What Educated Snobs Can Learn From A Madman About Christianity

Recently I read a post by the President of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, Dr. Albert Mohler, about recent conversions of a few pastors to open atheism through the influence of an organization promoted by atheist Richard Dawkins called the Clergy Project. Dr. Mohler, a man I admire, uncharacteristically betrayed a bit of snobbery when he twice pointed out that one of the Clergy Project converts had “no college degree” and “no education”.

My first response when I read this was, “Isn’t that the same accusation they (some educated atheists) make about most Christians?” They say we are a generally uneducated people. And their snobbish accusation is actually true to some extent. If by “educated” some atheists and Dr. Mohler mean a college graduate then that would leave out the majority of Americans since only 30% of Americans have a Bachelor’s Degree while a little over 10% have a Post-graduate degree. A Barna Research Group study revealed that 40% of US pastors have no formal theological training.

In the world of the educated the uneducated are sometimes given little credibility and often marginalized by the gate-keepers of the educated class. When it comes to the Christian faith of the uneducated there may even be less credibility granted.

Christians should always avoid playing the education card in a debate. Not just because it is an endless argument that lends nothing to the exposure of truth, but because it runs counter to some basic principles laid out in the Scriptures. One principle is: God is intentionally unimpressed by our education. Re-read 1 Corinthians 1:17-21

Don't get me wrong, unlike the pastor who said in the preface of his sermon, “I'm like Charles Spurgeon (the great 19^th century Baptist pastor) I ain't got no education neither!” I don't consider ignorance in ministry to be a virtue. It is true that Charles Spurgeon had no formal theological education, but, as one who has read much of what he wrote, he was a broadly read, amazingly gifted, highly educated man. So while I wholeheartedly support balanced formal education I must state that it isn't the door to Christianity and has nothing to do with what it means to be a Christian. I'll illustrate this by a man who was arguably the first non-Jewish missionary commissioned by our Lord in the New Testament: the “maniac of Gadara”.

This pitiful madman... this “maniac” mentioned in Mark 5:1-20 most likely could not read or write, but he was not uneducated when it came to the power of Jesus Christ. His testimony about that one experience in his life shook the people who knew him because they knew who he had been before Jesus walked into his life.

I'm sure there were people who questioned his credibility because of his background, but this former madman knew the extent of what Jesus really did for him that day. Imagine an atheist trying to tell him there is no God. It would forever be his experience with Jesus that anchored his soul, not his future education. In fact he would attribute any future learning to Jesus putting him in his “right mind” when he saved him.

He asked Jesus if he could go with him and Jesus told him no, then sent him back to his people to tell his story of God's merciful power in his life. In this we see the essence of true vital Christianity and, therefore, Christian ministry: a saving experience with Jesus. A Pastor who has not had a life changing experience with Jesus will never be a fit Christian minister no matter what level of formal education he obtains. The passion that flows from this personal experience with Jesus becomes the energy for Christian growth and learning.

I remember when I, nothing much more than an animal, first experienced Jesus’ power. I didn’t have a High School diploma at the time I met Him, so the credibility of my faith is, I'm sure, suspect for many. But, like the “maniac of gadara” I know who I was and what Jesus did for me. I have spent 40 years since that day studying, educating myself, and being taught by others, but if all I have learned since that day were put together it would not come close to what happened on that single day. I am a beast without Jesus, and even if I had a PHD when I met Him it would be meaningless compared to the treasure Jesus gave me. Doubt as you might… this former maniac knows...

The Problem Of God 10 - 1 > 10

God is an unpredictable problem to many in our world. He just can't consciously exist in their world, or He must at least be kept consciously out of the concrete operational side of human existence. To give Him a place in the conscious side of life creates a nonsensical equation... an irreconcilable problem.

This is a problem well known to the agnostic thinker. Here it is: if God is allowed to enter conscious human existence then an immeasurable factor has invaded a world of physical laws. There is no way around it. It is well known that if there is a Creator He must be all-powerful, at least within that creation, and transcend what He has created. Any involvement then in His creation after physical laws have been put into place is without a measurable cause and is unpredictable, so nothing in the creation can be considered to be permanent, stable, or absolute.

