Monday, February 09, 2015

Apologist Interview: Michael Patton

Today's interview is with Michael Patton, president of Reclaiming the Mind and Credo House Ministries found at reclaimingthemind.org. This is a ministry of theological development for lay people. He blogs at Parchment and Pen @reclaimingthemind.org/blog and is also responsible for the development of Credo House of Theology found at credohouse.org. He talks about Credo House, Credo Courses, his ministry experience, dealing with depression, how burnout comes in ministry, common warning signs, sharing struggles, advice for a long-term view, and more.

Full Interview MP3 Audio here (42 min)

Enjoy.
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Posted by Brian at 7:30 AM
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1 comments :

Slow Down said...

And here is the crux of their laborious efforts to refute the most Ned and The First Reader commonsensical proofs of God's necessary existence:  Each has a moral conflict that is an internal (and eternal) burden which they scurry from by way of pretending that the issue is an intellectual conundrum or "qualm".  They have a beloved jargon that they use to attempt to get one off on collateral issues.  What puzzles me is their visceral and vitriolic disdain towards the subject of God.   It seems reasonable to me that if you are certain that God does not exist, then you would merely leave this non-entity alone.  It can do no harm as it doesn't exist.  And moreover there is nothing to debate if that which you debate is literally nothing to debate. And this Hawking fellow seems to be incapable of err.  I noticed the actual meaning of what the man is asserting the other night.  After reading it a few times, it becomes more absurd than the initial shock of the ludicrous postulate.  "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing."  Logically, for something to act as a creative agent, it must already exist so as to give credence to that which it "can" and "will" do.  He has already affirmed that "the universe" is existent by saying that "the universe CAN and WILL..."  Totally absurd.  Thus, the universe is a necessitated something before it creates itself from nothing.  But, of course, the agnostics will say that I am being too literal and that certainly Hawking meant something else and that I took it out of context or the like.  Frankly, I'm tired of wasting my time with them.  I sincerely desire to shed light on whatsoever it is that they want evidence of so as to "change" their minds. Does God exist? Yes or no?  If no, then why not live with your answer and as Dawkins says, "God probably doesn't exist, so go ahead and be happy and don't worry about anything." ?  Why are they concerned that I or any other Creationist or believer in the risen Christ understand their arguments against God's existence?  And even here, it seems rather peculiar to feel compelled to argue against that which is not.  Here a two observations that I made a few years back which sum up where I think the metal meets the road with these tortured individuals.  

Atheists have continued to predictably wax philosophical concerning their intellectually self-sufficient certainties of God's nonexistence. However, the ease of their perilously lazy cynicism will become increasingly thorny as they age and are forced to acknowledge that their previously chosen stance as atheists must, as a matter of course, empirically and ultimately bear out that they were neither overly intellectual nor self-sufficient; neither unpredictable in opinion nor genuinely philosophic to originality; neither competent in certainties nor cerebrally capable of explaining creation without stumbling over the necessity of a Creator; neither convicted atheists excluded from eternal questions nor naturalists undaunted by morose preoccupations for ethereal answers; and lastly, neither authentically acceptant of a life without end nor having ever been secure in trusting their facts based on science in lieu of who or what made their science possible.

But most compelling is:

“Atheism collapses in notion and by self-imposed knavery insofar as its fundamental dispute is determined to resolve the nonexistence of anything or anyone greater than man as its source of conviction. However, if the source of an atheist’s conviction does not exist, than something greater than mere man must exist as birthed from atheistically cynical necessity for there to remain any semblance of dispute to resolve or any appearance of a source of conviction.” 

Monday, April 11, 2016 at 7:21:00 AM GMT+1

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