[00:00:00] Speaker A: A lot of times people say, well, you know, if it's just faith, then you would, you know, we never know about the law of gravity. Well, no, we definitely know about the law of gravity. In fact, the founders of modern science were all pretty much all Bible believers, you know, because they knew God was an orderly God. They knew that he had designed nature, designed the universe. You know, they could expect consistency.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Welcome to X Skeptic, where we hear unlikely stories of belief. I'm your host, Jana Harmon, and here on this podcast, we dive deep into the incredible journeys of those who have moved from skepticism or atheism to faith and belief in Christianity. Each episode reveals the compelling, often unexpected moments when belief took root in those who once rejected it. If you're joining us for the first time, we're excited to connect with you. Visit
[email protected] to explore even more inspiring stories and sign up for our monthly updates. You can also find us on YouTube where we bring these powerful narratives to life through video. We'd love to hear from you, whether it's through a comment or directly@info skeptic.org your feedback lets us know what you'd like to see and helps us shape our direction. In each episode, our guests not only share their path from disbelief to faith, but also provide thoughtful reflections for skeptics and Christians alike. If you're questioning or searching for truth, you'll discover meaningful insights on what it takes to approach faith with an open mind. If you're a Christian, these stories offer unique perspectives on how to engage with those who don't yet believe.
Together, we'll learn from their struggles, wisdom, and personal discoveries.
In today's episode, we're exploring one of the most profound questions. What does science have to do with belief in God? For many, science seems to stand in opposition to faith. But what happens when the answers of naturalism begin to falter, when the origin and complexity of life push the boundaries of purely material explanations? Today, we'll hear from former atheist Dr. Michael Houts, an esteemed scientist who once believed that science had all the answers. Join me as we follow his remarkable journey of questioning, discovery, and ultimately, belief.
Welcome to X Skeptic. Mike, it's so great for you to be here with me today.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: It's great, great to be here. Thanks for having me on the show.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it truly is a privilege. You are someone who is bringing a lot of gravitas to the table. You have quite the credentialing, the education, and I'd love for the listeners to know just who you are. Can you give us a sense of your history, your education, the kind and level of work that you do?
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Okay, well, just real briefly, I grew up outside the church, but I was always very, very interested in science and engineering. And I think even though I wasn't a believer, in hindsight I know God was blessing me with lots of opportunities along the way. So I got out of high school, went to a community college and then I went on up to University of Florida, had a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering, and then went on up to MIT. I was able to get a PhD in nuclear engineering and then was blessed to be able to work out at Los Alamos National Laboratory for about 11 years. Had some really fun positions out there. I was a team leader for criticality reactor and radiation physics, a deputy group leader for nuclear design and risk analysis, and then had the opportunity to come out to Marshall Space Flight Center. So now I'm here, nuclear research manager and also getting to work on some really fun advanced propulsion systems, trying to really give us some advanced space exploration capabilities. So just been blessed with a really good life. Always been interested, not just science, engineering, really, really interested in the space program in space. Went to the first 12 space shuttle launches, had to skip school for a few of those. But it was, it was very well worth it. And you know, just really, really fascinated by space my entire life also.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Wow. I can't imagine the kind of things that you're working on now, particularly with the advances that are being made into space and even towards Mars. Aren't you working on projects towards that end?
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's really, like I say, really exciting. Just across the board, a lot of work. NASA industry, universities, other government agencies, just really exciting time to be doing space exploration. One of the projects I get to work on is just looking for ways to try to get to Mars and back very quickly. Of course, when you say quickly going to Mars and back, you're still talking about a year round trip time.
But again, it's just the possibility that we might be having outposts on the moon in the reasonably near future, or even outposts or colonies on Mars. Again, just really fun time to be working on space related projects.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. Okay, so let's get into your story. You mentioned at the very top there that you grew up as a non believer. And I'd love to know the context of that. Why don't you take us to your childhood, Tell me about where you grew up, your family life, was religion or faith, any part of that? What did that look like.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So again, grew up and just really remember the fascination with science didn't come from a family where I was told to hate Christians. And I think that's really important today because unfortunately there's some. Some children are being raised in an environment where they are told that. So that would have been a very much more challenging background, I guess you'd say, to come out of. But some of the first books I remember, they were all in hindsight, anti Bible, anti Christian, but they were really just fascinating. Concluded pretty early that science said just everything explained, everything we'd ever need to know was you could just learn from science. And so, you know, got more and more into science and just, you know, I guess, you know, did have early memories, you know, with people that were, I guess you would just say, you know, they would, you know, be affiliated with some religious group. I guess they did notice that even then that they tended to be the people that were nicer or if you just were at school and you needed somebody to talk to, you could go to them. So that was probably my first, I'd say, real positive experience with Bible believers. Although again, at that point I didn't really, I guess I didn't really know they were Bible believers. I just knew they were different, you know, I guess I just leave it at that.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: So just nice people. And so you were growing up and you're going to school very again, interested in the sciences. And what were you being taught in your science class in terms of things that just explanations for reality, for the bigger questions and just for how things work.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Yes. So at that point in time, it was.
