I have been a Christian all my life and just recently (the past six months) I have been questioning God's existence.  I became exceedingly depressed since now my life has no direction, and I went to whom I thought I could trust (youth pastor and my family).  Both of which excused it as a "phase" – it doesn't seem like it is now that I've been feeling empty for so long.  When everyone else ignored me, I began to read the Bible, a chapter a day.  Nothing helped my faith.  I've tried praying to God, asking Him to help me believe in Him since I just don't have the faith to do this on my own.  Like every other human, I make mistakes all the time.  My question is this: what do I do to find God or help Him find me?  Is there anything that can help my faith?

Sincerely,
Theistically Challenged

Dear Theistically Challenged,

Your question is one of the fundamental questions of life: “Does God Exist?”  It is important that everyone asks this question at some point in their life, and there is no shame in you doing it now.  We disagree with those you have talked to previously; this question is not a phase; it is a basic question that is worthy of an honest answer.

We will try to give you some key evidence that there is a Creator, but we will also point you in the direction of some resources that may help you in your quest for answers.  So here we go:

1. Look at a watch and ask yourself the question, “Is this designed?”  Of course, a watch is designed – just like a house, a car, a camera, and other modern technological marvels.  You know they are designed because they are complex, they have purpose, and they are organized in a meaningful way.  Now look at your eye, your hand, even a single follicle of hair.  Are they designed?  They are infinitely more complex than a watch.  They have very distinct purposes, and they are all organized in a meaningful way.  You were designed by God; you have a Designer.  If you believe in watchmakers, you can believe in God.
2. The most basic laws of science tell us that nothing ever comes from nothing (1^st Law of Thermodynamics).  Einstein made it clear that nothing can be destroyed; energy can turn into matter and matter into energy, but everything that is here has always been here.  That begs the question, “Where did it all come from?”  Scientists all agree that everything we see had to come from somewhere, but the only logical answer to that question is ‘God’.  God, a supernatural deity not bound by the laws of physics, created all that we see and enjoy in this universe.
3. God’s Word is also proof that God is.  The Bible is a book that only God could write.  It has prophecies that are fulfilled hundreds of years after they are spoken.  It has remained unchanged by tradition or persecution for thousands of years.  It makes statements about how our world works hundreds of years before scientists realized the concepts for themselves.  The Bible is a book composed by over forty different writers over thousands of years, and yet it has no contradictions within it.  The Bible could not have been written by anyone but Deity.

These are just three reasons to believe in God; there are many more that space prevents us from mentioning.  We also recommend you go back and read through the posts in our EVIDENCES category.  You will see that you aren’t the only one who has questions about God, and you will also see that there are answers to every question.  We also recommend reading Case For A Creator by Lee Strobel and Has God Spoken? by A.O. Schnabel. Both books are well worth the read.

How does the Bible explain dinosaurs and all the other prehistoric fossils we have?  Isn't evolution the only answer?

 

Sincerely,
Stymied-o-saurus

Dear Stymied-o-saurus,

The Bible says that every creature that lives on this planet was created on day five (Gen 1:20-23) or day six (Gen 1:24-25).  This would include the dinosaurs.  Dinosaurs would have existed in the Garden of Eden, just like all other animals did.  Dinosaurs would have also been brought on Noah’s Ark, just like all other animals (Gen 6:19).  In fact, Job chapters 40 and 41 describe in detail two animals that sound exactly like dinosaurs.  That is the biblical explanation for when and where dinosaurs lived.

As for fossils, fossils are created when something is killed and buried very, very quickly.  Fossils are the product of cataclysmic destruction.  The most likely explanation for the vast amount of fossils found today is the Great Flood of Noah’s day.  The entire world was quickly covered by water (Gen 7:19-20).  The pressure, removal of oxygen, and speed of destruction caused by the Great Flood would be a perfect situation to create fossils.  There is nothing contradictory about the fossil record.  The Bible functions in perfect harmony with science.

For questions like this, we often refer people to AnswersInGenesis.org, a site that is dedicated to the research of creation scientists.  They have many articles that address these types of question in more detail.

How does the Bible explain dinosaurs and all the other prehistoric fossils we have?  Isn't evolution the only answer?

