Quote# 96443
To give you are reference point to understand my passionate interest in the topic of Christian apologetics, I was an atheist for 35 years, and not an apathetic atheist, but an ardent, passionate, vituperative and proselytizing atheist. I convinced members of my family to stop attending church, and convinced college friends of mine at school to depart from their religious beliefs. I was good at what I did.
Then, not long ago, I began to loose my faith in atheism. As a model of the universe, a model that left out the supernatural dimension of things did not have the explanatory power needed to serve as a model. Too much was left unexplained; too much was unaccounted-for. To quell the growing and lurking suspicion that there could be something wrong with my perfectly logical model, I decided on an experiment: I prayed to the non-existent God and double-dog-dared him to show himself to me, or else, if he did not show, I was relieved from any effort to pursue any further inquiry into his existence.
Before three days passed, I had a heart attack, was dying, and the prayer of someone who claims to have the power to heal through prayer, healed me through prayer. The attacked stopped within a moment of the prayer. This was something my model could not account for. Going to the hospital to see what the attack had been (at the time, I thought it was pleurisy) the doctors announced that I had five clogged arteries and required major surgery. The holy spirit came into my body, and I felt it almost like a physical sensation. Instead of being frightened or even annoyed by the hospital stay, it was one of the most joyous and pleasant times of my life, ever. I was visited by the Virgin Mary, who spoke to me, and by Jesus Christ, who frighted the crap out of me, and my God Almighty, who was beautiful beyond words. Christ said that God does not judge people, but that he, Christ, would be my judge, for the authority to judge man has been given to him.
At that point, I was sure this was an hallucination or a dream, because we all know that Christians believe in a judgmental God, who condemns the wicked. I should mention I was not on any painkillers or any medication which might cloud the judgment or induce hallucination. I was oriented as to time, place and person. I was aware of the nature and character of my acts. I talked this over with my wife in the car after we were driving back from the hospital.
After I was released from the hospital, about a weak later, I had another ecstatic experience, and was sent on something like a spiritual journey outside of time and viewed reality from the point of view of eternity, and was the told the solution to an old philosophical conundrum concerning the problem of determinism versus the freedom of the will, as well as the nature of Biblical prophecy. Again, there were no drugs, no bumps on the head, no other evidence of hallucination or madness.
So I decided to start reading the Bible. In a book of the Bible I had not read before (atheist do not normally pore through the Bible, after all) I came across a passage I had never read and never heard any Christian ever make reference to in my hearing. The passage is from John 5:22 “For the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son.”
This is almost word for word what Christ said to me.
John C. Wright,
John C. Wright's Journal 78 Comments [9/8/2013 5:12:33 AM]
Fundie Index: 37
Submitted By: David