There were, I guess you'd say, be things related to the Big Bang, a lot of things related to evolution. The idea that life could just make itself was mentioned and of course they phrase it much more technically the idea that, you know, maybe mutations and, you know, natural selection could somehow, you know, lead to, you know, information being added to the genome. Again, it was never phrased like that, you know, so. But just kind of this, no matter what question was asked, you'd have kind of a, you know, this, this I guess you call it really superficial. You know, don't, don't get into the details, you know, type of response, you know, like, well, the, you know, the universe exploded into existence or, you know, but just never getting into the details, never, you know, really looking at, okay, what and how would that work or does it work or does that match our observations or nothing. I'd say in that particular area, it was almost like critical thinking. Was actually discouraged, at least in the particular schools I was going to.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: But were you buying into the narrative?
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Oh, hook, line and sinker? Yeah, no, I thought it was great. I was.
Well, it's just another incident.
I think it was 9th grade biology class and of course the teacher was teaching about evolution. And what was funny was by then kind of had same group of kids that were in school with me and they kind of knew. Well, and I was sitting in the back of class, wasn't paying too much attention.
And the quote unquote good kids, they actually started to get into it a little bit with the biology teacher. And so that was. Yeah, that was exciting. I mean, I know it sounds really bad, but it's almost like, okay, the good kids are getting in trouble, so this must be really interesting. And so, and so you start to start paying attention. But then I noticed they were making points, but they were doing it very respectfully. You know, kind of a speak the truth in love, but you know, respecting their elders. But the teacher actually was, was ridiculing them. I mean, he was really calling them names, belittling them. And that, that really struck me as is odd, you know, because it wasn't, I didn't, you know, I didn't know or care, you know, if they were right or wrong. It was just kind of, just the, the attitudes involved. And so I would say a couple things on that. You know, for, you know, Christians that might be watching this, it's really important to, you know, you know, you know, do what the Bible says. In other words, don't just defend what the Bible says, but do what the Bible says. And part of that is, you know, speaking the truth in love, always showing respect, always, you know, treating people with respect. And so because that's early on, those are what were really making the impressions on me. But yeah, the way it was presented, I guess that was what was so shocking is that you didn't really click then, but it was just kind of like, okay, no other subject. I mean, if someone had a question in math class, they'd never get that kind of response from a teacher. Even if it was a really silly question. You wouldn't get quite that kind of response. And so it was, I guess something I'd say that caught my attention a little bit.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: So you grew up in a relatively non religious home. You were being educated to the, the fact, or it would be presented as fact, that there's no God, that science is the ultimate explainer, I guess in the sense of, of everything happened naturally. There was no need for a God. You were buying into that, but yet you were feeling a little tension there with regard to the way that the, the teacher was responding to any kind of critique or even question, just a question about that perspective. So in you said you were around ninth grade there, was that a time you said that you had believed what you were being taught in science class?
Were, were you identifying at all as an atheist or as an agnostic or anything along those terms?
[00:11:09] Speaker A: I guess you would say an. An atheist that I went to school where. And again, I always just kind of like hung out in the back of the classroom, you know, type of thing. And so I'm sitting in back and. And again, you're getting a lot of pressure at that point, you know, that, you know, just all kinds of immoral things are, are cool, you know, they're the right thing to do. And so, and so the, the guy behind me.
Yeah, you start out thinking, you know, wow, what's, you know, what's up here? I don't know how to phrase it. His, his teeth were kind of falling out. You know, he, he just had all kinds of stuff going on. But then started talking to him, realized that he was really smart. Yeah. So he's intelligent, but he was totally buying into this, you know, I guess we'll call it the atheistic lifestyle or the, you know, the lifestyle that was being promoted by, at that time, promoted heavily by Hollywood and stuff. So he was, he was very into drugs. And he came in one day, he was all banged up, and he said something like he was. He was hallucinating the night before, and he jumped out of a car that was going, he said, going about 40 miles an hour. He was just hallucinating or he jumped out of the car and he's all banged. He was laughing about it and stuff. And I was like, well, that's, you know, doesn't seem as great or as cool as it's being made out to be. And again, it was all centered around this idea of just reject God, reject the Bible, you know, embrace atheism, because, I mean, the guy was really smart. Unfortunately, it just got worse and worse and worse. And then he stopped being in class and I don't know what happened to him.
