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Staying a Christian Upon Leaving
by serotonin_wraith 100 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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writetoknow
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serotonin_wraith
Burn,
You are the one interjecting the "ONLY" not I.
Oh, well if there's other reasons for doing good things, saying God belief makes people do good things isn't much of an argument for God belief.
So let me ask you a question, SW: on what should that morality be based?
I've heard this argument a gazillion times, so I have a standard response I copy and paste. People rarely get back to me with a response, but maybe you'll have better luck. Here we go.
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First, let's consider the morality found in the Bible. God's absolute morality. The Old Testament has some pretty nasty laws. Homosexuals should be stoned, a rapist can buy his victim from her father for 50 shekels and she has to marry him, witches are to be killed, disobedient children are to be killed, women are worth less than men, people of other faiths are to be killed, and the list goes on.
As those rules are in the Old Testament, Christians think Jesus' arrival changed all that. That part is questionable already (Matt 5:17-19) but even if it is true, this opens up other problems. The ten commandments are in the OT, but I expect you try to follow them. Christians were killing witches (rather, women) long after Jesus supposedly walked the earth. I doubt you consider it a sin to do some housework or paid work on a Saturday, yet that's breaking the Sabbath. Slavery was only abolished one or two hundred years ago.
The Bible never says slavery is wrong, there are even rules (from God if he is the one who inspired it) on how to treat slaves. You can beat them to within an inch of their lives, and as long as they don't die, that is acceptable. But do you think slavery is okay?If morality comes from God, it should be, right? Should gays be killed? They should be if we have absolute morality from God. So why does the thought of that make me sick inside? I can't speak for you, but I imagine you would feel bad about it too. According to Paul, women aren't allowed to talk in church. I see that as sexist, it's certainly not part of my morality. It goes against my morality.
This shows that we pick and choose which rules we follow and which we do not. If we're picking out the rules we like from the Bible, then why is the Bible needed as a moral guide? There is no disclaimer in the Bible that says 'The following rules are subject to change', as a species we decide if it's a good rule or not.
When the Israelites reached Mt Sinai and received the law about not murdering, were they surprised? Didn't they know it was wrong before? If they did, why did they need to be told it was wrong? They would have already known. The morality would have been a part of them already.Animals are moral. Within a group of the same animal, there is harmony and cohesion. A bird on its own is at more risk from predators, and so they fly in flocks. There is safety in numbers. As a family of meercats leave the burrow to find food, one will remain to look after the babies. During the winter in Antarctica, penguins will huddle together for warmth. If a penguin tries to steal the child of another, due to their own offspring dying, other penguins will not allow it to happen. When bats go out to hunt, they may not all catch a meal. So back at their home, those who have caught prey will donate their blood to those without. The favour can be returned if they ever return without catching anything. If a wolf kills a family member, the others will drive it away as punishment. There is a unity, a standard by which groups of animals live for mutual benefit. Life is easier, and there is more chance of survival. If you watch nature programs, this kind of animal morality can be clear to see.
The same applies to the human world. We all rely on each other. In order for you to sit down to your meal today, you will have needed the support of many other humans. The people who planted the seeds, the ones who helped them grow, the ones who picked the crop, the ones who made the packaging, the ones who designed the packaging, the ones who delivered the goods to the shop, the ones who built the vehicles used for transporting the goods, the ones who designed the vehicles, the ones who pumped the gasoline from under the ground to power the vehicles... I could carry on with more examples of how humans work together, for the simple yet overlooked ability to eat a meal. Even the cutlery you use, the plate it will be on, all of these things required the help of other humans. This is just one reason why we don't kill each other. It did not require a belief in a God or even a conscience from God. It is mutually beneficial to us as a species not to kill each other.
It is within us to want to be happy. This is why we listen to music, engage in our hobbies, prefer to eat food which tastes nice rather than something bland. In the same way we want others to survive, because it helps us, we also prefer seeing people happy and not suffering, so that the favour can one day be returned to us, or to acheive a sense of personal happiness from our act of kindness, even if it is not returned.
One of the ways in which our body survives is by realizing instantly when we have physical pain. It is the body's way to tell us that it is being damaged, and it becomes an instant reflex to stop that damage. Another way we can experience pain is through our emotions. A very simple way to look at morality is to know when something is causing someone pain, physically or emotionally. Emotional damage can still lead to death if we're not careful, i.e. suicide.
People can act in a way I'd consider evil, and it happens when I see them going against the kind of morality I've explained. My own morality. From nature. All explainable. No god required.-------------------------------------
I could say the same about atheism - there is plenty of evidence to back that one up. The fact of the matter is that neither religious membership nor atheism makes people good or bad.
Atheism is not a belief. Does not believing in Thor make you do bad things?
If it wasn't for the belief in God, people wouldn't raise their children to believe in things they couldn't prove, which is bad.
If it wasn't for a belief in Allah's heaven with 72 virgins for all who kill in the name of Allah, young muslims wouldn't be blowing themselves up in crowded areas. Looks bad to me.
No it means the precise opposite; it means that God has granted us stewardship of the planet and that He cares what we do with it.
Well your Christian president (oh, don't tell me, he's not a TRUE Christian!) is making little effort to reduce the carbon emissions coming from your country while other (less religious) countries are trying to do their part. If you're not doing so already, can you please join us in trying to get him to see sense?
The human rights movement started as a Christian action. In our own country during the slave times abolitionism was a Christian movement, ditto for civil rights for Afro-Americans.
Slavery was a Christian movement. Correcting something that should never have happened in the first place isn't exactly something to be proud of. Same with the rights of blacks. It was the Christians who were saying blacks couldn't marry whites in the eyes of God, and even that they were the descendants of Cain. Fixing their mistakes doesn't make them heroes.
You might recall the name of that most famous civil rights leader: Reverend Martin Luther King.
Wasn't he killed by a Christian? That's actually a genuine question (to anyone) because I don't know. I was doing some research yesterday and I couldn't find it.
So Martin Luther King believed in God. Fair enough. Where in the Bible does it say blacks are to be treated the same as whites? The movement came from his own morality, not God's. I'm sure he believed in Japan but that didn't make him do what he did. People believe in a lot of things. Even if he had done it based on his belief in God, it wasn't needed. There were plenty of reasons for wanting blacks to be treated fairly.
As for homosexuals, you will need to be more specific as to what rights you refer to.
The rights to adopt children and get married, the right not to be refused a hotel room. This is changing in the world already, with the more secular countries taking the lead... again.
Do you really want me to work on a list of diseases that have been cured, ameliorated or treated by Christians? Really?
I never said ALL research.
As for the research thing, I can only think that you are referring to the issue with fetal research.
What, one line of research being held back by a myth isn't enough for you? Exactly how many scientific lines of enquiry have to be stopped before you have a problem with it?
would you at least be able to admit that there is a moral gray area involved here as to what the status of the unborn is?
I will admit there is a moral grey area when you admit there is a moral grey area regarding the millions of sperm that don't make it to the egg but die, and every woman's period. Look at all the 'life' killed there!
I do not know what "backward" rules you are talking about. Care to explain?
Bad generalizing on my part, sorry. You're keeping a system alive in which other Christians are trying to get rules passed, if you're not actively trying to do anything yourself. Are you pushing back against those who want creationism taught in schools with us too?
Really? Lots of closed minded individuals here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science
Faith is closed minded. People don't use faith in other parts of their lives (like science), only for God. Are you open to the possibility you could be wrong? How could someone show you you were wrong, when you don't listen to reason? Looks closed minded to me.
It seems to me that you are the closed minded one. Other members of this board have respectfully given your belief consideration while you close-mindedly attack theirs.
Actually, those who believe in creationism haven't got back to me on the fossils yet.
I'm open to the idea God exists. Nobody can give me any reason to believe though. I'm answering every 'reason' people have for believing, and showing it's not a good reason. Or maybe I'm not- that's for others to decide.
it is to disprove your statement that believers are not interested in scientific investigation and, as my comment shows, your statement is demonstrably false.
I shall rephrase then. Many Christians are closed off from any scienctific research that goes against the Bible.
The very concept you deride believers as being unwilling to investigate is one that was discovered by a believer. Oxymoronic, I know.
You presented one individual. Congratulations.
Sure, find me the natural beginning, and then we can talk about it.
Well if no evidence can disprove your god, I already know your answer. I can imagine the conversations on evolution people have had.
-Well I believe God made everything as we see it today.
-What if I proved you wrong?
-We'll talk about it then.
-*presents an overwhelming amount of proof that cannot be ignored*
-Okay, the Bible isn't being literal in those parts now. The Biblical God still exists.
-*slaps forehead in frustration*
fetal stem cells are a moral gray area, we have not worked out the ethics of this type of research.
Yeah, we have. There is no reason at all to think there are souls in these 3 day old embryos. Until there is, we should proceed as if there are not. Like everything else in life we have no reason to believe in. I'm not going to stop eating my breakfast cereal because it MAY be alive, even though I have no reason to think it is right now.
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serotonin_wraith
writetoknow,
OH MY THOR!
Do you want me to refute all of that? I will, it's fine. But I need a break for the rest of the evening.
Here's a poser! Even if I do refute it all, will it make any difference to your beliefs?
Don't forget the fossil research too!
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writetoknow
Science and Supernature
By Timothy O’Fallon
What interests me about his conclusion is that he does not draw it by following an empirical methodology. The lack of scientific evidence may be the premise from which he forms his argument, but it is not the argument itself. Rather, he draws his conclusion by using logic. Science and logic, while certainly linked, are not synonyms. Apparently, while science is my friend's measuring rod for truth, it cannot be applied without the rules of logic. Think of his argument, then, in the following form:
A. If God exists, then it must be possible to prove His existence by means of the scientific method.
B. No scientific proof has ever been offered confirming the existence of God.
C. Therefore, God does not exist.
I could adjust the above argument to suit the agnostic position by concluding that without scientific evidence there is no way to know for certain that God exists, but the reasoning is essentially the same. In order for my friend's argument to be sound, certain presuppositions must be true and one implication must follow. The first presupposition is that anything that exists must be empirically measurable. The second is that the scientific test trumps all other methods to prove or disprove God’s existence (legal proofs, logical proofs, etc). The third presupposition is that empirical proofs can be true. The implication that follows from the presumption that empirical proofs can be true is that human reason can produce genuine insights into the way things really are, and not only absurd guesses at existence from a purely subjective standpoint.
Must everything that exists be scientifically measurable? Yes, if by ‘all that exists’ you mean ‘what is scientifically measurable’. To say so would be a mere redundancy. This is essentially the position of the Naturalist, who cleanly puts every possible existence within the realm of Nature. Since Nature is governed by certain rules which themselves are governed by the underlying principle of ‘cause and effect’, we observe her behaving in an orderly fashion.* This is because all the universe is related in one giant interlocking matrix of ‘cause and effect’, beginning from the Big Bang and continuing indefinitely. Nothing escapes or is outside the interlocking whole. I am composing this because the precise chain of events which began at the first hint of an explosion at the Big Bang led to more chains of events which necessarily and unalterably produced this solar system, this planet, life on this planet, humans, human history, and the meeting of my parents in which one of some millions of sperm met the egg of the month. This then led to a chain of necessary and unalterable series of events causing the circumstances of my life and the direction of my thoughts, all of which are culminating in the writing of this essay. All things and events similarly exist, and are thus provable using the principles we logically derive from observing this interlocking system of “Nature”. It is a closed system: to the Naturalist, there are no foreigners to land on Nature's shores.
The Supernaturalist, on the other hand, contends that while Nature does indeed exist as an interlocking matrix of ‘cause and effect’ as described above, ‘Nature’ is not synonymous with ‘all that exists’. Nature exists in an open system in which at least one and possibly many Natures similarly exist, but not necessarily with the same ground-rules. As a matter of fact, if our Nature herself was 'caused', then one of these other Natures must differ from ours in the sense that it is both non-derivative and creative. The Supernaturalist calls this “Supernature”, a mode of existence which is neither dependent on our own familiar Nature nor subject to the law of causation. As such, it is necessarily unobservable by our own Nature on Nature’s own terms: namely, the scientific method.
