Introduction

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One Saturday morning many years ago when I was a young man, I went to explore a cave near my home. After perhaps half an hour into the cave, my flashlight abruptly went out and I was engulfed in darkness. At first, the fear that I was in great trouble was subdued by my confidence that I could trace my steps and find my way out. I vividly remember stepping, slowly, and carefully in the darkness, much like a blind man with extended arms, trying to find his way about. But after several hours, the fear could no longer be vanquished and I knew that I was in great trouble indeed and I was confronted with the real prospect that I would die in that place because there was no one who would search for me because I did not tell any one where I was going. It was all that I could do to keep panic in check and quickly there arose within me a titanic struggle between terror which screamed: "You're doomed" and reason which (trying to be brave) declared: "think this through!" The conclusion soon came to me that the end result of my yelling for help and cursing would be futile, for no one would hear me and when I had ceased, I would still be lost in that abyss!

After a few hours of wrestling with terror, a moment of calm came upon me when it occurred to me to take the flashlight apart, thinking the problem was corrosion. (And the thought that the bulb was shot terrified me.) After several anxious minutes of carefully disassembling the flashlight, I put it back together, and then pushed the switch. I was startled by a brilliant, almost blinding beam of light! I was elated that the flashlight was working, but just as quickly, my heart sank again for when I looked around, I saw that I was lost! In my effort to find my way out I had made the problem worse! I did not recognize any part of the cave and fear came upon me again, this time worse than before. What good was the flashlight now that I was lost? But just as quickly, the new terror gave way to optimism, for a second time, for when I shined the light to the ceiling of the cave, I saw this: a series of arrows the entire length of a passage way. Immediately, I began to follow the arrows just as quickly as I could go, fearful that if the flashlight went out a second time, it might be out for good!

I still remember the elation I felt when I crawled out of that cold and wet subterranean world into the warm and bright sun light that afternoon so many years ago! But not long after that, I discovered that I was lost again and this time, in a darkness deeper and more suffocating that any thing I had experienced in that cave. This time the abyss was self: arrogance, sensation, the vainglory of life and the absurdity of existence. This time the darkness was within! Soon I began to search for a way out as I had done in the labyrinth years before. I had wandered through many a passageway and had taken many a wrong turn: philosophy, science, hedonism, centricity -and the Sunday morning promenade. But this time I had a different light in hand- the Bible- and I resolved to subject it to scrutiny. And I did! With deliberation, I read a 'book' a day for 66 consecutive days and after reading that ancient text, I looked up and I saw this: and I knew then that I had found The Way! In the years since, I've often wondered who put the arrows upon the ceiling of that cave. I'll never know, but I'm glad that he did. However, I do know who lifted up the cross, and because of Him, I found the way out of this dark world.

I am Ben Bilyeu, an educator who, for decades, has contemplated the most profound and provocative of questions: "Does God Exist?" The relevance of the inquiry and the profundity of the question is manifest thus: If this Entity does not exist, human existence is meaningless-period! If this Being does, in fact exist, human existence is significant-potentially. It is my certain conclusion that a Transmaterial Being, known in the common vernacular as "God", the author and the engineer of physical reality, not only exists, but that this Entity has certain expectations for humankind.

It is also my certain conclusion that the four kinds of atheism: intellectual, scientific, sensory, and religious (or secular and religious) are rooted in two pathologies: cognitive and ethical. The cognitive pathology is an ignorance of three prerequisite disciplines which are critical to an accurate assessment of the arguments advanced to prove the existence of this Being: logic, epistemology, and historical method. (An ignorance of these three disciplines is endemic to every species of atheism!) The pathology of the ethical domain is a character flaw: the propensity to lie! The concept "God" is noxious to both the secular atheists and the religious atheists; the former, because they fancy themselves to be the head primate in the cosmic zoo, who fantasize that their existence is due to happenstance, while the latter deem themselves to be so religious that they do not need God. Thus, ignorance and lying constitute the primeval ooze, the cold black earth, in which atheism is spawned and in which it breeds!

There exists yet another discernment: the most sinister, deceptive and devastating atheism of all is not to be found in the lecture halls of academe and is not intellectual, scientific, or sensory in its nature. Rather, the most lethal and the most toxic species of infidelity is religious atheism, which is to be found in the pulpits and church assemblies of Christendom in any congregation, Anywhere, U.S.A. and is identified by the gilded faith: the crass hypocrisy of church members, who preach, sing, pray and vow, but who do not do; who, with their lips, verbalize devotion to Deity, but who, with their lives, live a lie. To expose the lie of atheism, in its secular and saintly vulgarity, and to engage its respective minions and propagandists, to these ends these essays were written.

Ben Bilyeu
bilyeu@usit.net

In addition to the essays of this site, the author has written the following works, most in various stages of publication.

Analytical Works

  1. The Existence of God: A Rational Inquiry
  2. An Introduction To Logic
  3. A Viable Philosophy of Education According To Rene Descartes, John Locke and John Stuart Mill
  4. The Propaganda of Education and The Enlightenment of Logic
  5. Rational Education vs Public Education
  6. The Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution

Affective Works

  1. I Cross My Heart and Hope To Die: Poems To Ambrosia
  2. For There Is None Like You, Not One So Fair (100 sonnets)
  3. Sentenced As Man: Poems for Atheists, Saints and Lovers
  4. A Far More Perfect Creature (A novel of Sean and Amber, 2175 A.D.)
  5. Penny Ann: Letters To My Wife