 

Sincerely,
Brontosaurus Or Bust

Dear Brontosaurus Or Bust,

Dinosaurs would have been created on day six like all the other land animals (Gen 1:24-25).  They also would have been brought onto Noah’s ark along with the other animal pairs (Gen 6:19).  In fact, the book of Job mentions two beasts referred to as the ‘Behemoth’ and the ‘Leviathan’ that sound an awful lot like dinosaurs (Job 40 & 41).

Evolution isn’t the only answer for the dinosaurs’ disappearance; natural extinction is also an answer.  The dinosaurs, just like the dodo bird, could have just as easily gone extinct through natural processes after the Flood.

Fossils are also easily explained using the Flood.  Fossils are most often formed when things are rapidly buried in mineral-rich sediment.  Fossils occur in cataclysmic or catastrophic circumstances.  The Noachian Flood is a perfect scenario for the creation of fossils.  In fact, there are a great many creation scientists that think that most of the fossils we have today were laid down in the Great Flood.  Dinosaurs can easily be explained through the Bible story – a story which does not include evolution.

I was wondering when the Bible was being copied and spread around, how careful were they about copying it?  Because I know they didn't have ‘copy-and-paste’ back then.

 

Sincerely,
Control C

Dear Control C,

The people who copied the Bible were so accurate and detail-oriented… they would put any OCD accountant to shame.  Those who made copies of the Bible were called ‘scribes’.  Ezra, from the book of Ezra, was a scribe (Ezra 7:6).  Scribes are recorded throughout Jewish history, from the time of David (2 Sam 8:17) all the way into the time of Christ (Matt 8:19).  Scribes were so proficient at copying text that they were also employed as lawyers because of their precise knowledge of all things legal.

When scribes copied a biblical text, they had some very stringent rules that they followed.  Secular history tells us that these rules were universal amongst scribes, and the rules were followed very, VERY strictly.  Here are some of those rules:

1. Every word must be verbalized aloud while writing.
2. There must be a review within thirty days, and if more than three pages required corrections, the whole document was destroyed.
3. Letters, words, and paragraphs were counted, and the middle paragraph, word, and letter must correspond to the original document.
4. If two letters touched, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
5. Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty, lines.

As you can tell from the list, scribes were exceptionally meticulous about accuracy.  The proof of this accuracy can be seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, amongst them was uncovered a copy of the Book of Isaiah that had been written by scribes.  This copy of Isaiah was ONE THOUSAND years older than any other previous copy.  Yet, over that thousand-year time span, there was no notable disagreement between the manuscripts.  In fact, the only difference between the Dead Sea Scroll copy and the other copies were punctuation marks and spelling differences.  There is no doubt that God has perfectly preserved the Bible over the centuries.

I was talking to my brother who told me that the Bible we use now was constructed by the Catholics, and they left out numerous books and stories. When I said that it was probably stories that the other prophets covered, he said that they left one out about Jesus killing sparrows and a boy and then bringing them back to life in "Thomas' Gospel of Infancy":

"Later he was going through the village again when a boy ran and bumped him on the shoulder. Jesus got angry and said to him, "You won't continue your journey." And all of a sudden, he fell down and died."

I'm trying to make sense of this because I know the Bible is true, but was it constructed by false christians? And if so, is it still pure, true, and the whole Word of God? Please help me.

Sincerely, Truth Only Please

Dear Truth Only Please,

The books that your brother referred to are called ‘apocryphal’ books. An apocryphal book (apocrypha means hidden) is a book that was rejected from the Bible because it was considered inauthentic. These books are not written by God and never were accepted by God’s people as divinely inspired. The Bible was not constructed by Catholics, but that is a common misconception. The most famous historical document that includes the entire list of all the New Testament books was written at the Nicene Council in 325 AD. The Nicene Council is considered to be one of the defining moments that led to the formation of the Catholic church, and therefore people say that Catholics constructed the New Testament. It just isn’t true though.

The Nicene Council did write down a list of the New Testament books, but they didn’t create that list – they just reiterated what people had already known and accepted for a couple hundred years. Most of the New Testament books were written as letters to different congregations that personally knew the apostles and prophets that wrote the letters. Paul would even mention his penmanship as being distinctive (Gal 6:11). Those churches were able to tell the difference between a letter that was actually written by an apostle and one that was a forgery. The church of the first century collected, copied, and distributed these letters just as God intended (Col 4:16, 1 Thess. 5:27). Well before Catholicism showed up on the scene, the books of the Bible were uniformly accepted, and the apocryphal books had been rejected. God made sure that His Word was properly preserved and established.