“The God Delusion” Changed My Life (part 3)

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This is My Encounter with Richard Dawkins’ book; “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. Basically, reading Richard Dawkins’ book, “The God Delusion” opened my eyes to God’s existence and His love for everyone (including Dawkins) more than ever due to Richard Dawkins writing a book which he called, “The God Delusion.” Each paragraph I read of Dawkins’ book was stimulating me to evangelize the Gospel of Christ Jesus to atheists and agnostics.

As you recall from Part 1 of this series, this 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.

Richard Dawkins’ book; “The God Delusion” Changed My Life (part 3)

Arguments for Richard Dawkins’ Non Existence

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Galatians 1:10-12

Richard Dawkins’ NonExistence

What starting point in accordance with the principles of reasoning will you use in your quest of finding the absolute truth? Do you even care about truth? Your eternal existence depends upon you not being apathetic to truth.

You are researching the verses referenced throughout this article and checking out some of the links given you to learn more about the Holy Bible and Christianity, right? What evidence would compel your acceptance of God’s existence? What would induce certainty and establish validity in your mind about God?

Have you really started your quest for truth? Are you prepared to make the choice which is entirely your sole responsibility to make for yourself? You do want to make a well informed decision for the foundation of your choice, don’t you? Being apathetic to truth is making the wrong choice.

Well, if you were utterly relying on Richard Dawkins’ arguments for the existence of God then you are not seeking truth in the right places. Richard Dawkins thinks you are lacking in your judgment and that you don’t have the prudence to go beyond believing his personal assumption. Richard Dawkins deliberately treats you as though you lack common understanding and discourages you away from researching beyond his absolute downright biased and entirely his own, personal assumption. Psalms 5:9

Richard Dawkins is playing you for a fool and is exploiting you for his own personal gain. He does not care about you but only wants you to assume his biased personal assumption as your own. If he cared about you, he would want you to research out beyond his and his clan’s deluded writings. In fact, if he cared he would not write in the deluded biased and tainted way he does. Richard Dawkins if he cared for you would insist that you research out beyond his biased personal assumption so you could make a well informed decision on what you want to believe yet instead he insists that his biased personal assumption is truth and that you should assume it too. Richard Dawkins is preying on your intelligence and he is laying wager that you are not going to use it.

Why would Richard Dawkins give to you any evidence of God’s existence? If he was to give to you the slightest bit of the truth without his delusional spin and from it you discovered the real truth, Richard Dawkins would lose every bit of his sovereignty over you. Richard Dawkins wants to keep you in the paradox of his biased personal assumption. This is why he (and those like him) taints what very little evidence of God’s existence he does give you with a convoluted style of writing and infantile rants. Using Richard Dawkins’ own words, “The fact that something is written down is persuasive to people not used to asking questions like; ‘Who wrote it, and when?’ and ‘Were they unbiased observers, or did they have an agenda that coloured their writing?’”[1] I trust that you are going beyond Richard Dawkins biased personal assumption in your quest for truth. I do hope that you are on a quest for truth.

The grand conclusions that Richard Dawkins makes about God’s existence based on his biased personal assumption are again his delusions to dupe you into thinking that he is not erroneous yet in every way he is asserting merely his biased personal assumption in various aesthetic ways to get you to believe him. The evidence he uses in his deluded conclusions is presented to you as truth yet there is no proof to his biased personal assumption. Again he is playing a malicious game with his prey’s astuteness.

Who wants to believe someone else’s biased personal assumption without truly checking out the whole story, especially when there is a personal choice one must make for one’s own self to be based on it? To take from Richard Dawkins’ own words, “My own feeling, to the contrary, would have been an automatic, deep suspicion of any line of reasoning that reached such a significant conclusion without feeding in a single piece of data from the real world.”[2] I hope that you are being skeptical of taking anyone’s (even my) personal assumption as your own and that you are going to take your personal responsibility to heart, find the truth for yourself so that you can make a completely informed decision based on the truth for the choice only you can make for yourself. Joel 3:14

There is abundant evidence concerning the existence of God. Outside the Holy Bible there are historic, scientific and forensic evidence which supports God’s existence.[3] Yet in his book, “The God Delusion” Richard Dawkins did not mention any of it. Instead, he went on to talk poorly about those who have done research and have presented evidence to prove God’s existence. In his doing this, Richard Dawkins is trying to discredit those people who have a viewpoint different from his because he is arrogant and knows that in his dishonoring those against him that he can deter his prey from doing research on their own.