How, then, can we decide which of these two views is correct? By science? As we have shown, the only way science can empirically prove the existence of ‘God’ is if the Naturalist position is correct. But if ‘God’ were empirically proven, He would necessarily be a part of Nature, and thus not Supernatural – nor God – at all. To prove Him scientifically would be to disprove Him. In other words, if the Naturalist position is correct, science could never offer proof of Supernature because once science proves a thing, it proves that thing belongs to Nature. If the Supernaturalist’s position is correct, no manner of science could ever offer proof of a supernatural God, because by definition God is 'not of Nature', the only realm where science is equipped to speak. "...god isn't a scientific phenomenon, and hence cannot be evaluated using scientific methods."**
Suppose I write a sentence like this: My grandmother ate chicken and cheese puffs until she didn’t know where all the cheese puffs went to. Apart from my comment possibly showing disrespect to my grandmother, the sentence ends in a preposition. Suppose you claimed that ending a sentence in a preposition is grammatically incorrect. If I wished, I could ask you to prove it. You would prove your position (or mine) by referring to a rulebook of English grammar, which is an appropriate way to prove an assertion about grammar. But suppose you claimed that my grandmother never ate chicken and cheese puffs together. You might prove your assertion legally (by calling witnesses who observed my grandmother’s eating habits or producing a journal by my grandmother attesting she had never eaten the combination). You might prove the assertion historically (by proving cheese puffs did not exist in my grandmother’s day). But you would be silly to try to prove your assertion grammatically. It isn’t a question of grammar at all.
Thus, when a Supernaturalist maintains, “There is a mode of existence, and a Being who exists in that mode, which operates independently of the cause-and-effect system on which science depends in order to prove or disprove anything,” it is nonsensical to require a proof by means which the assertion, if true, necessarily excludes. Science has about as much to do with Supernature as a book of Grammar has to do with my grandmother's gastronomy.
The presupposition that “all that exists must be empirically measurable” is precisely the claim that the Supernaturalist calls into question. The Naturalist cannot reasonably defend this claim by relying upon the very presupposition the Supernaturalist questions in the first place.
The second presupposition to my friend’s argument is that “scientific proof” trumps all other kinds of proof. Since we now know there can be no such thing as scientific proof of that which – if it exists at all - is inherently beyond the grasp of science, this idea must also be false. However, this does not exclude the possibility of God being provable by other means. Most notably, there remains the possibility that God’s existence may be proven logically.
The third presupposition to my atheist friend’s argument is that empirical proofs can be true. With this I wholeheartedly agree. But the presupposition rests upon the further presupposition – or rather it implies – that human reason (by which all science is ascertained) can produce a genuine insight into the way things really are, and not just the illusions of nonrational causes. Science is a system of inquiry into truth about nature. This system did not appear by itself one day at Francis Bacon's doorstep, swaddled in litmus paper. It was discovered by means of human reason. If human reason cannot possibly produce real truths, then no science can be true. But if Naturalism is true (namely, that there is no supernatural nor is there a supernatural God) , and the interlocking system of cause-and -effect is responsible for all things which exist (including human reason and ideas and theories), then every argument is necessarily and naturally caused. If Naturalism is true, then a scientist who comes to a conclusion about the efficacy of a chemical to reverse male baldness does not do so because he has examined the evidence empirically, but because he was caused to do so by an inexorable chain of events which began at the big bang. He had no choice but to come to that conclusion - the movement of atoms behaving as the law of causation demands forced the scientist to come to that conclusion.
This is a terrible problem for the Naturalist, because if an argument is caused naturally, we have no way of knowing whether or not it is really grounded logically. Every thought or theory our minds produce (if Naturalism is true) is then a result of natural causes and not the 'if, then' process of logical thought. If I think my grandmother ate cheese puffs because events have forced me to think this, then any logical reasons I have for thinking so are just an illusory by-product of Nature and not a genuine insight into anything true. Nor can anything my reason produce be true…including Naturalism...including science itself.*** Thus a theory (Naturalism) which makes science the ultimate arbiter of truth proves that there can be no such thing as truth at all, scientific or otherwise.
On the other hand, if my reason has a source outside the interlocking cause-and-effect chain of events called Nature, then it may in fact be capable of true insights. The Supernaturalist maintains precisely this position: that a Reasonable Being not subject to Nature’s closed and inexorable system has invaded Nature and imbued some of its inhabitants with the ability to reason. If God exists, science can be true.
I realize that it seems unnatural to think about our thoughts themselves in this way, but then again thinking itself is one of the least natural things you can do. It is a connection point with something beyond Nature, and its very ability to do what it is supposed to do rests upon the fact of the existence of that ‘beyond’. Thus, in a roundabout sense science provides compelling evidence for the existence of God; not by the performance of a series of experiments in controlled conditions, but by our confidence in the validity of science itself. "Can science prove the existence of God?" It cannot, in the sense that the scientific method is helpless when applied to the Supernatural; but it does indeed point to the necessity of the supernatural if any of science's claims are true. Certainty of any kind must have roots deeper than the topsoil of our own universe.
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* The obvious exception to this orderliness of cause and effect is the behavior of subatomic particles. If the physicists who study these particles can really show that their behavior has no ‘cause and effect’ relationship, then Nature does have a trap door. However, having a more traditional bias in favor of empiricism when it comes to the study of natural phenomena, I suspect that someday the behavior of these particles will be sown to have such a relationship – if only in a different way than we expected. In other words, I don’t want to get my hopes up.
**Barry Purcell, in personal correspondence to me. His comment was meant to effectively sum up the first part of my argument, not necessarily to agree with my conclusion.
***I am not the first to make this argument. C.S. Lewis presents it in detail in Miracles, was refuted by Elizabeth Anscombe and then much improved it in corrected form in the later edition of Miracles (corrected enough to win Dr. Anscombe's admiration if not agreement). Victor Reppert takes the basic argument and restructures it in many enlightening ways in C.S. Lewis' Dangerous Idea. Dr. Francis Schaeffer argues something similar in the chapter "The Epistemological Necessity" from He is There and He is not Silent. Forms of this argument have also been used deftly by philosopher Alvin Plantinga. Traditionally it is known as "The Argument by Reason", but I refer to it as "The Thinking Cap Argument". -
writetoknow
Is There a God?
No one can prove to you the existence of God, as in a mathematical proof. But you still will be able to be certain of His existence:
There are many good, rational arguments. We will make them in a moment.
But if you do not want to believe in God, you never will. There can be no scientific proof, simply because God is not physical or material, He is spiritual and infinite. Science is the observation of material phenomena in this universe, and then applying our reason and logic to understand and control them. By definition, God cannot exist as part of this universe, cannot be composed of matter, and cannot even exist in time. We will explain why later on this page.
But even things in this world cannot really be proven with 100% certainty. Entire books have been written about how the U.S. space program has been faked by the government. All you have to do is set the standards of proof high enough, and absolutely nothing can be proven. Proof is a tricky subject. As the old Greeks like Euclid discovered, all proofs have to rely on at least several assumptions (which they called postulates) which cannot themselves be proven. So a person who demands hard proofs is doomed to failure.
It is a doctrine of the Church that faith does not come to us through reason alone, but by the grace of God. If a person opposes even the possiblity of God's existence, then any arguments or evidence can be rationalized away.
Since it is impossible to "prove" with absolute certainty, any amount of belief in God has to come from your own spirit, from within your own heart, because it is the spirit of God that we are trying to find. The paradox is, you will only find this faith if God gives you the grace to find it.
A person of faith already knows why they believe. It is not for any selfish reason, or because they want to be "saved." It is because they know they are a true child of God, and that we naturally seek Him and know Him as only a child can know their true parents. It is a completion of our lonely existence. It is a feeling of coming home. And it is a certainty that goes far beyond all efforts at "proof." Our faith is a pure gift from God. It is the result of our having accepted the gift of His grace.
Still, there are some very persuasive arguments, and we will make them just after this:
The following is a true personal account, and I remember it like it was only yesterday. "I am sure there is a heaven, and that my Grandpa is there. Here’s why:
When I was a boy, my mother gave piano lessons to augment our small income. Our piano was an old upright that was so decrepit that it couldn’t be tuned, and had several keys that didn’t play at all. We couldn’t afford a better one.
My grandfather, whose name was Joseph Weber, came to spend the last few months of his life with us. I don’t know what he was suffering from, but he was very ill and couldn’t get up from his bed. He would hear Mother talk about how difficult it was to teach on our old piano. Just before he died, he told her that when he got to heaven, the first thing he would do would be to make sure she got a new piano. Mom told him that she had been saving for years, and that all she was able to put aside was $50.00, not nearly enough even then. “Don’t worry, Ruthie,” he said, “ I’ll make sure you get one. I’ll send it right down from heaven.”
A few days after Grandpa died, Mother got a call from someone who was moving out of our small town. It seems that they had a nice grand piano, almost new, and they had seldom used it and did not want to move it. They had heard that she was a piano teacher, and they wanted to know if she would like to purchase it for $50.00.
Only after it was all set up in our living room, and Mom sat down to play it for the first time, did she notice the brand name of the piano, written in big gold letters above the keyboard. It was a little known maker, the only one of that make that I have ever seen. Mother sat motionless, staring, before bursting into tears.
It was a Weber.
So that is how I know that my Grandpa is in heaven. And that is why I returned to God after a long absence."
Garrett Toren, Editor
[If you are thinking that a coincidence about a piano is not a good enough reason to have faith, please know that remembrance of this incident, many years later, only caused me to open up my heart and mind to the possibility of God, after a long and firm denial. My faith is a gift from God.]
An "Almost" Proof, Anwering a Reader's Question"There must be at least some arguments that my reason can understand. It is not our nature to accept anything on blind faith."
There are two questions we must address. Is there a God at all? Then if so, is he a personal God that has an interest in us both now and after we die? Or does he just let us live and then go out like a light; allowing us to exist, but only like a tree or a lizard?
I presume you have decided that the universe might have evolved into existence all by itself.
Go outside on a starry night. Look up. Every one of those little dots of light is an entire solar system of planets around a sun that is larger than ours. And there are billions and billions of stars and even galaxies that are not visible without powerful telescopes, and who knows how many more beyond that?
Did you create them? Did they just create themselves? Pick up a rock from the ground. This is the kind of thing most of those planets are made out of. Does it look like it could create itself? The ones in my yard don't look nearly intelligent enough!
But, you say, what if there were "first things" that somehow could exist for all eternity, and also had the ability to spontaneously start up the universe, and were somehow great and smart enough to make it wind up so immense and orderly and beautiful, with intelligence and love and everything? Ah, now you have defined God. See? It wasn’t so hard to discover Him after all.
Then "God," as we have defined him, cannot have the same nature as the rest of the universe that we see. If he did, our argument is circular and we must still search for a first beginning. Our language has no clear words to describe his nature, we usually fall back on "spiritual." By this we simply mean that he is different from anything that we have direct knowledge of, and that, unlike the world that is temporary and constantly changing, he is capable of being eternal. In fact, logically, he must be eternal. This is the only way he could have brought our universe into existence.
But the best argument is this:
Assume there is no God: then this world, and happiness in it, is extremely important. Indeed, it is all there is. So it is a great tragedy whenever anyone does not have a long and happy life here. The death of a child, or a painful life in a third-world country, is an unimaginable tragedy, which nothing can mitigate.
If you have seen your own grandchild killed by a car, or have traveled in poor countries and have seen the misery of people starving slowly to death, your own sense of justice demands that there be more to life than the vale of tears we experience in this life. It is just not fair that the only life a small girl knows should end almost before it is begun, in an agony of injuries. It is just not fair that so many millions of people be born into circumstances that they have no control over, and that condemn them to unimaginable suffering every day of their lives.
Are we ready to say that this beautiful universe, which is so incredibly orderly, is also diabolically unfair? That would make us only a great cosmic joke. That is not acceptable.
Our sense of justice demands that these wrongs be righted. But by whom? Not by us, that's impossible: only by a Supreme Being.
