Support for WPR comes from For Imprint, providers of promotional products for businesses,

including embroidered apparel, trade show giveaways, and logoed business gifts.

More about the For Imprint dedication to customer satisfaction is at foreimprint.com.

Hey, podcast listeners, it's Anne here.

Have you ever had a moment of existential crisis?

Not exactly depression, though it probably feels really depressing,

but something more philosophical,

feeling like there's just no reason to believe,

no reason really to exist.

Years ago, Jeff Schloss had that experience, and it took him in an unexpected direction.

I was reading C.S. Lewis, and frankly, I found him unpersuasive and a little irritating,

that he would think his arguments were adequate, and I read why I'm not a Christian,

unpersuaded, and I actually despaired of reason being able to solve these questions.

I was laying in my bed one night and decided to pray to a God who I wasn't sure was there.

I give up. Reason's never going to solve it.

And in that moment, the most glorious, numinous, loving, overwhelming personal presence that I had

ever experienced or even ever imagined, flooded my heart and filled the room.

Jeff Schlaas became a Christian,

and what's unusual is that he's also a scientist,

an evolutionary biologist,

which has led him over the years to ask some interesting questions about religion,

like why it exists, and whether believing in God, any God, is an evolutionary advantage.

...