Following advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins has even gone so far as to not formally debate biblical creationists saying that it would give them recognition, respectability and creditability.[4] The truth is that Richard Dawkins knows that his assumption is wrong and that he would badly lose any debate with a biblical creationist of his equivalent edification. Richard Dawkins is so afraid of debate because he doesn’t want to lose his supremacy over his prey in their finding out about his personal assumption. In fact, Richard Dawkins is so terrified of losing grasp of his prey that I doubt he will even accept a challenge of debate between him and the person of my choosing or even me.

It’s a classic Richard Dawkins and his kind tactic to delude prey, taint all evidence, try to bully and degrade those who do not believe them and not be open to debate. Richard Dawkins is the supreme biased assumption holder imposing his biased assumption on all who fall prey to him. Proverbs 12:17

I pray that you are closing off Richard Dawkins’ personal assumption and are opening your mind to base your choice on a well informed decision centered on truth you find during your research. It is your choice to make and no one else’s to make but you. I suggest that you take your choice very seriously and weigh the evidence presented to you in this article via the references, links, verses and suggested books for you to read. Remember that you deserve more than someone else’s assumption.

The Argument from Scripture

Did you know that the Holy Bible has more manuscript support than any other work of classical history? Yes, it has stronger manuscript support than Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Caesar, and Tacitus. The Holy Bible is affirmed virtually unaltered since the original writing, as attested by scholars who have compared the earliest existing manuscripts with manuscripts written centuries later. Did you know that the reliability of the Holy Bible is affirmed by the testimony of its authors, who were eyewitnesses (or close associates of eyewitnesses) to the recorded events, and by secular historians who confirm the many events, people, places, and customs chronicled in Scripture?[5] Richard Dawkins didn’t let you in on these facts about the Holy Bible did he? I wonder why Richard Dawkins left these facts about the Holy Bible out of his book. He left a whole lot more facts out too.

Not only did Richard Dawkins leave out facts about the Holy Bible, he distorted and tainted what he did put in his book about the Holy Bible. Take for example the four books of the New Testament which makes up the Gospels[6]; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that tell the historical story of Jesus Christ. They each stand-alone giving unique insights and accounts on the life of Jesus and when put together work in harmony to give a chronological account of Christ’s life on earth.[7] The four Gospels were not picked “arbitrarily” as Richard Dawkins said on page 121 in his book, “The God Delusion.” The books Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are included in the New Testament because each writer was an eye witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and their writings occurred not long after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Richard Dawkins goes on to delude his prey more about the New Testament with his reports of writings not being included in the New Testament alluding to embarrassingly implausible stories as the reason they were left out.[8] The real reason that the writings Richard Dawkins is referring to are not included in the New Testament is that these are false writings called non-canonical gospels.[9] Generally these were not accepted due to doubt over the authorship, the time frame between the original writing and the events described, or content that was at odds with orthodoxy. For example, if a gospel claimed to be written by James, yet was authored in the second century, clearly authorship was not authentic. This differs from the four canonical gospels which historians agree were authored before AD 100.[10] Had any part of the New Testament canon been written after AD 70 it would have most certainly have mentioned the destruction of the Jewish temple that had given the Jews their theological and sociological identity.[11] Thus one can reason that the New Testament was written before AD 70.

On page 123 in his book, “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins said that the novel by Dan Brown, “The Da Vinci Code” and move based from it are, “indeed fabricated from start to finish: invented, made-up fiction.” Richard Dawkins is right Dan Brown make all of that up just to confuse his quarry so to get his kicks and fifteen minutes of fame. Richard Dawkins knows that Dan Brown created his novel by using the Gnostic gospels which by the way is another name for the non-canonical gospels that Richard Dawkins said were arbitrarily left out of the Holy Bible.[12] Are you seeing how devious Richard Dawkins is with his partial truths, misguided statements, omission of facts, tainting of facts, convoluted additions and delusional tactics? Are you understanding how Richard Dawkins makes prey of those who do not check his so called facts? Do you see how Richard Dawkins goes to all extremes to gain supremacy over his prey? James 3:16

Also on page 123 in his deluded book Richard Dawkins goes on and writes that the Holy Bible’s gospels from the New Testament are “ancient fiction” as “The Da Vinci Code” is modern fiction. Here, Richard Dawkins is wrong. The Holy Bible is not fiction at all as it is God’s Holy Word, proven correct via science, archeology, biology, logic, physics, and so on. Here again Richard Dawkins does his delusional tainting to delude you because he knows that his prey will most likely not ever do their own research on it to prove his personal assumption wrong. You don’t need to accept Richard Dawkins’ assumption. You will prove to yourself that Richard Dawkins is wrong through your continued research on the Holy Bible on your own, won’t you. You are not just going to take my word for it, are you? It is your choice to make to seek truth and follow where truth leads you.