We have a conscience that lets us know right from wrong. Yet in this world, the people who do not follow this guide and commit murder and cheat and steal and lie and are selfish and mean are often the ones who are the most successful. Honest, good people living quiet lives of loving and charity often have horrible illnesses, or lose loved ones, or are born into abject poverty. Our sense of justice tells us that there will be, there must be a future time of accounting, when the books will be balanced and the inequities of this world will be resolved. Yet with no God, no Divine Justice, this is impossible.
Many of our readers ask: how can there be a God if He allows children to be raped and murdered? We ask: how can there not be a God, in a world where this in fact happens? It is only His Divine justice that can right this wrong. It is only a God with infinite power that could bring any good out of this unspeakable evil.
(Christians know that any child who dies has gotten a free pass. She will be ushered automatically into God's presence and be happy for all eternity.)
The following is from a newspaper obituary of a twenty year old girl, written by her parents:
“After four years, our cancer warrior Alice has left her earthly bounds and gone to heaven, where her body is healthy again, where the wind can blow through her hair, and where she can finally ride a horse on the beach and swim with dolphins. She was embraced in heaven by all the inspiring teens and children with cancer she met along the way.”
My question to atheists is: if her parents asked you for your true beliefs, would you really take that away from them? Would you really tell them that their daughter was just unlucky, and suffered heroically for years only to go out like a candle and be nothing more than dirt in the ground? If beautiful, loving Alice had been your daughter, would you really take that away from yourself? Would you really believe it? And don’t say that people have to face facts: atheism is not a fact, because no one can “prove” there is not a God any more than we can "prove" to you--by your earthly, material standards--that there is one."Sensible thinking tells us that everything has to be created. Therefore a God who has always been around is impossible. On the other hand, scientists tell us that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, and yet before the Big Bang there was no matter at all. We now have two theories for our existence, both of which collapse."
And yet... the universe does exist. So your problem is not a true dilemma, only a seeming one.
It is true that scientists are firmly convinced that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one state into another equivalent state, or transformed back and forth into each other. So a universe that pops up all by itself is scientifically impossible. Yes, scientists are quite right, everything has to be created. But by "everything," their knowledge is of course limited to this universe. We are led to the only possible explanation. Logic and science are both products of this universe. God is not.
So God cannot be a part of this material universe. We define God as the one and only entity that did not ever have to be created, and who brought this universe that we live in into existence from outside of it.
In mathematics we define things in this way all the time. When people only knew of "counting" numbers, there was no solution to a problem like: what is 3 minus 7? 7 minus 3 is easy, but how can you take away 7 objects from a pile of 3 objects? It is impossible. It makes no sense. So we define the question as being the solution. There is a set of questions that are all the same: 3-7, 2-6, 1-5, 0-4 and so on in the other direction. We take the lowest one, 0-4, and define it as our solution. We drop the zero by custom, leaving us with negative four. By now people are well aware of how useful this "impossible" number is. It exists, even if beyond our "normal" thinking.
Similarly, since all numbers multiplied by themselves yield a positive number, it is impossible to comprehend the square root of a negative number. So we make the question itself the solution. We define i as the square root of negative one. Even mathematicians at first thought that this could not really exist, or have any practical value, and so called it "imaginary." No such thing in the universe? Electrical engineers work with i every day, and could not do without it in solving very real problems. All electrical currents depend on it. It exists, even if beyond our "normal" thinking.
Nothing could exist outside of time? We define an entity that simply does exist outside of time, that has to exist outside of time and this material universe, because science knows that matter cannot create itself, or even destroy itself. Something outside of time and the material universe, and not subject to natural laws, has to exist to bring it all into existence. This is what we call God. God exists just as surely as negative and imaginary numbers exist: because they have to. God exists, even if beyond our "normal" thinking.
The difficulties here stem from trying to apply the reasoning and experiences of this world to God, who is not of this world at all. It is a similar situation as the ancient Greeks found themselves in when they tried unsuccessfully to explain Zeno's paradoxes. You will recall the one about how if Achilles gave a turtle a hundred foot head start in a race, he could never overtake it, even if he could run ten times faster. The reasoning went thus: in the time it took Achilles to run the first hundred feet, the turtle could run another ten feet. Then in the time it took Achilles to run that ten feet, the turtle would run another foot. Then in the time it took Achilles to run that foot, the turtle could run another tenth of a foot. And so on and on, to trillionths of a foot. But Achilles would never actually catch up to the turtle, because there is no limit as to how small fractions can become.
Ancient Greek mathematics could not recognize or handle the sum of an infinite series. By reasoning, they had to conclude that fleet Achilles could never overtake a slow turtle in a race, just as atheists must conclude that no one at all made them.
Now, what we know about God is another story, one that we go into in great detail on the site. We recommend reading all fourteen pages.
The larger question is our relationship with this God that we have postulated. Consider the two alternatives:First, he may have no interest in what we do, as he plans to discard us when our lives are through. Or he may be nothing like a person at all, and is not even capable of thinking about us. Either way, common sense tells us that our lives would be essentially worthless and meaningless. There are no consequences of our actions other than the pleasure they bring us in the here and now. There would be no Divine Justice, and this is not acceptable.
Second, he may be personal, and have an interest in us and in how we lead our lives. If this were true, he will either make certain that part of our built-in instinct tells us how to lead our lives, or he would make a personal appearance here on earth, and tell us directly what it is that he expects from us. If we were lucky, he would do both.
Do we instinctively want to avoid being mean? Not kick kitty-cats and children? Well, of course. We call this instinct our conscience. It is how we know God is personal and has an interest in us.
Did He ever make an appearance here to fill us in on details himself? Well, I would have, if I were Him. We can easily ignore our conscience, and rationalize almost anything we want to do.
During his “visit” here, he would have told us what he expects from us: a set of rules for our lives. We would expect these rules to be in complete and absolute agreement with our conscience. Did we ever get such a visit?
Yes. The actual words of Christ are in complete agreement with the conscience of every person of good will, and have been for two thousand years.
But please remember that religion, even for Catholics like myself, is not complicated. It is simply love and forgiveness. The details that matter will come to you in good time.
"Why do we need a God to be good? Why can't we do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do?"
To be "good" implies that there is a higher, external authority of what is good and bad, independent of the entity (mankind) seeking to be good. You cannot even aspire to a good life unless you acknowledge that there is a standard against which "good" is to be judged. By acknowledging that there is indeed a "right thing to do," you acknowledge a standard of right and wrong that exists independent of mankind on whom it is applied. That standard is what is called God.
Without this higher authority, we could logically define "good" for each of us as that which makes us each the happiest. Bad would be what makes us unhappy. That leads to problems. It might make me happy to kill Bill Gates and live in his house and enjoy his money and power. But that would not be good for Bill Gates. So we have to reject that line of thought, because we are seeking a universal good, not just an individual good that might be bad from other perspectives. A universal good must come from outside ourselves.
Nothing any animal does is "bad." Animals act on instinct. For them there is neither right nor wrong. It is only because we are children of God that we perceive right and wrong, and can choose either. With no God, we would be like animals: everything we do would be free from any question of right or wrong.
We cannot substitute "human race" for God. A sentient "human race" is not reality. We are all individuals; all separate, sentient beings, with completely separate free will. There is no collective consciousness.
Can God do wrong? If He can, He is no longer perfect. If He cannot, He has no freedom of choice.
"Wrong" means violating our moral code.
Our morality, as we have just seen, must come from a higher moral authority than ourselves. Good must be good universally—we are not seeking a relative good that is good for one person but may be not good for another person.
What is a higher authority than humans? Only God. Good as defined as an acceptance of God's will. Evil is defined as turning away from God.
God is therefore above wrong, or evil. It is nonsense to apply these words to Him. He cannot turn away from Himself, and there is no higher authority to whom He must answer, as we define Him as the Supreme Being. Because His will defines good, He is infinitely good. He does not need to choose. He simply is. If God "chooses," He changes. He cannot change. He is eternal and unchanging.
And do not forget, we are His children, created in His image, and He is our Father. We know what is good and what is not. So we know a great deal, in this way, about our Father, and it is all very reassuring.
"But I still think that if we can call God eternal, we can call the material universe eternal too, and we all just evolved."
The noted astronomer Sir Frederick Hoyle demonstrated clearly how improbable a "natural" formation of the universe through random events would be, even if somehow material things could be eternal. Talking about the chances of amino acids coming together to form a human cell, he said, "What are the chances that a tornado might blow through a junkyard containing all the parts of a 747, accidentally assemble them into a plane, and leave it ready for take-off? The possibilities are so small as to be negligible even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole universe!" Maybe not impossible, true, but not enough of a chance for a reasonable person to bet their entire eternal life on.
Besides, we would still have to account for love, and hate, and heroism, and enjoyment of beauty, and our conscience, and everything else that we find inside ourselves that are found nowhere else in nature. When all is said and done, an intelligent God is our most logical answer.
"There are so many different gods around the world, which one should I believe in?" If there were more than one god, the best one would be God and the others would not be. They would be like us, and have to do as the best god said. Therefore there is only One. What you perhaps mean is, there are many ways to praise and worship Him. That is true. See our page at Being a Christian.If you think you might want to believe in God, and you went through all the arguments that we presented and remain unconvinced, then you will have to do something that will seem very strange. You will have to realize that faith is a gift from God, the same God whose existence you are unsure about. And you will have to ask him for it.
As with all gifts, you can’t demand it. As with many gifts, you may not even think that you want it, that you have always gotten along quite well without it. But it is a good gift indeed, one that will provide you with comfort and happiness in this world, and usher you into an eternity of happiness in the next.
But you must ask for it. Not in an adversarial way, but in the way you would ask for any gift of great value. Go to the house of the giver, cap in hand so to speak. Go into a church and kneel down. Talk to God about your life and troubles. Just take our word for it that he will hear you. Very sincerely ask if he does indeed exist. He will let you know. Not with actual words, or a clap of thunder, or anything like that. Probably not even at that time. Maybe not until you are on your deathbed. But he will give you, in His own sufficient time, the gift of faith: a gift more precious to you than all the money in the world.
The good things like faith that come to us because of God's infinite love for us is called his grace. His grace is free, to anyone who will accept it. We can refuse this gift if we wish. But it is only with his grace that we can find eternal happiness.
"I want to find God. Where do I start looking?" In other people. Everyone is God's child. We are to see God in all of them. We are commanded by God to treat them as we would treat Him. We are to love them as much as we love ourselves.
As long as there is one hungry person in the world, and we are fed and do not share, it is to our eternal shame. As long as there is one cold and homeless person in the world, and we are snug in our houses turning our backs on them, that is also to our eternal shame.
Christ said, "Whatever you do for the least of your brethren, you do for Me." When someone thanks you for helping, that is Christ thanking you.
When you do these things, you will not have to find God. God will find you, and rejoice in you.
Are "miracles" in the Bible really supposed to make me have faith?
No. Faith comes from deep inside us, by the grace of God, from our conscience. Our conscience tells us that this message of Christ's, this new beginning of love and forgiveness, is the truth. Our conscience tells us that there is no other rational way for us to lead our lives and be happy. Our conscience tells us clearly and positively that Christ is the Way, the one and only Way. That is why we believe.
The miracles that are described in the Gospels cannot make us believe that He is God. The literature of the world is full of tall tales and miracles, in every culture and religion. Christ's miracles were primarily intended to convince the disciples and chroniclers of His life that accompanied Him of His divinity. They needed to believe strongly and quickly, so that they would be able to pass on His message to future generations in the face of hardship and martyrdom. So we do not now have faith because of miracles; au contraire, we understand that miracles occurred because we have faith that He was God.But what if we are wrong, and there really is no God? If it turns out to be all just a fairy tale, and you go out like a candle when you die, you will never know. There is no penalty for believing the wrong things all your life. In fact, psychologists will tell you that strong faith in God and leading a moral life is the best way to achieve happiness here on earth for ourselves regardless of what happens when we die. So it is a win-win.
On the other hand, suppose you choose not to believe in God or lead a good, moral life and you are wrong! You will have all eternity to regret turning your back on God. And in addition, your life here will (in all probability) be much less happy. It is lose-lose. The best you can hope for is that in His infinite love for you, God will somehow lead you to Him.
