“The God Delusion” Changed My Life (part 1)

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My Encounter with “The God Delusion” and how it changed my life.

This is the story of how reading Richard Dawkins’ book, “The God Delusion” changed my life. As I was reading it, with each passing sentence I felt my faith growing stronger my in God’s promises. Each passing paragraph was prompting me to evangelism of the Gospel of Christ Jesus to atheists.

The story actually begins back in the late 70s when I was 18 years old. It will continue until the time which God has allotted for me to be on this earth ends.

My Arguing with God one Night

One night when I was 18 years old after taking more than half a bottle of over the counter sleeping pills, I lay wide awake in bed all night not being able to close my eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. God told me that I was going to be an evangelist spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ to thousands of people and point them to the truth of His love for them. I started arguing with God. I told Him that there’s no way that I’m going to do that because if I did that, that I’d be a huge hypocrite. God told me again that I would be and evangelist pointing people to Him and again I told Him that I would not be. (Proverbs 17:19)

I knew of and actually ran around with a preacher who was in secrete living the same lies I was and I first hand saw his hypocrisy. We would compete for the same women, drink the same alcohol, and smoke the same pot. There was no way that I wanted to be that much of a hypocrite. I remember asking him about how could he preach in the pulpit and do what he was doing and not feel that it was wrong. He told me that it was easy because he didn’t preach against what he was doing.

Nonetheless in reality, he was doing the exact same think I was, saying that he was a Christian yet not letting God lead his life and going against God’s teachings and living a life of lies. Thus this preacher’s hypocrisy was the same as mine. He was not asking forgiveness and was planning sinful actions and not following Christ Jesus’ teachings yet he was supposedly teaching Christ Jesus’ instructions and saying that he was a Christian. (Psalm 59:12)

So I continued to knowingly do what I knew was wrong and knowingly not do what I knew was correct and ignored God as often as I could which was most all the time because I had become very good at deluding the truth to myself and to others. And I didn’t evangelize to anyone the good news of Christ Jesus because I didn’t care enough about anyone else other than myself and what I wanted.

I Bought and Read Richard Dawkins’ book, “The God Delusion”

It wasn’t until I was in my mid 30s that I admitted the truth to myself and to God that I was a liar and had not been following Christ Jesus even though I had been saying that I was a Christian. I confessed to God that I should not be acting as I was because I know the truth and asked God for forgiveness and through the loving gift of His only begotten Son Jesus’ death on a cross and resurrection, God forgives me because I repented of and repent of the sins I commit (Romans 5:8 ). At that time I also started allowing God to lead me in life instead of just doing things on my own. And although I’m still not perfect I allow God to lead me and guide me. (2 Samuel 22:31)

One day not long after “The God Delusion” was published, I was in a book store and was strongly compelled to get it. So I bought it and I started reading it. As I read it, I realized that even though I had not done much study of the Bible, that what Richard Dawkins had written was way off from what the Bible actually had written in it. I also noticed that Richard Dawkins has a habit of stating something as fact when there is no evidence of it at all. As I continued to read “The God Delusion” I couldn’t help but realize that Richard Dawkins was attacking straw men he made up and was stating that this is was God and Christianity was all about. The more I read “The God Delusion” the more I was compelled to do something to correct all of the erroneous teachings about God and Christ Jesus that Richard Dawkins had written. (2 John 1:7; 2 Peter 2:3)

It was at this point in my mid-forties that I remembered and realized that what God had told me when I was 18 about me being an evangelist for Him was going to actually happen. God had not told me that sometime in the future I would be an evangelist for Him. God just told me when I was 18 that I would be an evangelist for Him. I knew now as I read “The God Delusion” that just as God had told me when I was 18 that I would not be a hypocrite being an evangelist for God because unlike when God first told me what I would be doing for Him, I now let Him lead me in life and I fully trust Him. (James 3:1)

So in 2008 at the age of 46 I started a web site, blog (http://FindingTruthToday.org) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/GospelToday) and in December 2010 a YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/FindingTruthToday) to evangelize God’s message of love and to point people to Him just as God had told me when I was 18 that I would do.

My evangelism of the Gospel of Christ Jesus thus started because of Richard Dawkins’ book, “The God Delusion” and reading “The God Delusion” also was when I started studying the Bible and evidence supporting it. The more I read the Bible and study it and learn more about it and am asked to answer questions about it, the more the Bible stands as solid evidence that it came from God to us so that we can learn of His great love for us. (Romans 5:8)

The Onus is On You, Not Me

I’ve learned over the last four years that many atheists do not read anything which goes against their religion of Atheism. I guess many atheists feel threatened reading books by Ravi Zacharias, Lee Strobel, Antony Flew, C. S. Lewis, and others who were once atheist but during an honest search for truth let the evidence lead them to the truth; Christ Jesus is God and He exists. I also learned over these years that many atheists think that followers of Christ Jesus are afraid to actually test their faith in Christ Jesus. These atheists falsely believe that followers of Christ Jesus have a blind faith. Well, in reality followers of Christ Jesus are actually taught to test and examine ourselves to see if we are actually in the faith. (2 Corinthians 13:5) This teaching is why I read Richard Dawkins’ book among many other secular writings.

 

If you are an atheist who is about to contact me about it being my burden of proof to prove to you God’s existence, don’t because that’s not how it works. Your apathy of knowing absolute truth is not my burden to bear. It is up to you to choose for yourself to take responsibility for yourself to seek to find, know and accept absolute truth or not and it is not up to me or anyone else to choose for you nor is it up to me or anyone else to give to you the proof you need. The proof you want (if you honestly want it) of God’s existence is the proof you need and only you and God know what that is, not me nor anyone else knows but you and God.

 

Actually Reading “The God Delusion”

During my reading of The God Delusion, I could hardly believe that anyone could have placed their faith in such absurdity as what Dawkins wrote let alone that someone with supposedly a great academic background as Dawkins wrote so poorly and had such an illusory imagination which he passes off as reality that some people actually believe is reality. As I was reading it what kept coming to my mind was, “Wow, how is this is a bestselling book?” If it wasn’t for the book being in the non-fiction section of the bookstore where I got it I would have thought it was a very poorly written science fiction writing with a very lame plot that could never become a B movie or a local cable TV show. Yet in reality I knew it was and is a very poorly written science fiction writing being called “science” used as bait by Richard Dawkins to lure and catch his prey; those who choose to not clearly think for themselves.

 

Basically Richard Dawkins’ evangelism of Atheism is his sole purpose for the book. It is my assumption that many followers of the religion of Atheism will not complete reading this first article let alone the series of articles on Richard Dawkins’ book because they are choosing to be limited in their thinking and staying in their little box. These atheists following the religion of Atheism cannot think outside the little box that they have placed themselves into. These atheists are so far deluded into the Richard Dawkins Delusion that they may never be bright enough to actually read anything that is in opposition to their religion of Atheism. These atheists thus choose to give up their own will to clearly think for themselves just to faithfully follow the likes of Richard Dawkins’ musings as absolute truth. These atheists following the religion of Atheism are like the ones who actually allow and find reverence in censorship of anything that is against their teachings such as that on the RichardDawkins.net forums which prohibit all discussions which are against their religion of Atheism. These are the atheists who are so limited in their thinking that many of them cannot get out of the Pandora’s box they’ve placed themselves into and honestly without bias read something that goes against their religion of Atheism. These atheists are afraid to actually test their faith in Atheism.