The moment a believer says God did this or that the believer has declared that there is a factor in their world, and the world of everyone else, that is without a measurable cause and is unpredictable. God is an independent all powerful intelligence who can do whatever He wants. But math and science are all about measurement, verification, and prediction. So for many, these days, God is not welcome in the realm of the measurable.

Let me illustrate the problem with a verse which the prophet Malachi says came directly from the Creator:

Malachi 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

The word tithe means a tenth. Under the law given by God to Israel there was a requirement that every citizen give a tenth of their income to God's “storehouse”. This post is not a discussion about tithing, it is about the implications of the equation of tithing. The Creator has stated in this verse that if one tenth of all income is given "into the storehouse" He will return more than that tenth back to the giver in the form of "a blessing”. Here's the equation:

10 – 1 > 10 (ten minus one is greater than 10)

That equation doesn't fit physical law. This is not an investment that bears measurable interest or brings dividends. The 1 is fully separated from the 10. It is given away. From the viewpoint of physical law it is an impossible equation. It is based solely on a statement from the Creator that He will act on behalf of the giver from outside the laws of economics. His action will be physically unpredictable and the cause will be immeasurable. This is what happens if God is in this world... and He is in this world. This is what faith is all about:

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

For this equation to be true the Creator must have access to and, therefore, control the economies of this world. He can change the math into an unpredictable equation. The implications of just this one verse-and there are many more-are earth-shaking, especially considering the current world economic turmoil. God is not the problem... we are the problem, He is the solution. And... He can do more than you think He can. Open your mind to God.

New Research Has Disproved A Major Theory Which Supported Evolution

A theory that has topped the evolutionary pre-DNA theories, the Metabolism Theory, has been permanently debunked in a study released by a team of influential scientists and published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. One of the greatest problems atheistic evolution faces in the beginning of life is RNA or DNA replication. This is a problem mentioned by former atheist Antony Flew in There Is A God which helped lead him out of atheism.

Evolution requires that one of the first cells to exist must have been able to start a continual cycle of replication. Supporters of atheistic evolution hypothesize that there must be some connection or series of steps between that first cell and the non-biological substance from which it evolved. Until this study the foremost theory was the Metabolism theory which “allows for adaptation and evolution without any molecular replication.” There were also a number of other related theories that have now crumbled after this new research has come to light. These scientists proved that these “chemical networks” at the base of the Metabolism theory actually degrade instead of moving higher up the evolutionary tree. The report says at this time “no plausible chemical explanation exists for how these processes occurred.”

There must have been an agent to bring the biological structures of replication and reproduction into existence. There is no other plausible answer. Without an agent the first big problem is a pathway for a non-living substance to become a living substance by chance, but then the more complex problem is this new living substance must have had the biological structure to perpetually replicate itself. These two stand or fall together, because you cannot have one without the other and still have evolution. All the steps had to happen in perfect order the first time to bring non-living matter all the way to living replicating existence. The probability of this happening by chance is so infinitesimally close to 0 as to make the notion ludicrous.

Some say I shouldn't argue from the gaps in evolutionary theory... but this isn't a developmental gap in the process of evolution, it is a primary question upon which agency in evolution rests, and is a fundamental disagreement between deism and atheism. The numbers, logic, and revelation are on the side of deism. There is a Creator.

Big Numbers Leave Little To Chance

I am always amused when an atheistic evolutionist begins throwing around “billions” of years to support the contention that random mutation brought life to where it is today. I read the same numbers they read... and the probabilities just don't add up in their favor. The numbers are so big that they leave little to chance.

It's the big picture numbers that cause atheistic evolutionists so much difficulty. Let me explain. There are at least three big biological questions that have yet to be precisely answered. The estimated answers to these questions will help us see the Big Picture.