We are not asking you to "pretend" to believe in God. But this is a good reason to open up your minds to the possibility of His existence, and to pray for His grace to find faith.
"I find that I cannot love God as much as I fear Him. But if I do good just to be saved, isn't that pretty selfish? How can God approve of that?"
Don't be the least bit afraid of God. The heart of Christianity is love and forgiveness and mercy. It is a doctrine of the Church, written in an official Papal Encyclical by the late Pope John Paul, that God's mercy and love is far greater than His justice. You are His child. You are His little boy. He loves you far more than any human father ever loved his child. That is saying a lot, because I am a father and a grandfather, and there is nothing I would not do for my children. I would give up my own life for them in an instant. God's infinite, passionate love for you is unconditional and complete.
Do not split hairs about your motives. God understands you very well. He made us all a great bundle of anxieties and doubts and fears and instincts for self interests and survival. Doubt and fear are not sins. He just wants you to acknowledge your need of Him, and do the best you can to follow His commands, no matter what you think your motives are. His great command is this: Love the Lord thy God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Yes, it is plenty good enough to treat your neighbor like you love him, even if you think you do not feel anything. That is better than 99% of people do, and God will love you hugely for it (if His love for you right now is even capable of any increase!) And when you mess up, do not ever worry. Ask for forgiveness, in Christ's name. It will always, always be given.
"I am an atheist, trying to find out what to believe in. Do atheists go to Hell?"
Do not confuse being an atheist with being an agnostic. An agnostic looks around and says to himself, "OK, I acknowledge that someone or something probably made this grand and glorious universe, but I do not know who or what. Perhaps someday he or she will be revealed to me. Until then I will wait, and perhaps look into the matter and try to figure things out." The typical agnostic thinks that since there are so many different religions, and not all of them can be true, then it is a hopeless job to sort it all out and pick one.
This is all understandable. Eventually you will find God. But the atheist says, "There is no God. I am the highest form of life I can see, so I will lead my life according to my own rules."
This is serious. A lot of people are praying right now that atheists can eventually accept the gift of God's grace."Why are some people atheists, if a belief in God is so much a part of who we are?"
We are also God's true children, and an almost God-like ego is even more a part of who we are. We do not like being told what to do.
There are at least four common reasons to reject God:
First, some people argue that since the world is such a mess, there could not be a God who cares, which (to them) is no different than no God at all.If this world were our whole existence, this would be a valid argument. So to an atheist, it makes good sense. But if we are eternal children of God, and are trying to live our lives in such a way as to gain infinite and eternal happiness, the travails of this world are essentially meaningless. All that matters is that we love and take good care of people less fortunate. Nothing ever prevents us from doing this.Second, some others say that it would be too much of a coincidence if the religion they were born into were the one correct one, and since they can't know which is the one correct one, they will just ignore the whole thing. If you think about it, there cannot be more than one Supreme Being, just by definition. So why are there so many different religions? It is because mankind has been spread out over an enormous world with virtually no contact with different groups, for so large a percentage of our history. But He gave each of us precisely the same conscience, so that we would be able to recognize the Truth when we heard it.
Religion is not exclusionary, nor is it a set of rigid rules. It is the realization that God loves us with a passion that is infinite, and the response that we make as loving children.
Is there one true religion? Of course, how could there not be? God by definition is perfect; he would not give us conflicting messages on how to lead our lives. But the vast majority of the world's religions are not wrong, they are merely incomplete. There is one God and one only, and He oversees them all and hears the prayers and the pleas of all. Your conscience is the voice of the One God within you. It directs you to be a good person, kind and caring. When you do that, no matter what religion you were raised in, you open yourself to the acceptance of God's loving grace. That grace is all you need for your faith and your salvation.
God is infinitely loving, and merciful, and kind, and fair, and compassionate. He will offer each and every one of His children sufficient grace for salvation. To the extent any church preaches that, it is right.
The only really wrong choice of churches is none at all.Third, many people have so much arrogance and hubris that they have a difficult time acknowledging any authority higher than themselves.
These are the same people who have trouble with all authority, including parents, teachers and drill sergeants. They fight their way through life quite unhappily, and nothing will ever change them or convince them that they are not the center of the universe. Fourth, still others are comfortable not having to bother to go to church every week and don't want to stay away from the temptations of the world. They know that admitting there is a God who expects certain behavior from them would be inconvenient and not nearly as instantly gratifying, so they look the other way by demanding "proof" of His existence which they know fully well they are not going to get to their satisfaction.
I am 76 years old and I am more confused about my situation every day.
I feel that it would be simpler to get through life by believing in God. I am not choosing to not believe, Heaven knows I have been searching all my life. I have been on my knees in tears begging God to hear me for direction, but I never seem to feel he is hearing me.
He hears you fine. But maybe you are not listening to him.
This whole world, your entire life, is an orchestra of God’s sounds and sights and beauty. Listen and look. He is in the laughter of the children playing outside your window. He is in the roses in your garden and the majesty of a starry night. And most of all, he has been right there inside of you ever since you were born, telling you when you were doing something wrong and when you were doing something right.
Did you ever have children? I can remember when my sons were small. One day we were on a hike and we wanted to cross a ravine. There was a water pipe of about 18 inches diameter spanning it, easy enough for me to walk on. But my four year old son was afraid, and rightly so. I took both his hands, and led him across safely. He didn’t hesitate; he had absolute and complete confidence in me.
It is time for you to become like a child again, and put away your hair-splitting arguments and your doubts. God is your father, and you must simply place complete trust in him. Put your life in his hands, and allow him to lead you to eternal happiness.
Don’t ask him for signs and miracles. In this world we are on our own, and the voice of our conscience is the only voice that God chooses to speak to us with. What he wants from us, as his children, is extremely simple. Do your best to make other people happy. Do not even think about your own happiness. God will take care of that in due time. Trust him.
Treat each day as another miracle of his creation, in which we have the opportunity to help our souls grow and mature. Make difficult choices. Do what others want to do. Share food and shelter with those less fortunate. Be cheerful, even when sickness causes us great pain. Never berate God for our misfortunes, always thank him for our lives and for our faith. Ask him only for his grace and for the faith we need. Soon God will be proud to call you his son for all eternity.If God already knows what we are going to do and if we are going to go to heaven or hell, how can we have free will?
Suppose there were no such thing as God, so that no one knew the outcome of our actions or our lives. Our free will is then very obvious, as we are always free to make whatever choices we wish. Now suppose our most brilliant scientists one day make a time machine, allowing people to go back in time and observe the past. They would have to be invisible, and not be able to change anything, of course, because what happens is a matter of record and cannot be changed. They would just be secret observers.
But if the time travelers were students of history, or had in their possession a diary of someone of the earlier time, they would be able to know in advance everything that person did, just as God does. Does this mean that the observed person did not have free will, that they were somehow forced to do what they did? No, our original hypothesis was that they had absolute free will. The fact that some unseen person had prior knowledge of their actions did not in the least way detract from their complete freedom to do as they chose.
And so it is with God.PREDESTINATION
The idea of predestination has been argued about for a long time. Some Christians stress that God has knowledge of everything, therefore He knows before He creates us who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. The feeling is that we may be trapped by God's foreknowledge.
Catholics stress that we are made in the image and likeness of God, and possess free will, like He does, and we have absolute complete control to shape the outcome of our own lives.
We have difficulty reconciling these viewpoints because we exist in a material world of time, and God does not. We try to apply our rules of temporal order to Him, and this cannot work. With God there is no past, present or future. Those are words that indicate relative time, and He exists outside of time. He simply is.
How can He know what we are going to do before we do it, even though we have complete freedom of choice? The error in our language is the word "before." That word does not apply to God. So that question is meaningless.
Note that if preachers who believe in predestination actually practiced what they preach, they would not preach at all. What would be the use? Nothing that they could do would affect anyone's destiny. They would not bother to baptize you, because if you were pre-ordained to go to heaven you would go there no matter what, and if your were pre-ordained to go to hell you would go there no matter what.
We should not bother to try to figure out just how God can do things. We are like ants trying to build a computer. Just trust that what He told us about how we must lead our lives is true.
"God Resting on the Seventh Day"
Painted by an eight year old."If God created everything, then who created God?"
If I were able to tell you who created God, you would then want to know who created that entity. No matter how many times I came up with a previous creator, you would always just want to know who created them. So you have to throw out that whole line of thinking.
Logically, the only possible way out of that endless dilemma is to assume that whoever we call God is the one, first and only entity that did not need to be created, that simply always was, for all eternity. There was never a time when He was not.
And in fact, this is the answer that God Himself gives. When asked for His name in the Old Testament, He said simply “I am the One who is.” Is, now and for all eternity, without beginning or end.
Our problem is that we are used to living in a material world of material things, where time is measured by the change in those things. God is not material, he is spiritual. He does not follow our “rules.” He does not exist in "time," so we cannot ask time-related questions about Him. For God there is no before, no after. He simply is.
By definition, there has to be some Being who exists outside of time and our material universe, who brought everything into existence at the point when time started. That is who we define as God.
"Why didn't God just make us so that we would be good and love Him?"
I own a little programmable toy that is very clever. It is a little bear that you can record any message into, and then it will play it back. So I can make it say "I love you, I worship you, you are the greatest!" whenever I want it to. No, I don't bother. Why? It would mean nothing. It does not have the free will to not love me, to not say those things.
Faith and love of God would be meaningless without our free will. We would all be puppet toys.
"If people grew up on their own, away from all humans, would they discover God?"
Yes. God loves each and every one of his children equally, whether they lived in Egypt ten centuries before Christ, or in India in the ninth century, or today in America. He gives each of His children an absolutely equal chance of spending eternity in complete happiness with Him.
"Would they all discover the same God?"
Yes. There can only be one Supreme Being. Of course, they will know nothing about His nature, because no one has told them. God understands this problem, and will not hold it against them. They will still have the same conscience as you and I, and the same obligation to heed it.
"Why does God allow evil to exist?"
Evil is not a thing; it does not have a separate existence. It is how we describe someone who has free will, and who uses that free will to decide for himself to turn away from God and hurt other people, or to have so much pride that he thinks he is better than God and can make his own definition of right and wrong.
God can and does create good out of evil. Without the Nazis in WWII, how could there have been thousands of great heros, hiding Catholics and Jews at risk of their own lives, refusing to kill even though they had orders from the government, helping fellow prisoners remain cheerful in the face of torture and death? With no evil people, the world would offer no opportunity for heroic goodness. It is a great moral good to forgive people who are mean to us, and return their hatred and abuse with kindness and help.
Another reason he does not destroy evil people right away is that they always continue to have free will and complete freedom, and so can choose at any moment, right up to their deaths, to renounce their evil ways and embrace God. We are sure that God fervently roots for them to do so, because he continues to love them.
It is a very good thing to pray for all the people and angels that made the wrong choices. God will hear our prayers, and be very happy that we love them, even as He does. Parents always love their children, no matter what bad things they do.
Are devils real? Why would God permit the existence of creatures who can only be evil?
Devils are a part of Christian theology. But we do not have a clear idea of just what they are. Certainly not the medieval painting type of little horned creatures that go skulking about, no. All we know for certain is that they were once angels, beloved by God, with free will. They are the ones who chose to be without God for all eternity. So God grants them their choice. We also have free will, and some of us also choose to be without God for all eternity, in just the same way. Will God permit us to continue in existence? Of course. We make the bed, we lie in it. That is the way it must be to satisfy His infinite justice.
Are devils responsible for making us sin? No. We cannot shirk our responsibility that easily. They are responsible for the predicament they are in, and likewise we must shoulder our load for ourselves.
So in this world, devils are strictly a non-event. Take control of your own life, and forget about them. God permits evil because it is a necessary consequence of free will, which in turn is a necessary condition of being a child of God, which in turn is a necessary condition of enjoying heaven. But the evil of this world is ours, and ours alone. To be good, we have to enlist the help of God, and when we fail, we must ask for His forgiveness in Christ's name.- Which religion? Please see our page at : Being a Christian.