 

How to not fall prey to the likes of Richard Dawkins

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:1-7)

 

There are people in the world like Richard Dawkins and his gods Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Steven Weinberg, who take great care to distort the truth and insert their own delusion and misrepresentations in place of the truth. (2 Peter 2:1-3) All the while Richard Dawkins and the like find amusement in their power positions with their advanced degrees using illogical pretense to persuade people into thinking that their supremacy is absolute truth all the while stating that they are onto something new beyond anything ever conceived of before by anyone ever in all of written history. Richard Dawkins thinks he is above the average man in his understanding of God’s existence and thus uses his inelegant writing skills to hunt down and mislead people who trust his word because he has such “enlightenment,” degrees, and credentials. (Psalms 146:3)

 

The Richard Dawkins category of person make prey of those people who are not inclined to personally research the powerful evidence of God’s true existence nor are they willing to forgo their lusts for satisfying their own selfish desires. (Galatians 5:19-21) The prey of Richard Dawkins are also delusional because they do not use their own wisdom to truly research both sides as they use their free will to purposefully choose to hear what satisfies their ambition to do whatever they want to do and call it truth. (James 3:13-16)

 

Richard Dawkins and others like him arrogantly feed their prey what they want to hear thus elevating him to “god” status in his and their minds as the prey he feeds wants more to quench their thirst for self-gratification and hunger for unlimited lack of taking personal responsibility for their deeds. (2 Peter 2:17-19) Richard Dawkins and those like him are great deceivers who are most able and willing to delude their prey with partial truths, misrepresentations, elegant writings and witty statements all the while as they are preaching about the atheist faith and religious practices of Atheism as if they are on to something anew. (Matthew 7:15)

 

Richard Dawkins, I believe has less faith in his atheist religion of Atheism that God does not exist and more conviction than he wants to admit in that God does indeed exist. (Hebrews 11:1-3) Richard Dawkins is truly delusional in his quest of persuading his prey to sacrifice him or herself to the atheist faith and that he, Richard Dawkins is the beholder of absolute truth in God’s nonexistence and thus entices his prey to spread his word of guile against God. (Titus 1:10) Richard Dawkins maintains that he is a god of enlightenment and wants his prey to believe it too so to help him better his hunger for supremacy over those who give him sovereignty over them so to try and overcome the conviction he has of the absolute existence of God. (Romans 14:22)

 

Caution to those who fall prey to Richard Dawkins and his kind. Do not take his word for the truth. Start your own research and find the truth for it is there for you to find and accept. Open your minds to more than Richard Dawkins’ heresy through his droll assertions, clever remarks, shadowy charisma and tainted details which at first take seems founded and reasonable but if honestly thought about and researched is discovered to be pure deception. (2 Corinthians 11:14) Respect goes to those who seek out and find the truth that don’t fall prey to deceitful people. (Romans 12:17)

 

Two Outcomes and only Two Outcomes Exist

It would be a shame if I have offended any atheist at this point so to have an atheist quit reading this article because it is well known that many atheists do not want to get anywhere near absolute truth and have an abnormally thin wall of respect for anyone thinking differently than they do because they think that they are so much more enlightened than Christians. (Proverbs 18:13) Tolerance is what they preach but intolerance is in their actions. (1 Samuel 2:3) My challenge to the atheist is to test your atheist faith and continue reading this series of articles if you think God does not exist. (Colossians 2:4)

 

Remember, only two ultimate outcomes exist after you finish reading this series of articles. You will either keep your mind closed, continue to believe that God does not exist and not do any research of your own to test your atheist faith or you will test your atheist faith, open your mind and truly research the existence of God for yourself and make your choice of faith based because of your knowledge and understanding of all the facts about God and not just because someone told you something. (2 Peter 1:5-8) For is it not better to truly know something because you yourself, have honestly researched both sides of the issue for yourself and know the facts from fiction, the reality from delusion and not just have taken someone else’s word for something you pronounce as your beliefs and have put your total faith in and wager your eternal life on? (John 3:16)

 

