I STILL remember that day in the early nineteen-forties when I was just five years old. All the children and their parents in my hometown in central Sweden were invited to a Sunday-school feast. The children were asked to contribute to the program with some form of religious entertainment. Since I played the accordion, when it was my turn I struck up a popular waltz. My audience was not very enthusiastic. Afterward I was told that it was a sin to play such music and that I should feel ashamed.
Many times in my early childhood I was told that it was a sin to do certain things, but nobody told me why. Thus blind fear of God rather than love for him began to fill my heart. This fear made me shun religion, even though religious teaching was a prominent part of regular schooling. During my first years at school the so-called Bible lessons were more like imaginative tales. It was interesting to hear about the miracles of Jesus and his disciples, but I was never convinced that those things really happened.
Time for confirmation came when I was fourteen. It was my first close contact with a State Church priest. The only memory I have of him is that he was irritated, nervous and a chain smoker. Preparation for confirmation was more a matter of routine than an opportunity to establish faith in God and the Bible. On the day of confirmation I was far more excited at being a possessor of a new camera and a new suit than at being a partaker of the Holy Communion.
Belief in God Completely Dissolved
The following years at a senior high school did not strengthen my belief in God. The religious lessons were given by a priest who openly confessed that he did not believe all parts of the Bible, including the creation account. He said that the Bible was written by men, and therefore it should be read with a critical attitude, as one would read any other book. I found the evolution theory taught in biology lessons an acceptable alternative to the Bible’s account of creation. I learned in the study of modern history about the efforts of professed Christian nations to destroy one another. These things influenced me toward an atheistic attitude.
More faith-ruining experiences were to come. After graduating from senior high school, I was called up for military service. The army chaplain explained that war was a necessary evil. He said that a soldier was a servant of God because Jesus said that those who took the sword would perish by the sword, and there must be somebody to wield that other sword. He stressed that war was instituted by God as a means to realize the true religion. I thought: If Christianity is no better than that, I can do without
So that boy who had a disappointing experience at Sunday school grew up to become a young man fully convinced that religion is a fraud, and that modern science eliminates the need for God. I had experienced what many others have, and reacted much the same way as they do. I raised my forefinger and asked, “How could there be an Almighty, all-bountiful God up there when we have so much corruption and wickedness down here?” To me there was only one answer to that question: There is no God!
Marriage and Outlook on Life
This atheistic outlook naturally marked my manner of living. I married a girl with about the same attitude. Since the path from mother’s womb to the grave is so short, we reasoned, “Why not try to get as much as possible out of life while we are still young and vigorous!”
We did not look upon marriage as a very serious institution. We thought that morality must be a personal matter. The two of us could have fun together, but also apart whenever we liked. We thought we were really free. Our whole outlook on life was materialistic, and even my profession was of a materialistic kind. I was a systems analyst at a computer center in Stockholm. We assisted big companies to plan for future financial advancements.
An Unexpected Visitor
Then one spring day in 1963 someone rang our doorbell. I opened the door. A neatly dressed young man modestly introduced himself as a minister, one of Jehovah’s witnesses making calls to stimulate faith in God. My first thought was: “Poor fanatic, you’ve come to the wrong place.” But there was something about him that kept me from closing the door. He did not look like a fanatic. He appeared so normal, so natural, so relaxed. “All right,” I thought, “let me at least show this poor fellow that he has got hold of the wrong end of the stick.”
So I let him in. With my wife listening from the bedroom, I began to vent my indignation concerning God and religion. “How is it possible to believe in God when scientific research and logical reasoning cannot verify him?” I asked. I told him that most of the faith I had met in religion had been a desperate faith, a hypocritical faith, or a faith against better judgment. I showed him that Christianity must have failed, for it had not been able to stop corruption, wars and violence any more than paganism had.
I went on like that for quite a while, and when I thought that he had enough to consider me a “hopeless case” and prefer to leave, he just calmly nodded. He told me that he could well understand my opinion and that it was shared by many persons nowadays. That took some of the sting out of my argument, and I could see that this was not the first time he had run into a discussion of this type. So with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism I let him speak.
Christendom Not the Same as Christianity
He told me that we first had to distinguish between true and false worship before we could judge the matter. He said that even if so-called Christianity proved to be false and unreliable, it did not mean that there is no true and reliable Christianity. “There is a great difference between Christendom and Christianity,” he said. “Christianity cannot be condemned by what Christendom says or does.”
Pointing to the distinction between Christendom and true Christianity, he observed: “It is true that Christendom has suppressed people, but not Christianity; that Christendom has waged war, but not Christianity; that Christendom has failed to stop the moral breakdown, but not Christianity. The Bible does not support Christendom. On the contrary, it prophetically condemns Christendom.
“Just consider how Christendom has misrepresented the Lord’s Prayer,” he continued. “She has prayed: ‘Our Father which art in heaven,’ but she has not practiced interracial brotherhood. She has prayed for God’s name to be sanctified, but she has not even acknowledged that God has a name. She has prayed for God’s kingdom to come, but she has patriotically supported her own kingdoms. She has prayed for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, but she has sought to carry on her own worldly policy. She has prayed for her daily bread, but how willing has she been to share her abundance of ‘bread’ with starving people? She has asked God to forgive her her debts and sins, but how ready has she been to forgive and forget in her own conflicts with others?”
