Following the Evidence
by Bill Curry
I would like to thank John Loftus for giving me the opportunity to post here. I am currently working as an electrical engineer. I was brought up as a Christian. However, I had the tendency to keep my faith separate from my normal working life. I always felt as if I should try to evangelize fellow students and later colleagues where I work, but I almost never did.
At work, I met some very smart Christians. They were able to convincingly argue that the Christian worldview made the most sense of morality, human nature, etc. They loaned me tapes of debates between Dr. William Lane Craig and various atheists and it was apparent that Dr. Craig always won convincingly.
Observing Craig debate non-Christians was a turning point in my life. I began voraciously reading works by Christian apologists. Dr. J.P. Moreland convincingly argued in his book “Love Your God with All Your Mind” that Christians had a duty to engage the life of the mind. That is, one should work very had to integrate all aspects of their life with the gospel. I really enjoyed the processes of testing my beliefs with those who had disagreed. I had found that most people had not given much thought to questions of philosophy and morality. Arguing with them about those topics really increased my faith.
February 2003 was another critical point in my life. My Army Reserve unit was given notice that we were to be activated for service in Iraq. I decided that this was a perfect opportunity for me to grow closer to God. I read “The Divine Conspiracy” by Dallas Willard and had listened to lectures by J.P. Moreland that convinced me that God really did want to have a personal relationship with us today. They encouraged their audience to keep a prayer journal as see if God really did answer prayer.
About 9 months into my deployment to Iraq, I did review my prayer journal. Any time I prayed for something that was improbable, that prayer was not answered affirmatively. I honestly felt like I was praying to a wall. At that point I concluded my theology must be wrong. I thought Craig had proved the resurrection, so I remained a Christian. I guess that I felt that C.S Lewis has captured my sentiment in the last chapter of his book “A Grief Observed.” I was going through a period of anger with God, but I new that he was still really taking care of me. There are good reasons for God to hide from me and He knew best. However, I stopped praying. I concluded that my theology must be incorrect. It was very hard to pray when I knew that my prayer had been so ineffective.
When I returned mid 2004, I really had little passion for Christianity. I would attend church, but I was not enthusiastic. Several of my brothers wanted me to start a "read through the Bible in a year" program during 2005 and I flatly told them I was not interested. Little did I know that one of my brothers (the one most into apologetics) was having a crisis of faith himself. Reading through the Bible was convincing him that the doctrine of inerrancy was not defensible.
He started questioning the fact of the resurrection. My first reaction was to try to defend Christianity. However, I found that now I was willing to look at both sides of the issue. The case for Christianity was much weaker than I had thought. Upon further reflection I was able to formulate my own reason why I didn't believe.
During the past year, I have presented my argument that a reasonable person shouldn’t believe the resurrection happened. I have gotten very little reaction to my argument (other than to question my motives). I am looking forward to putting my arguments out to a hostile review. I am going to do my best to be loyal to the truth. If my assessment of the evidence is easily shown to be faulty by those who are well acquainted with the facts, I will discard my views. But if my ideas aren't easily upended then I can be comfortable with my new position. My next post will be the argument that first made me re-evaluate the truth of the resurrection.