Chapter 1: Introduction
why would a former Hindu become a follower of Jesus I from India grew up in a Hindu family reasonably religious Hindu family what convinced him to make such a radical change in his life and what did it cost him I found an anchor point on how to answer questions I'm looking for absolute facts and Truth taking a more objective look to say who who really is God our guest today Ganesh is here to tell us his story now Ganesh when we chatted before I said you just go by Ganesh do you have a last name and it's 14 letters I couldn't begin to pronounce it so before we jump into our story tell us your last name when ranan wow does it mean anything that you're aware of it's kind of like Smith in India so there's plenty of us around it does it mean anything it does actually you know the most Indian names Hindu names I should say are probably a name of a God in in in Hindu religion so it's one of the I don't know 30 million or 300 million gods that is really anent I had no idea that many names were tied to Gods well we will get into that into your story and I suspect that means if your name is tied to a god your identity and your family and so much about you is tied to it so becoming a Christian could potentially cost you a lot but we're going to get into that for starters tell us about your family kind of where you grew up what your was like yeah so I'm from India the southern part of India from a family of Engineers you know which is I know
Chapter 2: Growing up Hindu
very hard to believe among about Indians you know my dad was a nuclear engineer worked in a nuclear power plant and you know everybody I knew us Engineers with that comes the fact that we were all very analytical right we like to get deep into things we like to understand why we are doing something not just that we were doing something you know so that's how I grew up I actually had a great childhood family of four a sister who has a PHD in electrical engineering you know going back to engineering yeah and I actually had a great family great childhood grew up in a Hindu family reasonably religious Hindu family so I remember going to Temple many times with my mom usually you know and so you know never thought too much about the fact that we were it was Idols that we were worshiping you know and why would we worship a God we created to begin with right so I didn't think that much about it at that time it just happened to be a part of childhood and that's how I grew up you know yeah okay so this is you describe yourself as reasonably religious kind of Indian family so you would go to a temple were there relics or gods or statutes or kinds of practices within your home itself that your family did it's a great
Chapter 3: Religious traditions
point you know the Hinduism itself tends to be divided into four sects and we were the brahmans or the priests you know I don't think anybody was still acting kind of like the levitical priesthood I guess you know but except none of us were priests we had all become engineers right but that's certainly how we were B so in in Hindu religion it's only the priests which can conduct lots of religious ceremonies you know and so you even learn a different language like perhaps the you know we have Latin you know in in the Christian culture we had Sanskrit which was the Indian version of that I guess and so it learned some of that learned a lot of Traditions I guess at that point in time maybe by the time I was 12 or 13 was already beginning to think I don't understand the language I don't understand why I am doing this but as a matter of tradition we did things you know so we had puas at home you know you bought anything new like a car for example people are actually do certain what we what we call pujas in a sense I don't even know like a prayer service I I guess you could say you know and so that's how I was most people around me and I want to say 95% of the people around me were Hindus right maybe I knew a few Christians did not understand why Jesus hung on a cross I don't think there was a church in the town we grew up in I think there were a group of Christians who used to meet up together every Sunday morning but they used our badminton courts to do it so we lost use of it for Sunday morning so that's what I remember of the church right that's that's really funny how those things stick in your mind your memory of Christians in the church now how far back do you know does your family go in terms of its Heritage and ties to Hinduism
Chapter 4: Heritage and history
it must be hundreds of here so you know the the way you become a Brahman is that you're born as a Brahman you cannot choose to become one it's very much like the levitical priesthood you know and so every generation up above me was Brahman so this must have gone on for hundreds if not thousands of years I personally didn't know beyond my grandfather you know okay the usually documentation in in the in India is not the greatest so it was a British who brought some of perhaps some attention to detail and documentation to India but beyond that we don't have that much documentation but so at least two generations I know but could be 50 Generations you know that's more likely it's really interesting to hear you talk about the documentation India because I did my dissertation on the apostles and studied Thomas and there really wasn't a written record of Thomas prior to the British coming in the way you described it that I was able to find but there were songs and poems and a historical sense recorded in a different way so super interesting you describe that fashion okay so you can add on something there Sean the Apostle Thomas said come to India of course and you know having done your dissertation I'm sure you know more about this than I do but he was martyred not far from where I grew up maybe five five miles from where I grew up is where where he he was martyred and in Chennai Southern India one of the biggest streets still called St Thomas Mount named after him from what 2,000 years ago no well I'm super tempted to Sidetrack the conversation because after my dissertation that was one of the places in the world I really want to go see because there's fascinating in there's a fascinating case that's made about Thomas but maybe we'll come back to that in another in another time so you grow up in kind of a nominally religious home did you ever have any doubts did it just make sense was it just kind of this is