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[The following is one of the most beautiful and moving poems in the English language. The author has tried to deny God all of his life, but realizes finally that it is impossible to hide forever from His love.]
The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat -- and a voice beat
More instant than the Feet --
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)
But, if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of his approach would clash it to :
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars ;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.
I said to Dawn : Be sudden -- to Eve : Be soon ;
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover--
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see !
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue ;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue ;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet :--
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat--
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."
I sought no more that after which I strayed,
In face of man or maid ;
But still within the little children's eyes
Seems something, something that replies,
They at least are for me, surely for me !
I turned me to them very wistfully ;
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children, Nature's -- share
With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship ;
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning
With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,
Banqueting
With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured daïs,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."
So it was done :
I in their delicate fellowship was one --
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.
I knew all the swift importings
On the wilful face of skies ;
I knew how the clouds arise,
Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings ;
All that's born or dies,
Rose and drooped with ; made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine ;
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine ;
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart
I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat ;
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.
For ah ! we know not what each other says,
These things and I ; in sound I speak--
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth ;
Let her, if she would owe me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts o' her tenderness ;
Never did any milk of hers once bless
My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy ;
And past those noisèd Feet
A Voice comes yet more fleet --
"Lo ! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."
Naked I wait thy Love's uplifted stroke !
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee ;
I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me ; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years --
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist ;
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding ; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
Ah ! is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount ?
Ah ! must --
Designer infinite !--
Ah ! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it ?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust ;
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind.
Such is ; what is to be ?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind ?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds ;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity ;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned ;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
Be dunged with rotten death ?
Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit ;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea :
"And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard ?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me !
"Strange, piteous, futile thing !
Wherefore should any set thee love apart ?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said),
"And human love needs human meriting :
How hast thou merited --
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot ?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art !
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me ?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home :
Rise, clasp My hand, and come !"
Halts by me that footfall :
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly ?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest !
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."| Hay un Dios | test isag |
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writetoknow
Why I Left Atheism
Of all the lessons that I present concerning the existence of God and of all the material that I try to make available to people to learn about God's existence, the present lesson, "Why I Left Atheism," is the lesson in the series that I frankly do not like to present. I guess none of us like to look back in our lives to a time when we made poor judgments and foolish mistakes--when we took rather really idiotic positions--and admit this, especially to people we are not well acquainted with. I present this lesson, however, because it is my fervent hope and prayer that perhaps by exposing my mistakes and by pointing out the things that were a part of my early life, some who might be following the same paths (to a greater or lesser extent) might not make those same mistakes. Someone once said that nobody is totally useless; if we cannot do anything else, we can at least serve as a bad example. That is sort of my situation. I am hoping that by presenting these materials and telling you something about my early life, some of you may be able to recognize the lack of wisdom and perhaps the poor judgment that is involved in rejecting God and living a life that demonstrates such a rejection.
Most of the time when I speak to religious groups or to people who believe in God, someone will ask me somewhat incredulously, "Well, were you really an atheist? Did you really not believe in God?" I want to start by asserting that the answer to that question is a very affirmative "Yes." At one time in my life, I was totally and firmly convicted that there was no such thing as God and that anybody who believed in God was silly, superstitious, ignorant, and had simply not looked at the evidence. I felt that believers in God were uneducated and were just following traditions, superstitions, and things that really made no sense to a person who was aware of what was going on around them. Of course, that kind of life and conviction led me to do and say things and to be something that was really very unpleasant. I lived a life that was immoral and which reflected a lack of belief in God. I lived in a way that was very self-centered and that satisfied my own pleasures and desires regardless of whether or not other people were hurt in the process of what I was doing. In the process of doing this, I did a lot of things that affected me through my whole life. It is because of this that I present these materials hoping that perhaps some of you will not make the mistakes and suffer the consequences that I have suffered. I cannot clearly remember all of the events that took place or the proper sequence of events because I was not taking notes. I never expected that I would be trying to recall these things, much less tell someone else about them. Still, I can recall in a general way much of what happened, and I am very sure of the concepts. The concepts are what will be most useful to you.
I guess the reason that I was an atheist is the same reason that many of you are believers in God if you are. That was because I had been indoctrinated in that particular persuasion. My background, the variables that were exposed to me as a child, led me very strongly in that direction. Just as many of you believe in God because your parents believe in God and because they instilled this belief in you, I also questioned, challenged, and rejected God because that was the kind of indoctrination that I received as a child. I can remember my mother saying to me as a child something like, "Do you really believe there is an old man, floating around in the sky, blasting things into existence here upon the earth? Do you really believe that crummy looking structure on the corner could be something beautiful called `the church?' Do you really believe that there is a hole in the ground that I am going to be thrown into and burned eternally if I do not live just the way some preacher thinks I ought to?" Of course, I could not conceive of these things as a child and did not know enough to realize they are not what the Bible teaches. Consequently, I came to believe that anybody who believed in God was just silly, superstitious, ignorant, and unlearned. You may wonder how it would be possible for a person coming out of this type of background and kind of learning situation to become a strong believer in God today, devoting his life to trying to help people to understand that there is a God in heaven and that the Bible is His literal and verbally inspired Word. It is the purpose of this booklet to try and point out at least some of the things that entered into my acceptance of God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible as God's Word.
My high school career was one in which I grew quite rapidly academically. I enjoyed science and decided that I wanted to be a scientist of some kind. I entered Indiana University majoring in the field of physical science. It was actually at this point that one of the great changes that occurred in my life took place. I enrolled in a course in astronomy at the feet of one of the great astronomers of our day. In that particular course, we were studying the problem of origins--the creation of matter from nothing. As we discussed this particular subject, we went into all those theories that are in that particular material. We talked about the big-bang theory, the quasistatal theory, the continuous generation theory, the planetessimal theory, etc.
When we got to the conclusion of that discussion, I asked the professor which of the particular theories was the one that is most acceptable and that satisfactorily explains the creation of matter from nothing. He leaned over the desk and looked me straight in the eye and said, "Young man, you need to learn to ask intelligent questions." That rather upset me. I did not appreciate that and I said, "Well, what do you mean?" He said, "This is not a question that a scientist tries to answer. This is a question for the philosopher or theologian, but this is not something that falls into the realm of science." In today's discussions of black holes and parallel universes, things have not changed. The basic question of the creation of matter/energy from absolutely nothing is not an area that can be scientifically explored. I was very disturbed by that answer. I had always felt that science could ultimately answer all the questions that man had--that there was nothing that science could not eventually take care of as far as what man might challenge and want to know about. Yet this learned man, an expert in his field, said that this was an area that the scientist should not even try to answer--that it was totally beyond the capacity of science to explain and explore.
Not too long after that, I enrolled in a course in biology at the feet of one of the great primitive life scientists in the country. As we discussed the initial beginning of life upon the earth in that class, we talked about the synthesis of various primitive chemical materials such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). As we discussed this, I once again asked a question related to the one that I had asked previously. I asked this professor what the process was by which the original life--the original living cells upon the earth--came into existence. How did the structure or generation of DNA occur? Once again, this man said, "Young man, that is not a question that falls within the realm of science." In today's world we understand more about biochemical processes, but we cannot answer how in the environment of the primitive earth these processes came into operation. I guess what was happening to me was the same thing that Lord Kelvin, a very famous British scientist, described in his writings when he made the statement, "If you study science deep enough and long enough it will force you to believe in God." That is what happened to me. I began to realize that science had its limitations--that science, in fact, strongly pointed to other explanations than natural ones to certain questions.
It was about this time when another thing happened in my life and that was that a woman entered it. A lot of things begin with women (some things end with them, too). In this particular case, this young lady was by all means the most bull-headed, stubborn, cast-iron willed individual I had ever met in all my life. I can make those statements because some six years later I married her. This was the first girl I ever met that I felt I could respect. Sometimes you will hear preachers, who know absolutely nothing about what they are talking about from the role of experience, make statements such as, "If you hold on to your virtues and maintain your moral standards, a man will respect you more." Let me tell you, as one who has lived on the other side of the fence and has thought as one who is alienated from how God thinks, that statement is true. I will guarantee you that I never thought seriously about marrying anyone until I met this girl whom I could respect--who really stood for something. Not only did she stand for something morally, she believed in God and read her Bible. Though she could not answer all my questions, she kept going back to the Bible. I also learned quickly not to let her know what I was really like morally. I knew if she really knew that, she would have nothing to do with me. I did not seem to be able to break her faith as I had been able to do with other people and the thing that happened was that as a result of her stubbornness and refusal to reject the Bible, she forced me to read the Bible.
I read the Bible through from cover to cover four times during my sophomore year in college for the explicit purpose of finding scientific contradictions in it. By that, I mean statements in the Bible that were false that I could throw back at her to show her how ridiculous it was to believe in God. I had even decided to write a book called All the Stupidity of the Bible . Something amazing happened as I did this. As I considered and thought about these things, I found that I could not find a contradiction--to find some kind of scientific inaccuracy in the Bible. I just simply was not able to do it. I gave up writing the book because of lack of material! It is amazing to me that as I talk to people, I find many who claim to be Christians and who perhaps claim to have been Christians for many years who have not read the Bible through cover to cover once. I find it hard to believe that they believe in God very much if they do not even want to know what He has to say.
As I read the Bible through again and again, I began to realize that not all of the things I had been told about God and religion were what the Bible said. They may have been what organized religion said or what some men taught, but not what the Bible itself said. For example, the Bible did not say that God was an old man floating around in the sky, blasting things into existence here upon the earth. The Bible said, "God is a spirit:..." (John 4:24) and that God is not flesh and blood. Jesus made the statement, "...for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 16:17). There are many people today who do not understand this. A Russian astronaut once made the statement, "See, I told you there was no God; I didn't see him when I was in orbit." The question might be, "What was he looking for?" I began to recognize that God was not an old man in the sky. I had an anthropology professor who made the statement in all dead seriousness, "We all know what God is; He is an old man with a long white beard and big flowing robes." I am sure that this was his concept of "God." I began to recognize that this was not the biblical concept of God.
I began to recognize that the Christian life was not an altruistic life. I had been told by several people as a child that if you ever become a Christian, you cannot ever be happy, you cannot ever own anything, and you have to walk around with a long sad face and your chin dragging on the ground. Yet when I read the Bible, I read statements like, "So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it,..." (Ephesians 5:28-29). I read about the Ethiopian eunuch who went on his way rejoicing because he had found Jesus Christ and the happiness that went with that acceptance of Jesus in his life. I have had many problems come into my life, but all I have to do is to look back at how miserable life was without Christ and I can realize that life, as it is now with Jesus, is beautiful in comparison.
I began to recognize that the Church was not a building. I can remember that when we lived in Alabama, there was a meeting place of some religious group just down the street from us. My mother used to point to that as we drove or walked by and say, "Look at that. How could anybody believe in God when the Church looks like that." I realized that the Bible did not teach that the Church is such a structure. 1 Corinthians 3:16 makes the statement, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God...." As an atheist, I recognized that you could meet on the moon, in a submarine, out in the desert, or any place else and still be the Church. The Church was not a building. What a tragedy it is that so many today have invested enormous amounts of money in edifices and buildings, while other human beings have gone hungry nearby.