Hope he was okay physically, but that was bad. Then had the girl next to me, same thing, real nice, but really getting into that lifestyle and she, she ended up getting pregnant, dropping out of school and so. So you started noticing that. Yeah, I was kind of trying to identify as the atheist with the, you know, connection of the, you know, just reject all Christian morality, everything, especially the Bible. But really starting to notice that, that you know, you know, again it wasn't good that great of a lifestyle like had been presented and then also had some relatives that were really buying into atheism, but they were starting to, I won't say they were starting to kind of hate Christians. And so I was ran in a car once and we're driving along and see a John 3:16 sign which again I didn't find at all offensive. I don't know if I knew what the verse was at that point, but I didn't. I was like, okay, God wants to put John 3:16 on his front yard. Fine. Then another sign was repent. And well, my relative just said, you know, this is horrible. We need to find his house and burn it down. And I'm just like that's, you know, because it wasn't a. Again, I'm just like, well why would we want to do that? You know, so it wasn't, I was kind of identifying but I really was starting to recognize that and again didn't. Wasn't making the connections. But I was like, but this is a really young, you know, not, not I guess say not the philosophy, not the religion that I'd really want to have the idea of being atheist or agnostic, but I hadn't put that together yet. But just notice it wasn't, wasn't all that it was cracked up to be.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that, that that's probably wise for you even at such an early age to make the connections that sometimes belief has its consequences.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Which is obvious as you get older. But, but at some point, unless someone, and that's something just boy is never too young to point that out to people, you know, because probably someone had pointed that out to me when I was like 8, 10 years old. They could have, you know, figured it out. And I'm not saying I even figured it out when I was 16. It was just something. Something just wasn't right. So.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: But of course, you know, all ideology doesn't lead, you know, down, down to as bad a place as perhaps as those lives and lifestyles and attitudes where I mean there you were, right. You, you called yourself a bit of a non believer. Let's just say you weren't antagonistic, you weren't immoral in your lifestyle then. In fact you had a sense of, of even judgment about, about things not being good, you know, that the things were immoral even though you were in a, perhaps an Ideology that, that couldn't even ground that kind of morality. Right?
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah, even the, you know, everyone has some sense of morality, some conscious. We can suppress that.
We all have that. And I guess, you know, again, I've been blessed to be in a situation where I hadn't actively suppressed it yet.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: So that was Right. Yeah. And I do want to point out for those who are listening, not all atheists have, you know, compromised lifestyles. There are some who are very happy and very moral and very, very good in a sense, in the way that they think and live.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: But yeah, I should point that out. Some of the people I work with now, just, you know, you think of who, who you'd call if your car's broken down at 2 in the morning. I mean, a lot of them are non believers.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Well, and I'm curious, Mike, during this time, of course, again, you weren't antagonistic to faith or religion at the time. It just wasn't something that you believed. You, you saw that perhaps there were some good examples of, of nice people who were respectful, who were bold even in their faith. But sitting back as a non believer, what did you think? Belief in God or Christianity or the Bible? What was the Bible? What was all that? If it wasn't true, what did you think belief was?
[00:16:25] Speaker A: So I didn't, I probably didn't think about it enough, you know, for, I guess you'd say for a while, because it was.
Again, I was just all focused on the science and the engineering and, you know, spaceships and, you know, so I.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Wasn'T really just like the Bible was just a human written book, that religion was just, you know, something that that man made up the, that for a week, you know, weak man made up that for comfort or for security or for hope or. I mean, were any of those thoughts in your mind at all? I mean, why would people believe that if it wasn't true? What was that?
[00:17:07] Speaker A: I didn't ever get very deep into that. I was always just, oh, yeah, that's what they do. And, and that's neat. That was about the level of depth that I would go to, you know, so it was okay.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: Okay. So you really didn't really judge them in any way other than it, what they do?
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And seem to always have these, the people I noticed always seemed to have a positive effect on them. But yeah, it didn't really judge them at all or anything.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Okay, so you continued on as a teenager and into college and still really invest. Sounds like invested in science. Which of course makes total sense considering Again, where you are sitting there today. But. So you were continuing to believe, I guess, everything that you were being taught in the sciences, that it's a purely naturalistic world. Were you, Would you have called yourself a naturalist or a materialist?