Chapter 5: Cultural aspects
the way the world was I we're not going to quite get to your conversion yet but did you ever have any doubts about it or just this was life as was presented to you you know so there was there were maybe a few Muslims around us or a few Christians around us not a huge amount of people so 95% of us were Hindus so I thought you know if anything religion was cultural right this is how you were born this is how you grew up this is how you lived and didn't realize really think of saying we could analyze religion and we could analyze God in a sense you know just said this is how you live you know and and that's how it was at that point in time okay that makes sense now when you say you were born into Brahman is this a part of the cast system that people are born into it is okay it is it's the top of the pyramid if I can use that word so it's the priest so there's four of them there's a priest there's a Warriors there's a businessman and then there are the laborers and and we were the priests so what was this like working along people of other other C give me just a picture of what that was like for you in your life encountering and engaging them was there a sense of superiority or sense of luck that you were born into this family how did you perceive that I mean within your cast there was a sense of kinship right okay and with with other casts it wasn't outwardly spoken very much at that point but perhaps there was a level of stress right and tension certainly when you got into the university days and trying to get into school and so on there was a lot of the equivalent of affirmative action and so depending on which cast you were in made it easier or harder to get into colleges and we were the ones who founded the hardest to get into colleges you know so yeah so I have some strong opinions of affirmative action having gone through that oh that's really I
Chapter 6: Transition to atheism
would have expected the opposite of what you said fasc okay so you grow up in this home good relationship with parents how many siblings did you have or do you have one one sister yeah one sister okay all older sister so tell me when you first started to either think about your faith and own it or the first time you kind of paused and thought I'm not sure if I identify this way as a Hindu all right it's a good question and I've been thinking about it it was actually I didn't make the step from being a Hindu to being a Christian I made made a step without knowing it from being a Hindu to being an atheist oh and as soon as I went to college you know there was it was an engineering College it called the Indian Institute of Technology probably the best college in India and U we would keep telling you how smart we are and if you forgot we' be more than happy to remind you right so it's it's kind of like the mits or Harvard of India essentially so what so the thing was what I saw it's a very highly Technical College it's an engineering college and so because of that I found everybody around me was essentially atheist right wow so I didn't remember actively making a transition to being an atheist but everybody around me was analytical and the thinkers and so the idea of God and science seemed to be two different worlds right and so I just naturally became an atheist without thinking about it I did maybe evaluate Hinduism at that point to say yeah I don't know why I was doing it all those years maybe as just a kid as kind of going along with the faith of my fathers right and but became an atheist and maybe I enjoyed philosophy a little bit asking some questions but never really thought much beyond that and say you know really didn't have much time for religion once I was in college is it fair to say it was probably more soci logical than it was rational for you and I'm not saying this is true for most people but just kind of this is the way people think this is the fold I'm moving into this is how I should probably believe and just kind of absorbed it more than rationally thought through and became an atheist is that fair for sure yeah yeah it was not rational at all it was definitely if I can use the word strial right this is what my tribe did hence this is how what I will do as well right and or sociological it was like it was definitely not rational I I didn't think on why I became an atheist I had to think when I got out of being an atheist but I didn't think going into being an atheist oh interesting okay we'll get to that but did you go to your parents at any point or your grandparents or your family and say I don't believe this stuff anymore don't identify as a Brahman I'm an atheist and if so how did that go I I didn't I think they were just happy I was in college you know Chapter 7: Family reaction I probably most people and this is true of the us as well I think a lot of times when people go into college they lose the faiths of their fathers right they now they may come back to it in five years but you know going into college just the where they are it's so easy to Simply not go to church or not go you know not be a part of th those associations anymore so I had I don't I didn't have a conversation with them about being an atheist that conversation on transation would come much later on but at that point it just was a fact of life that's how I lived you know so is it fair to say like if somebody becomes an atheist and they were formerly