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So exactly how is faith born? Where does it come from? As I have explained many times before, the answer is found in the Bible itself. While this concept will no doubt seem strange -- and perhaps even contradictory -- to many atheists and other nonbelievers, the fact of the matter is that the more we hear and read the Word of God, the more our faith will likewise grow. Thus, the Apostle Paul was inspired to write the following to the brethren at Rome:

"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."


Now, in their confusion, some nonbelievers may ask "Well, how is my faith supposed to grow by reading something which I do not even believe in, in the first place?" I thought about it for a moment, and the closest analogy I can think of is this:

Imagine that you are feeling very tired and sick in some way. You have no idea why you became sick, nevertheless, you are extremely sick. A friend of yours notices that you are sick, observes your symptoms, and then suggests that you eat more of certain foods. He does not explain to you exactly why he suggests those foods in particular, he just tells you to give it a try and see what happens.

Being a natural -- and cautious -- skeptic, you automatically entertain some serious doubts regarding his recommendations; particularly because he did not provide you with any whys and wherefores. The fact that he recommends food which you don't even like, does not help the situation either. Nevertheless, even though you are not convinced that it will work, just to make him happy, you decide to go ahead and give it a shot. A few months later you meet up with your friend again. He is both happy and pleased to see the big change in you. You are doing a lot better now, and glowing with a healthy aura. Not only that, but you inform him that you have decided to make those particular foods a regular part of your diet.

You see, in a way, that friend is similar to God. Being as He is the one who designed the human body in the first place, He knows everything that there is to know about you. He likewise knows how to fix you when you are broken. Even though you had some serious doubts concerning the recommendations that were made by your friend, by going ahead and trying them anyway, you were demonstrating a very small degree of faith. You were stepping out by faith, even without knowing the facts -- that is, why your friend chose those particular foods -- and even though your natural inclination was to believe that it would make no difference, even if you consumed those substances.

The food substances themselves are like the Word of God. It soon became clear to you that your health was in fact on the mend, and that you were improving. Thus, you realized that it was to your benefit to continue consuming those foods, and you wondered how you had managed to stay healthy for so long without them. As an added bonus, you also discovered that you actually like those particular foods after all. Furthermore, you continued to crave them more and more, which was clearly not something which you expected to happen.

It is the same thing with God's Word, the Bible. It will work wonders in your life. It may not be very noticeable at first, but trust me when I say that it will occur. Even without you realizing it, there will be shifts in your attitude towards different things, and your perspective will slowly begin to change. You will see some things in a new and very different light, as God's Spirit continues working in your life. That is not all. To your own surprise, you will desire to continue reading the Bible, and your faith will continue to grow in direct proportion to that. In fact, the day may soon arrive if it hasn't by that point already -- when you will realize your need for Jesus Christ, and you will seek His Salvation.

You see, what is actually happening, is that you are in the process of undergoing a spiritual transformation in your life. You are in a sense being rewired by God's Spirit, and being transformed into a brand new creature in Jesus Christ. If you doubt that this is so, consider the following verses:

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."


"And be not conformed to this world: but be ye TRANSFORMED by the RENEWING of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."


"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of REGENERATION, and RENEWING of the Holy Ghost;"


"And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."


"And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:"


"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."


"That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;"


"Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;"


That Book, which you once deemed not worthy of your time or your attention, and which you viewed as just a collection of ancient, nonsensical myths, suddenly comes to the fore in your life. It becomes a treasure chest of mysteries yet to be discovered by you. It may not contain all of the science and complicated equations that you are used to dealing with, but nevertheless, it thrills you in ways that science is not able to do. It speaks to you on a level which science cannot, and does not, because it reveals God's Spirit, God's Wisdom, and God's truths. Furthermore, the Bible does not attempt to sugar-coat the truth, or soften it with sickening political correctness. It speaks straight to one's heart and soul. After all, as we read in the Book of Hebrews:

"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."


Now, if any hardcore, atheist scientists took the time to read what I just wrote, no doubt you probably have a smug look on your face, and have laughed and scoffed at every word. That is obviously your right to do, if you so choose. However, before you just dismiss it all in your arrogance, and retort that it is just a load of nonsense, I challenge you to give God and the Bible a fair chance in your life. I challenge you to begin reading the New Testament with an open mind and heart, and just see where it leads.

In other words, do not undertake my reading challenge with a set attitude of "I am going to read this with a critical eye, and I am just going to find everything wrong with the Bible that I possibly can." If you approach it with that attitude, then, of course, you are just wasting your time. If you are not even willing to do this, due to your own pride and ego, then you have no right to criticize what I have just written.

Sadly, in his very next comments to me, while he did leave a very small door open for Christianity and faith to possibly exist in his life, my Internet friend of twenty years ago did make it clear to me that, as far as he is concerned, science is king. If he cannot convincingly prove something by way of the scientific method, he rejects it and tosses it aside, as we see by the following quote:

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Told you, I spoil lots and lots of movies this way - even good movies! Basically, I just live my life using the scientific method - test EVERYTHING, and if it doesn't hold up, toss it aside. I never EVER totally 100% say there is NO chance of anything (even Christianity), which means I'm an agnostic and not an atheist. Many atheists are as pig headed as the church goers I know . . .

