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Anthony's Faith Statement.

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A brief Introduction:

While studying to be a pastor in college I abandoned my faith. In fact, I abandoned everything I thought I believed and rebuilt.

To my own surprise at the time, I found that Christianity was much stronger than I had thought. As I rebuilt my belief system, I realized that there needed to be people out there responding to the questions people have. I had them myself. So, while not continuing on to be a pastor, I have focused on educating people about what Christianity is all about and responding to the various charges and accusations made against it.

There are some obvious challenges to being successful in that capacity, but a big part of it consists not in arguing with atheists and skeptics, but rather in providing Christians with accurate information in the first place to prevent them from leaving the faith in the first place.

Questioning is a very normal and natural part of growing up, and I am convinced that it is not wrong to ask questions of God at any age. God doesn't strike people down. On the other hand, if people are going to reject Christianity, it is my aim to at least make sure they reject the real Christianity and not a false view of it. Also, much heartache can be avoided by educating Christians properly to begin with. My experience has helped me... but it was unnecessary.

Paul said that some plant, some water, and others reap the increase. My job is to go out into the land and move rocks- or break them if necessary- till the land, and struggle through knee deep fertilizer... all in the effort to allow those who come later to plant, water, and reap the harvest. I look forward to the prospects of either serving you as someone who needs to haul rocks out of the field, or as someone who can look at the field, detect problems, and help farmers more effectively plant, water, and reap.

How the Placebo Effect Proves there is a God

Posted by Anthony on November 13, 2009

Ok, catchy title aside, in fact I mean to demonstrate only that it proves that the transcendent exists and is real- further argument would be required to get to the conclusion that there is a God as Christians understand him.

We are all aware of the placebo effect. This is often described as being the result of ’sham’ or ‘fake’ treatments or pills with the fact being that the body would have ‘healed itself on its own’ or has its effect because the illness was ‘only in their mind.’

All of these attitudes represent a materialistic outlook, if not outright reductionism. This hard core atheistic outlook has been at the bottom of scientific development in all fields since the early 1900s, and this has certainly spilled over into medicine. This has sometimes been to the detriment, and even the embarrassment, of scientific progress as described in a book that is still one of my favorites, Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz’s The Mind and the Brain. The book charts the history of brain science up to the point where it was finally admitted that thought itself appeared to be able to shape the matter of the brain.

The placebo effect, or if we wanted to call it the ‘belief effect,’ seems to be a real effect. It would appear that there is a real ability of the thoughts of the mind- which are at bottom, immaterial, to change the physical brain and body.

It is here that I put forward my fundamental point: these thoughts are immaterial. Read the rest of the entry… »