JOHN CLAYTON

Christmas is the antithesis of Thanksgiving. Christmas is pretty much a man-made holiday.

There was no instruction to be thankful that the Christians were special people, chosen people. There was no nationalistic, political or ethnic superiority to be thankful for.

The purpose of this study is to offer a logical, practical, pragmatic proof of the existence of God from a purely scientific perspective.

The emphasis on the birth of Christ tends to polarize our pluralistic society and create legal and ethnic belligerence.

We are assuming that we exist, that there is reality, and that the matter of which we are made is real.

In the surface of the paper there is only length and width-there is no such thing as thickness.

Almost every time I am in a lectureship on a college campus, young people will say, If there is a God and if he is a loving and merciful God, how do you explain the problems of suffering and death and all the tragedies that happen to people?

Christians were instructed to serve others, and the thanksgiving was for the grace of God and the fact that God offered a way for man to return to a positive relationship with Him.

Why is it any more reasonable to believe that God has always been than it is to say that matter has always been?

What is the origin of God?

In the surface of the paper there is only length and width-there is no such thing as thickness.

There was no instruction to be thankful that the Christians were special people, chosen people. There was no nationalistic, political or ethnic superiority to be thankful for.

Since I was an atheist for many years and came to believe in God through my studies in science, it frustrated me to see students and parents who viewed faith and science as enemies.

Christmas is the antithesis of Thanksgiving. Christmas is pretty much a man-made holiday.

Between 1910 and 1950 approximately 350 lives of Jesus were published in the English language alone.

Is it possible that the portrait of the divine Son of God is an exaggeration, at best, or a complete fabrication, at worst, of the original Jesus?

Was the real Jesus of history one and the same as the Christ of faith whom we read about in the New Testament and worship in the church? Was Jesus really raised from the dead? Is he really the divine Lord of lords?

What is the origin of God?

Why is it any more reasonable to believe that God has always been than it is to say that matter has always been?

I guess none of us like to look back in our lives to a time when we made poor judgments and foolish mistakes.

Thanksgiving is a season that is very much in accord with the themes and teachings of Jesus Christ.

It is my fervent hope and prayer that by exposing my mistakes and by pointing out the things that were a part of my early life, some who might be following the same paths might not make those same mistakes.

Could the one whom Christians worship be merely a mythological creation, or is he real? These questions have exercised many great minds and have been the dominant issue in New Testament studies during this century.

I believe any question that man can ask has a reasonable answer-at least an answer that is as consistent with God's existence as it is in opposition to God's existence.

Just as a puppy can be more of a challenge than a gift, so too can the holidays.

Not only are Christians writing about Jesus, but also Communists, Jews, atheists and agnostics are taking up their pens to paint a portrait of Jesus.

Thanksgiving is a time when the world gets to see just how blessed and how workable the Christian system is. The emphasis is not on giving or buying, but on being thankful and expressing that appreciation to God and to one another.

All holidays can be good times.

The purpose of this study is to offer a logical, practical, pragmatic proof of the existence of God from a purely scientific perspective.

There is no racial or ethnic involvement in Thanksgiving, and people who may be very distant from the Christian system can see the beauty and the positive spirit that comes from the holiday.

The emphasis on the birth of Christ tends to polarize our pluralistic society and create legal and ethnic belligerence.

We are assuming that we exist, that there is reality, and that the matter of which we are made is real.

Almost every time I am in a lectureship on a college campus, young people will say, If there is a God and if he is a loving and merciful God, how do you explain the problems of suffering and death and all the tragedies that happen to people?

Christians were instructed to serve others, and the thanksgiving was for the grace of God and the fact that God offered a way for man to return to a positive relationship with Him.

The denominational world tries to pressure its members to focus on the birth of Christ, but in doing so layers of guilt are imposed, and competition gets complicated as one Christmas program tries to outdo the other.