Why Christianity—is it real, and what’s the difference?

PROLOGUE You stand there, holding this text in your hands. What are you thinking? “Will I be able to understand this? Do I need a theology degree to understand the Bible?” Luke was a physician, Paul was a learned man. What about the others? Fishermen, tradesmen, no theological training. All of them were writing to first century people, common folks. Can a lay person accomplish correct exegesis (analysis and understanding) of scripture? But why even bother with the Bible? The Bible is just a collection of fanciful fairy tales and myths, mankind is only the product of blind random chemical accidents, those chance combinations which benefit individuals selected by nature—until mankind gained consciousness enough to create God in man’s own image. Right? You don’t need the crutch of superstitious religious fiction that restrains people from realizing their potential. After all, religion is restrictions by which men are shamed away from excellence. Religion writes volumes of backward tales which only serve to cause guilt and thwart men from achieving humanistic triumph. If you applaud any of the previous paragraph, then you fail to realize that you have a religion, one with far more faith than any recognized church. Your members worship, proselytize and persecute more than any other religion ever has. Do you have the intellectual curiosity (and honesty) to read farther? Do we choose between intelligence or faith? Between science or religious b If you attended public school you may think you must lay aside your intellect to even think about God; but is that really the choice? Does it have to be faith or brains? Christianity or science? Real science is open-minded, by definition drawing conclusions from observable phenomena. However, it is terribly hard to be objective and open-minded. Throughout this text you will discover that prejudices and preconceptions, both in secular and spiritual arenas, die hard. You are challenged to take several steps back and reconsider even what you know to be true. Albert Einstein proposed an incident where two lightning-bolts strike a train track at displaced points simultaneously. But then he questioned that very statement. If you are closer to one bolt than to the other, they do not appear simultaneous because the image of the far strike takes longer to reach the observer,, so the near strike appears to have occurred first. Intelligence then is perhaps better measured by the number of questions one asks, and by the willingness to reconsider ideas that previously had been presumed correct. Scientists by definition are curious—are you?