he late Adrian Rogers was my pastor at Bellevue Baptist when I grew up and I sent his sermon on evolution and another on the accuracy of the Bible to many atheists to listen to and many of them did. I also sent many of the arguments from Francis Schaeffer also.
Many of these scholars have taken the time to respond back to me in the last 20 years and some of the names included are Ernest Mayr (1904-2005), George Wald (1906-1997), Carl Sagan (1934-1996), Robert Shapiro (1935-2011), Nicolaas Bloembergen (1920-), Brian Charlesworth (1945-), Francisco J. Ayala (1934-) Elliott Sober (1948-), Kevin Padian (1951-), Matt Cartmill (1943-) , Milton Fingerman (1928-), John J. Shea (1969-), , Michael A. Crawford (1938-), (Paul Kurtz (1925-2012), Sol Gordon (1923-2008), Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Barbara Marie Tabler (1915-1996), Renate Vambery (1916-2005), Archie J. Bahm (1907-1996), Aron S “Gil” Martin ( 1910-1997), Matthew I. Spetter (1921-2012), H. J. Eysenck (1916-1997), Robert L. Erdmann (1929-2006), Mary Morain (1911-1999), Lloyd Morain (1917-2010), Warren Allen Smith (1921-), Bette Chambers (1930-), Gordon Stein (1941-1996) , Milton Friedman (1912-2006), John Hospers (1918-2011), and Michael Martin (1932-).
THIRD, there is hope that an atheist will reconsider his or her position after examining more evidence. Twenty years I had the opportunity to correspond with two individuals that were regarded as two of the most famous atheists of the 20th Century, Antony Flew and Carl Sagan. I had read the books and seen the films of the Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer and he had discussed the works of both of these men. I sent both of these gentlemen philosophical arguments from Schaeffer in these letters and in the first letter I sent a cassette tape of my pastor’s sermon IS THE BIBLE TRUE? You may have noticed in the news a few years that Antony Flew actually became a theist in 2004 and remained one until his death in 2010. Carl Sagan remained a skeptic until his dying day in 1996.Antony Flew wrote me back several times and in the June 1, 1994 letter he commented, “Thank you for sending me the IS THE BIBLE TRUE? tape to which I have just listened with great interest and, I trust, profit.” I later sent him Adrian Rogers’ sermon on evolution too.
The ironic thing is back in 2008 I visited the Bellevue Baptist Book Store and bought the book There Is A God – How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, by Antony Flew, and it is in this same store that I bought the message by Adrian Rogers in 1994 that I sent to Antony Flew. Although Antony Flew did not make a public profession of faith he did admit that the evidence for God’s existence was overwhelming to him in the last decade of his life. His experience has been used in a powerful way to tell others about Christ. Let me point out that while on airplane when I was reading this book a gentleman asked me about the book. I was glad to tell him the whole story about Adrian Rogers’ two messages that I sent to Dr. Flew and I gave him CD’s of the messages which I carry with me always. Then at McDonald’s at the Airport, a worker at McDonald’s asked me about the book and I gave him the same two messages from Adrian Rogers too.
in many of these letters that I would send to famous skeptics and I would always include audio messages from Adrian Rogers. Perhaps Schaeffer’s most effective argument was concerning Romans 1 and how a person could say that he didn’t believe that the world had a purpose or meaning but he could not live that way in the world that God created and with the conscience that every person is born with.
Google “Adrian Rogers Francis Schaeffer” and the first 8 things that come up will be my blog posts concerning effort to reach these atheists. These two great men proved that the scriptures Hebrews 4:12 and Isaiah 55:11 are true, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” and “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
THE QUESTION OF MAN
“THE DILEMMA OF MODERN MAN IS SIMPLE: HE DOES NOT KNOW WHY MAN HAS ANY MEANING. HE IS LOST. MAN REMAINS A ZERO. THIS IS THE DAMNATION OF MODERN MAN. BUT IF WE BEGIN WITH A PERSONAL BEGINNING, AND THIS IS THE ORIGIN OF ALL ELSE, THEN THE PERSONAL DOES HAVE MEANING AND MAN AND HIS ASPIRATIONS ARE NOT MEANINGLESS.”
– FRANCIS SCHAEFFER
The great problem with beginning with the impersonal is to find any meaning for the particulars . . . . If we begin with the impersonal, then how do any of the particulars that now exist – including man – have any meaning, any significance?
Beginning with the impersonal, everything, including man, must be explained in terms of the impersonal plus time plus chance. There are no other factors in the formula. No one has ever demonstrated how time plus chance, beginning with an impersonal, can produce the needed complexity of the universe, let alone the personality of man. No one has given a clue to this.
So now let us think what it means to begin with that which is personal. That is, that which is personal began everything else, the very opposite of beginning with the impersonal. In this case man, being personal, does have meaning and man and his aspirations are not meaningless. Man’s aspirations of the reality of personality are in line with what was originally there and what has always intrinsically been.
This is the answer to the question of man at this point – a titanic answer. Man’s damnation today is that he can find no meaning for man, but if we begin with the personal beginning we have an absolutely opposite situation. We have the reality of the fact that personality does have meaning because it is not alienated from what has always been, and what is, and what always will be. This is our answer, and with this we have a solution not only to the problem of existence – of bare being and its complexity – but also for man’s being different, with a personality which distinguishes him from non-man.
What we are talking about is the philosophic necessity, in the area of being and existence, of the fact that God is there. That is what it is all about: He is there. There is no other sufficient philosophical answer than this. You can search through university philosophy, underground philosophy, filling station philosophy – it does not matter which – there is no other sufficient philosophical answer to existence, to being, than the one I have outlined. There is only one philosophy, one religion, that fills this need in all the world’s thought, whether the East, the West, the ancient, the modern, the new, the old. Only one fills the philosophical need of existence, of being, and it is the Judaeo-Christian God – not just an abstract concept, but rather that this God is really there. He really exists. Not the mere word “god,” but the Judaeo-Christian content to the word “God” as given in the Old and New Testaments. And what is that content? It relates to an infinite-personal God, who is personal unity and diversity on the high order of trinity.
(These selections are from the book, He is there and he is not silent, Chapter 1, “The Metaphysical Necessity” where this is further discussed.)
“MORE THAN ANY OTHER TIME IN HISTORY, MANKIND FACES A CROSSROADS. ONE PATH LEADS TO DESPAIR AND UTTER HOPELESSNESS. THE OTHER TO TOTAL EXTINCTION. LET US PRAY WE HAVE THE WISDOM TO CHOOSE CORRECTLY.”
– WOODY ALLEN
John Alexander’s first picture may have Christ in the boat and the Merry Go Round picture is about Hypocrisy
Featured artist is John Alexander
Art This Week-At the Meadows Museum-Human/nature-John Alexander Interview
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