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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.

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Who made God? Who made the Universe? Chicken, meet the Egg

Posted by Anthony on September 26, 2008

The question ‘Who made God’ is one of the first questions a young child asks. It is an obvious question with a difficult to comprehend answer. The problem is when adults get stymied. Worse is when grown men who ought to know better and claim they do get it wrong. For example, this little bit from Christian turned atheist Dan Barker says:

The mind of a god would be at least as complex and orderly as the rest of nature and would be subject to the same question: Who made god? If a god can be thought eternal, then so can the universe.

While rejecting the premise of his statement, it does help us bring it to the point. In the first place, Christians themselves create the initial problem. To their kids or in a carefree moment they’ll say “Everything is made by God.” The kid quickly sees that everything ought to include God, so now they want to know what made God. When the parent says “Everything except God” it seems ad hoc. The ‘everything’ needs to be qualified, and Christians worth their salt typically have. For example, William Lane Craig issues the Kalam Cosmological Argument with something more like “Everything with a beginning has a cause.”

One of the reasons I find Dan Barker to be *ahem* not very… *ahem* worthy of my time generally is because he is perfectly comfortable presenting the view that Christians argue ‘Everything has a cause.’ It is very disingenuous if he knows better… and if he doesn’t know better… well… at any rate you will see on the page I mentioned above down by ‘First Cause’ he does exactly this.

Still, it is not my point here to argue the Kalam or go after Dan Barker. I am directing my argument against those who feel that it is ad hoc to infer or deduce that something has always existed, uncreated. Many newly minted skeptics thump their chests smugly about the absurdity of believing in an uncaused cause and then uncritically go on to posit their own- only they call their choice the ‘universe’ whereas the theist calls theirs, ‘God.’

The value of the Barker quote above is to corroborate my assertion that it is not inherently inferior to say that there is a God, eternally existing, because no matter what, we posit something eternally existing, without a cause. We can turn Barker’s quote around: “Who made the universe? If a universe can be thought eternal, then so can God.” Read the rest of the entry… »