"How old is God?"

“From everlasting to everlasting, you are God” (Psalm 90:2 ESV)

On a summer mission trip almost two decades ago, one of the children in my kids club group asked me the age old question, "Where did God come from?  How old is he?"
I honestly can’t remember the answer I gave at the time, though I do remember asking similar questions when I was his age.  I presume my answer involved affirming that God was eternal and the usual conceptions of time don’t always apply.  I have a nasty feeling that I may have also tried to bamboozle him with some gumph about possibilities of multi-dimensional time, but my memory of the details is quite hazy. 
The kid would have been 10 years old.  He’s no doubt finished uni now!  I wonder what he’s up to?   

The question is so breathtakingly unsophisticated and child-like that it’s easy to think that it’s a bad question.  But it’s actually a perfectly valid question that deserves a reasonable response.

Thankfully, I don’t think I said any gumph about the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of Allah YHWH.   I just went to the wikipedia page on the Kalam cosmological argument to remind myself of it, and found that it says that the apologist William Lane Craig has added some extra levels to the argument.  The first of his additions (apparently) is "An actual infinite cannot exist." Umm, whose side is he on?  Doesn't that assumption effectively lead to denying the actuality of the infinite God?   Anyway, the argument itself falls down quickly enough, and even if it's assumed to follow logically it proves next to nothing. The argument in its essence is:

1. Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence; 

2. The universe has a beginning of its existence; 

Therefore: 

3. The universe has a cause of its existence

It falls down because of the possibility of genuinely random quantum fluctuations.  These don’t even need to be definitively proven to undercut the first and/or second premise.  They are uncaused events that are certainly plausible (at the very least) and so the premise fails.

 It proves next to nothing in any case because even if it holds, it simply proves that the universe had a cause. 
It doesn’t require a genuinely supernatural cause. 
It certainly doesn't require a personal agent, interventionist supernatural cause. 
It really certainly doesn't require a triune, acting-in-history, incarnated, personal-agent, interventionist supernatural cause. 
Merely a cause. 

A wide variety of contenders can fill that slot, including multiverse theories, big crunch rebounds and so on.  Again, the possibility of plausible natural causes strips away the hoped-for force of the argument as somehow a proof for God.  

 Ultimately, the ten year old’s question is left hanging uncomfortably in the air like the child’s cry from the tale: “But the emperor has no clothes!”. How old is God?  Perhaps he’s not so old after all. Another wikipedia page, on the history of the canaanite god El makes telling reading.

Finding what's not there

How do you find the missing matter in the universe?

I'll admit I didn't understand all of this, but the following article is mind-boggling - that scientists have been able to discover these things at all.
Blog post from Scienceblog: Scientists find 'Cosmic Web' holding the universe together

The religious impulse in the face of the discovery of data indicates there is 'missing matter' from what should be expected would be to indicate that it clearly points to things beyond the physical, material world, and is solid evidence for the supernatural realm.

The scientific impulse in the face of this data is to form hypotheses, test them, and as a result, make a new discovery which either confirms or denies the hypothesis.  In this case, it seems to tentatively confirm it - but they still want to expand the data set to form stronger conclusions.


Even though the missing matter of the universe shows some indications of having being found, god remains in hiding.

On Prayer, or "Sorry, but prayers ain't workin'"

I have prayed for many things, but have yet to see a response to prayer – whether mine or someone else’s – that is anything other than something which can be explained by completely natural processes.

While it’s possible that God could choose to only work this way in daily affairs, it does raise significant questions about the reality of such a god.  Why should I believe in a god that only ‘intervenes’ in ways consistent with non-intervention?

Around the world, prayer is undertaken by people from a vastly wide spectrum of religious beliefs.  Why do they pray and continue to pray?  Presumably they think or hope that such prayers will make a tangible difference beyond the internal subjective difference their prayers might work upon themselves.

It’s quite true that prayers can work an effect on the one who is praying, or on those who hear and believe the prayer – the placebo effect is real and measurable – but I don’t think there are too many who are suggesting that this is all that is meant by ‘the power of prayer’.

The trouble with claiming successful answers to prayer for things that can be quite readily construed to natural processes and coincidence is that it focuses attention on the countless unanswered prayers, many of which seem vastly more significant.

To pray for a lost item and then to find it again isn’t that impressive.  Even if the location suddenly came to you in a flash, and you have no recollection of putting the item there, it’s still not that impressive or significant.  Compare this to a starving mother’s prayer for food to sustain her family, which goes unanswered.  By rejoicing in God’s goodness in answering the former, you must confront the reality of the failure of the latter being answered positively.  Especially in those cases when the failure ultimately leads to death.  I know the Christian answer is that God has something better planned - eternal life.  Except if it's a Christian mother praying for God to feed her not-Christian children...

I know that many claim that God answers prayers with “yes”, “no” and “not yet”, but that response is meaningless, since this covers every possible outcome.  If we create a Venn diagram of this, there’s no possible option outside of these responses.  That makes it utterly meaningless as a diagnostic for evaluating prayer.  It makes it impossible to critique the prayers of other faiths.  Even prayer to a jug of milk.  It is essentially unfalsifiable, and thus not a substantive truth claim at all.

There’s much more to say, but that’s enough of a rant for today.

Can anyone give me a good reason to consider that prayer actually makes any real, objective difference?

Why I Believed

Of the various bits of information gathering I've undertaken in my quest for truth, one resource stands out as most accurately and succinctly approximating my own thinking.
Ken Daniels' Why I Believed is a generous-hearted, clear-headed and articulate accounting of a former missionaries journey from evangelical faith to a non-theistic belief system.

Ken's former theology is not identical to my former theology, but they are close enough that his questions and mine largely align, and his critique speaks well enough to my context.  Ken appears to be more self-disciplined and more devoted than I ever managed to achieve, though!

I never made it to the mission field, though I was employed in full-time ministry for some years.

For those wanting to know my story, Ken's book is a sensible place to start.  There's no point my reinventing the wheel.

I hope to gather various resources that I've found helpful or that help explain my position.  This one is generously made available free of charge on Ken's website, or there are paid versions for which Ken donates the proceeds to charity.

Often Better Than Fine

As someone who has recently left evangelical Christianity, this blog is a space for me to gather and test my thoughts, and to link to resources that I find helpful or that help explain where I am at.

The title of the blog "Often Better Than Fine" is taken from a line in the Quiet Company song, The Black Sheep and the Shepherd.
Quiet Company are an Austin band that produced an album a few years ago (We Are All Where We Belong) about their break with Christianity.  It's really really good.  Even without the theme that resonated so deeply with me, I love their music.

The section of the song I've stolen my byline from goes:

So I tried and I tried to achieve belief. Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I've been feeling fine (in fact, often better than fine).
Though, now both my shoulders have started hurting from walking around under such a burden, to reconcile everything that we learn with everything that we were taught.  But with all we know now, how can you say "Oh you've just got to take it all on faith" and "Don't think too much.  Just hush and pray, exactly as we've always done."

I'll aim to do a proper 'personal review' of the song at a later point, but for now, I've linked to the youtube version for the whole song for your listening pleasure.

And maybe there is something wrong with me.  Breaking with religion is a trial.  But pretty much, I've been feeling fine.  In fact, often better than fine. :)