The Good Fight

WNY Apologetics website

2008-06-23T14:21:00.001-05:00

I've mentioned the start-up group I helped found this past winter. We are called Western New York Apologetics and our aim is to bring the defense of the faith to local churches and the secular community.

See our brand new website:

www.wnyapologetics.com

Why Life?

2008-06-16T08:06:00.002-05:00

Those familiar with philosophical arguments for God's existence may be aware of the much-discussed kalam cosmological argument. Its premises and form are as such:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

The proponent then goes on to analyze the cause referenced in the conclusion. This cause is timeless, spaceless, unfathomably powerful and intelligent, immaterial, and uncaused. It is who everyone has referred to as "God."

Sometimes, oddly enough, premise 1 is challenged, as if something like the universe could literally pop into being out of nothing.

Apart from the many good responses I've read to that position, I add this: of all things that could've popped into existence out of anything (bizarrely granting this could happen, though I don't think it can), why would it be something that was so hospitable to conscious, apparently meaningful, human life? Why didn't some blob of matter or some inhospitable reality come into being from the void? It seems rather strange that precisely the sort of world suitable for life emerged instead of the seemingly endless alternate possibilities.

The only good explanation I know of is that the universe was brought into existence by a living cause who intended for there to be life in his creation.

Memorial Day 2008

2008-05-27T21:00:00.002-05:00

This is post is slightly belated, as Memorial Day was yesterday. Regardless, I just want say, God bless all the soldiers and military men and women who have served this country throughout its history. And I include in that those engaged in the Revolutionary War all the way through today. We (including me) too often take for granted their excellent service to us and our great country.

Also, I want to point that in victory and defeat, God is ever-present with these men and women in their battles and service. Indeed, I have no doubt that it has been God's hand that has so powerfully guided America's success in its military endeavors.

"The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name." (Exodus 15:3)

Random Questions in Christian Theology

2008-05-24T21:34:00.003-05:00

1. The Bible states repeatedly that gossip is sin. We shouldn't talk about others in harmful or negative ways or spread potentially damaging or private news about them. One question related to this is: is it wrong to discuss the dead in this way? For on a Christian worldview, such persons are still living (in Heaven or Hell). Therefore, when we talk about them, we are talking about someone who really exists. Does prohibition against gossip apply when discussing living persons both earthly and beyond?

2. Can we use people's apparent talents and abilities as evidence for the reality of design plan and therefore a Designer of our world and in fact of our very lives? We often hear people say they were "born to do" such-n-such or that they feel that this or that is their destiny in life. Even people who don't openly believe in God say such things. Could people really have a true intuition into a divinely inspired plan for their life, even if they are unaware that God is behind it? I tend to think so.

3. In Hell, will the unsaved have consistent interaction with real, observable demons? If the saved will have communion and interaction with angels, it seems the damned would in touch with fallen angels. It's at least not clear why they wouldn't be. This is a terrifying thought.

4. Could some animals have a greater capacity for some form of fellowship with God than others? For instance, if a certain dog is brought up in a loving home and is loyal and close to his human owners, would it therefore be able to appreciate God more than, say, an animal who never made human contact? This question only makes sense if animals can in some way appreciate or feel some kind of kinship to persons. It seems to me they can to some extent.

Thoughts on the Afterlife

2008-05-20T07:59:00.002-05:00

Most people are aware that the greatest fact about the Christian afterlife is that Christians will finally have the fullest possible communion with the triune God. As this is the greatest thing that can happen to a human person, it is a fact sufficient to make the Christian idea of life after death hugely exciting. But there are other exciting and sometimes overlooked things about Heaven, which are fun to think about. Here are some that come to my mind.

1. We'll be able to interact and converse with people featured in the Bible. This includes saved persons from both the Old and New Testaments: e.g., Moses, Job, King David, Daniel, the Apostle Paul, Peter, John. Imagine what it would it be like to ask these folks about their lives and their circumstances in those eras!

2. We'll live with Christians and saved persons (some, in the Old Testament for example, were saved but never were formally Christians) from virtually every time and culture in the history of the world. I find it fascinating that we'll have the ability to talk with people from the beginning of mankind, ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, etc.

3. Christian relatives, friends, and acquaintances (and non-human friends, i.e., pets -- I believe) will be there for us to see again and reunite with. This includes babies who may have died in the womb or very young and who we'll now see and get to know.

4. We'll have new bodies with new properties and abilities. In His resurrected body, Jesus was apparently able to walk through solid objects like walls and move from place to place quickly and suddenly. In our resurrected state, we'll seemingly have the same sorts capabilities.

5. I presume that those in Heaven will be able to tour the universe in its entirety, going to planets, galaxies, etc.

6. We'll see angels face-to-face and come to know them.

7. Events both tragic and good that puzzled us on earth will be explained and understood in the afterlife (at least, if we ask about them).

8. The new earth will have the beauty and natural harmony that Eden had (perhaps even grander) -- something we often wish we could see now but only get glimpses of.

Western New York Youth Apologetics Event

2008-04-10T16:06:00.002-05:00

DOES GOD EXIST AT COLLEGE?

