Atheism to Christ

This is my story. It is quite long but quite interesting. I hope to do in 2 parts. Please read

I was baptised, as a child, in an anglican church, had a couple of years as a pentecostal then as soon as I became a teenager, attending church became optional. I only went if I really had to, but there was no compulsion. Attendance waned to almost zero as time passed. But I didn't discard my belief in God, and if I had to pray I would in Jesus’ name. Besides, how could there not be a god? when you’re never too far away to hear spooky stories from boarding school students, villagers, and people with haunting experiences; and if you, by any chance, didn’t, there was always a Nigerian movie to bring it all to your living room.

Going further, with the amount of information accessible on the internet, I started having questions about christianity, especially about the type common in Nigeria, although I wasn’t really keen on seeking for answers. But, one thing was that I became increasingly irritated by preachers living in opulence, using bullet proof cars, body guards, and jets, like pop stars while they had many poor and struggling people in their congregation, especially when I found that most of these preachers owned virtually nothing when they had started.

Didn’t the european missionaries who brought christianity, free education, healthcare and the bible - the same one we use till this day - leave the comfort of their countries, homes and families risking persecution and death for what they believed? I thought. Certainly, this couldn’t be the same Jesus, these preachers and their followers become so excited talking about. The Jesus I knew as a child from my A&M hymn book was a friend to the poor, meek and lowly; and I doubted if He were physically present, He would be the one in Armani suits using the most sophisticated gadgets. He certainly wouldn't live and act like these preachers did.

For this reason, I preferred devout muslims - not that I ever considered becoming one but because they were principled, kind and generally nicer in my experience - to the christian counterparts.

As a young lad predisposed to politics, psychology, science, and real hip hop -‘real recognise real.' I became savvy with Google search for almost every question that crossed my mind - and being a thoughtful person, I usually had a lot about everything. So, in 2014, while following the Israeli-Hamas conflict on the news - you didn’t have to watch the news for long to know about it because there were only two issues at the time and the other was the missing MH-370 - seeing the killing of people, including children by air strikes - although the Israeli claimed that they always fired warning strikes to allow for evacuation before actual decimation of targets-. However, I vividly remember an interview of a doctor, after a bombing of a UN reserved hospital by the Israeli forces, absolutely furious at the damage and injuries inflicted by the strike and how he said “...this is a hospital for God’s sake.”

I felt so much empathy for the doctor and the injured, thus, a barrage of questions started coming into my mind. I wondered if this Israel is the same one talked about in the Bible, If God supports this country, regardless, because they are His people, and from a song, or bible knowledge as a child, we were told Saul killed thousands and David killed tens of thousands: I wondered if these people killed were real people, I wondered which tribe they would be if they still exist in present day; and having those images in my mind, I wondered how God could support the murder of thousands by David because he loved God and is described as ‘a man after God’s heart.’

So, I got curious, I started my search with ‘How many people did King David kill?’ coupled with other search leads, I came across a book “God’s killings in the Bible” by Steve Wells - it counts the number of people God killed directly, and indirectly as recorded in the Bible - and bought it. To cut the l