The Argument from Personal ‘Experience’

Per Richard Dawkins on page 113 of his deluded book, “The God Delusion” he writes that the, “human brain runs first-class simulation software and that we are subject to hallucinations. (Someone needs to tell Richard Dawkins that first-class simulation software is designed by an intelligent mind and doesn’t equate with his great big whooping crane fairytale.) He goes on in his deluded book on page 114 to describe how a hollow mask can make one gasp in amazement due to the ”trickery” in the brain of the beholder. This hollow mask is a nice party topic of discussion and amazement however it in no way has any bearing on anyone actually having a personal experience with God. Our human brain can play sight and sound tricks on us from time to time and some people do lose their mind to disease, drugs, alcohol and by reading books written by Richard Dawkins and his kind. By the way, I have actually seen a real pink elephant. I’m sure that many people in downtown Seattle have seen it too there at the car wash not far from the Space Needle.[13] A personal experience with God is not a hallucination.

Now I do have to say that there are times when some people get a bit farfetched with visions and tall tales about what God told them to do just like there are charlatans as was discussed in part one of this series, who take advantage of people through their false teachings so to rob people of their valuables or worse, their very souls. What you need to know is that God does not ever go against His Holy word which is written in the Bible. So God will not ever tell anyone to commit a sin of any kind thus a personal experience with God is in line with the Holy Bible teachings. This is why it is so very important for you to know and understand the Holy Bible so that you will not fall as prey to perverted trickery and deceit. Proverbs 24:14

Just how much and what kind of personal experience will it take for Richard Dawkins to believe in God? That is something I don’t know but it reminds me of a short story that I got in email from a very good friend of mine. I do not know who originally wrote this short story but I do thank him or her for it as it is quite fitting. Here it is for you to read and think deeply about.

An atheist was walking through the woods…..

“What majestic trees!” “What a powerful river!” “What beautiful animals!” he said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was quickly closing in on him.

He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer. He tripped and fell on the ground.

He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.

At that instant the Atheist cried out, “Oh Jesus, my God!”

Time Stopped.

The bear froze.

The forest was silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky.

“You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don’t exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?”

The atheist looked directly into the light and said, “It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian?”

“Very Well”, said the voice.

The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. Then, the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head and spoke:

“Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Wow! Just think for a moment. The atheist in that short story experienced God stopping time, freezing the motion of the bear, silencing the forest and speaking directly with him yet found it hypocritical to actually accept God at that time. Who would ever need more evidence than that to believe anything?

I can almost see the atheist in this short story being Richard Dawkins and many of the atheists I’ve talked with over the years. I am however, going to lean to the side to give him (and the many atheists I’ve talked with over the years) the benefit of the doubt and say that Dawkins surely is not that deluded; are you Professor Dawkins? I mean, isn’t this the sum of evidence you are asking God to give to you? If by His grace God did give to you Professor Dawkins this vast wealth of evidence and you experience God in this manner, will you feel hypocritical as the atheist did in the short story or will you finally accept that you are wrong and confess God as sovereign? Psalms 51:15

I have not experienced time stopping, animate objects frozen in space, the bright light shining in my face nor a sudden silence as the atheist in the short story did in my personal experiences with God. My personal experience with God is one of a very close personal relationship. Remember back to part two of this series and the example Jesus gave that taught us how to pray? Through prayer God comforts me in my knowing that He is always there for me no matter what I may have gotten myself into good or bad and even when things do not go the way that I want He is there for me. God freely gave me my salvation through His Son Jesus upon my acceptance of it. 1 Thessalonians 5:9

Even though there are people in this world who do not even know me yet they hate me just because I am a Christian and that I love God with all of my heart, I value my personal relationship with God above all else. John 15:19 I hold my faith in God and His Son Jesus because the evidence to me is more than overwhelmingly pointing to God’s existence and towards the Christian faith. 1 Peter 1:13 To me God’s existence is as clearly evident as the sun shining in the sky is at high noon on a beautifully clear and cloudless summer day while standing on a white sandy beach in southern Florida. Open your mind to truth and you too can experience God’s great love.