a Christian their family is thinking whoa you've not only rejected the faith of our family you've put your salvation clearly in Jeopardy but if you're a Hindu you're going to you're part of this reincarnation so you're rejecting your family heritage which is clearly painful on one level but Kesha isn't going to hell Ganesh on this worldview still has another chance to get at it so I'm less worried is that a fair way how it would be processed do you think yeah I mean in one sense you cannot leave being a Brahman you have born a Brahman and you stay a Brahman and it doesn't matter what you do and you know when you did your official documentation and said what cast are you it's say I'm a Brahman you know so there was no such concept of saying I'm not any cast you are something it only a question of what are you right and and so you know I had not thought about that point in time about reincarnation and what does it mean and so on you know but I think it was a later on I'd say I started getting some questions of there there's a level of meaninglessness with reincarnation you know and but was a later stage at that point in time it was just like okay it is what it is I functionally I'm an atheist they can call me whatever but you know I'll just live my life you know okay so when did you start to question atheism how old
Chapter 8: Seeds of faith
were for you so I came here to the US to go to grad school and that was when the first seed was planted in my mind and the way it was was I I happened to be in New Haven Connecticut and visited Yale University and met a professor there his name was Dr Fred sigworth and someone made the comment to me that you know he is is the best in his field which was origin of Life research and he's a Christian and it struck me as being very odd that he is a professor at Yale University the best in his world and he is a Christian and so just two things which didn't seem to go together for me didn't think much of it just you know but it was the first seat that the supposedly intelligent people can be Christians you know about two years later I graduated with my master's degree in engineering I was in Houston I had moved to Houston I had a colleague who gave me a book to read you may have heard of the book it's called more than a carpenter interesting okay wow and I read the book liar lunatic or Lord right for the first time it occurred to me that you could actually analyze these things as as an engineer you know it still took me four more years before I actually chose Jesus as my Lord and Savior but it was the first time I had read anything which said I could Analyze This Faith to me always seem blind it's like this is what your fathers believe or this is what you believe you just had to go with it right but to be able to question it and ask questions wow that was different you know so no I didn't think much of my colleague as a colleague in terms of his work ethic so it colored my view of what I was getting even though he was giving me a gift you know since he wasn't the hardest worker at work I didn't you know said okay I read the book but I didn't think much of it beyond that and then I met some people I met a gentleman named Bill who an entrepreneur
Chapter 9: Engineering apologetics
who was very successful and at that point in my life that's what I was looking at how do I become successful how do I make a lot of money right how do I grow in my career and I saw someone who I thought one day maybe I could be like and he was a Christian and he made a very interesting comment saying you know you can tell that the Bible is the inspired word of God right you can prove that that that's what he said he didn't say you can tell he said you can prove that the Bible is the inspired word of God now I'm an engineer proof to me means evidence it doesn't mean a claim right and so I said how do you prove right how do you prove right so then he just said something in passing he said look at the prophecies you know and you start looking at the odds of prophecies coming together and you know there's lots of Prophecies of course in the Old Testament the one which I was super interested in with was the prophecies about Jesus right so you know where was he born when was he born right so we knew he would be born in Bethlehem for example right because that's where Herod sent you know found out that's where he was going to be born he would have to be born before the kingdom I mean the temple was destroyed so before 70 ad0 right how he would live how he would die right and especially the crucifixion account that Isaiah talks about and the Psalms talk about I think 53 and so you know they talking about Resurrection before the Romans had invented Resurrection right so they're using the words the best they could to describe things which didn't exist so it really intrigu me to say there's something here I I don't know all of it but there's something here and then another friend of mine his name is Paul and I dedicated my book when I wrote it to Bill and Paul because they had such an impact on me and Paul led me to the books of Le strouble nice and I felt I had arrived right I mean Christianity is an engineer's dream right you can ask hard questions you don't have to take bad answers I could ask questions I could dig into it right I and so then I I just devor
Chapter 10: Investigating Christianity