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Well, in my view, the problem here is that you have your standards reversed. I agree with you that we must base our lives upon some norm, some standard. What I am saying is that in my case, the Bible is the standard by which I judge all things, including science. If a particular scientific theory or belief challenges or outright contradicts what is stated in the Bible, then naturally, I have problems with it. After all, God and His Word were here first, way before modern science arrived on the scene. He made the Universe, and He certainly knows how it operates, and how to keep it functioning properly.

In your case, you use modern scientific thought to judge all matters, including your personal opinion of the Bible. As I said, I view this approach as a serious error on your part. To be quite honest, it is difficult for me to understand how you can give the oft-changing knowledge and wisdom of man more importance in your life, than the inspired Word of God and the Wisdom of God.

So this compels me to ask you: Exactly what caused you to change your standard from God and the Bible to science? Considering your personal background, I imagine that your family did everything within their power to teach you the way in which you should go as a child, exactly as the Book of Proverbs instructs Christian parents to do. What turned you off to God? Surely you must have believed at some time. Was there something you were taught which you didn't quite understand, like or agree with, so you decided to chuck it all out the window? When people reject God after having known Him, or at least having gone to church or read the Bible, it is usually for a strong reason. What is yours?

Note to the reader: Being as this online conversation took place almost twenty years ago, I no longer remember exactly what my friend's background was. In fact, I no longer even recall his name. However, going by what I have stated above, apparently, the man must have been raised in some kind of a Christian environment, which he later totally abandoned, for reasons which are only known to him. Perhaps the liberal college scene was his downfall. I really don't know with any degree of certainty.

----- Begin Quote -----

This is not to say that I don't like Christians. There is good and bad to everything, I suppose. I just see it as a case of ignorance (please don't take offense, a lot of people don't really understand the meaning of ignorance it's not an insult) on the part of society, the same thing that the Greeks suffered from, as well as the Sumerians, Egyptians, Romans, etc. etc. Mythology to satisfy a human urge to explain that which he does not know, while neglecting the hard evidence.

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Again, it saddens me that you consider God and Christianity to merely be mythology that is based upon ignorance. Many Believers would say the same thing of you, and that this is basically the pot calling the kettle black. However, in your case, I don't think it is true ignorance at all. At one time, I believe that when your heart was still open, you accepted and believed the Word of God. I can only wonder what changed that. Whatever the cause may have been which resulted in you abandoning your faith, let me remind you that we cannot use people's failures, or even Christianity's failures, or the churches' failures, as a valid excuse for rejecting God and the Bible altogether. After all, God and His Word stand above the religious institutions and doctrines which are created by men.

So there you have it, my friends; our short exchange quite a few years ago. I honestly don't know whatever became of this person, as I eventually lost contact with him. Perhaps he eventually came to know the Lord, or perhaps not. If he did, it would be wonderful if someday he rediscovered this old conversation between us, recognized his own words in it, and wrote in to tell me that the scales had finally fallen from his eyes, and that he is now a Bible-believing Christian. Of course, the exact opposite could happen as well. He might find this conversation anew, and think to himself "Oh, that poor Bill. He is still spouting that nonsense and has not come to his senses yet after all of these years." Who knows. I suppose God does. But at least I did my part to try to reach him with the truth.

As for the rest of you hardcore scientists out there who continue to deny the existence of a Creator God who made all things, I hope that at the very least, this series will cause you to take a small pause in your current adamant position, and that you will stop to consider what I have written here. Is that really asking too much of you? Or is your own pride, stubbornness and arrogance so great, that it is beneath you to do this? As I mentioned earlier, with many of you, it is not that you are truly ignorant of the truth, it is that you already know it, but have willfully chosen to reject it. If this is what you have done, then allow me to share another set of verses with you from God's Word for your personal consideration:

"The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts."


"The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate."


"When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom."


"Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom."


"In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve them."


"The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility."


"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud."


"A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit."


"At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."


"And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."


"But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble . . . Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up."


"Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:"


"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and THE PRIDE OF LIFE, is not of the Father, but is of the world."


In summation, I hope that you hardcore, atheist scientists will not do as Stephen Hawking has continued to do. I hope that your own pride and arrogance will not lead to your own downfall. I hope that you will not die in your sins. Let me remind you that as long as there is life, there is likewise hope, and there is time for you to repent of your unbelief. Please do not procrastinate. Do it today, because there is no guarantee of tomorrow. Again, the Bible is quite clear regarding this issue, as we see by these verses:

"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."


"Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away."


"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."


"But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?"


"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."


"Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready."


"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"


"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."


"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."