Don’t fall prey to the kinds of Richard Dawkins. Continue to read this series of articles and do your own research into God’s existence. The day will come that your choice will really matter. Don’t let your day come with you not properly prepared for your eternal life. (Romans 6:23)

 

Religion versus God

As stated above, Richard Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion, made much hype in his writing in mistaking religious practice with something to do with God’s existence. (James 1:26) God exists regardless of religion. (Genesis 1:1) Richard Dawkins’ error goes along with his character flaw in that he knows in bringing up various religious practices in dissimilar religions, he can better persuade people to follow him due to some of the absurd religious rituals and the bewildered hordes who practice them. (2 Timothy 4:3) Richard Dawkins knows that he can persuade his prey to believe in him by bringing up the absurdities of these ridiculous religious practices and the misuses and abuses that have come about due to the selfish nature of mankind.

 

Richard Dawkins knows that some of the ridiculous religious practices and beliefs were declared to be Christian in nature but were far from being based on the absolute one and only God of the Holy Bible and do not follow Christ Jesus’ teachings. Just as in Richard Dawkins’ deceitful teachings with cunning elegant words and phony etiquette, these bogus religions had godless leaders say that they were/are teaching as Christians and that they were following Jesus Christ yet they were not Christians and they were perverted through their vanity, greed, sexual perversions and hunger for power. (2 Peter 2:17-19) These godless leaders full of charisma distort the Holy Bible to contort into their own religious teachings with strategy to reign over their followers and encourage their followers with empty promises that the followers want to hear as they resolve in their own conceited desires. These depraved godless leaders create cult followers of their prey who carry out religious orders for whatever the godless leader requests. This following allows for the “Jim Jones” type community which has played itself out over and over again in various degrees throughout history.[1]

 

Richard Dawkins knows that in bringing up religion, he can cite a variety of examples that display non-Christian religious practice falsely being said to be Christian being lead through godless leaders throughout history as described above to make his case against God’s existence. You must understand that in these non-Christian religious practices the one true God does not exist in their teachings even though they may say He is, they are as deceitful as Richard Dawkins himself, set out to do their own bidding and teaching their own prophecy. (1 John 2:22) Richard Dawkins knows however that regardless of perverted or not religious practices of anyone anywhere at any time that this does not prove that God does not exist. It only proves that people everywhere can be duped into following false doctrine (including Atheism) and need to seek and find the truth for themselves and know that beyond any religion practice only one true God exists and that is the God described in the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible.

 

Mankind’s Sinful Nature versus God

Richard Dawkins knows that mankind has a sinful nature and that we do not want to follow the word of God. (Romans 7:5) He also knows that our sinful nature can and has corrupted leaders in all ages throughout history due to the powerful positions held and the greediness of some leaders to take advantage of a given situation when the timing is right to do so.

 

Richard Dawkins knows that some of these leaders corrupted through their greed of money, others through their lusts of sex while others desired influence over people and still others like Richard Dawkins, have voracity and aspiration for ultimate supremacy. Richard Dawkins knows that by bringing up in his fetid writings the Christian leaders who have fallen to their sinful nature that he can persuade some people to think that these Christian leaders falling gives reason that God does not exist. Richard Dawkins knows his prey will believe him and thus get him that much closer to satisfying his hunger and reaching his ambition for ultimate supremacy.

 

There are Christian leaders who have fallen to temptation. (Luke 8:13) No one is beyond the right temptation without accepting the strength of God to help them overcome. (Isaiah 12:2) It is truly a shame for Christian leaders to fall as there are so many avenues to which they could have held fast so to gain strength against their temptations and not fall prey to temptation if they had just deepened their faith in God and had gone to the Elders in their church instead of relying solely on their own strength simply to find themselves bowing to their own will and into temptation. (2 Peter 2:9) Richard Dawkins knows but will not admit regardless the number of fallen Christian leaders, only one true God exists and that is the God described in the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible.

