I confess that I indulge in confirmation bias when looking at things. I do this because I have FAITH. I know that no matter what I look at, no matter how bad something looks for my faith, in the end, it will come to nothing. My confirmation bias does not mean that I don’t ignore inconvenient facts, it just means that in the back of my mind, I know that in the end, God will still be real.
This is not to say that my search for truth started with confirmation bias. It did not! I did not want to be a Christian! I started out being agnostic. Even then, I knew that being an atheist was intellectually dishonest. I knew this because of my Christian background. Almost every American started with a Christian background. When you start this way, you simply cannot ignore the fact that what they tell you in church has a ring of credibility. Whether you believe it to be true or not, the credibility of everything that is going on simply cannot be ignored. From Isaiah 55:11 – “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (NIV)
So while my search for truth started out with a rejection of Christianity, the basic credibility of it stayed in the back of my mind. I suppose that this is the reason why some people simply cannot dismiss Jesus totally. They will say he was a good teacher, or a prophet, while rejecting him being the son of God. Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet, while rejecting his divinity. This is why C.S. Lewis came up with his “trilemma” to combat this view.
In the end, I accepted Christianity BY FAITH because I did not have all the answers I sought, BUT I did realize that its credibility was real, and I NEEDED the forgiveness that Jesus gives us freely. Thank GOD!
While only the Holy Spirit can lead someone to become a Christian, reason can bring us to the door step. Aristotle said you can know what something is by what it isn’t. Many people have searched other religious systems only to find them wanting, even atheism. Christianity, in itself purest and truest form, is the most reasonable. Still that alone won’t lead one to Christ. No one has ever been argued into Christianity. Still, by revealing the faults in other systems, it can lead someone to give Christianity serious consideration. Evolutionists admit this; they hold on to evolution not because it is right, but because the alternative is God, the God who reveals Himself in the Scriptures.
-Jeffrey Mahoney
P.S.: Liberals have convinced society that Christianity is for morons and the weak. We need the world to know that intelligent, educated, reasonable people like yourself can be and are Christians.
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“We need the world to know that intelligent, educated, reasonable people like yourself can be and are Christians.” – precisely why I started this blog. If only I could get more people to read it! Thanks for the complement anyway….
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