Back at home, the answers to my scientifically-related questions that'd been gnawing at me came unexpectedly. It turns out, typing "does God exist" into Google doesn't actually bring up anything useful. I know, what a surprise. So, I decided that if God really wanted me to believe in Him, He would have to come get me, rather than expecting me to seek Him at that time. If God really was there, and really was listening to my heart, and really cared about me, He would know how to lure me back into His presence. 

I don't really remember what I was doing online at the time, but I came across a website created and run by a guy called Dr. Francis Collins, where he wrote extensively about reconciling the Christian faith with modern science. I knew the name Dr. Francis Collins sounded familiar. I don't know exactly when or where I heard of him the first time, but I do know that he was the reason why the gene that caused Cystic Fibrosis was discovered way back in 1989, which was a massive breakthrough. The discovery of the CF gene is the reason why I am here today! It allowed doctors and scientists to spring forward into finding effective treatments, and hopefully a cure, to Cystic Fibrosis. Thanks to that discovery, CF went from being a childhood death sentence, to being a condition that patients could survive with well into adulthood. 

Dr. Collins was also the head of the Human Genome Project and director of the National Institutes of Health. He was not only a very credible scientist and doctor who was arguably the most reputable and respected doctor in the States, and possibly even the world, He was also a devout and outspoken Christian. He was not even slightly shy about his faith, contrary to what I'd been taught my whole life up until then. I thought scientists and doctors, no matter what their credentials were, lost all credibility the second they admitted they believed in God. Apparently, that was not the case. 

I read article after article, blog post after blog post on Dr. Collins' website, and I felt all of the scientific reasons I'd mounted against God shrivel up into obscurity by the time I'd spent a couple hours reading those articles. Of course, there were plenty of comments and blogs written by other people who were attempting to discredit the ideas that yes, evolution and the story of Adam and Eve are compatible, and yes, the 14 billion year old universe and the Genesis account of the creation of the universe were also compatible, as well as many other scientific truths people often claimed contradicted the Word of God.

However, I realized that most of those arguments against science-based faith were purely emotion based. If we accepted evolution, or evilution, as some of the more rabid evangelicals described it, surely, that would open the door for us to become morally and spiritually corrupt, since evolution taught that humans were just another animal rather than the image of God. If humans were just another animal, how did that make us the image of God like the bible said we were? But, to counter that question, weren't we already depraved? Did creationists suddenly forget that Jesus Christ died on the cross because we were infinitely sinful and corrupt, and the only way to pay for that was to sacrifice God's Son? Did it really matter whether we came from a common ape ancestor or created as-is by God, if we were already corrupted by default? 

When I enthusiastically brought my findings to my grandparents, they basically pulled out the same emotionally-based arguments that other evangelicals used to discredit theistic evolution, and other ideas like that, and then told me to watch Ken Ham's debates with Bill Nye. Bad idea. I thought Bill Nye absolutely obliterated Ken Ham's version of creationism. It was quite entertaining to watch, to be honest, and reminded me of what happened back in 10th grade when myself and my peers watched a live debate between a Christian creationist and a Christian evolutionist. My grandparents also told me to go on Ken Ham's website and see what he had to say about theistic evolution. He apparently wrote a lot about it, and to my grandparents, he was well-written and thoughtful. Well, I checked, and it was everything I expected it to be. Pretty void of anything intellectual or honest. 

I decided that since my scientific discussions with my family led to nowhere, I'd just drop it and go my own way. They could believe what they wanted, and I'd go on to believe what I wanted. After all, nobody was being harmed as a result of my family's creationist views as far as I knew. 

But the philosophical side of faith continued to gnaw at me. I knew avoiding those questions wouldn't lead me closer to the truth, whatever it may be. At the same time, I worried there weren't any answers to those questions. I grew up being taught that there were no such things as stupid or wrong questions, yet the more I asked questions like, "how could a perfect God create such an imperfect world" and "why does God sit back and let bad things happen to good people?", the more I began to wonder if there were, in fact, stupid and wrong questions. 

I know now that at least one of those questions are obviously wrong. If I'm going to be consistent, I have to acknowledge that because of sin, nobody was perfect or even good. Even the best of people had their moments of tremendous selfishness that harmed other people. Everyone could be roped into doing unspeakable things, as experiments like the famous Milgram experiment showed. Everyone who has ever existed, exists today, and will exist in the future has always been just one little step away from committing murder. Truth is, there never was, never is, and never will be a good person for bad things to happen to. The only truly good person who ever existed was Jesus Christ Himself. But does He really count, since He was God in human form? 

The reality of sin wiped out at least half of my questions regarding the morality of God. However, at the same time, it gave birth to even more questions. If we were so terrible, why did God create us in the first place? Even better, why the hell did He continue to shower us with love and mercy despite the fact everyone was dangerously susceptible to becoming the next Hitler? Surely, if God was all good and all loving, He'd just wipe out His abominations once and for all, leaving no chance for humans to repopulate the world ever again.

But, maybe God didn't have to kill us all Himself, as justified in doing that as He would be. We'd likely do it to ourselves eventually, given how many nuclear weapons we've created, and all of the idiots that somehow found themselves in very powerful and important positions in politics. It wouldn't be long before someone in a political position of authority decided it was time to press that big red button. As of 2019, the Doomsday Clock is 2 minutes to midnight, which is the closer it's ever been to midnight since 1953! Maybe the evangelicals were right about Jesus coming back sooner rather than later all along!

I finally decided that, despite my unanswered questions, I'd give God another shot. After all, it couldn't hurt to get right with my Creator, especially considering the circumstances I've been faced with for my whole life. Not only did the threat of death follow me like a shadow wherever I went due to my health condition, but the chances of me (and everyone else in the world) getting turned into nuclear ash have been growing every month. But, I underestimated the power of doubt, and soon turned back to my usual critical way of thinking.