Le's books now about after I become a Christian he had come up with a book called the case for the Creator right his first two books are the case for Christ and the case for Faith right so the case for a Creator now in the case for Creator he talks about a group of scientists who take a full page ad in the New York Times saying we're skeptical of evolution and he mentioned only three or four scientist names one of them was Dr Fred sigworth whom I had met at Yale University within a week of coming to the US right wow so it was like God was weaving a plan don't know why he chose me to be part of it but he did and it was all starting to come together right so so but you know these are people who led me to the fact of what was later I realized was called apologetics you know and but to be able to scientifically ask questions analyze it follow a process and it's and it wasn't just subjective right it wasn't just he's God because I feel he's God no I feel he's God because he's God right and so I turned around how I looked that religion so did you feel a need or desire or did you say I'm going to also study evidence people put forth for Islam or since I have a Hindu Heritage there's got to be some people doing apologetics for Hinduism or was it just captivated by this Christian claim and you figured if Jesus was God that just kind of settled the whole thing what was your thinking going into that that's a great question and I hadn't thought about this in a while but actually when
Chapter 11: Truth and Buddhism
I was in college in the US I had looked into Buddhism and after a while I realized Buddhism in The Limited understanding I had was very similar to Hinduism meaning it was in a different language it was mostly like Japanese or so and it was I didn't know why I was doing what I was doing and as an engineer I found it very hard to just continuously do stuff that I didn't understand you know so it became very ritualistic for me so I was really not interested in something ritualistic I wanted I I wanted the truth I didn't want something to be true because I made it true right so it's looking for something Beyond me more objective than me so then I'm so I kind of gave up on Buddhism or just looking at it pretty quickly and then yeah Christianity and the arguments for Jesus and even the arguments against him and how to answer him and just at some point just the person of Jesus just captivated me Kesh I have a good friend who's a former Hindu grew up in India he's an apologist he's invited me to come speak there many times it's just never worked with my young family but when I ask him his story he's got these incredibly like Supernatural encounters just with demons and the idea of atheism never seemed reasonable to him coming from a place like India that has such deep spiritual Roots did you you have Supernatural encounters at any point given where you're from and the nature of Hinduism or is it more like your family's focus on reason and engineering and science kind of ruled some of that stuff out maybe yeah so I think it's the ladder
Chapter 12: Lack of supernatural
since I was in general more skeptical always needed evidence always needed to think through stuff I always struggled with Supernatural things and even if it had happened to me I would look for a natural explanation that was my natural band of mind you know I still do right and having said that I think there's a lot of people in India who are the idea of a personal God and all that resonates very much with them so I think God uses people's personality to connect and reach them in my case it it was science you know so what was it like when you finally realized okay this is true was there a dramatic change was there a moment you became a Believer and by the way I'm not expecting it had to be people ask me that all the time I'm like I grew up in a Christian home I don't really remember that one moment but given that you came out of Hinduism to Christianity obviously you didn't kind of fade into it not thinking the way you described Fading Into atheism what there kind of point you realize wow I believe this is true and I've got to repent and choose to follow Jesus yeah so I remember in my Discovery process of Chapter 13: The decision to believe Christianity sitting at a service and for some reason sensing you know I've been exploring this for at least four years and if I don't do something about it if you know I'll be stuck with this paralysis of analysis and I felt somehow I had to do something today or I would never do it you know and that's usually not my style I don't make instant decisions say boom I'm going to change my life around in one instant but I felt it that this is obviously after four years so it wasn't in one instant but I did feel like calling to say you explored this long enough you should do something now I didn't know enough of the Holy Spirit and Theology and all that to know that the Holy Spirit was working on my heart all I knew was I need to do something today so I went forward kind of like CS Lewis says that you know the most reluctant convert in Christianity so went forward saying okay I guess I got I can't deny it anymore I got to do it I realized that I guess the last step has to be a step of Faith No matter how much analysis I do up front and didn't know what to expect back to your point I didn't know if lightning was going to strike me I didn't know if I would hear voices I mean I didn't know right I'd never been a Christian right I was not close to anyone who was a Christian so I didn't know what to expect so but I went forward in faith accepted Christ and as I look back it was not that anything changed in a day right but if I look back when I look back at the end of five years and the end of 10 years and now it's been over 20 years everything changed wow so I think if I look at my ambitions they change if they look at my hungers those changed if I look at my purpose my calling dramatically changed you know so it was not it's not that I didn't want to make money I did it's not that I didn't want to do better in my career I did but I realized there were not the end all right I realized really my calling was to remain in him right I think it's John 15:7 talks about it remain in me right without me you can do nothing right so remain in me and if my words remain in you then you can do all things so I realized my first thing was to be remain in a relationship with Jesus to walk with him is to grow and then everything else in my life had to revolve around that so then what I did with my career why I did things how I did things everything had to change given my new identity at this point
