Does God Exist?

A N N O U N C I N G  !

Our March/April 2008 Online edition is now available.


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Lectureships 2008
There have been some recent changes in the lecture schedule.
Mar.
28-30
Silver Spring,
MD
301-593-9241
Apr.
3-6 Sundridge, ON Canada 705-384-0597
Apr.
13-15
E. Sparta, OH
330-866-2552
Apr.
25-27
Lamar, CO
719-336-7108
May
2-4
Kentwood, MI
616-915-2224
May
17-18
Randolph, NJ
973-366-9122
June
13-15
Sulphur Springs, TX
903-885-1531
Call to confirm before going to any of the above programs.

This journal is a part of a program of service titled Does God Exist? The purpose of the program is to provide thinking, seeking people with scientific evidence that God does exist and that the Bible is His Word. It is our conviction that all men can logically, and rationally believe in God. In addition to this bimonthly journal, the Does God Exist? program offers DVDs and video tapes, CDs and audio tapes, courses,  books, and other materials. These materials are offered on a loan basis or at our cost. We also are more than willing to correspond with you and answer any specific question(s) you might have. If you would like further information on borrowing or purchasing these materials, we would be glad to send a catalog to you. Send request to:

Does God Exist?
PO Box 2704
South Bend, IN 46680-2704




Last update:  5/9/2008

SPECIALS
You can download full-length programs of our Does God Exist? video series.  They are in an MP4 format, which should be viewable with programs such as, iTunes, RealPlayer, Quicktime Player, and Windows Media Player.  Go to  our catalog for more information.
Our Does God Exist? CDs normally cost $2.00 each or $25.00 for the set of 14 CDs.  We are offering them now for $1.00 each or $14.00 for the set.  We are selling an album for the 14 at $5.00.  Please use our order blank for ordering these!


Does God Exist? Suffers Another Loss
Early this morning, Phyllis Clayton lost her battle after a life living with diabetes for about sixty years, since the age of ten.  She lived through many complications of diabetes:  insulin reactions and blood sugar problems; eye problems; diabetic neuropathy; kidney function; heart problems; osteoporosis, circulation problems, and diabetic ulcers.  She used to quote Dr. John Warvel, Methodist Hospital, Indianapolis, often, “Control your diabetes to live, not live simply to control your diabetes.”

Because of this guiding principle she was able to live a full life.  She was married to John Clayton for almost fifty years.  She and John raised three children:  a son, Timothy of South Bend, Indiana, who has multiple handicaps;  a daughter, Cathy Haught of Abilene, Texas;  a daughter,  Wendy Howe of Irving, Texas.  Cathy and Wendy have blessed Phyllis and John with five adored grandchildren.

Phyllis graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington.  Early in her career she worked as a dietician and cafeteria manager with the South Bend Community School Corporation.  In the late 1960s John began the Does God Exist? program of which Phyllis was an integral part.  She worked in many facets of the program and was very supportive of John’s traveling and lecture program.  She helped with the publication of the Does God Exist? bulletin as well as many other publications of the program.  Recently she authored a book about living with diabetes--Living Successfully with Diabetes.

She was an active member in many churches, recently with the Dowagiac Church of Christ in Dowagiac, Michigan.  She was a great inspiration to everyone who knew her.

There will be a memorial service at Hickey Funeral Home, 17131 Cleveland Rd, South Bend, Indiana 46635, on Thursday, May 22, 2008, at 7:30 p.m. with visitation beginning at 6:30 p.m.  In lieu of flowers donations can be made in her memory to the American Diabetes Association or to Does God Exist?, PO Box 2704, South Bend, IN 46680-2704.
May 9, 2008
Publications

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.*  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]

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]

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]


Charts
Childrens materials
Online Correspondence Course

The objective of this course is to (1) provide a foundation that will meet naturalistic and atheistic teachings; (2) provide up-to-date, logical, and factual data so that students can answer questions that tend to disturb them in trying to deal with their friends and the world in which they live; and (3) provide teachers with a wide-range, accurate, open-ended method of teaching this area of great concern. 

Bimonthly Journal March/April 2008
This issue of the Does God Exist? bulletin is available as a PDF file.  If you would like the PDF file in a booklet form, so that you can print it on both sides of a sheet of paper and form a booklet, please e-mail us at marcusen@michiana.org and request the PDF booklet for this month.  You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to read this file.
MarApr08 Cover

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