I began to recognize that hypocrisy was not confined to religion. I had the idea that every hypocrite in the world sat in a pew on Sunday morning, and thus that everybody who was not sitting in a pew was not a hypocrite. I remember the lesson I learned on this. There was a young man who would sit elbow to elbow with me arguing against the religionist from time-to-time. He was in the hospital once with a very serious ailment. I went up to visit him and as I opened the hospital door, I saw him down on his knees praying to God. I stood at the door of that hospital room screaming at him, "You hypocrite--you dirty hypocrite!" until I was escorted out of the hospital. It slowly began to dawn on me that hypocrisy is a function of humanity, not religion. You deal with hypocrites at the grocery store, at the filling station, on the job, at school, and at the golf course (maybe more there than anywhere else). You do not quit buying groceries because the grocer says one thing and does another. You do not quit your job because your employer tells you to do something that he himself would not touch with a ten-foot pole. You do not deprive yourself or your child of a good education because a teacher teaches one thing and lives something else. You do not quit playing golf because your buddy takes a stroke in the rough and does not count it when he thinks you did not see it. Sure there is hypo-crisy in the Church, because there are human beings in the Church, and as long as you deal with human beings, you are going to deal with hypocrisy. Do you want to get away from hypocrisy? Dig a 20-foot hole in your back yard, jump in, let someone cover you with dirt, and even then you are going to be sitting down there in the bottom of that hole with one hypocrite. There is not a one of us breathing air that is as consistent as we ought to be, but the person who says, "I'm not going to be a Christian! I'm not going to serve God! I'm not going to get involved in the work of the Church because there are hypocrites in the Church," is just logically inconsistent! We do not use that kind of thinking anywhere else in our lives. How can we do it in our relationship to God? There were many, many misconceptions that I had to get rid of to understand truly what the Bible really teaches.
Another thing that I think needs to be mentioned here as we discuss some of the things that led me to believe in God were things that had to do with my happiness. I remember that as a young person, I had what would be an ideal home by worldly standards. My parents were marvelous people; there was no divorce, unfaithfulness, or neglect in my family. We did things as a family. We enjoyed each other, yet I ran away from home. I was rebellious and antagonistic. As I look back at God's Word today, I can see why these things happened. In Colossians 3:20, for example, the Bible says, "Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord." Obedience was not a characteristic of John Clayton as a young man. Living in Bloomington, Indiana, Indianapolis was known as the party town , and if I wanted to go to Indianapolis, I went. When my mother said she did not want me to go, I disconnected the speedometer and went. I did anything and everything I wanted to do. After all, there was no God. All my parents were doing was restricting my fun and enjoyment in life; why should I obey them? I lived a life that was totally antagonistic to everything that my parents stood for. It is amazing to me today that some parents, who do not believe in God and demonstrate this lack of belief to their children by what they say or the way they live, wonder why their children will not obey them. Why should they? They have removed the only source of authority that they have, and no child is going to obey a parent who has destroyed that source of authority. I am convinced that much of our law and order problems center around this very question.
Years ago I was talking to a young man in Michigan who had been a participant in some of the riots at the University of Michigan. He made the statement to me that he had done these things and I asked him why he had not obeyed the law. He said, "What law?" and I said, "The law of the land--the law that God has instituted." He looked at me and laughed and said, "Man, I don't believe in God." I do not believe we can have law and order when we remove the source of the authority to that law and order. Certainly, my rebelliousness and failure to obey my parents brought a great deal of unpleasantness and misery not only into my life, but into theirs as well. The very next verse, Colossians 3:21, contains another statement that I think had a great deal to do with my unhappiness and rebelliousness as a child. The statement is made, "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger , lest they be discouraged." My parents had a tradition when I was a young man--a tradition they called the cocktail hour . I have never seen my parents drunk, but they would drink a few martinis and my mother would ask me questions that ordinarily she would not have asked. I remember, for instance, she would sometimes ask, "What did you do with the girl you took out last night?" That was the last thing I was going to tell my mother, so I learned to look her right straight in the eye and lie. I could lie to her or anybody else without batting an eyelash. I conditioned myself to do things that were wrong. I conditioned myself to steal. I remember the first time that I stole something. It was a box of raisins from the IGA store. I felt so badly that I took it back and apologized. Sometime later, I stole a comic book from a drug store; I took it back, but I did not apologize. Six months later, I was stealing almost anything I could get my hands on, not because I needed it, but because it was fun--it was a challenge. I even went so far as to be caught stealing money from my parents. That brings me to the next point, which is certainly another thing that had to do with my happiness.
When I read passages in the Bible like Psalm 53, for instance, I sometimes feel like God is describing John Clayton some years ago. Psalm 53:1-3 says:
The fool hath said in his heart, " There is no God." Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Another statement, made by Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, 14, says:
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?...I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
I have tried almost everything you can imagine to find pleasure and happiness. I will not try to tell you that I did not find pleasure using my own system of following my own desires, but I can guarantee you that I did not find happiness. I tried every conceivable thing you can think of. I tried all kinds of things--things that were immoral, that were wrong, that hurt other people, and things that I would not even want to describe. I did those things because I was trying to find pleasure and happiness and, as I say, I found pleasure sometimes. However, I never went to bed at night satisfied or happy with my life and enjoying my living. I never got up in the morning looking forward to a new day. Life was just one long chain of misery.
Judge Roy Moore of Lawton, Oklahoma, who deals with the legal problems precipitated by the presence of Fort Sill in that area, once made the statement to me, "I've never seen a young man on drugs live more than seven years without taking his life." You may not be able to understand that, but I have sat on the edge of my bed with a .22-caliber rifle between my legs, trying to have enough guts to pull the trigger. I bottomed out that low; I got that emotionally disturbed and upset with my desire and attempt to find happiness. Please listen to me and profit by what I am saying. You can try every conceivable thing that this world has to offer. You can try sex, drugs, alcohol, stealing, and all kinds of things in a desperate attempt to find happiness. I can testify from experience that you may find pleasure, but you will not find happiness. I can go back to Bloomington today and meet people who refuse to believe that I have changed my life--people that I hurt and who knew the kind of life I lived. The reason that I think many things happen with young people today is because they try to find happiness living their own way. It simply does not work. Have you ever wondered why it is that when a person gets clean from drugs, gets rid of the problem of alcohol, or conquers some of the problems like the ones I had, that the person always seems to get involved in some religious cause, halfway house, or something like that? Why is that? I can tell you from my own experience that we have learned that the only place you find happiness is in using God's system--in following God's way. Perhaps people that have lived without God appreciate so much more than people that have grown up in religious structures--what you have in the Church. You do not find happiness living your own system, but only in living God's way and in being a part of God's system.
As perhaps you are beginning to realize as we get into this discussion more thoroughly, there were a variety of things that led me to believe in God. One other thing that I think ought to be mentioned is the fact that I entered a period of military service about this time. For the first time in my life, I came in contact with death. I began to think about the reasonableness of death as I Iooked at it as an atheist. Perhaps a more accurate way to describe this was the way that I had to look at life because of death. As an atheist, I realized that I had to look at life with all of its problems, difficulties, and terrible things that I experienced as the best thing that I could ever look forward to. Yet I realized that as a Christian, I would be able to look at life with all of its joys, beauties, and wonderful things that we all enjoy as the absolute worst that I was ever going to have to experience. Yet from a philosophical point, I began to realize that Christianity offered a great deal in this particular area. I did not get scared into believing in God, but I think this area together with all these other things helped me to realize that there really was quite a change in my understanding of what Christianity and God are all about. I began to recognize that perhaps there were some things about the Church and what it had to offer that were important to me.
About this time in my life, I decided that other religious systems might be as good as the Bible. To check them out, I began reading the Vedas, Koran, Sayings of Buddha, writings of Bahaullah and Zoroaster and found that other religions taught many things I could not accept. There were teachings in their writings concerning what life was like after this life that were unrewarding and unrealistic and there were descriptions of God that were illogical and inconsistent. There were also many scientific inaccuracies in their works. There were many teachings about life and how to live it that were not workable. This included the role and position of women in the Koran, the Holy War concept of Mohammed, the pantheism of nearly all other systems, reincarnation, idol worship, polygamy, and a myriad of ideas which I had expected to find in the Bible, but did not. I began to realize that nothing matched the Bible's system of life. Only in the Bible could I see statements which would stand in the face of the scientific facts that I knew to be true and only the Bible offered a system of life that I felt was reasonable and consistent. I decided that if I ever came to believe in God, it would be a belief based upon the Bible.
The next question was that if I ever became a believer in God, which of all the religious organizations claiming to be Christianity would be the correct one. I recognized that I did not want to be a part of all these traditional religious bodies that taught the error that I had been taught and had believed in my early years, so I started visiting the various religious organizations in southern Indiana at that time. I visited almost every religious organization that I could get into, to try and see what they taught, to see if they followed the Bible and if they understood what the Bible had to say or if they followed men's theologies. My experience was that as I went from one to another, each of them taught something that was not in the Bible. They honored some men above other men, they taught that unreligious writings were equivalent to the Bible and they did not follow the Bible literally and verbally. I had had enough of religious confusion and error. I did not want any more of that sort of thing, so I continued looking. In a real sense, I guess you could say I am still looking--I am still trying to find that true Church. I did find the religious group that seemed to me to follow the Bible very closely. In Bloomington, there was a group of people who met on the corner of 4th and Lincoln streets. They were called the Church of Christ . These people still did not totally follow what I understood to be the biblical system. My challenge today to young people who are Christians would be to do a job of totally restoring New Testament Christianity. This group did have the doctrine of Christianity pretty well restored as I understood it. I recognized that passages like 1 Peter 3:21 ("The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us....") had to be interpreted as meaning what it said, and this group did interpret that in a way that I felt was consistent with that passage. This group did interpret Acts 2:38 ("...be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,...") in a way that I felt was consistent and they did reject men as their source of authority.
As a matter of fact, I remember hearing one of the first lessons that I ever heard in that building preached by a man named Raymond Muncy. Mr. Muncy said, "Now, don't you ever listen to anything any preacher says," and I said amen to that. He went on and talked about how we should not rely upon man and I want to tell you here an now that you should never believe anything any preacher says. Do not ever listen to any preacher, under any circumstance, unless you can find for yourself in the Bible that what that man says is consistent with God's Word. This is, in essence, what Mr. Muncy was saying and I was very impressed by it, but that group of people did not give as they were prospered. Yes, they worshipped according to God's format, but they did not give as they were prospered. They were not involved in teaching their neighbors about Jesus Christ. There was a very small percentage who were active in the work and they certainly did not manifest the kind of love and appreciation for each other that I understood the Bible to teach. The generation before you has restored the doctrine of Christianity--I believe that. However, they have yet to restore the spirit of New Testament Christianity and that is your challenge. Restore the spirit of New Testament Christianity--the love and the concern for the souls of others that the early Church had. I recognized that the Church of Christ was the closest thing that I had seen to what the Bible taught. I determined that if I ever became a Christian, I would become a member of this group--a group that was trying to follow the Bible literally and verbally, that would not accept the teachings of men and would not try to be influenced by the traditions of the past.
I guess the real straw that broke the camel's back occurred some six months later. I was enrolled in my first geology course at Indiana University. The professor was a brilliant, well-known atheist. On the first day of class, in response to a discussion, he made a statement something like, "I'm going to show you that the Bible is a bunch of garbage," and I thought, "Now this is going to be great," because I was getting concerned. I was still saying that I was an atheist to those who knew me well. I was still rejecting God and holding on tenaciously to my lack of belief. It is hard to change a life that has gone a certain direction for years and all of a sudden make it go another direction, I was not ready for that. I thought this man was going to be able to provide me with some arguments that would finally defeat this girl that I had been dating all these years. She was a Christian--although perhaps not as strong as she might have been. I was going to show her that this religion stuff was really a lot of bunk and I was even convinced that I might even be able to show Ray Muncy that belief in God was not realistic. Mr. Muncy was a man who had great patience and knowledge, but he had not been given much of an opportunity to convince or teach me much of anything.
