Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary

by Kenneth W. Daniels

if God exists, are we not then his handiwork? In this light, is it not an insult to God to think of ourselves as worms, unable to reason on our own, inherently deplorable in God's sight?

We recognize intrinsic value in a horse, but we don't hesitate to put the animal out of its misery if it is suffering and wounded beyond recovery. Does God have any moral compulsion to preserve the horse's existence throughout eternity?

I am wagering that he (or she or it) is less interested in the particulars of my beliefs than in how I treat my fellow humans, and that he is not such a fiend as to consign even a single soul to eternal torment.

I can not believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain.

I feel a great sense of freedom in uncovering truth from a wide variety of sources, without feeling constrained to relate every finding to an orthodox biblical framework whose old wineskins have burst with the wine of science, reason, archaeology, and common sense.

Nothing was "supposed" to happen; it just happened!

what is the point of making inerrant originals if they are not to be kept inerrant for later recipients?)

Is there any empirically verifiable difference between the world we observe and the world we would expect if the Christian god did not exist?