How can students retain a biblical faith when faced with the intellectual challenges of the university. How can they respond to questions on issues like evolution/creation, the reliability of the Bible, and the problem of evil when confronted with them on campus?

Come hear biblical answers to such questions at this series of lectures. Featured talks and speakers include:

Dick Ditullio, "God, Man, and Caveman"

Dr. James Beebe, "Why Would a Good God Allow Bad Things to Happen?"

Jim Reeverts, "Would We Trust God's Facebook Page?: God's Word and its Reliability"

Also featured:

- Campus Crusade for Christ representatives introducing their ministry and on-campus fellowship opportunities

- Free pizza, drinks, dessert

- Q&A sessions with the speakers following each lecture

- Free apologetics literature packets provided

- Books for sale on the related topics

WHERE: AMHERST BAPTIST CHURCH (AMHERST, NY)

WHEN: SATURDAY, MAY 10, 10am-2pm

PRICE: FREE OF CHARGE

Brought to you by: WNY Apologetics and Campus Crusade for Christ

Easter: Not Just a Pleasant Story

2008-04-05T08:42:00.002-05:00

Here's an essay I wrote this past Easter. It was printed in the editorials of The Niagara Gazette and Lewiston-Porter Sentinel (both local newspapers here in western New York).

Easter: Not Just a Pleasant Story

The late American historian, U.B. Phillips once remarked that, “we do not live in the past, but the past in us.” Phillips was a keen observer of just how many of the cultural practices and traditions we take for granted today originated in times long ago. Of course, this point can be sometimes unexciting. Understanding the history of frankfurters and why they are with us today is bound to produce a nap. Researching the origins of curling as a sport could bring more serious consequences, perhaps a coma.
But in other areas, retracing the past can be both fascinating and very relevant personally. This time of year, we might look to the Easter holiday as a prime example. Of course, there will be much unexciting here, too: few of us care why egg hunts or the Easter bunny were ever dreamed up. But these are mostly extra, incidental aspects of the holiday, anyway. Most of us know that at its core, Easter is about the story of Jesus Christ, his death, and his resurrection from the dead. Granted, many become so busy with the surrounding festivities that they overlook these elements. But most are still aware of the central storyline.
What may be less apparent to many, though, is the potential importance of that storyline for each of us. For if true, it is not merely an inspiring ancient tale, but a real, historical event with eternal significance. Jesus taught that his death and resurrection were crucial. Humans, he said, have turned their backs on God through their rebelliousness and moral failure. They therefore deserve separation from God, which is death. Jesus, as God's divine son, promised to pay our debt by dying on our behalf and rising again. If we accept his gift, then we too will rise from death to eternal life.
With these considerations in mind, the question of whether the Easter story is historically accurate becomes vital to us all and therefore powerfully intriguing. More intriguing still are the findings that have persuaded both secular and Christian historians to answer that question with a resounding ‘yes.’
For instance, acclaimed resurrection scholar, Gary Habermas in his book, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus has noted that at least 75% of researchers agree that Jesus' tomb was found empty days after his burial. Historians have found that the empty tomb stories in the Gospels are totally unlike ancient legends in style. Such ancient fictions included fanciful tales of wonder and pomp. But the empty tomb accounts are straightforward and read like first-hand testimonies. They're history, not fantasy.
Scholars have also pondered this: if Jesus' body remained in the tomb, why didn't rival religious leaders reveal it to everyone while his followers proclaimed the resurrection throughout Jerusalem? This would have destroyed the Christian movement at its start therefore stamping out a serious threat to their power. The reason they didn't do so, say researchers, is that there was no body there to reveal.
Going further, Habermas observes that virtually all scholars admit that appearances of Jesus were seen for weeks following his crucifixion. We know the followers of Jesus who claimed to see these appearances were not lying, as most of them died as martyrs. But who would die for something they knew was a lie? Moreover, even enemies of Jesus like Saul of Tarsus and James reported seeing him. But surely they would not make up such claims so as to support a young Christian movement that they despised. Given these clues, atheist historian, Gerd Ludemann surprisingly confesses, "It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ."
The famed British scholar, N.T. Wright sums things up nicely in his classic text, The Resurrection of the Son of God. Wright explains that if Jesus never rose from death, then Christianity would never have survived past the first century. If Jesus simply died on the cross, his movement would have died with him. This occurred with all of the many first-century messianic pretenders before and after him. It was only Jesus’ movement that lived on and ultimately turned the Roman Empire upside down. Something extraordinary must have happened to prevent this group from dissolving like all the rest. That something extraordinary, says Wright, was the Resurrection.
This is just a sampling of evidences revealing the truth of the biblical stories about Christ. It was facts like these that persuaded even leading Jewish theologian, Pinchas Lapide to conclude that the God of Israel raised Jesus from death! Perhaps we can conclude the same.
Ultimately, the Easter story may not be merely something we celebrate annually on a March or April day. Indeed, our response to it may well determine the fate we experience once our earthly days are done.

God Facts

2008-03-10T20:58:00.002-05:00

There's an amusing website out there called, "Chuck Norris Facts" (www.chucknorrisfacts.com). It's a funny take on the martial arts legend (and Christian), