we'll keep making bad choices.
But in Christianity, God already knows that and he has a plan.
Before he even made the world, God knew there was only one way to get out of this endless cycle of rebellion and justice.
God knew there was only one way for him to be fair and for us to be free.
God knew there was only one way to make peace with us for all time.
That one way is through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who is God himself.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life," Jesus says. "No one can come to the Father except through me."
That's why early Christians called themselves "followers of the Way." They knew that Jesus was the only way to solve the problem of justice versus freedom. The only way for us to live in peace with a perfect God.
I admit, it took me a long time to get that. My logic-centered brain had a hard time understanding the idea of Jesus being both God and man and his death being both bad and good.
But when I finally got it, it changed everything. It was the beginning of the end of my atheism and the beginning of my dive into the deepest mysteries of the universe and life.
Okay, so according to one of Jesus's followers, Paul, Christianity depends on the answer to one question: Did Jesus come back from the dead?
"If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave."
Paul goes on to say that Jesus *did* come back from the dead. This letter was written about twenty years after Jesus's death.
Paul says, "He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him."
That's a big claim. Skeptics could have easily checked it by asking those 500 people if they saw him.
Also, Paul is a credible witness. He used to be a Jew who hated Christians. He made fun of them and hunted them down.
The NT describes how Paul treated Christians after Jesus's death:
"A great wave of persecution began that day and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. . . . Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison."
Historians agree that Paul existed and that his story is true. They also agree that something weird happened to him a few years after Jesus's death. Something that changed his life completely.
Suddenly, Paul went from hating Christians to being one of them! He became Christianity's most famous spokesperson, writing a lot of the New Testament.
In one letter, Paul says, "I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church." In another letter, he says, "I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my best to destroy it."
Even though Paul is credible, I get why a lot of people have trouble believing that Jesus came back from the dead. It sounds crazy. But as a scientist, I'm used to weird claims.
Like quasars. They're one of the biggest mysteries in space.
We think they're really bright galaxies with huge black holes in the middle. But they're so far away that we can't see them. So, everything we know about them is based on the light they give off, which isn't much.
So, we're not really sure about them. For example, the most distant quasar we've ever found is supposedly eight hundred million times bigger than the sun and 77,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. But that doesn't fit with our best theories about the universe.
Still, astronomers believe that quasars exist and that they are what we say they are.
When I looked into what the Bible says about Jesus, I realized that there's more evidence for his resurrection than there is for quasars.
One religious scholar said, "There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus’ life: when and where he lived, approximately when and where he died, and the sort of thing that he did during his public activity. . . . We may add here a short list of equally secure facts about the aftermath of Jesus’ life: 'his disciples at first fled; they saw him (in what sense is not certain) after his death.' . . . We know that after his death his followers experienced what they described as the 'resurrection': the appearance of a living but transformed person who had actually died. They believed this, they lived it, and they died for it."
Skeptics have tried to explain Jesus's reappearances in other ways. But one expert has shot down every one of those explanations. He only uses facts that are well-evidenced and that almost every scholar accepts.
He says that if you use the New Testament the way skeptics do, using only the facts that scholars agree on, then there's no doubt that Jesus came back from the dead.
When I thought about that, I realized something else. By the time you get to this point in Jesus's story, you've probably already made up your mind about him.
If you think it's possible that God made Mary pregnant while she was still a virgin, then it's not that hard to believe that God could bring Jesus back to life. But if you don't believe in the virgin birth, you probably won't believe in the resurrection.
So, I judged Christianity not just on the resurrection, but on the evidence for his whole story, from the prophecies about his birth to his return from the dead.
It took me years to do that because I needed to answer a lot of questions. But one day, it became clear what my conclusion had to be.
It wasn't an emotional thing for me. It was the result of a long intellectual journey that started at Cornell University when I asked myself a simple question: How did this amazing universe come to be so amazing?
The answer, I decided, had something to do with the stars and galaxies I'd studied my whole life. But it also had to do with the God who created them and the resurrected Jesus, who made it possible for me to know him.
"For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God," Romans, chapter 1, verse 20.