Chapter 14: Life after conversion
right so people ask all the time what is the identity I only have one identity which is I'm a follower of Christ right it is not a I'm a citizen of this country or that country or you know I live in Texas or whatever I mean those are all fine those are all true they're true descriptions but they're not a true identity you know and so looking back everything changed you know and yeah so in that 20 years given that you're an analytical person have you had doubts have you ever second guessed this decision and thought ah maybe I overstep my bounds here and have you ever rethought your decision to follow Christ I didn't rethink my decision but I certainly had doubts or I had questions how does this work how does that work you know do whales really swallow people and can they survive for three days right had questions certainly right eventually I found an anchor point on how to answer questions I I think of all the things I analyzed the thing on day one which struck me the most was the fact that the Universe had a beginning right and once I started with the fact that Universe had a beginning and there was a big bang there had to be an explanation for the Big Bang and I don't mean a physical explanation saying here's what happened with electrons and everything else and E equals mc² and all this stuff but the why why was there a big bang right and so the only conclusion is someone who was beyond it actually tells us about the character of God right it says he beyond space is beyond time right super intelligent that's actually the first thing which struck me about God that he's super intelligent because somebody who could design a process like this and create loss which which regulated how everything happened because you know the the big bang was not just a random fireworks experiment right it it was a very well organized process started off with with a super low entropy right I'm a chemical engineer so super low entropy which means super high organization right and for all of it to come through and it's like how does that happen right so I anchored my faith on the fact that no matter what other question I might have the fact is at least on this one thing Beyond to me any kind of Reasonable Doubt God created the universe now if God existed then every other doubt then had to be addressed given that context that God exists and so every doubt didn't become a reason to question God right that's interesting that's how you address doubt when John the Baptist is
Chapter 15: Telling the family
in prison he goes through doubt which makes sense if you're in prison and your life is potentially in Jeopardy and Jesus sends a message through his disciples you know the deaf here the blind see the gospel is preached the dead are raised Etc he gives them evidence confidence you're like I know this fact and this evidence helps hold some of my doubts at Bay I think there's a lot of wisdom and biblical support in broadly approaching it that fashion okay so 20 years ago you describe yourself as a Christian was there a point where you told your family and obviously when we're talking family this is a public conversation so just as much as you're comfortable with I don't want to press beyond that but would love to know how that was received how happened tell us a story that you're comfortable sharing yeah yeah so I was struggled with it because obviously all my family is still Hindu right or if not atheist maybe some of my family like my mom my dad you know maybe they felt being a Christian is One Step better than being a atheist you know so from that perspective there was not as much drama but I did feel the social pressure of perhaps not saying much right I mean I am a Christian I was a church I was growing I was learning but it's just not a conversation I necessarily brought up with the family around me right and not until recently when I said and pardon my use of these words I decided in a sense to come out of the closet right and say I'm a Christian and and here's the thing because I looked around the closet and said nobody else is in the closet theyve all left they're all out there proclaiming whoever they are and here I am as a Christian not bringing it up just because I don't want unnecessary arguments right okay let let me cut you off for just a second you became a Believer 20 years ago you said recently you started coming out of the closet to use that reference what do you mean by recently three years ago three years ago okay keep going to the story just needed context yeah so then three
Chapter 16: Writing a book
years ago I wrote my book and even then I didn't use my my full name I use my initials part of it is of course my last name as you know is super long and I figured nobody would ever find me on Amazon if I put this in here right and but you know I was still unsure of how everyone would take it and I wanted to actually tackle and this is something I appreciate with your dad I appreciate it with Lee is they never sh away from hard questions you know and they would they may not have perfect answers but they always ch answers and so I was exploring some tonny topics especially around U it's it's a fictional book but somewhere along the way we went off into U gender dysphoria stuff so as exploring this topics I wanted to be able to I wanted people to be able to focus on the arguments and the topics and not on the person and who wrote it and whatever else they may go off on you know so I ended up doing that then I real realized you know we are called to preach the gospel to the whole world and we are trying our best to hide you know who knows that we are a Christian and this makes zero sense this is not my calling right so then decided no I have to figure a way to build that bridge with my family with people who may be atheist people who may be Hindu but really I think people who are analytical and then make the case for it right and be a resource potentially for them be a friend for them if they choose to walk that walk but it cannot be one where I say you know let me minimize The Angst and let me be a closet chrisan right so in your kind of Circle however you define this this would presumably be other people who are brahin family Aunts Uncles are you the only Christian that you know of only one I'm I'm aware of yeah the first one I'll say I'm optimistic there'll be more but I'm the first one yeah great great way to frame that I I love that what would you say