[00:17:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, if someone had asked me, you know, if I was that, you know, and it did kind of start to change in college because throughout high school and college, again, I'll just say there were. God was putting people in my lives that would, they'd ask me questions about it and you know, or they make statements and, and this was kind of interesting. I would know that. Well, deep down, you know, they're. I'd say, well, yeah, that's a good point. They're right. But I always fall back on. Oh yeah, but we all know, you know, evolution's true and Big Bang's true and all this other stuff's true, even though. And so, so then I started getting the point. Well, okay, that's a good question. And I can't really answer it, but again, someone can answer it. I know someone could answer it, you know, and so I just leave it at that. So I don't really need to pursue it anymore. You know, it's kind of like we were talking about earlier. Just like I should have pursued more like why are people, you know, believing in the Bible? But I really didn't at that point. And so then the.
But it was.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Do you remember any of those questions that kind of put a stone in your shoe that were like, I can't answer that, I'll have to get back to you.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Well, you had a lot of them.
Yeah, I guess a lot of it would have gone back to life, you know, and then just the idea of the universe making itself, you know, just kind of at a top level, kind of a different version of the one that I sometimes ask people now. Again, was it, you know, is it really scientific to think that life could just make itself? Because, you know, God's given us the creativity, the intelligence to make, you know, laptops and, you know, cars and airplanes, you know, we can't. No one's come anywhere close to making life from non living material. And then people have tried. I mean, there's recently groups that have had tens of millions of dollars. In one group spent like 15 years and I think all they were able to do was synthetically copy DNA, existing DNA, and add a few letters to certain regions. I mean, just nothing compared to the idea of life making itself from non life. There's really good books on it, so. But Anyway, a long time ago, didn't have access to any of that, but it was just kind of those types of questions.
One person in particular, he was my college roommate, and he would.
So we would talk, like we'd get home from class, and I just thought we were just kind of unwinding. But sometimes we talked for like an hour about. And he was talking about the Bible, talking about God, trying. I was just doing it to relax. And so the one night he asked me. Yeah, we'd just been talking about various questions, and then he showed me this paragraph, and it was written by a philosophy professor at another university. So it wasn't our university, but it's basically a paragraph. And you read the paragraph, and it was a profession, basically, as a profession of faith and evolution. You know, talked about the big bang, talked about life, you know. You know, stars form and galaxies form and planets forming, life forming. And. But what the philosophy professor was saying was that, you know, basically anybody that got a technical degree from his university would need to sign that paragraph. So in other words, if you did not sign that paragraph, you would not be allowed to get a science or an engineering degree. And so I look at the paragraph and, you know, I have my same mindset. Oh, yeah, we all know that's true. You know, of course. Of course we'd sign it. Well, then it dawned on me that my roommate, he wouldn't sign it. Okay. And then it also turned out, you know, the Bible tells us, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart. Well, he was doing that. So he ended up. He was the top mechanical engineering student. This guy was on the thermodynamics wall of fame. Okay. And he was so. For mechanical engineering, that's, like, huge. And so he.
But anyway, so really, really smart. And it just dawned on me that a philosophy professor was. If. If we'd been going to. That school was trying to keep him from being allowed to have a technical degree. And so that's actually what. What kind of really clicked when he really kind of started looking at things, and then you start looking at it more. And so I'd go over to, like, you know, the biology department, ask him same kind of question. Where'd life come from? How do mutations in natural selection? How can that really. You'll be making new things. And. Well, the same response as the ninth grade teacher just. They just got mad. And I was like, well, that's really weird. Yeah, I'm just asking these very basic questions. And instead of even. Just even being willing to say, well, we don't know yet or, you know, that's what we're investigating. So they kind of just get mad. So again, then it really started to click. Well, hey, this is not science. This is not engineering. This is just two different religions. You've got atheism, you got Christianity, and of course, there's dozens of other religions out there too. But. But at least it kind of lumped to me, at least it lumped atheism in with a lot of the other, you know, just religions that people put their faith in.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: So obviously you were. Were you questioning your own position at that time?
[00:22:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. So at that point, then I then, boy, within a few months, probably started really rejecting atheism because just everywhere you look, you know, it's. And again, as science is advancing, I mean, we now know the. Well, again, mutations and natural selection, they're not adding information to the genome. We actually see from true science. The genome, unfortunately, is degrading. And so that's a huge problem.
And it's something, again, for as a scientist or engineer, that's something we can address. But we first have to admit that that's what's happening. It's not that these random changes followed by mutations or somehow adding functions or making the world better. No, it's the opposite. And then, of course, anyone that works in a chemistry lab now, you know, the mutagens, you know, chemicals that are known to cause mutations, you know, really tightly controlled, they really, you know, really limit the exposure, you know, just to, you know, basically reduce the harmful effects from using that. And so every field of science, engineering, we know that, well, mutations are bad, except for this, you know, this belief in evolution where. No, no, no, you know, mutations with natural selection over time and somehow makes things better. Well, of course, now we know enough from studying what's really going on in the genome that that's not true either. But it's. But again, that. That all started to click. But I'd say I pretty much rejected atheism really quickly once I really started thinking about it.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: So you were, you were an honest intellectual. You. You didn't have an ax to grind. You didn't come with contemptuous towards religion.
