In 1972, I was looking at science fiction books at Bookland in Huntsville, Alabama. I had heard of author Isaac Asimov (who also wrote science news stories) so I chose his new book "The Gods Themselves." It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1972, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1973. I started in the middle of the book, reading about creatures in a parallel universe. I never went back to read the sections that take place in our universe.

 

Years later, I learned that Asimov was co-author of the Humanist Manifesto II. Although from a Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia to New York City, Isaac himself discarded his family’s beliefs and became an atheist. He studied chemistry and worked in a university setting. Eventually his earnings from writing science fiction overtook his university salary and he quit his job to write full time. He was interested in the history of the Jewish people and wrote a guide to the Bible, but he interpreted the Bible as an embellished historical record, disregarding any idea that the Jewish people had been chosen by God.

 

20 years later, I was saddened when I learned that he had died at age 72, hoping that he would discover (as I later did) the vast evidence that the Creator of the universe was a person who wants to be a part of our lives just as He was with Adam and Eve.

 

In 1973, Pascagoula, MS was in the news. The incident was an alleged UFO encounter. Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claimed they were taken aboard a UFO while fishing near Pascagoula on October 11. They said they were examined by aliens and later released. This was the first time I had ever heard of the city of Pascagoula, but I remembered this incident because it was repeatedly in the news for several weeks. We would listen to the radio riding to & from school and after school, hearing the news at the top of every hour. I wondered if aliens were real. Riding with Dad at night on Jordan Lane, my sister and I saw a light in the sky that flashed on and off and appeared to be moving too quickly and too erratically to be an airplane. Could it have been an alien craft? We wondered, but we didn't know. 

 

That was also the year that my friend Dan and I attended the Boy Scout National Jamboree in Moraine State Park, PA. Danny's family attended a church in downtown Huntsville—the one my Grandmother brought my sister Dianna and I to each Sunday, beginning when I was 4 years old. Back then, at age 4 in 1964, on a Saturday night, I would tell my Grandmother that I didn't need a bath because I had just had one the previous Saturday. She would insist that I take a bath anyway, whether I needed one or not, because we would be going to Mass the following morning. My dad didn't attend church; my Grandmother had lived with us since the death of my mom due to complications during childbirth. When he re-married in 1967, my grandmother returned to her home in Minnesota.

 

In 7th grade (1973), we learned in school about Leonard Woolley's 1920s discovery of a 400-mile-long underground clay layer (with human city artifacts above and below) at Ur in southern Iraq. I was excited to learn that Woolley considered it evidence of the flood of Noah's time; I was disappointed to learn that later scientists considered it just to have been from one of many localized floods. I was wondering whether evidence existed to show that the account of the book of Genesis was true. Most presentations of ancient times presented on TV and in magazines took it for granted that the ("molecules-to-man") theory of evolution was true.

 

Richard Nixon resigned from office on August 9, 1974. At that time, I was with Boy Scout Troop 93, hiking 75 miles on the Nantahala section of the Appalachian Trail. Later in 1974, I discovered a book titled "The Wisdom of Lao Tzu,” a Taoist book which had been one of my mother's many books. Taoism is a Chinese "faith" which emphasizes the mysteriousness of the creator, contrasting Confucius’ down-to-earth rules for living. The book basically acknowledged a creator but said that there was nothing humans could know for certain about this creator. The book contained fables, stories, and poems similar in some ways to Buddhism. In one of the stories Lao Tzu was dreaming that he was a butterfly; but he wondered, “How do I know if I'm Lao Tzu dreaming of being a butterfly or if I'm a butterfly dreaming of being Lao Tzu?” 

 

In March of 1975, groundbreaking for the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was in the news. Later in the Spring, my Dad turned down a work transfer offer from his employer for a 2-year computer programming position in Iran. He concluded that the small increase in pay was not worth the effort of moving and the risk of something unpredictable occurring. I was a little disappointed; I wondered what it would be like to live in a different country.

 

1976 was the year of the Bicentennial Celebration. On July 20 (7 years after Apollo 11), the Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars. I was in the 10th grade and began reading Astronomy and Astrophysics books (high school level). On the last day of the school year in World History class, Mrs. Keel gave each of us students a tract called Four Spiritual Laws. I read it and found it an appealing idea, but I resisted the pull to ask Jesus to be my Savior, which was described at the end. It was not until 1984 that I would make that decision. In the Summer, I was able to spend a month in Duluth, MN with my grandmothers who were next-door neighbors, husbands already having passed away.

 

I went on a weekend camping trip in 1977 at the "Honeycomb" branch of Lake Guntersville with my friend Dan, about 8 of his siblings, and his Mom. Two of the 13 Henken children came on this trip too: Victor (the same age as Danny and I) and Katie, his younger sister. I had recently purchased my first car, a 1967 Chevy Impala for $300, and was able to drive to Honeycomb. It was a fun trip, but there were a few mishaps. One of the dogs belonging to Danny's family drowned, which was a sad event for the family. The next day when we arose from our tents around 8 a.m. I discovered that I had misplaced my car keys. I looked for them everywhere I could think of, but with no success. Danny's mom suggested that we pray that I would find my car keys. To me, that idea of praying was preposterous. If there really was a God who created the universe, certainly He was busy with the billions of light-years expanse of stars and planets and quasars and who-knows-what-else He had created. Why would He take time to deal with the situation of a human on one tiny planet in a small solar system out of billions in 1 galaxy out of billions or trillions of galaxies? But despite my protests, Danny's mom gathered all of us together in a circle and led the group in a prayer that I would find my car keys. Then, within 5 minutes, I had come across my car keys without actually trying to find them. I had to admit to myself that maybe, just maybe, God had helped me to find my car keys.

 

Even 3 years later, I was still somewhat skeptical of the idea that there was a personal God who created the Universe.

 

I was in college in 1980 when Carl Sagan's COSMOS series came on Public TV. Fourteen episodes were produced in the original series; the one I remembered most was about Yohann Kepler—who developed the laws describing planetary motion—searching for a pattern that would describe the placement of the planets within the solar system. When speaking of the universe, Carl Sagan made his most famous statement about the universe, saying that the universe was all that ever existed and all that ever would exist. I no longer felt that I could rule out the existence of God, but I still held on to my skeptical views for another 4 years until I could no longer deny the accumulating evidence.

 

In 1984, I found myself walking down the aisle at invitation time, part of my mind still resisting the idea but my legs still taking me down to the altar despite my feeble objections.

​

​

by Gene McGraw

​

----------

 

Author Note: I recently discovered that an additional 14 episodes of COSMOS were filmed in 2014 and then an additional 14 again in 2020. I have not seen any of these additional 28 episodes, but I can still say for certain that Carl Sagan claims about the Universe were not true. The Universe did indeed have a Creator and He invites all of us to come to Him.