|
A Practical
Man's Proof of God
In the second decade of the twenty-first
century, there has been a growing aggressive
campaign by atheists to destroy religion. Much
of what atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam
Harris, Michael Shermer, and the like say is
absolutely true. The problem with their attacks
have been that the attacks are leveled against
man-made religions of various kinds, and there
is no question but that religious wars,
intolerance, and persecution have plagued
mankind throughout the centuries. [more]
A Help in
Understanding What God Is
To help the reader comprehend the nature of
God, I would like to borrow an analogy from the
book Flatland
by Edwin Abbott.* Abbott was a
mathematician and the model is geometric in
nature. It was originally written in the
19th century for the purposes we are using it
for here. Flatland is the story of a man
who lives in a two dimensional world--like a
sheet of paper. In the surface of the
paper there is only length and width-there is no
such thing as thickness. You and I are
three-dimensional beings-we have length and
width and frequently considerable
thickness. You cannot get me, a
three-dimensional being, into a two-dimensional
sheet of paper. You can draw a front view
of me (a portrait), but that is not the whole
me. You can draw a top view of me which
because I am bald, ends up being three
concentric circles, but that is not the whole
me. If you and I were to look at the man
in Flatland, we would see him as a .... [more]
What
Was the Cause of the Beginning?
It is assumed that the reader has read
the first two booklets in this series, one titled
A Practical
Man's Proof of God and the other A Help in
Understanding What God Is. In
these two booklets, we have established that all
scientific evidence supports the fact that there
was a beginning, and that the beginning was
caused. We have also shown that the creator
of time, space, and energy has to be something
that is outside of time, space, and energy.
The nature of the cause cannot be in the
three-dimensional physical world in which we live
and must be outside of time to have created
time. [more]
Who
Created God?
One question which inevitably comes up in a
discussion of this nature is what is the origin
of God? If God created matter/energy, and
designed the systems that have propelled matter
into its present arrangement, who or what
accomplished that for God? Why is it any
more reasonable to believe that God has always
been than it is to say that matter has always
been? As Carl Sagan has said, "If we say
that God has always been, why not save a step
and conclude that the universe has always been?"
(Carl Sagan, Cosmos,
[New York: Random House, Inc., 1980], p.
257). [more]
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. [more]
God's
Revelation in His Rocks and in His Word
This paper is a part of the Does God Exist?
program which was begun in 1968 by John Clayton
as an attempt to show that intelligent,
scientifically literate, thinking people can and
should believe in God and in the Bible as His
Word. Your author, John Clayton, is a
science teacher who began his teaching career in
the public schools of South Bend, Indiana, in
1959 and has taught physics, chemistry, geology,
astronomy, and physical science since that
time. Since I was an atheist for many
years and came to believe in God through my
studies in science, it frustrated me to see
students and parents who viewed faith and
science as enemies. [more]
The
Problem
of Human Suffering
Almost every time that I am involved in a
lectureship on a college campus or a similar
place I have people — young people usually — who
will come to me and say, “Well all right, you’ve
shown us that there is some evidence for God’s
existence, but if there is a God and if He is a
loving and merciful God, how do you explain the
problems of suffering and death and all the
tragedies that happen to people?” Why is it that
these things occur? I believe any question that
man can ask has a reasonable answer — at least
an answer that is as consistent with God’s
existence as it is in opposition to God’s
existence. And so, in the problem of human
suffering and the problem of death and
tragedies — things that happen to all of
us — there are answers. [more]
The
Whiner's Guide to Chemotherapy
This is the epilogue for those of you who flip
to the end of the book. I did make
it! I'm 62!!! The exclamation points
are because I didn't think I would see 50.
God is so awesome! God would be awesome
even if I had not seen 50, but it is amazing how
He has made my cancers turn out for good--both
mine and His. It feels great to feel
great! Thank You, God! [more]
The
Real
Jesus of History
Was the real Jesus of history one and
the same as the Christ of faith whom we read about
in the New Testament and worship in the
church? Was Jesus really raised from the
dead? Is he really the divine Lord of
lords? Or is it possible that the portrait
of the divine Son of God is an exaggeration, at
best, or a complete fabrication, at worst, of the
original Jesus? Could the one whom
Christians worship be merely a mythological
creation or is he real?
These questions have exercised many great minds
and have been the dominant issue in New Testament
studies during this century. Between 1910
and 1950 approximately 350 lives of Jesus were
published in the English language alone.
Since then the numbers have increased
significantly.Not only are Christians writing
about Jesus, but also Communists, Jews, atheists
and agnostics are taking up their pens to paint a
portrait of Jesus. [more]
|