God has revealed Himself to me in so many ways throughout my life. Yet I did not fully grasp God revealing Himself to me until I was able to let go of my own selfishness. As I understood more that my being here on earth wasn’t about me and my desires being satisfied and that it is about me serving others that I started experiencing more of God’s great love in my life. I had to let go of my arrogant stance that the world owes me something, that I was the most important person in it and humble myself to put my desires behind me and to put the needs of others ahead of me. Romans 12:9-10

I also had to let go of the desire I had to please everyone so that I could make them like me. I wanted everyone to like me so I would act one way with some people, another way with others and yet differently with another crowd. Galatians 1:10-12 At one point in my early adult life I was such a hypocrite that today it is disturbing for me to even think about it. 1 Timothy 4:1-21 I was at a loss of my own identity because of the numerous personalities I acted out with different people in various situations.

What a paradox I had put myself into when events put some of the different groups of people and me together at the same time. In my acting out I had put myself into some very difficult circumstances in more than just embarrassing ways, there were dire consequences for some of my actions. It was a very low point in my life as I did not know who I was supposed to be and I was thrashing myself for not being able to make everyone around me happy and make them like me.[14]Ecclesiastes 4:16 Remembering my earlier childhood teachings I went to God for help. 2 Samuel 22:7

Through prayer, study of the Holy Bible and discussions with church Elders and other Christians, I learned that because we live in a fallen world that not everyone will like you and that I am not supposed to please people. I am to be personally responsible for all of my actions and not just do things to please others. I was reminded that no matter what you do to appease all people, when you do it or how often you do it there will be people who will not like you and some will even actually hate you just because they want to hate you and for no reason more. I started to truly understand through my study of Jesus that it is only important to please is God. By doing God’s Divine will I not only please God, I get to experience His love for me and thus I am set free of my desire of having to please others. Romans 5:8

Now do not get me wrong with my saying that I am set free of my having to please others that I can just do my own thing whenever I want to do so without having any responsibility to others. Through God, I am free to do what I know should be done; not to do whatever I want to do. Think what it would be like if everyone in the whole world did what they wanted to do whenever and however they wanted to do it? We most likely wouldn’t even exist because our ancient ancestors would have destroyed themselves a very long, long time ago. We should then not do what we want to do and we should always do what is right in the sight of God which is what we should do. James 4:17

What should be done is explained in the Holy Bible. Thus, the Holy Bible is the ultimate user guide to living. When you do what should be done according to the Holy Bible one often pleases others as well as pleases God. Take for example at work when you do your job properly as you should do, you please your manager because the work gets done correctly. Also when you give time of yourself to assist others in their needs it often brings smiles. My following God’s Holy word assures me that I am doing the right thing in His eyes and not just my thing. Psalms 90:17

The most difficult thing that I had to do to fully experience God was to admit that I am not perfect and that if it were not for Him I would not even exist. It is still difficult for me to admit that I’m not perfect even today because there are times when I so want to be right even though I know that I am wrong, have it my way even though it is not the right way in God’s eyes.

Have you ever lied to cover for something you had or had not done? I have. If you are being honest with yourself, you have too. Only God is perfect and no human being even comes close to being perfect. If you think you are perfect you need to wake up, get out of bed and face the reality that you are not. Romans 6:23 Once that you can admit that you are not perfect and that you can be wrong, you too can start to experience the everlasting love of God. Psalms 136:26

I find strength through God and have faith that He will always give to me what I need. Notice that I did not say that He gives to me what I “want.” God is not like a genie granting wishes as some people (including some TV evangelists like Joel Osteen) state He is. God is also not pulling for any specific sports team either although there are coaches who prey that way, it is not so. James 2:1-7

God treats everyone fairly, equally with impartiality and justly according to His Holy word. Isaiah 30:18

Everything that I have, came from God. As a matter of fact, everything that you have, came from God. It is good to thank God for the blessings He has given to you no matter how much or little you have.