You were. It sounds like you were willing to go wherever the evidence led you.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Right? Once I was willing to. Once I found it important to consider the evidence or as the least exposed, you know, willing to consider the evidence, then. Yeah, exactly. If I had hated Christians or if I'd had a bad experience with the church growing up, been much harder for me to. I'd have kept clinging to atheism. And so. And so that's the other thing. If we're. If you're evangelizing, if you're wanting to study the Bible with somebody, you know, really, you know, really get to know them and see, you know, if that might be something they're addressing. Because a lot of times if we just point out, well, you know, you know, if they've had a bad experience with a Christian, really need to shift the conversation to say, okay, that's, you know, really sorry about that. But, you know, Christians is defined in the Bible. Christianity is as defined in the Bible. It's not.
And again, be very sympathetic because some of them had horrible experiences, but just be really sympathetic about, you know, just please don't view Christianity as what you saw in that one person. Don't view Christianity as what you see in me. You know, view Christianity is what's. How it's described in the Bible and, you know, you know, how to be saved, you know, as described in the Bible, not just what we might hear from one person or another person or another person. So. So yeah, yeah, Very, very important.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: So as you were starting to investigate some of these.
These questions and you were finding that perhaps evolution isn't as fully explanatory as what you've been taught and your worldview starts to break down, what did you do with that? What answers were you finding and where did it lead you?
[00:25:48] Speaker A: So then started.
My wife and I were kind of. She came from a little bit different background, but we were basically going through this whole process together. And so we would say we'd start going to different groups, we'd start talking to various friends, maybe start listening to radio a little bit. And it was probably getting little bits and pieces here and there, but it also almost made it more confusing because everybody had a slightly different angle. Everybody was thinking something different. We'd go, you know, we were living up at MIT at that time, and we would go to some of the old church buildings, but some of the real famous, you know, the Old South Church and some of the really famous buildings, we'd go in there and they, at least at that time, they were really doing nothing, nothing at all related to the Bible. They would have groups meeting in those buildings. But again, a lot of times you could go into some of those types of buildings and there'd be no reference to the Bible. That, you know, seemed kind of odd, you know, because it was. Even sometimes it's advertised as a service. Even a lot of times there'd be actually Things being talked about the very against the Bible. And so.
So, yeah, so we were, you know, wide open. Then of course, being that it's a real international community, so we were talking to people all different backgrounds.
Yeah, just all different, you know, kind of world religions, I guess you'd stay. And. And so then one thing started noticing there is a lot of the world, but people call world religions really just kind of philosophies. They don't address the fundamental questions, you know, like, you know, where'd the universe come from? You know, where'd life come from? And so it's. But they're more so. So they were fun to talk about, you know, and it's great talking to people, but it wasn't really kind of answering the, the questions people would say, okay, well, if God made the universe, who made God? And then it can be pointed out, well, you know, first verse of the Bible, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So in the beginning, of course, means that not only did God create the heavens and the earth, he also created time. And so then you get down to, okay, well, if God created time, to create time, he must be outside of time. And of course, anything outside the dimension of time can't have a beginning or an end. Okay, so that's biblically consistent. So it was really, I guess, a real dynamic time. Just. And that was again, most of that was while I was in grad school. My wife and I were living up in Massachusetts.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: So you were at MIT in a PhD program, and you were looking beyond the scientific explanation. Well, something better than what you were receiving. I would imagine that the explanation, explanation that you had been given was reductionary or reductionistic in some point.
Okay, I'm going to say that again.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fine.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: I would imagine that as you were pursuing and trying to find answers, that the purely naturalistic perspective on reality wasn't adequate at some point to explain what you were seeing in reality, whether it's the origin of the universe, the origin information in the cell, the origin of life, all of those things that it. They became insufficient. And so you, you were willing to look outside of that narrative, even to religion. Which is interesting, but I'm also curious. Were there any other colleagues, you know, who were working alongside of you that were as esteemed kind of intellectually who were also believers in God, or did you have to go outside of your realm altogether to try to look for it?
[00:29:35] Speaker A: No. So I had several. You know, so they would, to one degree or another be believing in God. And so that was. And so those are the people that they wouldn't.