I certainly noticed that this young man was not smoothing things over, shutting his eyes to facts or twisting things like most other religious persons with whom I had discussed this matter. To be honest, I had to agree on these points as they well reflected my own experiences. But I wasn’t going to become a believer that easily. The mere failure of Christendom did not prove anything about the existence of God. So I raised the question: “How is it possible for modern man to believe in God when scientific research and logical reasoning cannot verify him?”
“That question I would like to take up with you next week,” he said.
His Second Visit
I had nearly forgotten about the whole thing when the Witness called back. With my wife again listening from the bedroom, the discussion began. At the outset I declared my belief in evolution, and I felt backed up by the whole scientific world. However, it seemed as though he had given this considerable thought, for he said that it was important to make some distinctions as far as science is concerned.
“On the one hand,” he said, “there is the science that discovers, observes and describes facts about nature. Such science does not in any way conflict with belief in God as creation’s great Originator. On the other hand, there is the so-called science that interprets and tries to explain the origin of things by means of hypotheses and theories. Such science often denies a Divine Originator. A true Christian believes in exact science, which discovers, observes and describes facts, but he cannot unhesitantly take a hypothesis or a theory for granted, let alone build his outlook on life upon it.”
I had to admit that I had not considered evolution as only a theory, which, of course, it is. But I still felt that it must be a rather probable theory, and I told him so.
Chance or Creation
The Witness then made me agree that if we excluded an Intelligent Originator behind creation, we would have to rely upon chance as the guiding factor in creation. “How probable is chance?” he asked.
“Well, there is something called calculus of probability to solve that problem, “I replied, feeling more on my home ground.
“Yes, and let us take an example of such a calculation,” he said. He picked up a magazine from his briefcase, and read: “Another scientist computed the probability of a single protein molecule (one of the molecules essential for life) arising out of chance. As stated in the book Human Destiny, it would take 10 to the 243d power [1 followed by 243 zeros] billions of years for this to happen! Since scientists estimate the age of the earth to be a few billion years, there would not have been enough time for this to occur!”
He paused to let this sink in thoroughly, and then read on: “The same scientist says: ‘One molecule is of no use. Hundreds of millions of identical ones are necessary . . . If the probability of appearance of a living cell could be expressed mathematically the preceding figures would seem negligible.’”
“If that is so, “I said, “how do you explain that so many scientists believe in evolution?”
“You certainly use the right word when you say they believe in it, because they cannot prove it,” he replied.
“But their belief must be better founded than your belief in God,” I protested.
“Imagine,” he said, “that the most skilled scientist in the world could handle molecules like a bricklayer handles bricks, and that he only had a pile of protein molecules to work with. Do you believe that he could build a cell of hundreds of millions of such molecules? Could he make it live, grow, propagate and leave to its offspring its own, and only its own, characteristics? You know that he couldn’t.
“But, according to atheistic belief, that which not even the most skilled human intelligence can achieve, occurred by mere chance. How well founded is such a belief? The only conclusion is that those who believe in it must have an extreme desire to believe in one direction, and to refuse to believe in another direction.”
When the young Witness left that night, I did not know what position I would take in the coming discussion. Anyhow, he left the Awake! of April 22, 1963, that he had quoted from, and I decided to read it to see what deficiencies it might contain. However, as I read I became more and more impressed by the logical reasoning in the material, and it really made me do some rethinking.
Man—Wonderfully Made
Our discussions went on week after week. I can still remember when we discussed how wonderfully man is made. It was indeed sobering to consider our human body of billions of living cells constructed in such a fantastic way to cooperate harmoniously in all its parts. And to think, too, of its ability to love, rejoice, think, discover, remember, reproduce and to express its inmost thoughts and feelings by means of the spoken and written word, smiles and tears, song and music and spontaneous or carefully planned actions.
This discussion made me realize what a tremendously vast gulf there is between unconscious life and conscious life, not to mention between a protein molecule and man. It finally created in me a desire to have someone to admire and thank for all this, someone higher than merely what can be seen around us.
A Changed Way of Life
After some time I agreed to study the Bible with the Witness. This, opened up new fields of evidence for the existence of God. The historical accuracy of the Bible, its harmony, its elevated style, the fulfillment of its prophecies and God’s purpose for man and the earth—all this made a deep impression upon me as time passed.
My wife, who so often had eavesdropped in the bedroom, soon began to take part in the study. After a few months we began to attend the meetings at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The time also came when we attended one of their assemblies. Here we met a group of Christians forming a great family of many nationalities, of all ages, of different professions and social backgrounds, but free from dissensions and antagonism. The faith and activity they have in common unite them in a fellowship of which we could hardly have dreamed.
We began to find new meaning in life, increasing its value to us. A wonderful future opened up. Our newfound faith made us dependent upon God, instead of upon ourselves. This dependence became a corrective in our lives, and this has been a real blessing. It has helped us to become mentally and, as a result, physically clean. Our marriage has become more stable, more important to us. We have established full confidence in each other, and feel much better equipped to bring up our little son. Having made over our thinking, and dedicating our lives to Jehovah God, we feel a closeness to God as a real Person.
This is no sentimental idealization built on a desperate faith or a hypocritical faith or a faith against better judgment. It is a reality built on a balanced, genuine and well-founded belief in God. That is why I now can say: I was an atheist, but I will never be one again
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