The Nuance of Choice

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ThinkerGod has given us choice, the most loving and most fearful thing He could have done.

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12672100_10207626820641361_7243333033530675299_o by Randy Schoof

Before there was Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens, there was Anthony Flew. For most of his career, Flew was a strong advocate of atheism …. But then he changed his mind.

He did not have any spiritual or near death experience. The decision for him was not an emotional one. It was rational one based on the weight of the evidence. He concluded: 1) “there had to an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe”; and 2) “the integrated complexity of life itself—which is far more complex than the physical Universe—can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.”

Anthony Flew, who became famous for arguing for the presumption of atheism, came to see it the other way around: “I think the origins of the laws of nature and of life and the Universe point clearly to an intelligent Source. The burden of proof…

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The Secret to a Happy Healthy Life

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I recently read this entry in a local paper that allows readers to call in and leave anonymous messages of current and political import. Excuse the length of the following entry that I am reproducing here. I think it is important enough to reproduce in its entirety, because it bears some comment:

My parents had four daughters. We are all in our 60s now. Three of us earned master’s degrees. The happiest daughter is the daughter who spent a short time in college and married young. She has a wonderful husband and children and grandchildren. The other three are without husbands and can be very crabby. I know because I am one of them…. The three single sisters are all working because we have to work. Our married sister has a job, by choice, and loves her life. To all the 20-something girls out there… You cannot hug a diploma. A wall of degrees will not fill your heart with love. You will be alone night after night wondering what it would be like to have a nice guy at your side. Marriage is far better than a life of degrees.

Before commenting, I need to preface what I am going to say. Marriage is no guarantee of a happy life. Plenty of married people are unhappy. If that weren’t the case, the divorce rate would not perennially hover around the 50% mark. Marriage is no magic pill.

Gaining a college education is also nothing to snub. The reasons people go to college, however, are many: to get an education (duh!), because it is expected of them, to get a good job, because they don’t know what else to do, to find a spouse….

Looking back 40 years later with the kind of clarity that hindsight reveals puts those reasons into perspective, apparently. If only we could gain that perspective looking forward! But then, looking back may not really be 20/20 – unless you are looking back at a 75 year Harvard study. Continue reading “The Secret to a Happy Healthy Life” →

Reach out to our Muslim neighbors

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Nabeel Qureshi Interview

Nabeel Qureshi was raised in a devout Muslim family in Virginia Beach, VA. He memorized the Qur’an by the age of 6 and prayed five times a day. When he went to college, his college roommate was a Christian. They spent three years debating the historical claims of both religions, and he came to realize that Christianity could withstand historical scrutiny but Islam could not.

At that point, he came face to face with a a difficult, life-changing decision: whether to abandon the Islam of his family and and heritage by embracing Christianity, or remain a Muslim, knowing that it could not stand up to history and reason. This was a decision that would ostracize him from his family. Continue reading “Reach out to our Muslim neighbors” →

What If Time Is An Illusion?

When we “look back” it may seem as if time was a dream.

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Photo by Beth Drenbel
Photo by Beth Drendel

What if time is an illusion?

A self-described atheist threw out this proposition offhandedly in a conversation I had with him recently. I think it makes sense to respect the people we dialogue with, including atheists, so I chewed on that proposition a bit.

As often is the case, I woke up this morning thinking about things that I had been thinking about the night before. In my reflection, it dawned on me that, perhaps, he was right: time is an illusion. It actually makes some sense, but maybe not like he imagined. Let me explain.

Continue reading “What If Time Is An Illusion?” →

Atheism and Freethinking

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Atheists like to call themselves freethinkers. Many of them have thrown off the shackles of religious and cultural bondage, and escaped the herd mentality, the taboos of religion and even culture, … but are they freethinkers?

Source: Atheism and Freethinking