Chapter 17: Barriers to faith
what are the biggest barriers for somebody with a a Hindu background and feel free to just correct me and say something like Hinduism is so big and so Broad and so diverse that you can't even lump it all together or maybe there's a few that seem to transcend that are objections what would those be I mean it is true that Hinduism is so wide and so large and so on and and probably as a Hindu if you had asked me 25 30 years ago what do I believe in I would have had a tough time defining what I believed in you know as a Christian it's a lot easier to say here is here's what I believe in exactly right that Jesus died for my sins you know and he rose again and so on and if I believe in him that I will be saved right but in Hinduism there is no direct thing like that it's a super complex mix of rituals and philosophies and lots of other things so it's hard to know I didn't know what I believed in yeah it's also a little bit synchronistic it tend to even if there's new ideas everything tends to get added on you know I think the thing is there is a deep desire within Hinduism for a personal God right maybe the one belief that holds most people back right going back to your real question is the fact that most people do believe that I am this religion because I was born in this family so religion is cultural right and so they don't quite understand why somebody should change it's like turning a back on your family and and so on and I I I feel it is more of you know I believe in the law of gravity it doesn't matter if a Hindu or a Christian or whoever whoever came up with it right and so I'm looking for absolute facts and truth and not simply what we believe as a culture right so you know Richard Dawkins wrote the book The God Delusion you know and well it wasn't the greatest of books and you know I did enjoy the conversation he had with John Lennox on that because John Lennox is just absolutely phenomenal but Richard Dawkins is right in this one thing and this may be the only thing he's right on it's not that God is a delusion but in my opinion cultural Gods may be a delusion and here is why right because God preceded culture so the culture cannot create him right he created the cultures but a lot of people do believe it's this is my culture hence I should believe in this God and then it holds them back I think from taking a more objective look to say say who who really is God right did we make him did we create God or did God create us so I interviewed another former Hindu
Chapter 18: The question of hell
recently and there were similarities in your story but also some big differences he was born in the states but one of the questions that he said when he's gone back and talked with some of his family members is they've asked him Point Blank so are you saying that I'm going to hell and he said that was one of the hard hardest questions because there's an emotional piece to it that's contrary to what you have in Hinduism it his family have you been asked that if not that's okay how would how would you address that especially as a former Hindu who would have to have come to grips with that in some fashion with your your family and Heritage right so I been ask that question I'm I going to hell I think the answer is yes everyone is right so the default path is a path to hell it doesn't matter where we come from right and we could be born in a Christian family and the default path is still a path to hell because it's a choice each one has to make individually right and so but we are given a detour of the pathway to Hell say you don't have to go to hell I don't have to go to hell right we just have to reflect and say have I lived up to what it takes to get into heaven and we all born with sinful nature so there's no even chance to live up to anything right our nature itself is sinful being born and so I think the gospel the good news is a way to say we don't have to go to hell right and so I think it's an opportunity to tell people look I was on the same path as you we were all going to hell and but we don't have to and that is where a an exploration and a discovery it's not as much what I can tell someone I will tell someone I'll help them but it's the discovery that they make at some point in my case it was a he was to say yeah I am not perfect maybe I feel I'm more perfect than the guy next to me but if the grading is on 100 and not relative to the next person then I'm not close to it right I I know right other people may not know but I know you know and this Rings true there is evidence for it and Jesus says you know it starts with repentance it and it starts with faith you know and that ring that rang true to me and I think it's an opportunity then to share the gospel tell us what you're doing professionally now are you moving in towards some what some might call
Chapter 19: Professional life