Before concluding this series, I would like to make a few comments to my general readers. While I have taken what some people may consider a rather harsh stance against atheist scientists, let me reiterate that I am not totally against modern science and scientists, or against modern medicine and medical practitioners. Yes, I firmly believe that some of them are greedy beyond measure, but that is beside the point, insofar as this current series is concerned. Neither do I believe that all of such people have an evil agenda in which they are dead set on destroying faith in God and the Bible as His inspired Word. In fact, many of such people are Bible-believing Christians of one variety or another. I myself have availed heavily of their services in recent times, as some of my regular readers will already know.

Furthermore, I fully acknowledge and recognize the many benefits which modern science and medicine have brought to current societies. Many people would be suffering more than they already do, or quite possibly even already be dead, if it were not for the advances which have been made in these fields. The tragedy is that some of the available treatments cost so much, that they are well beyond the reach of the vast majority of people. Furthermore, even for those people who do possess the means to pay for them, they may have preferred to have died, once they realize how far they and their families will have to go into debt, in order to keep them alive. Quite frankly, I find the entire rigged system, which caters to the rich and the elite, quite disgusting and outrageous.

It would truly be wonderful if we all possessed the faith to be immediately healed of our afflictions, as occurs in both the Old and the New Testaments. But that is obviously not the case. Thus, many of us have come to rely on modern scientists and medical practitioners to meet our bodily needs.

As I explain in such articles as "The Internet: Our Final Frontier; Your Last Chance?", neither am I a Luddite by any means. It should be obvious to anyone who is reading this series, that I embrace modern technology, and view it as a very useful tool in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the online world. After all, I own a computer. I run my own web server. I am the webmaster of various websites. I am currently active in eight different social networks. I post daily to my BBB Blog. I am an online junky, but for a very good reason. Evangelizing online is in fact the primary reason why I purchased my very first computer twenty-four years ago.

So, as should already be clear by now, my primary issue is with "science falsely so called" -- 1 Timothy 6:20 -- which challenges or outright contradicts God's Word, and those scientists who adamantly oppose the existence of a Supreme Being, and all that He is recorded as having done in the pages of the Bible. That is where the argument lies with me. As I noted in part two, whether it is said directly or not, these misguided people -- such as Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins -- are basically accusing God of being a liar, and saying that the Bible is not true. Of course, the Scriptures offer their own response to such false accusations, as we see here:

"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"


"God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged."


"In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;"


"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."


"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son."


"He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son."


"If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."


So once again, with these misguided individuals, we see that it is the pot calling the kettle black. As I have shared a number of times before, it has long been Satan's tactic to accuse God of the very things of which he is guilty himself.

So what about the question which is presented as the title of this series? Is science better than the Bible? Obviously, my personal conclusion is that it is not. It is flawed in some regards, because man himself is flawed and an imperfect being, who is often filled with his own pride, arrogance and personal delusions. As we have clearly seen by way of this series, in some regards, science can in fact be outright dangerous when it challenges or contradicts the Word of God. It can lead misguided people down a deceptive path to their own destruction, unless they repent and break out of it.

Despite this truth, I likewise believe that if modern science is practiced in an honest and true way by individuals of the highest calibre without any personal agendas, it can and will confirm, supplement and support what scientific information is available in the Bible, as little as it may be. We need to remember that the Bible is primarily a religious text. It was never intended as a scientific manual or journal. While the Bible contains a fair amount of history, poetry, philosophy and wisdom, besides its vast array of spiritual lessons and warnings, its writers were not too concerned with explaining the mechanics of the Universe to us. Yet, what is there, I personally hold to be true.

With these thoughts, I will bring this article to a close. It is my hope that you have found it informative, enlightening, and I pray that it has been a blessing in your life as well. If you have an account with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or with any other social network, I would really appreciate if you'd take the time to click or tap on the corresponding link that is found on this page. Thanks so much, and may God bless you abundantly!

For additional information and further study, you may want to refer to the list of reading resources below which were either mentioned in this article, or which contain topics which are related to this article. All of these articles are likewise located on the Bill's Bible Basics web server. To read these articles, simply click or tap on any link you see below.

Keeping Things in the Proper Perspective: ET, Where Are You?
Science and Technology: The Forbidden Knowledge?
The Public School System and School Prayer
The Dinosaur Dilemma and Modern Science
Our Expanding Universe: Einstein, Hubble, Dark Energy and God
Organ Transplants and Blood Transfusions
Alien Life, Extrasolar Planets and Universal Atonement
Adaptation, EVILution and the Six Days of Genesis
The Earth is Under Seven Thousand Years Old!
Robot Wars and Skynet: Is Sci-Fi Becoming Our Reality?
IBM's Cognitive Computers, DARPA and the Image of the Beast
The Nibiru Planet X Wormwood Controversy
Comet Elenin, Hercolubus, Nibiru, and Planet X
Nature of the Alien: ETs, Demons or a Government Plot?
The Manipulation of Time and Space: Goal of the Beast?
The Internet: Our Final Frontier; Your Last Chance?
Humility in Our Understanding of God's Word
Faith and the Shroud of Turin
Five Foolish Virgins: Don't Procrastinate!
Message to the World

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Please avail yourself of other areas of the Bill's Bible Basics website. There are many treasures for you to discover.