[HopeRules]

Wow, so many questions and thoughts. I used to have the same and then some. Hard to address each one but would love to give it a go. For anyone doubting the story about Christ's death and resurrection please get yourself a copy of "The Case For Easter" by Lee Strobel. I questioned everything that this wonderful little book covers. It is amazing how he lays out, with facts, yes facts, the proof of what Jesus did.

Lancyorkyankee asked me about my transformation from an atheist. A while back, I was down at Speaker's Corner Hyde Park. There were the usual variety of blokes ranting on about islam, I'm okay your okay, reality is only reality if you find the right dimension, etc., then off to the side was a bloke who I immediately identified as one of those bornagainer bible-thumpers.

I gave a listen and instead of hitting him with all my knowledge of God's non-existence and the 1000's of discrepancies in his bible, I just listened. He wasn't carrying on about hell and damnation. He wasn't casting an accusational rhetoric my way. He was just laying out a simple message that Jesus (a name that would make my skin crawl) loved me, lived for me, and willingly died for me.

Instaed of attacking his theories I waited till he was done and the crowd left to ask him my many, many, knowledgable questions to dispute all he believed. He had so many decent responses but what I liked the best was that he didn't have all the answers regarding dinasors, the flood, death disease hatred, God's pre-existence, but he knew this:

Jesus Christ died on the cross for his sins and he was now a new creature in Jesus Christ. He now was assured that he would spend eternity in Heaven.

I left him with my dignity as an atheist intake but did take from him a little book. My thought was i'd chuck off the book at the first garbage bin.
Instead I held on to it. The rest of the day into the evening I had this terrible nagging sensation in my gut. I read through the little booklet but with a more open eye than I ever thought I would toward this Christianity stuff.

To sum up, I said my first "prayer" in a very long while and asked "God, if you are there, help me to believe!" A peace that I had never, ever felt before came over me. I then started reading through the bible searching for answers and discovered the Truth. As others have said, it's all about Faith.

Hope Rules!

Peter