1. How many living things are on the earth? Let me give you one writer’s answer: “There are 3 x 10 to the 33rd power (3,000 quintillion) individual living things on this planet.” Other estimates are equally astronomical. These are numbers we can’t get our minds around. Counting the living things on the earth is like counting the grains of sand on the earth or stars in the sky.
2. How many species exist? The modern definition of a species is a “set of all individuals between which there can be gene flow.” Gene flow means an animal can mate, or could mate if functionally able, and not produce sterile offspring. The National Science Foundation Tree of Life project says there are 1.75 million identified species. NSF also says, “the 1.75 million known species are only 10 percent of the total species on earth.” That means there are potentially 17.5 million species on earth at this time. Another scientific estimate is that 99% of all species that have ever lived are extinct. This means there are estimates that 1.75 billion species have existed.
3. There is one more issue that remains to be solved. How many unique and common biological systems exist? How many unique systems exist in individual species? If there is an average of 5 per species (and there are arguably many more that that) then the number of unique biological systems on this earth today is 87.5 million. Taking potentially all species in history this number could be as high as 8.75 billion unique systems.

Here’s the problem. Modern science estimates the earth is 7.5 billion years old. They say the earth was without life for the first 3.5 billion of those years. That leaves 4 billion years with developing life on earth. But for 3.5 billion of those years there was no life that could be seen with the naked eye. Modern evolutionary biology teaches that all life and modern species large enough to be seen with the human eye evolved over a 500 million year span.

This means the most complex systems went from non-existent to existent during a 500 million year period. 100 million of those years only produced invertebrate marine life. But let's just work with the 4 billion years figure. If we divide 4 billion by the estimated number of species that have lived on the earth, 1.75 billion, shear chance would have to produce 1 new species an average of every 2.2 years. If we just take the known species on earth today then it is 1 new species every 228 years. And we haven't even discussed the complexities of the evolution of species or the "Cambrian explosion". When we divide by the number of unique systems the range is 1 new biological system every 5 months to 45 years. That doesn't include the complex issues of the integration of systems within a species. The associated probabilities tied to these numbers are so close to 0 as to be almost non-existent. And... atheistic evolutionists know this.

It is numbers like these that helped convert the great atheist, Antony Flew, to deism. He said, “I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source. Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than a half century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science. Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature.”

Atheistic evolution requires us to believe this all happened by chance… No… The numbers don't hold up... and they never have. I’ll take God. Considering the numbers I often wonder how many modern atheistic evolutionists are really closet deists.

An Atheist At Thanksgiving

An atheist at Thanksgiving helped open my young mind to God. Let me explain. When I was a child Thanksgiving week was usually spent with my paternal grandparents on their windswept northwest Texas farm. My grandfather, a veteran of World War 1, was a man I loved and deeply admired. He was an attentive, loving grandfather, and was a gentle man in all his ways. As an adult I never enter the Thanksgiving season without remembering him, and his atheism.

He participated in all the Thanksgiving family gatherings. While he would politely discuss his unbelief at other times, he always refrained from such discussions during the holidays. But I would see a slight change come over him during these times. It wasn’t anger or irritation I saw… the best I can describe it is a look of loneliness, or perhaps emptiness. This was very uncharacteristic of him at other times.

I once asked my grandmother if grandpa was OK, she replied that the holidays can be difficult for someone “who thinks like your grandpa”. Grandpa’s silent struggle at Thanksgiving actually caused me to think more about God than I normally would on any other occasion. The coldness of God’s absence from his life on days set aside to celebrate His presence moved me. To believe there is no God to thank for all of this seemed so awkward to me, so… empty. All this was going on in the mind of a boy who claimed no religion.

My grandfather’s atheism on Thanksgiving inclined me to sort of let God in… and He did come in… I haven’t spent a Thanksgiving without God in my life for almost forty years. But if my grandchildren ever see a change come over me on Thanksgiving day, it is not an empty loneliness they will see, but sadness at the memory of my Grandfather who never experienced the warmth of a real Thanksgiving. Strangely it was his emptiness that pushed me toward God. God is always at work… even where atheists dwell. And I am thankful.

The Burden Of Eternity

Matthew 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

I still remember the period in my pre-teen years when I began mentally struggling with the physical and soulish concepts of eternity, a struggle that continued throughout my teen years. My turmoil over the physical side of eternity came with the realization that I will die.

