Sample of chapter 9 (small snippet)

Below is a snippet of the book "No Argument for God" available at Amazon (you can click the link of the book to the right) where right now it is only $9!  

THE FIRST TIME I SAW DOUBLE DUTCH, I had no idea what I was

witnessing . Imagine jumping rope on steroids: two people wave

two long ropes in circles, each one in different directions, alter-

nating so that when one rope is going down, the other is coming

up . Oh, and there is a person or group of people jumping inside

these ropes . They don’t just jump rope, though, they sing, dance,

do somersaults and flips . Forget all the gymnastics; just jumping

rope with two alternating ropes requires insane amounts of bal-

ance, coordination and daring . I consider myself pretty athletic,

so when I saw it, I wanted to try it . How hard could it be?

I shouldn’t have asked . The girls holding the ropes tried to be

patient as I kept tripping over the ropes . After four or five unsuc-

cessful tries, I asked one of them for some advice . You would have

thought that I had asked her the atomic weight of Beryllium . She

was completely clueless on how to help me . After struggling with

a few thoughts, the girl shrugged her shoulders and said some-

thing about just having to “feel it .”

Not really sure what to do with “feeling it,” I applied all my

mental abilities to figuring this thing out while another girl

jumped . At some point I felt like I had studied enough and was

ready to try it again . Slightly bouncing my knees in the rhythm

and trying to convince myself that I had this, I ran straight in like

a bull charging a combine .

It was all calculation and no feeling . There is something about

Double Dutch that you just have to get in order to do it  .  .  . and I

didn’t get it . You can’t think your way into it, you have to know

it before you know it .

What I don’t understand about Double Dutch, I do understand

about faith . “Knowing before you know” is the same principle at

work in faith and it is why faith and reason are so consistently at

odds . Simply put, faith requires acceptance before proof, and rea-

son requires proof before acceptance . Both reason and faith have

bouncers telling you to leave what you have at the door . In order

to enter reason, you need to trust only in what you see . In order

to enter faith, you need to trust in what you cannot see . Reason

is linear; faith is circular .

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This is just the beginning of the chapter - it gets better!  Stop back on Friday for another snippet!