OK… A guy sees you on street, walks up to you and says he’s a millionaire and his hobby is giving money away. He offers you $50, no strings attached. That 50 could easily be conterfeit. You don’t know the fellow, BUT you could really use the 50 right now_ QUESTION: Do you take the bill and check it out, or do you just dismiss it out of hand and walk away? I’ll warrant you’d do what any sane person would do, especially in this day and age when even $50 could mean a lot if things get much worse. You’d make darn sure that piece of paper was a dud before you tossed it. With all I’ve written in the previous posts, I truly have just one appeal. Atheist, agnostic, whatever. I implore you to just treat the possibility of Christ’s being authentic the same way you’d treat that $50 bill. If you read or hear possible evidence of the falsity of the Gospels or the non-existence of Jesus, be SURE of your source, your information, before you dump the whole business! Just be sure! Treat the possibility of eternal life with the same gravitas you’d give that little bit of money. That’s all. I know I can’t “convince”, per se…I have no empirical evidence. We’re in the deep water that has drowned many a prodigious intellect on both sides of the “Christ” issue, as far as getting an opposing position to budge. All I can say is, I have tried to imagine eternity, and, of all the horrors I can think of, never-ending suffering, or separation from all that is good tops any list. Whatever we suffer here on earth at least has an ending_ I just hope for YOU that when your “final breath” comes you won’t be recalling this communication and thinking “Woah…what if I’ve been wrong?…and that sucker even talked about this moment!” You see, I don’t personally think (and I can’t speak for other Christians) that the loving God I believe in would likely punish someone who assiduously sought out the Truth their whole life and just couldn’t come to belief. I can’t say that for someone who “looked a gift horse in the mouth”, and didn’t even go to the trouble of making as sure as possible that the whole business was phony before walking away from what was freely offered. I think that man or woman is a fool. How often in life are you offered a gift with eternal potential…costs nothing, and you have nothing to lose? The only potential loss in this whole business would be in not accepting… The saying came out of one of our wars: “There are no atheists in foxholes”. You’d check out the 50 bucks…isn’t eternal life worth as much?