Posted by Anthony on July 10, 2009
Here is a short story I wrote inspired by the comments in this thread on PZ Myer’s blog. Enjoy!
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Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge of Knowledge
“I got here as fast as I could!” gasped the old man. He put one hand on the hood of the squad car and bent over as he tried to catch his breath.
The annoyed chief stared at the man waiting for him to explain who he was because the chief didn’t recognize him at all. At last, the balding and sweating gentlemen stood erect and stared back at the chief expecting some word of thanks or gratitude from him. But the chief was silent.
“Well, don’t you want my help?” the old man snapped.
“I don’t know who you are,” the chief grumped back.
“Don’t you know who you’ve got up there?” the old man gestured in the direction of the top of a seven story building that was the object of all the attention.
The chief shrugged, irritated, “Two people threatening to jump?”
The old man scowled.
“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, chief,” said a police officer standing nearby.
“What? Just tell me already!” the chief cried out, slapping his hand on the hood of the car.
“That’s Adam and Eve,” the old man snarled, “and I’m Dr. Stein Franken.”
“Good grief,” the chief exhaled. “Give me those binoculars!” Officer Todd handed them over and the chief gave a closer look to the man and the woman standing on the edge of the building. “Good grief,” the chief said again, adding some profanity under his breath.
Dr. Franken put his hands on his hips and assumed a posture that had proven itself effective over the years. “Now, tell me what’s going on? How did those two get up there?”
“Well,” the chief began, “as near as I can tell, it began about an hour ago at the local book store. These two had gone in and got themselves caught switching books in the mythology and science sections-”
“That’s not a crime,” Dr. Franken snapped. “I myself take books out of the science section and put them in the mythology section where they belong. I do that all of the time.”
“No, they were doing it the other way around,” said Officer Todd.
Dr. Franken gasped in shock, “Why, that’s a felony.”
“Exactly,” said the chief.
There was irony here but Dr. Franken didn’t realize it. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on April 23, 2008
Buy The Rain on Amazon.com
by Chris Skates and Dan Tankersley
- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Xulon Press (September 25, 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 160477049X
- ISBN-13: 978-1604770490
- Website: www.bereadyministries.com
Book Description
Noah was in shock. It had been nearly one hundred twenty years since God told him this flood would come. Now that it was here, he couldn’t bear it. Noah understood quite well what was taking place outside and why God had determined it had to be that way. Still, the reality was agonizing. Why, oh why, did they not listen? Noah thought. He shed no tears. He had cried so much and so often in these recent days that his body could produce no more. He continued to stare into his lap. Noah wished the screams outside were not real. He wished to awaken from this nightmare. But he could only endure it. As the rain pounded the roof and the people outside suffered, minutes were like hours. Familiar voices were begging him to open the door. Noah knotted his fists into his cloak and tried to hold on.
A review by Anthony Horvath, All Rights Reserved
The Rain is an engaging story of Noah and the building of the ark as recorded in Genesis. It is a fictionalized account which wishes to remain true to the assertions of fact which are contained in the Genesis account. It tells the story from alternating perspectives, though not usually Noah’s. His sons and daughter-in-laws carry the story with occasional vignettes from other perspectives.
There are some definite strengths to the story. For example, if the Biblical account is to be trusted, it is almost certain that when the waters began to rise, people would recognize that Noah hadn’t been insane after all. Their desperate pleas would have haunted the occupants of the ark. It is hard enough for people to believe that so many people deserved to be wiped out that the acknowledgment of the real effect this would have had on Noah and his family would have had helps reveal the magnitude of the event.
Another strength of the book is in its description of the kind of evil things that may have been going on in the world. It is easy to imagine that everyone was innocent in the world and so shake our fists at God, but what if it really was the case that they weren’t innocent and that they really had it coming? If they were involved in human sacrifice, or in more recent terms, frying Jews by the hundreds of thousands in prison ovens, wouldn’t you want God to take action? Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on November 7, 2007
The full response is pasted below, but you may want to download and print it off, or attach it in an email. If so, here it is for download:
If you would like to discuss this issue, please use my discussion forum, where this thread has been set up for that purpose.
Since this has been made available, my response has been featured on the ChristianPost.com.
Some people prefer a shorter treatment. I have produced a one page “parent’s guide”/bulletin insert. 
More information is available here and you can just download it, too, here:
If you appreciate the amount of work required to produce a document such as the one below and were helped by it, please consider making a donation.
If you are interested in updates to this document or want to stay informed regarding Anthony’s apologetics efforts, join his mailing list:
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The “His Dark Materials” Series is Pullman’s direct answer to CS Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia.” Lewis intended to inoculate a Christian worldview using his series and it is clear that Pullman had the same idea in mind. Except in case you didn’t know, Pullman is a hardcore atheist.
Many Christians will focus on the apparent paganism, the hostility to Christianity and more precisely the Church, and some of the less than subtle sexual allusions. These would be the wrong place to put our emphasis. What Pullman aims to do is to offer a naturalistic explanation for anything and everything, including that which might be true in Christianity or in paganism.
He uses a mainstream interpretation within quantum science that posits that there are an unlimited amount of universes that exist and evolution working out in unlimited ways in each of them, so that one could allow yourself to consider almost anything as possible- without ever invoking a God.
It is this that makes Pullman’s series the threat that it is. Young people all over the place are going to school and university and are actually being taught in dogmatic terms that evolution is the real explanation for how we got here and it is only a matter of time before these students learn about the ‘multiverse’ as well as comprehend that scientists really take it seriously.
Thus, young people are primed to receive the atheistic worldview… they read it in high school as fiction only to have the main premises of the series shoved at them as straight science in college. Though the overt hostility to the Church, the pagan elements, and the sexuality are enough to make many a Christian’s blood boil, these are just symptoms, and we Christians should remember that.
For the full examination click the ‘read the rest of the entry’ link below. Or, to Print it off, download it in PDF here: Read the rest of the entry… »