 

One’s Religious Experience versus God

Richard Dawkins knows that one’s own personal religious participation, experiences and observations from childhood through adolescence to adulthood directly correlate to one’s belief in God. Take in comparison Richard Dawkins and my personal religious participation, experiences and observations. Richard Dawkins in his childhood made “sport” of disrepute and sidetracking his chaplain away from the teachings about God at his school while in contrast I was actively involved and enjoyed the scriptural teachings being taught and respected the people teaching me about God.

 

Through adolescence, Richard Dawkins I’m sure kept to his “sport” and closed his mind even more to Biblical teachings to become today the self-proclaimed god of Atheism disciple he is as an adult while I kept my mind open and even though I made some poor choices along the way, I knew from my childhood Biblical teachings that God existed and that He was there for me during the low times giving me strength to get through my poor choices to become the person I am today writing a series of articles to show how delusional Richard Dawkins is in his saying that God does not exist.

 

The observations made throughout our lifetimes have also made vast differences between Richard Dawkins and me. Richard Dawkins we know through his writings that he sees and longs to focus on the darker side of things and that he takes out of context the facts within the Bible so to distort them into what he wants them to say in his quest for his own supremacy over his prey while I stick to the facts, seek the light and give all the glory to God. These stark contrasts in religious participation, experiences and observations throughout our lives developed two very different outcomes; Richard Dawkins and his claims that there is no God preying on those who will worship him and me knowing that God exists and spreading the good news for all who will hear will open their minds and do an honest seeking of the truth for themselves. (Romans 10:16)

 

Richard Dawkins knows that he can use one’s own personal religious participation, experiences and observations to persuade his prey to believe in him because his prey is often someone who has encountered the bogus religious practices, the sinfulness of mankind, the charisma of a godless proclaimed Christian leader, or a Christian leader which has fallen to which Richard Dawkins proclaims proves beyond a doubt that God does not exist. Richard Dawkins knows that his prey merely takes him at his word and fails to use their own wisdom to research God’s existence beyond Dawkins’ word. Richard Dawkins knows his prey progressively selects to do what satisfies their laziness in not doing any of their own research to know the truth and that his prey will make him their supreme voice of truth thus duped that they in reading his word are enlightened in truth. (2 Timothy 3:1-5) Richard Dawkins also knows although he will not admit it, that God exists regardless of anyone’s past or present religious experience.

 

Trials and Tribulations versus God

Everyone has to go through trials and tribulations here on earth and all people experience at some point in their life trials and tribulations that will be of a religious nature. A shame is that many of people per a past or current negative religious experience go through their trials and tribulations giving up their own character instead of growing it, disregarding their freedom instead of using it, not using their own voice to call out fallacies and so fall prey to likes of Richard Dawkins whilst cursing God instead of calling on God to provide them strength to persevere. (Jeremiah 17-5)

 

Trials and tribulations that we all experience build up or tear down our character dependent upon how we handle them. Without trials and tribulations, no one would grow stronger in one’s character. If everything was always going our way, there would be no challenges and problems of any kind for us to figure out and solve, nothing for us to discover, nothing for us to overcome and go beyond, and nothing to build our characters stronger than it was before the trials and tribulations came upon us. With no trials and tribulations we could not cope with life on earth because mankind needs these to survive. No matter how large or small, all trials and tribulations we experience in our life are needed to help us go beyond our selfish self and to reach out to others in love and can help us find God. (Matthew 7:14) Christians are promised trials and tribulations while here on earth. (James 1:2-16) Christians are taught to have faith that God will always give us what we need and that He will give us strength to persevere through the trials and tribulations before us to endure. (Romans 5:1-5)

 

Richard Dawkins knows that he can use people’s trials and tribulations to persuade his prey into believing in his word and have them follow him through his erroneously illuminating his prey that if there really was a God that we would not have trials and tribulations to endure. What Richard Dawkins is unlikely to admit is that he knows God exists regardless of anyone’s trials and tribulations and in fact that God wants us to call upon Him for strength and endurance to get through the trials and tribulations and thus bolster our character through them and build our faith in God.