What bothered me about this reality then is the same thing that bothers me now, this may sound a bit strange, but it was not the pain surrounding death that concerned me, it was the realization that the world would continue on... and I wouldn't be here to see it. 

One of the basic tenets of the brand of atheism I was exposed to was that matter is eternal, so I knew that the moment I breathed my last breath nothing in this material world would change... it would just continue on... and on... and on. (By eternal I mean without beginning or end. Orthodox Christianity teaches that matter had a beginning, but is now everlasting. A basic philosophical argument between deism and atheism is not what will be the state of matter, but what was the state of matter.)

This mental exercise over the physical reality of existence immediately led me to contemplate the unique nature of human existence in the cosmos. Are we just dust, or is there something non-physical about us that is as everlasting as matter? This led me to contemplate the existence of God and what He is if He exists. My conclusion, and one I still hold to today, was that there is a God, and this God must be a non-material transcendent intelligence, and the creator of all things including us.

This realization, for me, elevated conscious existence to a higher level than matter as the only knowable eternal substance. Could it be possible that I, not my body... but my being, might transcend matter and exist beyond death? I came to the conclusion that it was not only possible, but probable. This deepened my struggle.

I skimmed a book years ago by a man named Alexander. I remember almost nothing about the book except his comments about the burdens a spiritual person will carry through life. One of the heaviest burdens he said was the "burden of eternity." A spiritual person sees past this life… there is more than this… and this knowledge is the greatest burden of this existence. I felt this was a good expression of what had happened to me. The realizations that I mentioned above gave me this burden of eternity, and that weight has never left me.

It is a burden for self which manifests in the question: What will be the state of my being after this life? How can I know what the Creator has in store for me? I knew that the answer would not be found in the physical, it must be revealed mind to mind. And that revelation must be in harmony with what is visibly revealed in this created conscious existence: absolute law, justice, conscience and guilt, mercy that honors law and is, therefore, not capricious. This precise synthesis of revelation I found uniquely in Jesus and His Gospel.

But this realization of eternity also manifests itself as a burden for others... and the loving question that ever flows from that burden: “Where will you spend eternity?”

We Are All Born Ignorant: I Just Didn't Stay That Way

Forgive me... I just couldn't resist. The title is intended to be a tongue in cheek counter to atheist David McAfee's article: We Are All Born Atheists: I Just Stayed That Way.  I mean no disrespect by the title, but I do believe my title is more accurate when dealing with the state of my birth, and everyone else's birth. My response to his article is posted below:

Interesting reading. I experienced the exact opposite while having some similar life experiences. My parents also divorced when I was 2. I was raised far from God and was taught atheism, as far back as I have memory, by my paternal grandfather. But I have no memory of a time when I didn't know there was a God. Unlike you I was not exposed to organized Religion/Christianity to any substantial degree until my early teens.

The notion that "we are all born atheists" is a little disingenuous, since we all know we are born cognitively ignorant of almost everything. I don't mean this sarcastically, but you could have just as easily entitled your article, "We are all born ignorant." Thankfully, none of us completely stay that way.

As I developed and matured from birth it was my exposure to atheism contrasted to what I saw and experienced around me that pushed me toward God. I wrote about this in my post An Atheist At Thanksgiving.

As we develop in life we make decisions. When exposed to God we both clearly made decisions based not in the ignorance of our births, but in the knowledge we had attained since. My preliminary experiences with God felt overwhelmingly right. I did, and still do, have some complications with religion, but I was inexplicably drawn to God.

The late philosopher Antony Flew, perhaps the most influential atheist of the 20th century, seems to have had a similar experience to yours, and he grew up a preacher's son. Mr. Flew continued to be open to follow the evidence wherever it led him. I believe I have done the same, and, I expect, so do you... but our condition at birth has little to do with truth and our quest. Flew also postulated the notion that atheism is a basic natural condition, but the evidence seems to have led him to deism, which means, for him, that the evidence overwhelmed his natural or birth condition. I briefly discuss his evidence in a series of 5 posts beginning with An Atheist No More.

I believe the evidence for God is overwhelming and compelling... and it seems I have always believed this...