full-time professional Ministry are you still as an engineer and kind of doing this on the side tell us a little about your professional ad Ministry life so background in chemical engineering work for many years in actually a lot of similar and modeling and so on which is why I like a lot of this apologetics when they talk about a lot of these details it appeals to me this is the world I lived in you know I am vice president of technical sales for a software company which is a publicly listed company large company I won't name them but just to say that my background is is professional I'm not looking to be a full-time Minister but I'm looking that everything in my life revolves around my core calling which is to glorify God and specifically for me I believe it is to reach out to people who are analyticals and who who are thinkers and who have questions and and to be able to have those conversations so again as a part of it my book came out a couple of months ago let me into heaven you can see it actually right behind me over here and it was an attempt to say you know a lot of the apologetic and a lot of these questions are tend to be handled as a as a science and what happens is the people who read this tend to be super analytical but not everybody reads apologetics books so I wanted to make it a fictional book and a conversation between three friends who are asking questions of each other and trying to make sense of the world and I I was actually on a journey to understand what heaven is like because you know we talk about it that as being the Eternal reward and yet if you ask most Christians for is heaven like they'll tell you it's like a really long church service right and and you know 20 minutes of music is great eternity of music will you know bore me to tears for sure right so but what is it really like so I was on that journey and I and the journey to understand tribulation and the Millennium and all these end times stuff and realized every time I was having to study this I said I'm just going to take notes and at some point I ended up writing a book so one of my characters during the tribulation is observing the tribulation from Heaven while two of them are observing it from Earth I was trying to Envision what does someone who is on the earth during tribulation how will they explain things as it unfolds right and but use that as a way to share apologetics essentially but as a story in the hope that it will you know people will remember stories better than will you know abstract arguments well Jesus asked a lot of
Chapter 20: Scientific argument
questions and he told a lot of stories so I commend you on on doing that did I miss anything in your story that you wanted to focus on any important pieces or experiences that you had that you wanted to share I want to share one thing if I may Sean it's you know most of my apologetics has been learning you know from people and the arguments I have one super minor thing that I hope I can contribute to apologetics and and it is this idea that you know Bill Gates studying the DNA had this to say he said it's eily like software code right now software code is something I'm familiar with working for a software company and one of the things that that intrigue me is you can actually do a test to see is it possible for something super simple like the first cell to evolve into something super complex like a human being right so if you take some super simple software code and all it does is add two numbers a plus b equals c with just random changes to software code can we get more complex software code right the changes have to be random because we are mimicking Evolution and we have an automatic test build in saying any change you should be able to run your software code code again right so the functionality of life it should be alive the code should be alive and it shouldn't die right my experience with software code is it takes lots of effort to get anything working you make random changes much more likely to kill the code that's so it doesn't work than to get anything more complex out of it if I'm adding two numbers maybe I make random changes maybe I'll subtract them maybe I can multiply them but that's all I can do as soon as I start dividing I can do a divide by zero for example so I need more code to make sure that my my code is functional right can I even get to a full-blown calculator from just having a code which adds two numbers I don't think he can so even my thought experiment tells me there is no way to add on more complex information by Randomness right but it's something somebody can actually try out they can write code and say how many changes do I have to make randomly to get to another piece of code which is even functional I think they'll do make billions of changes and most of all of them will actually fail so it's actually a a hypothesis which can be tested out if somebody wants to test it out this is a really interesting approach and I wrote a book years ago gosh I think it came out 2008 so if I'm doing the math what is that 16 years ago with Bill dempy so really I just popularized the stuff that he really came up with he's the expert behind that and kind of probed into some of the evidence for intelligent
Chapter 21: Origin of life
design looked at the cell and DNA and I think there's some compelling cases that are there now with your scientific engineering background you've pointed towards the beginning of the universe as being compelling towards a cause outside of the universe you pointed towards kind of DNA and maybe the information that's embedded into the cell and what it takes to get a complex being seems to require intelligence are there other things in nature or in the world that just give you pause thinking they can be explained naturalistically and point towards intelligence are there any other examples you find compelling given your training and background the top one is origin of life itself okay right forget the evolution of it I mean char Charles Darwin never explained where the first cell came from he may have attempted to explain what happens once you had a self-replicating living cell but he didn't say where the first cell came from he just said if and oh what a big if he had a whole bunch of chemicals and he threw a bunch of energy into it boom the first