How to phrase it, you'd feel very comfortable, you know, talking about God in front of them wouldn't be necessarily real in depth, and there are probably some areas of disagreement, but it would be, you know, just. Just people that you could. You could kind of feel comfortable around.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: So it's interesting, too, that you and your wife were both open to the two ideas that would provide a fuller explanation of reality. So. So what were you finding? You were obviously exploring. You were going to churches even to try to look for answers. What did you. What did you find? Did you find answers that were satisfying?
[00:30:26] Speaker A: So, not. Not really, but it was. But it was getting, I guess you say, just getting more and more data. And then.
Then we moved out. I started out, you know, working in Los Alamos, New Mexico. And so we went out there, and it's interesting. There's a lot of different denominations in Los Alamos. Really small. It's only about 19,000 people in the county, but a lot of different denominations. And so we started visiting those. And again, some were very little Bible.
And then others, though, they would have good scripture and they all had nice people.
And then you just start noticing things.
A lot of times at that point, we noticed kind of just, I guess I'd say the fruits. Like, they'd have certain beliefs that they were very dedicated to. But then you'd notice the effect that I was having on congregation, on the kids and on the. And they were incorrect. Biblically incorrect. We didn't really make the connection because at that point we're like, yeah, again, wow, these people are.
Yeah, they just, you know, they were way beyond what we had considered, you know, a person would need to be. To be a. I guess you'd say a Christian. And again, that's just our human, you know, subjective. You know, if you go to church, if you do anything on Sunday morning except ski or sleep in, you must be a Christian, you know, and so. And so. But from that. So we were learning, but we were still, I guess, a little confused. And then I did find one group that was really close to the Bible. And so we stayed there for a couple, three years. And then. And so then we moved out to Huntsville, Alabama. We're actually living in Madison, Alabama. And the.
So same thing. We started out with the same type of group that we were at Los Alamos, but then that group here was much less biblical. I guess I'll just phrase it that way. But then we actually visited a church, and so we had Kind of our standard, okay, well what do you guys believe? And the elder there said, well, it doesn't matter what I believe or it doesn't matter what we believe. Let's see what the Bible says. And that was literally all that searching. That was the first time anybody had ever said that to us. And so once we saw that, you know, that's again when we, you know, we said, okay, this, you know, this, these people, if nothing else, they're really focused on the Bible, studied for a few weeks and then, you know, just because, again, because we believed and repented, we were ready to be baptized and they baptized us in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit for the remission of our sins. So that was, but it took probably 10, 12 years before we, from when we'd really rejected atheism to when we did that. So it's a long process, really important for people to be patient.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, it's a decade.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: So you went, yeah, you went through, I'm listening to your story and thinking, okay, you're a scientist and you started exploring beyond the narrative of materialism or naturalism. You were open to different religions. You landed on the Bible as a scientist trying to explain reality. You're, you're telling us that you believed in the Bible. Was there something about the biblical narrative that explained and that integrated with your scientific understanding of reality, that it seemed to cohere or coalesce or be the best explanation for reality? Because I imagine someone's listening and going, okay, he's a scientist, all of a sudden he believed in the Bible. Does he even know it's true? Or did, you know, what is it? What was it about the Bible that all of a sudden became imperative and also was say, a comprehensive view of reality that explained everything you were viewing in the cosmos.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Okay, so it's kind of again, starting with the first verse, just answering the question of where did God come from? Yeah, that one made sense to me because God has to be outside of time. And it's interesting, all the so called atheistic cosmologies, they don't address that.
Right now I think we're, we're stuck on universe generators that have generated, you know, an infinite number of universes. So therefore anything happens and we just happen to be in the universe where what's happening is happening. And that's, that's just so pre scientific. Yeah, to me, I can't. Yeah, it's almost, you know, because I might as well say, well, the reason everything's happening here is because Zeus is making it happen, you know, because you tell me it's couched as a scientific idea, but it's, it's just really the, the false God of the mathematical properties of infinity. You know, it's not, you know, nothing to do with science. So that wasn't so much available then. I think when at that point it was the point of Big bang was a point of infinite density where the laws of nature don't apply. But again, as soon as the laws of nature don't apply, you're appealing to the supernatural. Okay, so now, okay, so all these supposed, you know, godless theories, they all go appeal to the supernatural. They just have a technical sounding God. And then, okay, so then you start thinking, okay, the next one is, well, the Bible is always telling us to make choices and choosing right or wrong. And there is a right and wrong. Well, then you start thinking about, well, choice. Okay, how can I make a choice? Well, if I'm just a chemical reaction, I can't make a choice. You know, I'm just one analogy of, you know, sometimes you use. It's just, it'd be like a log burning in a fire. It actually is a very complicated chemical reaction, but the log doesn't choose where it's going to burn. You know, you can't say, oh, I'm so glad the log chose to burn over there, that's just gorgeous, or that blue flame, man, that's fantastic. No, it's just a chemical reaction. Well, if God had not given us a soul, we'd be the same way. We would just be a really, really complicated chemical reaction. I mean, life is amazing, but we could not have free will. So then you start talking to get some of these philosophers that were trying to keep my roommate from getting a technical degree. Well, those same philosophers will try to convince people, oh yeah, that's right, you don't have free will. And then you start dawning on. It's not really, it's almost giving philosophy a bad name. They're really just atheists happen to be in philosophy departments because they also realize that, hey, if someone has free will, they have to have a soul. So we have to try to convince people they actually don't have free will.
