Christian Apologetics -- providing a reasoned defense of the Christian message.
Promoting and contrasting the Christian worldview with atheism, secularism, postmodernism, skepticism, Islam, humanism and all other isms that raise their heads against the knowledge of God.
I love this picture from Ken Boa’s website and use it as a 1280×800 pixel background image on my laptop. The full size image is here:
www.christian-apologetics.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/YHWH.jpg
I would like Ken to produce a really hi-res version of this image so that we can make a poster from it and stick it on the wall (hint hint…….).
And here is another one, this time from Tim Challies:
From Uncommon Descent…
At Not Even Wrong, Peter Woit comments on Larry Krauss’s recent interest in the multiverse:
Today’s New York Times has an article by Dennis Overbye about Lawrence Krauss and his new book A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing
. Much of the book is an excellent discussion of cosmology and the physics of the vacuum, but it also devotes a lot of effort to discussing the meaningless question of “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and arguing against the invocation of a deity in order to answer it. Krauss is no fan of string theory, which he regards as overhyped, but he seems to have developed an attraction to multiverse studies recently, perhaps motivated by their use in arguments with those who see the Big Bang as a place for God to hang out.
Personally I’ve no interest in arguments about the existence of God, which epitomize to me an empty waste of time. Given the real dangers of religious fundamentalism in the US though, I’m glad that others like Krauss make the effort to answer some of these arguments. I’m less happy to see him and others adopting the multiverse as their weapon of choice in this battle, since it’s a lousy one and not going to convince anyone. In the New York Times piece we’re told:
“Maybe in the true eternal multiverse there are truly no laws,” Dr. Krauss said in an e-mail. “Maybe indeed randomness is all there is and everything that can happen happens somewhere.”
Given the choice between this vision of fundamental science and “God did it” as explanations for the nature of the universe, one can’t be surprised if people go for the man in the white robes…
Well, if God exists, science follows, but if there are truly no laws, science doesn’t follow.
From here.
We’ve heard for years that we’re in the middle of a “culture war.” A culture war, unlike a civil war, is not fought with guns and tanks, but with ideas, words, arguments, media, and education. Unlike ordinary political debates, it’s a fight over the fundamental principles on which cultures are based.
In our new book Indivisible, which will be officially released this Monday, February 20, we argue that Americans are “like tourists on a sunny beach. We’ve heard news of an earthquake on the sea floor, hundreds of miles away, but everything still looks normal. People are sipping iced tea, enjoying the warm sand and the sun overhead. Many think, ‘We’ve never had it so good.’ And yet, when we look closely, we notice that the beach is growing wider as the tide recedes toward the horizon.”
The tide seems to be receding even faster in the last few weeks. We all know that our economy is teetering and the federal government is endangering our children’s future with unprecedented deficit spending. As we observe in The Christian Post, 2012 was supposed to be the year when economic issues would dominate presidential debates, and so-called social issues would take a back seat. Instead, abortion, religious freedom, and marriage are also in the headlines.
The first two issues–abortion and religious freedom–come together with the recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that organizations, including religious organizations, provide health insurance that covers sterilization, contraception and drugs that induce abortion. The Catholic Bishops have been especially visible in responding to this assault on religious freedom. “This country once fought a revolution to guarantee freedom, but the time has clearly arrived to strongly reassert our fundamental human rights,” said the Most. Rev. Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C., Bishop of Peoria. “I am honestly horrified that the nation I have always loved has come to this hateful and radical step in religious intolerance.”
Amazon link: Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late
Media Release — 3 February 2012
Right to Life is disappointed that Starbucks are officially supporting sodomy and gay marriage.
Starbucks executive vice President, Karen Holmes in a letter dated 24 January 2012, to United States partners expressed enthusiastic support for homosexual marriage legislation in Washington State. The “important legislation” says Karen Holmes “is core to who we are and what we value as a company.”
Customer Relations at Starbucks stated that “Starbucks is proud to join other leading Northwest employers in support of Washington State legislation recognising marriage equality for same–sex couples. From our very earliest days, Starbucks have strived to create a company culture that put our people first and our company has a lengthy history of leading on and supporting policies that promote equality and inclusion.”
It is disappointing but not surprising that Starbucks wish to re-define marriage and believes that support for sodomy and homosexual marriage is a core value.
The family is at the centre of a culture of life, it is the foundation of a stable society. It is the family that brings forth children, future citizens who are essential for the continuance of society. The promotion of same sex marriage is an attack on the institution of marriage and on society itself. Right to Life supports the human rights of the homosexual members of our community, however there is no human right to homosexual marriage.
The support of Starbucks for homosexual marriage is no surprise, as the company has been putting pro-homosexual messages on its take-away cups since 2006. Starbucks claims in its mission statement to embrace diversity. It promotes gay pride events but refuses to support events celebrating heterosexual marriage.
Pro-family leaders in the United States are now calling for an international boycott of Starbucks.
The Starbucks brand is managed in New Zealand by Restaurant Brands NZ Ltd which has 32 Starbucks Coffee shops in New Zealand.
Those in the community who believe that marriage is exclusively for one man and one woman will be offended by the attack of Starbucks on the family. They are encouraged to boycott Starbucks Coffee shops and to take their business to coffee shops that support the family and who do not support sodomy and homosexual marriage.
Right to Life requests Restaurant Brands to publicly dissociate itself from the support for homosexual marriage expressed by Starbucks USA.
Ken Orr
Spokesperson,
Right to Life
Phone +64 3 385 6111
From a peer-reviewed paper (source here).