Hard Faith

Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. John 4:48

For some of us faith seems to come easy, but for others it comes hard. Some people need more evidence than others. We see this not only in this passage, but also in Jesus' dialog with Thomas after His resurrection, and in the conversion of Saul, who later became the Apostle Paul.

There is a tendency for each to look down on the other. One may impatiently see the other as stubborn, arrogant, and willfully blind to truth. Those so accused may counter that the other is ignorant, gullible, and stubbornly blind to truth. An endless struggle...

But it must be remembered that this man was standing in front of Jesus. He wasn't there with anger, hatred, or malice like some others who Jesus handled differently. His presence was evidence he was open to the possibility that Jesus may be who and what He claimed.

Jesus simply verbalized his observation about the man, then provided the evidence. The man saw the initial evidence, then, still unconvinced, questioned the evidence further, and finally believed. This led to the conversion of his whole house!

Where will the interested skeptics come for evidence? They will come to Christ's followers. May Christ Jesus give us patience, and use us beyond our ability.

An Atheist No More 4th And Last

This is my forth and last post in this series, and, perhaps, the most important. One of the reasons theism is so frightening to an atheist is not so much the reality of God's existence, but the questions which logically follow belief in His existence. Antony Flew opens the next question in the second paragraph below. Has God revealed himself in ways other than physical creation? Has He spoken to us? Has He told us things we could not learn any other way? Yes... He has. My blog is not about atheism... it is about that revelation... that light. I try to follow it where ever it leads.

"Now, all this might sound abstract and impersonal. How, it might be asked, do I as a person respond to the discovery of an ultimate Reality that is an omnipresent and omniscient Spirit? I must say again that the journey to my discovery of the Divine has thus far been a pilgrimage of reason. I have followed the argument where it has led me. And it has led me to accept the existence of a self-existent, immutable, immaterial, omnipotent, and omniscient Being."

"Where do I go from here? In the first place, I am entirely open to learning more about the divine Reality, especially in the light of what we know about the history of nature. Second, the question of whether the Divine has revealed itself in human history remains a valid topic of discussion. You cannot limit the possibilities of omnipotence except to produce the logically impossible. Everything else is open to omnipotence."

"As I have said more than once, no other religion enjoys anything like the combination of a charismatic figure like Jesus and a first-class intellectual like St. Paul. If you're wanting omnipotence to set up a religion, it seems to me that this is the one to beat!", [Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, There is a God]

This book can be purchased at many book stores including Amazon.com, or as an e version at various sources including e-books. I own both. A hardback copy to keep, and an e copy for quoting.

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

An Atheist No More - Did Antony Flew Write Or Believe What Was Written In His Book?

One of the published arguments of Atheists against Antony Flew's book, There Is A God, is that he probably didn't write the book, and may not believe the contents of the book. Well... you can hear him discuss the contents of the book in this interview with Lee Strobel HERE This should leave no doubt that Antony Flew believes what he wrote in his book...

An Atheist No More 3

Here is my third offering this week in remembrance of my grandfather. Antony Flew, the famous former atheist, addresses the problem of the purpose and origin of life.

“Let us first look at the nature of life from a philosophical standpoint. Living matter possesses an inherent goal or end-centered organization that is nowhere present in the matter that preceded it.”

"The first challenge is to produce a materialistic explanation for "the very first emergence of living matter from non-living matter. In being alive, living matter possesses a teleological organization that is wholly absent from everything that preceded it." The second challenge is to produce an equally materialist explanation for "the emergence, from the very earliest life-forms which were incapable of reproducing themselves, of life-forms with a capacity for reproducing themselves. Without the existence of such a capacity, it would not have been possible for different species to emerge through random mutation and natural selection. Accordingly, such mechanism cannot be invoked in any explanation of how life-forms with this capacity first 'evolved' from those that lacked it." Conway concludes that these biological phenomena "provide us with reason for doubting that it is possible to account for existent life-forms in purely materialistic terms and without recourse to design.”

"Paul Davies observes that most theories of biogenesis have concentrated on the chemistry of life, but "life is more than just complex chemical reactions. The cell is also an information storing, processing and replicating system. We need to explain the origin of this information, and the way in which the information processing machinery came to exist." He emphasizes the fact that a gene is nothing but a set of coded instructions with a precise recipe for manufacturing proteins. Most important, these genetic instructions are not the kind of information you find in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics; rather, they constitute semantic information. In other words, they have a specific meaning. These instructions can be effective only in a molecular environment capable of interpreting the meaning in the genetic code. The origin question rises to the top at this point. 'The problem of how meaningful or semantic information can emerge spontaneously from a collection of mindless molecules subject to blind and purposeless forces presents a deep conceptual challenge.'”

"The Nobel Prize–winning physiologist George Wald once famously argued that 'we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose"spontaneously by chance.' In later years, he concluded that a preexisting mind, which he posits as the matrix of physical reality, composed a physical universe that breeds life:.. This, too, is my conclusion. The only satisfactory explanation for the origin of such "end-directed, self-replicating" life as we see on earth is an infinitely intelligent Mind.", [Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, There is a God]

This book can be purchased at many book stores including Amazon.com, or as an e version at various sources including e-books. I own both. A hardback copy to keep, and an e copy for quoting.

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

An Atheist No More 2

In memory of my grandfather I continue with quotes from the book, There Is A God, by the famous former atheist Antony Flew.

"I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence. I believe that this universe's intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source.

Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than a half century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science. Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature.”

“The important point is not merely that there are regularities in nature, but that these regularities are mathematically precise, universal, and “tied together.” Einstein spoke of them as ‘reason incarnate.’ The question we should ask is how nature came packaged in this fashion. This is certainly the question that scientists from Newton to Einstein to Heisenberg have asked—and answered. Their answer was the ‘Mind of God.’”

“Those scientists who point to the Mind of God do not merely advance a series of arguments or a process of syllogistic reasoning. Rather, they propound a vision of reality that emerges from the conceptual heart of modern science and imposes itself on the rational mind. It is a vision that I personally find compelling and irrefutable.”

“Oxford philosopher John Foster contends that regularities in nature, however you describe them, can be best explained by a divine Mind. If you accept the fact that there are laws, then something must impose that regularity on the universe. What agent (or agents) brings this about? He contends that the theistic option is the only serious option as the source, so that "we shall be rationally warranted in concluding that it is God—the God of the theistic account—who creates the laws by imposing the regularities on the world as regularities." Even if you deny the existence of laws, he argues, 'there is a strong case for explaining the regularities by appealing to the agency of God.'” [Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, There is a God]

This book can be purchased at many book stores including Amazon.com, or as an e version at various sources including e-books.

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

An Atheist No More

As I mentioned in my post, An Atheist At Thanksgiving, I think about my grandfather, Thomas Russell Jones, and his atheism at this time of year.

Two of the words on Grandpa's gravestone are scholar, and philosopher. He wasn't either of these in the formal sense, but he was an avid reader of scholarly works in philosophy, religion, and other disciplines.

Most his life was spent without TV, so he read. I have no doubt he read the works of the great philosophical atheist Antony Flew. This saddens me... because Grandpa died long before the publication of Antony Flew's greatest work: There Is A God. A chronicle of perhaps the 20^th century's most influential atheist's journey into deism.

I have no doubt Mr. Flew's book would have had a major impact on Grandpa. Unlike many “couch atheists”, grandpa wasn't an atheist because he wanted to be, he said he was an atheist because that's where the evidence led him. There Is A God was written by an insider, and is devastatingly precise in crumbling the evidence supporting atheism.

In memory of my Grandfather, I plan to use some blog space this week to briefly quote Mr. Flew's major points. I begin with, what is for me, the most astounding quote in the book:

"I must say again that the journey to my discovery of the Divine has thus far been a pilgrimage of reason. I have followed the argument where it has led me. And it has led me to accept the existence of a self-existent, immutable, immaterial, omnipotent, and omniscient Being.", [Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, There is a God]

You can buy the book on Amazon.com. It should go without saying that I still have respectful disagreement with Mr. Flew on a number of points. Thanks to my friend Dr. Pat Briney for first informing me of Antony Flew's conversion to deism. God amazes me.