Okay, what does the NT mean when it says that Jesus wants you to believe in him? And why is that so important to Christianity?
How can one decision about someone who lived two thousand years ago decide whether you live or die forever? And what do those two things even mean?
Those were the questions I had as I tried to understand Jesus and Christianity. Even when I was in grad school and teaching at Harvard, I was still the kid who asked a million questions.
Little by little, my questions about Jesus led me to answers that were different from the ones I got from other religions, but that were similar to the ones I got from science. Those answers changed my life forever.
One of those answers taught me the difference between believing in something and trusting in something. And the difference between knowing something exists and giving yourself to it completely.
The New Testament explains it like this:
"This is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him [i.e., trusts him completely] will not perish but have eternal life," John, chapter 3, verse 16.
That's not just some small kind of belief. It's a deep, meaningful trust in someone's character, ability, strength, and truth.
Here's another way to think about it.
In my high school, you had to pass a swimming test to graduate. That was a big problem for me because I was scared of water.
I'll never forget when the swim coach made me get into the deep end of the pool. I was terrified and shivering. I held on to the edge of the pool for dear life.
The coach said, "Son, there's nothing to be afraid of. Just relax and let go!"
But every time I tried, I sank like a rock.
I knew all about buoyancy. I knew the equation and could calculate it for anything.
I *believed* in buoyancy. I believed in the science behind it.
But it was just belief in my head.
I didn't trust it with my life.
That's why I kept sinking.
I ended up graduating without ever learning to swim, which I still regret. I've missed out on a lot of fun with my son, who swims great.
I did learn how to float, though. Now, when I get into a pool, I relax my muscles and let myself go. I've learned that that's the only way I can float.
Years after I learned the difference between belief and trust, I still had trouble putting it into practice. It was like my high school experience, but with Jesus instead of water.
I realized I was relying too much on my head and not enough on my heart to trust Jesus. My smarts were getting in the way.
Here's how the NT explains that problem:
"The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit," 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 14.
One day, I was feeling really down because of a crisis. After being an atheist and a scientist for years, after studying all the world's religions, I relaxed, let go, and gave myself completely to Jesus's promise:
"Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. . . . Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls," Matthew, chapter 11, verses 28 and 29.
At that moment, instead of sinking, I suddenly felt like I was floating. I felt a joy that I had never felt before.
It was the first time I really understood one of the NT's most puzzling truths. As Jesus told his followers, "Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it," Matthew, chapter 16, verse 25.
For the first time, I understood the meaning of Jesus's words to a woman whose brother had just died: "I am the one who brings people back to life, and I am life itself. Those who believe in me will live even if they die," John, chapter 11, verse 25.
So, Christianity says that Jesus can restore the life of anyone. And that the key to that is trusting Jesus, giving him your whole self.
The NT tells stories of people who were healed and changed. One of them was Paul, who became a living example of God's power. Paul told people that Jesus can change your life.
Paul said that his conversion wasn't just a change of mind. It was something that can't be seen or proven:
"I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning. I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ. . . . God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles."
Paul was a new person, reborn. And if it could happen to him, Paul said, it could happen to anyone. "Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 17.
Whatever you think about Christianity, you can't just dismiss Paul's claims. No one risks their life for something they don't believe.
Paul, who used to hate Christians, suddenly found himself being hated for being one. He was beaten, put in prison, and killed.
In one letter, Paul said that he was willing to go through all that:
"Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. . . . In order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 24 through 30, and chapter 12, verses 7 through 10.
I never had a sudden experience like Paul's. My conversion was more like a slow awakening.
But I did have one experience that was close to it. It's always stuck with me.
I don't really like telling it because I'm a scientist and I've always been skeptical of other Christians' stories. It's not that I think they're lying, but it's just that you can't really test what they say. It's not scientific.
But I'm going to tell you anyway because it changed my life.
It started when I married Laurel. I'm Latino and I wanted to have a lot of kids. Laurel did, too.
But we found out that we couldn't have children. Doctors said we were infertile, but they didn't know why.
That gave us hope. We tried artificial insemination, but it didn't work. We tried again and again,