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]
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This is the kind of book that drives theologian and philosophers crazy. It is written by a man with no PhD after his name, no training in philosophy, and no credibility in the academic community. His training and experience have been in secondary education, and his professional career was spent in a public school system that has not been held up as exemplary by anyone. His education was in science at a state university with further training in physics, chemistry, and earth science under the guidance of the National Science Foundation. [more]
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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]
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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, was 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] |
by Joel Stephen Williams
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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