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A
Practical Man's Proof of God
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. [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.1
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]
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?” (Cosmos, 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
Whiners 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]
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