“ Render to all their dues:
     Tribute to whom tribute is due;
     Custom to whom custom;
     Respect to whom respect;
     Honor to whom honor.”

- Paul, Jesus' Ambassador...

PART ONE: Do You Believe In God? Some Don't...

I believe that the man commonly known as Jesus is—just as he represented himself to be, and as the men and women who knew him best proclaimed him to be—God Almighty, Creator of all things, come to earth as a human being in order to effectively communicate with us "mere mortals."

Your mileage may vary; I know that some who read this may not have come to this conclusion yet. Perhaps, Dear Reader, you are even now rolling your eyes and wondering "How can he believe that?" Please read on.

How about yourself? Do you believe in YOU?

I believe in myself; I also believe in giving credit where credit is due... Do you?

Recently, I came across a post by a lady—apparently in the UK; apparently a person of good will, with a good heart, and an authentic concern for humanity... but professing to be a "Devout #Atheist." I've truly enjoyed getting to know her a bit via her posts on a nostr blog. I hope to find out whether she believes in herself...

The stage is now set;

Please, tune in below to a conversation I intend to initiate with her any day now...

Common Sense and Reason? Let's see.... (source)

An Open-Minded Atheist? (source)

~PART TWO: Credit Where Credit Is Due...?~

by Duncan Cary Palmer

Good Morning, Friend!😃

I've read your profile (image above) and accept your strongly implied invitation (please see the yellow highlight).🫂😆

While I'm not much of a debater, I do love a good theological discussion. I am a man of good will; if you are a woman of good will as well, I have no doubt we can have a good, honest conversation and that we can learn things of value from one another...

And so I wanted you to know how much I appreciate this image you shared with us on Mastodon and nostr:

Did This Cardigan Just Happen🤔🧐? (source)

What an absolutely lovely cardigan!🫂💖🥰

I love the tiny, embedded, repeating heart images that just fell together in beautiful, accidental, well-ordered rows that SEEM to be (but of course are not) thoughtfully spaced in a visually pleasant, iterative pattern.

I find it quite startling to be enjoying the randomly occurring, subtle shading of the fringe and sleeves; it's so remarkable that they not only complement the little hearts, but—though separated by that field of hearts—match one another in color! What a happy accident!

Zooming in on the photo, this freak of nature appears to be comprised of long strands of some unusual materials in various colors. I find it quite challenging to imagine how they—inarguably—looped themselves together in what appear to be rather clever knots and arrangements that cause them to hang and hold together in a glorious whole.

And the bilateral symmetry is exquisite! If I did not absolutely know better, I would say this were an artifact designed to go on the arms and back of a human child!!!

Where EVER in the universe did you stumble upon this randomly occurring accident of nature?🤔🧐😆

Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to photograph and share this "thing" you came across somewhere.🙏🏻😀😆 When you to give it to a small child, (Ms DT's? A similar product of time and chance?) I'm sure he or she will feel warmed and comforted as an accidental byproduct of the arbitrary sequence of events.🫂💖🥰

Hmmm... What might these be?*** (source)

Hmmm... By The Way...,

I wonder what these are....?🤔

They sure don't LOOK natural...

Might they be; are they possibly... TOOLS?

========

PART THREE: Contrasting Belief Systems

After reading Part One and Part Two, I hope you, my dear, intelligent, language-capable reader, have figured out where I am going with this.

The intellectually honest atheist must—but cannot possibly—explain or experimentally demonstrate how any one of the following artifacts came into existence apart from careful, brilliantly orchestrated, highly intelligent and intentional invention and engineering design:

And these are just a very few, salient examples of the irreducibly complex machinery and mechanisms of life that surround us. Every one of them is far more complex than the lovely cardigan (pictured above) created by our professing atheist in the UK.

I used to argue about Darwinism, "natural selection," and "punctuated equilibrium," as well as other, newer attempts that utterly fail to credibly explain the origin of life... Nor can they explain the existence of language, which is symbolically encoded information that is not physically the thing it represents. The DNA that encodes the information for reproducing life is inarguably a highly complex, well-designed language.

Nowadays, I simply point out how utterly ridiculous and bankrupt these feeble evolutionary explanations of reality are. Think about it; if you can't look at the beautiful cardigan above without realizing it was obviously created by an intelligent, capable person, how much more do these other far more complex examples call for credit where credit is due?

Responding to: DoubleTreble about this post...