cell comes about right the problem is to have these cells you need DNA which which has all this information we talking about it requires proteins it requires a lot of information and no one has been able to synthetically create it now the the the the theory has always been this that if you had enough time like billions and billions of years years then Anything could happen right so you could have the first sell but Dr James stour of Rice University which is not far from me has actually made the point that time is your enemy not your friend and I'm a chemical engineer I relate to this if you take a small piece of a of a compound and then it has to be billions of years before you can add the third piece or even millions or hundreds of years usually within minutes it becomes something else it goes off into other reactions that you cannot control right so you end up losing all the progress you made today if it takes a long time to add on pieces so time is actually not a friend for evolution it's an enemy I mean they have minutes or seconds to do stuff otherwise they're off doing something you know you really have a problem and I think he's really punched a hole in this whole idea that he can create this James tour is amazing I had him on I don't know maybe six or eight months ago to talk about the original life and he is thoughtful and entertaining and researched and just he's he's pretty remarkable so last
Chapter 22: Conclusion
question for you if you're going to tell somebody who's a Christian who wants to reach out to a friend who's a Hindu I'm curious what you would say and while I set this up I'm wondering if you would separate the engineering part from you and say well if somebody's an engineer talk to him this way if somebody's a Hindu talk to him this way H how would you relate some of those cuz if I'm thinking about story some of the things people did is there was a smart Christian got your attention somebody gave you a more than a carpenter case for Christ gave you time to really process this that's kind of how your story seem to unfold as you described it how would you invite others to talk or have conversations with their friends who are Hindus based on your experience and maybe your relationships today right so I I would one not argue right because that will not get us anywhere and two maybe instead of telling them the answer ask them some questions where do they stand what do they believe right why do they believe what they believe right and if you have some context to where they're coming from and it may open up some opportunity say what questions do they have in their mind right and then start from there I think excuse me I don't think there's a single answer to how you address everyone but listening to them and being intentional about having that conversation and realizing it may take four years like it did me and it's not a 30 minute coffee conversation I think that that would make a difference I love it that's great advice we're going to put a link below but where can people find your book it's on Amazon it's called let me into heaven it's under my Pon which is GV so you know look it up there or you could visit my website let me to heaven.com and you know feel free to connect and have we'll have conversations I'm not looking to sell anything except perhaps the book right my my goal is to be able to be a resource for people and connect and have conversations so on your website people can submit conversations or you have public dialogue and you engage people individually yes good yes and they'll find my Twitter handles and other things you they pre prefer social media Instagram all of those things and so but instead of giving everything you know my website is a good starting point well that's amazing I get I get flooded and I literally just don't have the resources to respond and just kind of do as I can so I love that that's important to you I love you want to engage people so let me into heaven is the book let me into heaven.com is where you engage people if you have follow-up questions for Ganesh about his beliefs about Jesus and prophecy about intelligent design about his story I know he'll do his best to get back to you thank you for coming on this is so interesting I've been looking forward to this since you reached out to me sometime in the past I did not know that more than a carpenter was a piece of it that's really encouraging I'm going to see my dad in a few days I will share that with him that's just humbling please thank him for me and and the evidence that demands a verdict what beautiful words right because it forces you to think of saying it's not just evidence but I got to do something with this and he was a brilliant man as as you are so you know to me today is a dream come true to be able to be here with someone who helped me on this journey so thank you Sean and thank you to your dad as well well you're way too kind those of you watching make sure you hit subscribe one of the things we're doing here is I want to find people with just interesting stories to Faith from different backgrounds and you just heard one today make sure you check out his book but make sure you hit subscribe so you can have notifications of other similar stories that we have coming up we've got some exciting ones Happening Here in 2024 for and if you thought about studying apologetics I teach at Biola University it is the top rated distance apologetics program in the world I'm not sure if we have students in India Ganesha but we have students in Africa in Asia in Europe all around the world and you can do it fully by distance I teach classes on the Resurrection the problem of evil we have classes on intelligent design information is below if you have an undergrad degree you could potentially qualify to be in the program check it out think about join me here at Bola thank you ganes Ganesh may God bless your work your family and this book thank you