The professor started the class out by showing us the various methods of dating rocks and other parts of the creation. He then asserted that everyone knew that the Bible said the earth was 6,000 years old. I asked where it said that. He replied that he believed it was in Genesis the 52nd chapter. I started looking, not knowing much about the Bible, to Genesis 40, Genesis 49, Genesis 50, Exodus 1--I said, "Wait a minute; Genesis only has 50 chapters." He sputtered around a few minutes, but he never did find that passage. Of course, the Bible does not say the earth is 6,000 years old. The Bible is totally silent on the age of the earth and I realized that. This man made the statement that the Bible says that God created two cocker spaniels, two English terriers, and two German shepherds. We all had a good laugh when we figured out how big the Ark would have to be to hold the 20 million groupings of this kind. Once again, I asked where the word kind was defined in that way. It did not seem to me that the word kind meant that. We looked at it and he finally said he guessed that maybe it did not. 1 Corinthians 15:39 is the only definition of the word kind and that is a very broad definition ("All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another fishes, and another of birds."). Genesis 1 uses the same terminology and the same break-down as 1 Corinthians 15. To make a very, very long story fairly short, when I turned in my final exam the last day of class, I said to this learned professor, "Sir, you have not really shown me any contradiction between what we have studied in this course and in what the Bible has to teach." He jerked my paper away from me and said, "Well, I guess if you really study it, there is no contradiction." I was shocked! I was appalled! Here was a man who had a Ph.D. and was a leading atheist, yet he could not answer the silly questions from an ignorant college junior who was on his side. I remember that February day very clearly. I walked back to my room in the dormitory in a state of shock. I could not believe what had happened. I got to my room about 11:00 and sat on my bed thinking what a stupid, ignorant fool I had been. I had rejected God; I had been dishonest. I had actually been stupid in my response to the evidence available to me. I did not like people who refuse to look at the evidence and draw intelligent conclusions. I did not like people who could not break free of their parents' thinking and do their own thinking. I had always accused the religionists of doing this, yet I recognized that I had been guilty of the same thing. I had refused to be honest--to look at the evidence. I had refused to make comparative choices based upon what was available to me. I was miserable.
Supper time came and I was sitting there. My roommate came in and said, "Are you ready to eat?" I said, "No, I'm not hungry." He said, "Are you sick?" I said, "Yes, I'm sick of me!!! I'm sick of being selfish, I'm sick of using people, I'm sick of being dishonest, I'm sick...." I was still telling him what I was sick about as he left for supper. At the time, I did not understand what was happening, but I do now! That is what repentance is all about--to get sick of a selfish, egotistical, destructive life and turn to God's way--to turn to a life that has value, meaning, and direction. My roommate went on to eat and I just sat there determined that I had to do something. I could no longer sit back and be dishonest and continue to refuse to accept the obvious evidence that was available to me. About 6:30, I got up and started walking toward the building where the Church of Christ met on Wednesday nights. The invitation was extended at the Church of Christ that evening for anyone who wished to accept Christ and come forward. I went forward, understanding that I now believed totally and completely in God. I recognized that I needed to start a new life and be willing to tell people that I accepted the existence of God and believed that Jesus is His Son. I also realized that I was totally and completely lost in my sins and that I needed to be baptized to have forgiveness (as the Bible commanded). I started down the aisle that night and Raymond Muncy went into a mild state of shock. I remember the expression on his face. I do not think he believed that the power of God could ever reach a man as divorced as I was from anything good, decent, and godly. I was baptized into Christ that evening for the remission of my sins, as I understood the Bible to teach. To show you how far I was from God, I called this girl, I had been dating for some six years at that time. I said, "Phyllis, I've become a Christian!" She said, "I don't believe you. You quit lying to me." I had to have the preacher's wife talk to her to convince her that I had, in fact, become a Christian. There are people today who still do not believe it--that the power of God could change a man that was as divorced and alienated from God as I was--but I want to tell you that in many respects, this is just the beginning of this story. God promised His help to those who are His followers. Having a close personal relationship to God and to other followers enable us to conquer enormous problems and do things we could not possibly do on our own (see Philippians 4:13).
I had a lot to overcome. I could not talk without swearing. You could not go to the preacher's house and say pass the @$#%& potatoes. I had to learn a new way of talking, a new way of living, a new set of values, and a new morality, because I had lived in opposition to God. I asked God's help in these things and I found I was able to overcome things I had never been able to overcome before. I have a whole new set of problems--a whole new set of things that I have to work on--but the problems I have today are nothing like the problems I had in the past. If anyone had told me twenty years ago that I would be openly using my limited abilities to publicly convict disbelievers of God's reality, I would have thought they were insane. Nonetheless, God has blessed my feeble efforts in spectacular ways--totally beyond anything I could have ever done.
I want to close this lesson by asking you a very simple question--a question that you need to answer for yourself and that each person needs to answer I suppose nearly every day. Are you an atheist (not perhaps as man would define it, but as God defines it)? Are you an atheist? Oh, I realize you may not be the kind of atheist that I was. Perhaps you are not immoral or hurting people or dishonest or doing the kinds of things that I did. I am thankful that you are not, but do you realize the way Jesus views an atheist? Matthew 12:30 says, "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." What is He saying? He is saying that you are either for God or you are against God. You are either an atheist or a Christian; you cannot be both. I can understand how a man can be an atheist. I have been an atheist a good part of my life. As an atheist, I believed (and still believe) that my life was consistent, reasonable, and defendable.
For a few years now, I have been trying to live what I understand to be the Christian way of life. Once again, I believe my life is consistent, reasonable, and defendable with what I believe, but I will never understand (and if you understand, I wish you would explain it to me) how a man or a woman or a boy or a girl can say, "Yes, I believe in God. Yes, I understand that the Bible is God's Word," and then not do everything and anything within their power to make sure their lives conform to what that God teaches. That is not consistent, not reasonable, and not defendable, yet I am sure there are many people who know that their life is not consistent with God's way of living. Jesus said, "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." Are you for Christ? Are you working for Christ? Is your life radiating the kind of living that Jesus taught? Are you really a Christian or are you an atheist? There is no middle ground. It is my hope that by revealing to you the kind of person I have been and the mistakes I have made, you have realized that God is the only way. It is my prayer that you have realized that there is nothing that can be a part of your life that God cannot help you overcome and that you also realize that there is no better time than right now to begin the Christian way of living. Will you not give yourself to God and live Christ's Way? If you do not know a person or group of people in your community following the Lord, write me and I will try to help you.
John N. Clayton
1555 Echo Valley Dr.
Niles, MI 49120-8738 -
writetoknow
A PRACTICAL MAN'S PROOF OF GOD
The existence of God is a subject that has occupied schools of philosophy and theology for thousands of years. Most of the time, these debates have revolved around all kinds of assumptions and definitions. Philosophers will spend a lifetime arguing about the meaning of a word and never really get there. One is reminded of the college student who was asked how his philosophy class was going. He replied that they had not done much because when the teacher tried to call roll, the kids kept arguing about whether they existed or not.
Most of us who live and work in the real world do not concern ourselves with such activities. We realize that such discussions may have value and interest in the academic world, but the stress and pressure of day-to-day life forces us to deal with a very pragmatic way of making decisions. If I ask you to prove to me that you have $2.00, you would show it to me. Even in more abstract things we use common sense and practical reasoning. If I ask you whether a certain person is honest or not, you do not flood the air with dissertations on the relative nature of honesty; you would give me evidence one way or the other. The techniques of much of the philosophical arguments that go on would eliminate most of engineering and technology if they were applied in those fields.
The purpose of this brief study is to offer a logical, practical, pragmatic proof of the existence of God from a purely scientific perspective. To do this, we are assuming that we exist, that there is reality, and that the matter of which we are made is real. If you do not believe that you exist, you have bigger problems than this study will entail and you will have to look elsewhere.
THE BEGINNING
If we do exist, there are only two possible explanations as to how our existence came to be. Either we had a beginning or we did not have a beginning. The Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1 :1). Most atheists maintain that there was no beginning. The idea is that matter has always existed in the form of either matter or energy; and all that has happened is that matter has been changed from form to form, but it has always been. The Humanist Manifesto says, "Matter is self-existing and not created," and that is a concise statement of the atheist's belief.
The way we decide whether the atheist is correct or not is to see what science has discovered about this question. The picture below on the left represents our part of the cosmos. Each of the disk shaped objects is a galaxy like our Milky Way. All of these galaxies are moving relative to each other. Their movement has a very distinct pattern which causes the distance between the galaxies to get greater with every passing day. If we had three galaxies located at positions A, B. and C in the second diagram below, and if they are located as shown, tomorrow they will be further apart. The triangle they form will be bigger. The day after tomorrow the triangle will be bigger yet. We live in an expanding universe that gets bigger and bigger and bigger with every passing day.
Now let us suppose that we made time run backwards! If we are located at a certain distance today, then yesterday we were closer together. The day before that, we were still closer. Ultimately, where must all the galaxies have been? At a point! At the beginning! At what scientists call a singularity! In 1999, it was discovered that the galaxies are accelerating in their expansion. Any notion that we live in an oscillating or pulsating universe has been dispelled by this discovery. The universe is not slowing down, but speeding up in its motion.
A second proof is seen in the energy sources that fuel the cosmos. The picture to the right is a picture of the sun. Like all stars, the sun generates its energy by a nuclear process known as thermonuclear fusion. Every second that passes, the sun
compresses 564 million tons of hydrogen into 560 million tons of helium with 4 million tons of matter released as energy. In spite of that tremendous consumption of fuel, the sun has only used up 2% of the hydrogen it had the day it came into existence. This incredible furnace is not a process confined to the sun. Every star in the sky generates its energy in the same way. Throughout the cosmos there are 25 quintillion stars, each converting hydrogen into helium, thereby reducing the total amount of hydrogen in the cosmos. Just think about it! If everywhere in the cosmos hydrogen is being consumed and if the process has been going on forever, how much hydrogen should be left?Suppose I attempt to drive my automobile without putting any more gas (fuel) into it. As I drive and drive, what is eventually going to happen? I am going to run out of gas! If the cosmos has been here forever, we would have run out of hydrogen long ago! The fact is, however, that the sun still has 98% of its original hydrogen. The fact is that hydrogen is the most abundant material in the universe! Everywhere we look in space we can see the hydrogen 21-cm line in the spectrum--a piece of light only given off by hydrogen. This could not be unless we had a beginning!
A third scientific proof that the atheist is wrong is seen in the second law of thermodynamics. In any closed system, things tend to become disordered. If an automobile is driven for years and years without repair, for example, it will become so disordered that it would not run any more. Getting old is simple conformity to the second law of thermodynamics. In space, things also get old. Astronomers refer to the aging process as heat death. If the cosmos is "everything that ever was or is or ever will be," as Dr. Carl Sagan was so fond of saying, nothing could be added to it to improve its order or repair it. Even a universe that expands and collapses and expands again forever would die because it would lose light and heat each time it expanded and rebounded.
The atheist's assertion that matter/energy is eternal is scientifically wrong. The biblical assertion that there was a beginning is scientifically correct.
THE CAUSEIf we know the creation has a beginning, we are faced with another logical question--was the creation caused or was it not caused? The Bible states, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Not only does the Bible maintain that there was a cause (a creation) but it also tells us what the cause was. It was God. The atheist tells us that "matter is self-existing and not created." If matter had a beginning and yet was uncaused, one must logically maintain that something would have had to come into existence out of nothing. From empty space with no force, no matter, no energy, and no intelligence, matter would have to become existent. Even if this could happen by some strange new process unknown to science today, there is a logical problem.
In order for matter to come out of nothing, all of our scientific laws dealing with the conservation of matter/energy would have to be wrong, invalidating all of chemistry. All of our laws of conservation of angular momentum would have to be wrong, invalidating all of physics. All of our laws of conservation of electric charge would have to be wrong, invalidating all of electronics and demanding that your TV set not work! Your television set may not work, but that is not the reason! In order to believe matter is uncaused, one has to discard known laws and principles of science. No reasonable person is going to do this simply to maintain a personal atheistic position.
The atheist's assertion that matter is eternal is wrong. The atheist's assertion that the universe is uncaused and selfexisting is also incorrect. The Bible's assertion that there was a beginning which was caused is supported strongly by the available scientific evidence.
THE DESIGN
If we know that the creation had a beginning and we know that the beginning was caused, there is one last question for us to answer--what was the cause? The Bible tells us that God was the cause. We are further told that the God who did the causing did so with planning and reason and logic. Romans 1:20 tells us that we can know God is "through the things he has made." The atheist, on the other hand, will try to convince us that we are the product of chance. Julian Huxley once said:
We are as much a product of blind forces as is the falling of a stone to earth or the ebb and flow of the tides. We have just happened, and man was made flesh by a long series of singularly beneficial accidents.