 

Anyone who has actually read the Bible knows that trials and tribulations are guaranteed to happen here within this fallen world for everyone; both dammed and saved. For example, we are informed by God in the Bible Acts 14:22 that; “strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, "We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God." “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;” Romans 5:3

 

End of Part One

In part two I will go more into Richard Dawkins’ rants which he wrote in his book, “The God Delusion” which brought me to actually have more faith in Christ Jesus and to evangelize the Gospel of Christ Jesus and helped me discover the Five Commandments of Atheism that all atheists follow.

 

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6 Comments

  1. Well Dawkins is one of those what we would call rather posh well bred elite types, the sort who ran the eipmre but never actually got their hands dirty in the process, those who got the knighthoods and the medals and the epithet sir’ when they did bugger all to get it!! And perhaps these people use religion or did in the past to excuse slavery or ruthless exploitation or dismissal of people starving as often happened under the rule of the British Empire like in Ireland and India and no doubt many other places, and when many of these ruling class types realised they were only using religion to control others or give themselves a veneer of respectability, they then stopped believing in God and wanted the rest of us to follow suit, to follow them into the abyss and be as culpable and complicit in savagery as they were. You might see the same things in your country under people like George Bush or the Religious Right or the Prosperity Gospel and such things. None of those people can really believe in a merciful and compassionate God, not really, or they wouldn’t be doing cruel things. To them God, Christianity, religion or whatever you or I call it is just a vehicle to get where they want, and have a load naefve dupes believing them and then saying it wasn’t me that did it, it was God!’ I was only obeying orders, in other words. Do evil, then blame God! That is real blasphemy, because the results of such peoples actions always mean the suffering of someone else.

    • You stated it clearly, “Do evil, then blame God!” it is real blasphemy when people preach the Prosperity Gospel, use religion to excuse slavery, exploit, and claim that God told them to do it.

  2. Science is a tool people use and real science does not include anything to do with, “luck” or “sheer luck” or even “major infusions of luck” as Richard Dawkins implies it does.
    Using science, one easily confirms much of what is told to us in the Bible. You as many atheists ignore the evidence. Much of the Bible is confirmed by eye witnesses, science, astronomy, biology, archeology, etc. and if you were interested in truth, you’d actually check it out for yourself. Romans 1:15-25

  3. I use common sense and reasoning which clearly Richard Dawkins didn’t use in writing his book, “The God Delusion”
    Take for example Darwinian Evolution and biology and archaeology. No one has ever seen bacteria turn into anything but bacteria; flies turn into anything but flies; etc. For anyone to say that over millions or billions of years something like bacteria eventually over time turned into something else which in turn turned into something different that eventually turned into you and me, is merely a story told by people who start with the notion that was what happened. Study of biology shows that even the most simplest of life form has by far more information in it than a set of encyclopedias and everyone knows that information comes from intelligence. It takes a lot of faith for someone to believe that over millions or billions of years that for no reason nothing turned into something which turned into life which lead to you and me.
    It also takes circular reasoning for anyone to claim that there are such things as “transitional fossils” as fossils don’t come with tags on them saying that they are an ancestor to anything other than to their own kind, i.e., dog, cat, horse, etc.
    Everyone who thinks knows that “luck” doesn’t exist, right? Speaking of how complex the most simplest life form is and to come to life, there are dependent parts which are required and for Darwinian Evolution to have actually occurred, that it is beyond statistical computation and requires by biologist Richard Dawkins in his book, “The God Delusion” “sheer luck” on page 168 in his deluded book. Even more so he goes on page 169 that more “major infusions of luck” are needed to really fill in the gaps. Any rational person knows that there is no such thing as “luck” don’t they? I’m sure you are more rational than to believe in luck, right?

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