So all those start supporting the Bible. And so then when you. And then you can eliminate, I guess I'll call it the philosophies that don't address the basic questions. So then you could do, you know, Judaism and Islam, which both believe in the Old Testament in general, and then, you know, as options. But then you have all of the prophecies associated with Christ and then the.
So that's driving you towards the Bible and then you have the, I guess I just say the, the wisdom in the New Testament that runs counter to what your basic human thinking would be. You know, that of course, again leads you towards Christianity.
But it really comes down to Romans 10:17, where it says, well, faith comes from hearing, hearing by the word of God. So it's more of a comprehensive. The more once you kind of get to that point, you start really considering things with an open mind, considering them objectively, reading the Bible, then that of course is, you know, it really, really strengthens our faith. I mean, that's how, you know, God communicates with us today. So it's, so it wasn't, you know, did consider a lot of different things, but it's. A lot of things could be narrowed down fairly quickly.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Yeah. One thing I appreciate about your search or your research is that you, if you were going to move the direct move in the direction of the Bible of belief in God, that you were going to take it seriously and you wanted to be with the people who took it seriously, the word of God as serious revelation of God, and that it, if it is true, then it should be taken with some, again, some weight, some substance, some, some seriousness and that you weren't willing to just go to someplace that was a bit compromised just because they called themselves Christians. It sounds like that you too were going to be serious about your faith, serious about understanding, believing and living out the Bible. I mean, it's obvious you've, you've, you've quoted the, the scripture very freely through your testimony here. So it's obviously a very, very significant part of your life. It's something in which you dwell, something that comes, you know, out of the abundance of the heart. The mouth speaks and it comes very freely from you. So you've come to a point, so you came to a point of belief, a belief that God was real, that Scripture was true, that it was the best explanation not only for reality in the cosmos and even, you know, the origin of life, but also your own life. You were part of that narrative, that story, that you took it personally. It meant something for your life.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that's what's, you know, I think it's First Timothy, chapter two, three and four tells us, you know, God wants all men to be saved. And so God wants everyone to be saved. And that's what I even like about the accounts in the Book of Acts. I mean, because, you know, no one can say, oh, I, you know, they don't. You don't know how bad I've been. You know, God would never want to save me. Well, and God wanted to save the people who'd crucified his son. So it's, again, it's a free gift of salvation. It's open to anyone that's just willing to accept it, basically.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: Now, as someone who is very scientifically minded and they have been taught that science and religion or science and faith don't go together, how would you counsel someone or how would you say or respond to someone who makes that accusation that you just can't. You can be a scientist or you can be religious, but you can't be both.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: They've never been opposed to each other. There have been people that have tried to present them as opposed to each other, but again, it's. I guess what I mean by that is a lot of times people say, well, you know, if it's just faith, then you would. Yeah, we never know about the law of gravity. Well, no, we definitely know about the law of gravity. In fact, the founders of modern science were all pretty much all Bible believers, you know, because they knew God was an orderly God. They knew that he had designed nature, designed the universe. You know, they could expect consistency. And so there's a lot you can learn from science. But somehow making that distinction between, you know, you can only go so far with science, or there's only a certain, very large, but only a certain amount of things that you can do with science and I'll say and engineering, because, you know, again, it's, you know, we build airplanes using the laws of nature that God created. You know, so that's, you know, maybe one example. But if someone says that, I'd really point out, you know, just say that. Well, like, say that question. Well, you don't think it's scientific to teach us fact, you know, that life made itself when we've been unable to do it, given this huge amount of effort. And people will agree with that. I'll start connecting that. Yeah, there's, you know, there's certain things where if we actually are scientists, we actually do follow the true science. It starts confirming the Bible. The. The whole idea that mutations and natural selection were somehow adding information, significant information, the genome that's. That's been debunked by true science. So. So now.
So maybe that'd be another approach. Would just be rather than immediately saying, so you need to replace your atheism with Christianity.
