Monthly Archives: February 2014

“The Pursuit of Perfection: grace” by Jesse Robertson

Posted by Caleb Coy on

from “The Pursuit of Perfection: Grace” by Jesse Robertson

“Knowledge and obedience, however, begin small and grow if we are truly trusting and loving God. He is on our side. It makes no sense to believe that God loved us so much that he sent his Son to die for us, and that he then constructed a labyrinth of doctrine that could only be negotiated successfully if one made correct assumptions and inferences, or that he left us on our own to finish an obstacle course of temptations.”
-Jesse Robertson

Seasons Change—A poem from my adolescence

Posted by Caleb Coy on

[The melting of the snow reminded me of a poem I wrote in middle school.  I decided to dig it up.]

Seasons Change

Mother Nature’s grand gift
I see is truly alive
New trees do bud
Flowers born
In tears
In fog

The earth flourishes in sun
It has only just begun
Trees are deep green
Bring fruit
And nuts
In sun

It is now a time to slow down
Time to show beauty in age
As once we were green
Now must die red
And yellow
Orange

Now comes the cold soft white rain
Trees only hibernate in ice
They are not truly dead
They are just waiting
And now comes
New life…

Mother Nature’s grand gift
Is alive once again

The Avett Brothers’ Magpie and the Dandelion: Album Review (by the Brothers Guard)

Posted by Caleb Coy on

After an eight month music fast, moving to a bigger city and staring a new job (Luke), after listening to all my favorite bands I had before the Avetts (Caleb), and after several months’ worth of listening, meditation, and more listening, the Brothers Guard sit down for a dialogue review of Magpie and the Dandelion.

“If you think about a Magpie, it’s a bird from the crow family. You can see them everywhere, and they’ve got this strange grace. And, we all know what a dandelion is. It reminds you of being a kid and watching a flower come apart on a summer day. There’s a youthful wonder in that. Those kinds of feelings live and breathe inside this album.”
-The Avetts

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A Shot of Faith To The Head: The Full Review

Posted by Caleb Coy on

_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book

Below are all my review of A Shot of Faith to the Head, a good book with a bad title:
Intro
Part 1:  Is Belief in God Irrational?
Intermission: The Art of Rational Self-Defense
Part 2: Does Science Prove that God Does Not Exist?
Part 3: Does Evil Prove that God Does Not Exist?
Conclusion
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_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book: Conclusion

Posted by Caleb Coy on

_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book: Conclusion

As Mitch Stokes reasoned in his book, there are three evidential reasons for why belief in God is rational:

  1. The universe is rational, and we are rationally able to comprehend and communicate it’s rationality, which reflects a rational being, a perfect form that created the physical world to be rational.
  2. The universe looks designed, and not only that—it also has no physical (non-supernatural) explanation for why it looks designed, which leads us to accepting a supernatural explanation for the designed universe.
  3. Humanity comprehends and communicates absolute moral standards, concepts of good and evil that have no physical explanation or, more importantly, physical reason for an ought, which points us to a supernatural being that has instilled a sense of morality.
    Continue reading →

_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book: Part 3: “Evil and Suffering Show There’s No God”

Posted by Caleb Coy on

_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book: Part 3: “Evil and Suffering Show There’s No God”

“Many of the atheists’ grievances are moral ones, founded upon an acute sense of ethical superiority,” says Stokes.  Sometimes it’s not about science at all, or at least not primarily.  Sometimes it’s about the heart.  Atheists have decided that the world is not to their liking, and that it is either God’s fault, or he’s not real to begin with.

[See the last post on whether science proves God doesn’t exist]
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_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book: Part 2: “Science Has Shown There is No God”

Posted by Caleb Coy on

_A Shot of Faith To The Head_: Bad Title, Great Book: Part 2: “Science Has Shown There is No God”

An official statement from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences:
“Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral.”
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Billy Nye, Ken Ham Debate on Creation: Questions I Wanted to Ask

Posted by Caleb Coy on

As Bible students like me come across various debates such as these, questions arise that sometimes are not addressed.  Here are some I wished would have been asked:

Questions I wished they asked Bill Nye:
1) How did matter arise in the universe, if no extra-physical/supernatural entity brought it about through extra-physical means?
2) If there is no creator, how do you explain why the universe is rational and we as conscious beings an understand it as rational?
Continue reading →

My blog, also, is taking an intermission

Posted by Caleb Coy on

Greetings all.

In the interest of, well, several things, my blog will take an “intermission” that couldn’t be more well timed, as my last post was on the “intermission” of a book I’ve been blogging about.

Several things are going on this week, and likely one of them I may quickly post about.  But if you are looking for another installment in my blog series on A Shot of Faith to the Head, be patient.  It will arrive in the next week.

Cheers.