Now you may be thinking, how can God be treating everyone fairly when there are poor people and people who do not have any food? Deuteronomy 15:11

Remember what I wrote a few paragraphs ago about we are to do is what is right which is what we should do? Luke 3:11

While here in this fallen world it is our responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves be they unborn, newborn, infant, child, adolescent, adult, middle age, or senior citizen. God brings through pain and suffering many learning experiences for us to grow in our character beyond which we are so to become a more caring and giving person. Christians understand that we will go through suffering and be ostracized for our love of God just as Jesus suffered and was put to death on a cross. Luke 17:25

What will you do when the evidence comes to be before you about God? In fact, evidence is already before you. You most likely will not experience such extreme evidence as that what the atheist in the short story experienced yet you will find more than abundant evidence if you open your mind and see it. Romans 1:20

Will you ignore it, wait around, or will you accept? It is not a matter of if God exists. It is a matter of if you are going to accept God or not once you open your mind to truth. You need to make your choice on a well informed decision which is not based on anyone’s (even my) assumption nor because anyone coerced or wagered you into making it. You need to make your choice because you have faith in what you chose not because someone else told you to have faith in an assumption.

Part Three Summary

We started off this part looking into the nonexistence of Richard Dawkins’ placement of any facts in his writings. We covered how Richard Dawkins is playing you who believe in him for a fool in that he is betting that you will not follow up with your own research to find the facts he left out of his writings. We discovered that Richard Dawkins through his convoluted style of writing and infantile rants doesn’t care about you nor does he want you to make a well informed decision for your choice to accept God. Richard Dawkins only wants you to take his biased personal assumption as your own. The reason Richard Dawkins wants you to do this is because he wants to keep his prey in its place and his supremacy over it.

You discovered the fact that Richard Dawkins is afraid to debate his personal assumption. I revealed to you the tactics used by Richard Dawkins and his kind to delude prey, taint all evidence, and degrade those who do not believe them so to impose their biased personal assumption upon their prey to reign over them.

You learned that the Holy Bible has more manuscript support than any other work of classical history. You know that the four books of the New Testament which makes up the Gospels[15]; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that tell the historical story of Jesus Christ. You know that the books Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are included in the New Testament because each writer was an eye witness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and their writings occurred not long after Jesus’ death and resurrection. You learned that one can reason that the New Testament was written before AD 70. You also know that the non-canonical gospels (false writings) not in the Holy Bible were left out because of doubt over their authorship, the time frame between the original writing and the events described, or content that was at odds with orthodoxy. You learned that the Holy Bible is God’s Holy word.

Within this article you learned that a personal experience with God is not a hallucination. You learned that God does not ever go against His Holy word as written in the Bible and so will not ever tell anyone to commit a sin of any kind. You know that a personal experience with God is in line with the Holy Bible teachings and that it is very important for you to know and understand the Holy Bible so that you will not fall as prey to perverted trickery and deceit.

You learned of some of my own personal struggles and how I found strength through God to overcome them. We again touched again on how prayer creates a personal relationship with God and I informed you of how I have used prayer to help me get through some of the trials and tribulations I have experienced within my life that were of my own creation. You learned that my letting go of my selfishness helped me gain a closer personal relationship with God. You also learned that I still struggle with my selfishness today and I gain strength from God to overcome it each day.

You learned only God is perfect and that neither you nor I nor anyone else is perfect. You discovered that through our responsibility we are to care for those who cannot take care of themselves. You learned that God uses pain and suffering to give us opportunity to grow our character to be stronger. You found that being Christian that non-Christian people will hate you just because they want to hate you due to them hating Christ Jesus. John 15:18

You learned that we are free to do what we are supposed to do and not what we want to do but that we are to do what is right which is what we should do in God’s eyes.

You know that you have a choice to make and that it is only your choice to make. You need to make it for yourself. Remember, not making the choice is making the wrong choice. Remember that your choice has consequences which last forever.

 


[1] Page 118, Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion

[2] Page 107, Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion

[3] It is out of the scope of this book to present the evidence of God’s existence. Here’s another book for you to read to assist you in your quest of the truth. “Intelligent Design, The bridge between science and theology” by William A. Dembski

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins

[5] Page 118, Hank Hanegraaff,  “The Complete Bible Answer Book Collector’s Edition”

[6] Gospel means good news.

[7] Page 1931, “Life Application Study Bible” New International Version; Zondervan

[8] Page 121, Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion”

[9] http://orthodoxwiki.org/Gospels

[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel

[11] Page 189, Hank Hanegraaff,  “The Complete Bible Answer Book Collector’s Edition

[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnostic_Gospels

[13] www.elephantcarwash.com

[14] Ecclesiastes 4:16 (Old Testament)

There is no end to all the people, to all who were before them, and even the ones who will come later will not be happy with him, for this too is vanity and striving after wind.

[15] Gospel means good news.

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