Just let them realize that, okay, there's Something a lot missing in atheism, and then help them through the process. But again, took me over a decade. And so you wouldn't expect them to that very afternoon to say that somehow, okay, now I want to become a Christian. And I will mention you do want to help them through the process because it doesn't do a person any good for eternity to just die knowing that atheism doesn't work and evolution doesn't work. You know, I guess you'd say at that point they're just kind of an agnostic. If someone really says this, science or faith, really point out that no true science is catching up, not with blind faith, it's catching up with Bibles, catching up with Christianity, and then work them through that because, you know, it's a great conversation. Start and keep it, always keep it friendly, always speak the truth in love. I've actually been. I'll have some really great conversations with people that really disagree with what I'm saying, but they're still, to their credit, they always stay extremely respectful and engaged. And I do my best not to let it go any other direction than that.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Yeah, you have given us so much wisdom throughout, whether it's advice to someone who's really curious, who's willing to take a next step, or even to the Christians on how to engage meaningfully and respectfully with those who don't believe. You were trying to make sense of whether or not the Bible could answer questions with, you know, those big looming questions that you had, the. Those questions that people had posed to you, you know, and that were probably on the, you know, the edge of your radio radar. You're trying to live with those, figure those out. If someone is seeking, would you. What would you recommend?
[00:43:43] Speaker A: So I would say, well, find a friend who's willing to just have very open, friendly conversations and engage with them.
Go ahead and go to congregations. But I'd say find, really seek for, look for a group that, you know, really, really focused on the Bible. Because if we're trying to decide to, you know, whether or not to be a Christian, we'll find a group that really teaches the Bible. Nothing more, nothing less. If it's a scientific question. There's some really good books out there. I blessed to get to do some work with Apologetics Press. And so they have, you know, it's just a organization down in Montgomery, Alabama. They do some great, really good to have some really good articles, some really good resources available. If it's kind of, well, technical or theological question, you know, they're a Good, good group to go to, but yet just. It. Don't, yeah, don't, don't shy away from thinking about it or don't put it on the back burner because it really is, it's, it's talked about our ability to make choices. Well, it is the most important decision we ever make is, is, you know, basically do we obey the gospel or not? And, and because that, that affects our eternity, but also it also gives us a great life on earth. But again, the focus should be on our eternity side.
And then of course, if you do end up having a bad experience with someone affiliated with a. Well, some, you know, with a group, don't just write off Christianity because of that one bad experience. I mean, again, because Christianity, of course, is defined in the Bible. And then just read the Bible. I'd say start in the Book of Acts or start in the Gospels.
Really read the Bible ultimately on your own so you have an idea of, you know, what, you know, what, at least what the Bible is saying before you go into these conversations. And again, you know, faith comes from hearing here and by the word of Christ. So definitely it's a really important decision. So just definitely pursue it.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: I appreciate that. I think sometimes, like you said before, we're either too distracted, too busy, or we're just not thinking about the bigger issues in life. But as you say, there's nothing more important than the question is, who is Jesus and what does he mean to you and is it true? Is the Bible true? Is, you know, where do you really find the, the, the, the truest answers to life and to all of reality? And I think you found that. Mike, thank you so much for, for coming on today. I, I truly appreciate your story. It means so much that someone, just an eminent scientist like you, highly educated, received prestigious awards through NASA. You're an incredible ambassador for God, for the truth of faith and Christianity, for the truth of scripture. You live it, you breathe it, you speak it.
And just a life that really is all about what is important and actually one that flourishes as well. It's very obvious from your, your, Your language and your conversation that you're living a life that's meaningful and purposeful, not only again, for what man is able to do on the, in this life and even into space towards Mars, but more importantly for eternity. And I just want to thank you for coming on to tell me your story.
[00:47:12] Speaker A: Well, thanks again for having me. And again, God's blessed me with a great life and just encourage everybody to objectively consider the Bible and accept the free gift of salvation.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: Yes, there's no greater offer. Thank you for making it very clear and plain to us today.
[00:47:33] Speaker A: Appreciate you having me on. Thanks again.
[00:47:35] Speaker B: You're so welcome.
Thanks for tuning in to Ex skeptic to hear Dr. Michael Hout's story to learn more about his work and explore his resources. Be sure to check out the episode notes. If you have any questions or feedback about today's episode, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out via email@info skeptic.org for those who may be a skeptic or an atheist wanting to connect with a former guest to explore your questions, we're here for you. You can reach us@info skeptic.org and we'll help get you connected. This podcast is part of the C.S. lewis Podcast Network. If you found value in this episode, we'd appreciate it if you could follow, rate, review and share this with your friends and social network. Your support helps us reach more listeners with these powerful stories. In the meantime, I'll be looking forward to seeing you next time, where we'll share another unlikely story of belief.
