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“I don’t know if God exists or not. Even if He does exist, He is not doing a good job. I would rather start my own religion, thus began a student from IIT.”

This verbal attack was from Pandey (name changed) who seemed to believe that he needed to start a new religion. His rationale was that religions as we know them now are no good.

I gently countered by asking, “What made him so sure that his religion would work? What if his religion failed as well?” I explained that as he was a finite human being, there were good chances he may not be able to make significant progress in his endeavour. He nodded in agreement, but still contended that traditional religions have failed.

He was certain that something was intrinsically wrong in this world and so even if there were a god, that being was not worth any attention. He talked about violence and killings in the world. He pointed out the gore in the animal kingdom, and also touched on non-vegetarians who killed animals for food – but carefully pre-empted a response by saying “You may say killing plants is also bad”. And so his conclusion was – something was seriously faulty in this system. Further to it, a second reason that he gave to establish that this universe was a failed experiment was the death of infants and children.

I acknowledged his diagnosis of this world and explained the biblical recognition that we live in a fallen world. This was due to the sinful rebellion of our fore-fathers which brought us under a curse. He noticed the logic there, but didn’t find it persuasive as his challenge seemed more emotional at that point: “How does one justify death of innocent infants for no fault of theirs? God needs to have done something about it,” he opined.

His friends who were listening in on our conversation started signalling that it was time to move on. When I closed the discussion with a few words in the local dialect, Pandey was quite pleased that I could speak his native tongue and we agreed to continue the conversation later over the phone. We caught up again a day later and his main point of contention was the same – all known religions have failed. I mentioned to him that God’s plan of saving the world was under way and there was a promise of a new heaven and a new earth, where there would be no more sorrow. Well, I then hoped and prayed he would see how God cared for these legitimate concerns of his.

Providentially, a couple of days later I visited the vision of prophet Isaiah 65: 19, 20 during my devotion. It read: “… the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years”. Phew, this was a ‘eureka’ moment! Further down, the prophet seeing the distant future also addressed the other discomforting issue of my friend, as the last verse in that chapter read: “‘The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,’ says the Lord.” Pandey’s complaints were featured here specifically!

I whatsapped Pandey these references and asked him to google them up and to stay in touch. I believe he is close to the kingdom of God for he confided in me about a rare experience of his. In his own words, “I once had an OBE (out-of-the-body) experience and in those few milli-seconds, when my spirit was outside my body, I heard the name Jesus Christ – about whom I had never heard anything before.”

The Word of God says: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29: 13). All glory to God!

Neil-vimalkumar

Neil Vimalkumar Boniface is Senior Apologist and Speaker with RZIM Life Focus Society, India.

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