The subject of design has been one that has been explored in many different ways. For most of us, simply looking at our newborn child is enough to rule out chance. Modern-day scientists like Paul Davies and Frederick Hoyle and others are raising elaborate objections to the use of chance in explaining natural phenomena. A principle of modern science has emerged in the 1980s called "the anthropic principle." The basic thrust of the anthropic principle is that chance is simply not a valid mechanism to explain the atom or life. If chance is not valid, we are constrained to reject Huxley's claim and to realize that we are the product of an intelligent God.
THE NEXT STEP
We have seen a practical proof of God's existence in this brief study. A flood of questions arise at this point. Which God are we talking about? Where did God come from? Why did God create us? How did God create us?
All of these questions and many more are answered in the same way--by looking at the evidence in a practical, common sense way. If you are interested in pursuing these things in more detail, we invite you to contact us. We have available books, audio tapes/CDs, video tapes/DVDs, correspondence courses, and booklets/pamphlets and all can be obtained on loan without cost. You can get more information on what is available from our catalog online or by requesting our catalog from the address below. Click this link for a PDF copy of this article (it will print on 8-1/2 x 14 inch paper). You can request a printed copy of this pamphlet from:
DOES GOD EXIST?
PO Box 2704
South Bend IN 46680-2704
REFERENCES:
Glanz, James, “Accelerating the Cosmos,” Astronomy , October, 1999.
Hoyle, Frederick, The Intelligent Universe , Hol t, Rinehart & Winston, 1983.
Humanist Manifest I and II , Prometheus Books, 700 East Amherst St., Buffalo, NY 14215, 1985.
08/27/2007 -
BurnTheShips
Sorry, I don't answer cut and paste :-).
I asked you, on what should morality be based?
Atheism is not a belief.
Strong Atheism IS a belief. Apparently you are are like that, since belief elicits such hatred in you as you have posted upthread.
Does not believing in Thor make you do bad things?
I don't know, ask Thor. :-) Not believing in God would make me do bad things, yes. Especially since there would not be an objective definition (to me) for "bad". It's OK to be an atheist, but don't claim the privileges of having rights and inherent value as a human being when your worldview is not capable of bestowing those rights and that inherent value. You're in a relativistic swamp. Just be honest.
If it wasn't for a belief in Allah's heaven with 72 virgins for all who kill in the name of Allah, young muslims wouldn't be blowing themselves up in crowded areas. Looks bad to me.
There's some bad mushrooms behind my house. If I eat them they will kill me. Does this mean that all mushrooms are bad?
Well your Christian president (oh, don't tell me, he's not a TRUE Christian!)
I can't speak for another.
is making little effort to reduce the carbon emissions coming from your country while other (less religious) countries are trying to do their part. If you're not doing so already, can you please join us in trying to get him to see sense?
I don't know...seems a lot of smart people don't see your "sense". I live in a hurricane zone and just yesterday our top U.S. hurricane meteorologist, William Gray, expressed a good deal of skepticism on the matter of carbon emissions/glowball worming. Not saying it isn't true, but it is not settled science. It would kind of suck to scrap our economy over a fairy tale.
Slavery was a Christian movement.
LOL. Study your history. Slavery had always existed up to that point. The Hebrews were slaves once. The early Christians were often slaves. If it was "Christian" how come it was universal and predated Christianity? As for the whole Cain issue and institutionalized racism, some people will look in Scripture and try to find a justification for whatever they want to believe.
Bad generalizing on my part, sorry. You're keeping a system alive in which other Christians are trying to get rules passed, if you're not actively trying to do anything yourself.
#1 Christians (even in name only) are citizens of their respective countries.
#2 Christians vote, it is their god-given right.
#3 Like other people, Christians vote their consciences.
#4 They outnumber people like you (here in the US) 10 to 1.
#5 Convince them or get used to it. (And you are not very convincing)
Are you pushing back against those who want creationism taught in schools with us too?
Nice try to bait me.Creationism is not science because it is not empirically falsifiable. Ergo it should not be taught in a science class, but in a theology/philosophy/religion class. Simple.
Faith is closed minded. People don't use faith in other parts of their lives (like science), only for God. Are you open to the possibility you could be wrong? How could someone show you you were wrong, when you don't listen to reason? Looks closed minded to me.
Your argument was that belief stifles science. I have demonstrated with that list that it does not. I wager that a lot of the brilliant people on that list would not agree with you regarding faith not being a part of their entire lives.
I will admit there is a moral grey area when you admit there is a moral grey area regarding the millions of sperm that don't make it to the egg but die, and every woman's period. Look at all the 'life' killed there!
Neither a sperm nor an egg ever becomes human.
Tertullian: "homo est qui venturus est." [trans: he who will become man is man]
The ancient ancient fossils of homo sapiens and other hominids in no way detract from my belief in God. The fossil record shows a lot of support for the theory of evolution and I do not contest that.
I'm open to the idea God exists.
No you are not, you lie and I quote you on this very thread:
There is a river of hate held for Christian teachings veiled very thinly
YOU----> I don't try to hide it.
You are just another bitter angry atheist. And reason alone does not engender those illogical emotions, to channel Spock. Must be an illogical belief system
Cheers.
Burn -
writetoknow
What Science Can't Prove Gregory Koukl If science can't even disprove the existence of unicorns, how can it disprove the existence of God? I often hear the comment, "Science has proved there is no God." Don't ever be bullied by such a statement. Science is completely incapable of proving such a thing. I'm not saying that because I don't like science, but rather because I know a little about how science works. Science operates on induction. The inductive method entails searching out things in the world and drawing generalized conclusions about those things based on observation. Scientists can only draw conclusions on what they find, not on what they can't find. Science, by its very nature, is never capable of proving the non-existence of anything. For example, can science prove there are no unicorns? Absolutely not. How could science ever prove that unicorns don't exist? All science can do is say that scientists may have been looking for unicorns for a long time and never found any. They might therefore conclude that no one is justified in believing that unicorns exist. They might show how certain facts considered to be evidence for unicorns in the past can be explained adequately by other things. They may invoke Occam's Razor to favor a simpler explanation for the facts than that unicorns exist. But scientists can never prove unicorns themselves don't exist. Since science, by its very nature, is never capable of proving the non-existence of anything, one can never accurately claim that science has proven God doesn't exist. That's a misuse of the discipline. Such a claim would require omniscience. The only way one can say a thing does not exist is not by using the inductive method, but by using a deductive method, by showing that there's something about the concept itself that is contradictory. I can confidently say for sure that no square circles exist. Why? Not because I've searched the entire universe to make sure that there aren't any square circles hiding behind a star somewhere. No, I don't need to search the world to answer that question. The concept of square circles entails a contradictory notion, and therefore can't be real. A thing cannot be a square and be circular (i.e., not a square) at the same time. A thing cannot be a circle and squared (i.e., not a circle) at the same time. Therefore, square circles cannot exist. The laws of rationality (specifically, the law of non-contradiction) exclude the possibility of their existence. This means, by the way, that all inductive knowledge is contingent. One cannot know anything inductively with absolute certainty. The inductive method gives us knowledge that is only probably true. Science, therefore, cannot be certain about anything in an absolute sense. It can provide a high degree of confidence based on evidence that strongly justifies scientific conclusions, but its method never allows certainty. If you want to know something for certain, with no possibility of error--what's called apodictic certainty in philosophy--you must employ the deductive method. There have been attempts to use the deductive method to show that certain ways of thinking about God are contradictory. The deductive problem of evil is like that. If God were all good, the argument goes, He would want to get rid of evil. If God were all powerful, He'd be able to get rid of evil. Since we still have evil, then God either is not good or not powerful, or neither, but He can't be both. If this argument is sustained, then Christianity is defeated, because contradictory things (the belief that God is both good and powerful in the face of evil) cannot be true at the same time. The job of the Christian at this point is to show there isn't a necessary contradiction in their view of God, that genuine love does not require that there be no evil or suffering, and that preventing such a thing is a not function of God's power. I think that can be done, and I've addressed that issue in another place (see The Strength of God and the Problem of Evil ). So don't be cowed or bullied by any comments that science has proven there is no God. Science can't do that because it uses the inductive method, not the deductive method. When you hear someone make that claim, don't contradict them. Simply ask this question: "How can science prove that someone like God doesn't exist? Explain to me how science can do that. Spell it out." Some take the position that if science doesn't give us reason to believe in something, then no good reason exists. That's simply the false assumption of scientism. You can even choose something you have no good reason to believe actually does exist--unicorns, or leprechauns, for that matter. Make that person show you, in principle, how science is capable of proving that any particular thing does not exist. He won't be able to. All he'll be able to show you is that science hasn't proven certain things do exist, not that they don't exist. There's a difference. Some take the position that if science doesn't give us reason to believe in something, then no good reason exists. That's simply the false assumption of scientism. Don't ever concede the idea that science is the only method available to learn things about the world. Remember the line in the movie Contact ? Ellie Arroway claimed she loved her father, but she couldn't prove it scientifically. Does that mean she didn't really love him? No scientific test known to man could ever prove such a thing. Ellie knew her own love for her father directly and immediately. She didn't have to learn it from some scientific test. There are things we know to be true that we don't know through empirical testing--the five senses-- but we do know through other ways. Science seems to give us true, or approximately true, information about the world, and it uses a technique that seems to be reliable, by and large. (Even this, though, is debated among philosophers of science.) However, science is not the only means of giving us true information about the world; its methodology limits it significantly. One thing science cannot do, even in principle, is disprove the existence of anything. So when people try to use science to disprove the existence of God, they're using science illegitimately. They're misusing it, and this just makes science look bad. The way many try to show God doesn't exist is simply by asserting it, but that's not proof. It isn't even evidence. Scientists sometimes get away with this by requiring that scientific law--natural law--must explain everything. If it can't explain a supernatural act or a supernatural Being then neither can exist. This is cheating, though. Scientists haven't proven God doesn't exist; they've merely assumed it in many cases. They've foisted this truism on the public, and then operated from that point of view. They act as if they've really said something profound, when all they've done is given you an unjustified opinion. This is a transcript of a commentary from the radio show "Stand to Reason," with Gregory Koukl. It is made available to you at no charge through the faithful giving of those who support Stand to Reason. Reproduction permitted for non-commercial use only. ©1997 Gregory Koukl For more information, contact Stand to Reason at 1438 East 33rd St., Signal Hill, CA 90755 (800) 2-REASON (562) 595-7333 www.str.org Resources for Additional Study Title Author Contents Price Why I'm Not an Evolutionist Gregory Koukl CD with pdf study notes $7.95 Harvesting the Unborn: The Ethics of Fetal Tissue and Embryo Stem-cell Research (Masters Series 2001) Scott Klusendorf 2 cassettes $8.95 Theism, Atheism, and the Big Bang Cosmology (Masters Series 2000) William Lane Craig 2 cassettes $8.95 © 2005 Stand to Reason ARR | 1438 East 33rd Street, Signal Hill, CA 90755 Voicemail (800) 2-REASON TM | Local phone (562) 595-7333 | Fax (562) 595-7332 | [email protected]
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BurnTheShips
Dude, can you please stop spamming this board with these massive cut and paste posts?
Geez!
Are "miracles" in the Bible really supposed to make me have faith?
If this world were our whole existence, this would be a valid argument. So to an atheist, it makes good sense. But if we are eternal children of God, and are trying to live our lives in such a way as to gain infinite and eternal happiness, the travails of this world are essentially meaningless. All that matters is that we love and take good care of people less fortunate. Nothing ever prevents us from doing this.
If God already knows what we are going to do and if we are going to go to heaven or hell, how can we have free will? 
compresses 564 million tons of hydrogen into 560 million tons of helium with 4 million tons of matter released as energy. In spite of that tremendous consumption of fuel, the sun has only used up 2% of the hydrogen it had the day it came into existence. This incredible furnace is not a process confined to the sun. Every star in the sky generates its energy in the same way. Throughout the cosmos there are 25 quintillion stars, each converting hydrogen into helium, thereby reducing the total amount of hydrogen in the cosmos. Just think about it! If everywhere in the cosmos hydrogen is being consumed and if the process has been going on forever, how much hydrogen should be left?