Others have already indicated quite how much of an unpalatable thing the word atheist is for this man. He has a habituated, unexamined prejudice against the word atheist, which really seems to be the only reason he didn't admit that he really, secretly, in a way he can't yet acknowledge even to himself, is one.

Clearly the Alan Hayward book was the first straw he could clutch at in order to have some kind of fig leaf to hide his nascent atheism - both from his peer group and from himself. If he had carried through his skepticism in a logical and coherent manner then he would have come to the same conclusion about christianity as he did about young-earth creationism.

It's clearly apologetics claptrap, but I would be interested to know precisely what this book says that Morton found so appealing. What is a "Days of Proclamation" view anyway?