Biological Theory
Volume 6, Number 1, 89-102, DOI: 10.1007/s13752-011-0007-1The Fate of Darwinism: Evolution After the Modern Synthesis
David J. Depew and Bruce H. Weber
Abstract: We trace the history of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, and of genetic Darwinism generally, with a view to showing why, even in its current versions, it can no longer serve as a general framework for evolutionary theory. The main reason is empirical. Genetical Darwinism cannot accommodate the role of development (and of genes in development) in many evolutionary processes. We go on to discuss two conceptual issues: whether natural selection can be the “creative factor” in a new, more general framework for evolutionary theorizing; and whether in such a framework organisms must be conceived as self-organizing systems embedded in self-organizing ecological systems. (Emphasis added.)
A must-read for budding and established apologists here:
All of these trends have awakened a sleeping giant – Christian apologetics, or the defense of the faith. We’re seeing apologetics books on the New York Times bestsellers list. Schools like Biola University and its Talbot School of Theology, which are leaders in apologetics, are filled to capacity. Denver Seminary is launching a new degree in Christian Apologetics and Ethics this fall. One organization is seeking to place apologists on 500 college campuses in the next five years.
Get it here: www.thebestschools.org/blog/2012/01/14/william-dembski-interview/
I love Dembski. He is an intellectual genius, and honest to the heart. With the persecution he has faced both inside and outside the church, he is also like a modern Galileo.
Amazon book: You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith
Website: youlostmebook.com/
New Atheist Christopher Hitchens has passed on.
Hitchens, who wrote for publications such as The Atlantic Monthly, Slate and Vanity Fair, rose to prominence for his divisive opinions, his unabashed atheism, his scorching critiques of popular figures like Mother Teresa Henry Kissinger, and, above all, his razor wit. (Reuters)
I personally admire Hitchens for having the guts to stand up for what he believed, even if I would disagree with him as his brother Peter Hitchens did (blog, Amazon book “The rage against God”).
Our condolences go out to his family.
From those I follow on Twitter…
A small book by Hitchens and friend Doug Wilson is available here:
The email contained the usual Dawkins-esque diatribe about religion (yawn) and mocking my friend Rabbi Maverick. I wrote a reply (below) and sent it to both the atheist “Neil C. Reinhardt” and the Maverick, but ironically after telling me how much smarter atheists are then religious people, his email bounced !!!
Well, here is my reply anyways:
Neil (cc: Moshe the Maverick),
I consider atheism to be the least intellectual of the positions you note. Face it dude, your guys keep losing the debates, and as for the gutless pathetic Dawkins, well he won’t even front up with Craig. He should wear a skirt !
You seem to forget that many atheists are (yawn) just doing what their parents did. I did, until I converted from atheism to Christianity.
It should also be remembered that the millions killed last century were killed in the name of atheism. Yeah, the blowhard atheist ignoramuses will go on about Hitler being a Christian, but this just shows their intellectual dishonesty. See Professor Richard Weikhart‘s book “From Darwin to Hitler” for example.
As for criminals — yeah right — you probably have no idea what a Christian even is. Of course American culture hardly gives Christianity a good name does it? And the American church in general appears to be about as sick and in need of a doctor as any church in the world is.
I concede the point about leaders. The simple reality is that it is hard to be both a committed Christian and a dedicated leader. There are only 24 hours in the day here in New Zealand and it is hard to be good at many things. Also, many of us have families that we are very committed to. And you guys have set up a nice secular priesthood, copying the Roman Catholic Church that you all despise so much (I don’t like the RCC either FWIW).
Best regards,
CA
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10771297
Incredible.
Also:
Eight of 10 believe Jesus was a real person who lived 2000 years ago.
Incredible #2!
And I thought the only people crazy enough to deny the solid historical facts about Jesus were the atheists on the infidels website.
Read all about it…
Available here in New Zealand or from Amazon here
It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’.
Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually.
Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it.
It was cited uncritically by, among others, reporters and commentators from the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist and numerous media outlets in America.
The Washington Post said the BEST study had ‘settled the climate change debate’ and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a ‘cynical fraud’.
But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.
Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.
Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.
Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk
From here.
Further to “Dawkins speaks: Why he won’t debate William Lane Craig … Craig advocates “ genocide”
In “Richard Dawkins is either a fool or a coward for refusing to debate William Lane Craig” (The Telegraph, October 21, 2011), historian Tim Stanley offers,
He likes to pick fights either with dunces (like the deliciously silly and obviously gay Ted Haggard) or with incredibly nice old Christians with no fire in their belly (like Rowan Williams). Dawkins has gotten away with his illiterate, angry schtick for so many years because his opponents have been so woolly. This is a damning indictment not only of him, but of the clerical establishment of Great Britain. But this time, he understood that he was up against a pro. In America, evangelicals have to compete in a vibrant, competitive marketplace of different denominations. That breeds the very guile and theatricality that are so sorely lacking among the Anglican clergy. In Craig, Dawkins met his match. Like Jonah, he was confronted by the truth and he ran away.
Stanley provides critical context for Craig’s treatment of Old Testament slaughters.
Craig’s purpose in writing this piece is to unravel the paradox of a moral Bible that also includes lashings of apparently random violence. Craig stresses that these passages of the Bible are difficult for us to read because we are not of the age in which they are written – they are just as alien to us as Beowulf or the Iliad. That’s because Christian society has been shaped by the rules of life outlined in the New Testament, not in the section of The Bible in which this massacre occurs. Far from using this passage to celebrate the slaughter of heathen, Craig is making the point that the revelation of God’s justice has changed over time.
Which is pretty much the standard view.
It’s hard to figure out why Dawkins, who holds forth regularly on religion, would not know that. Or …
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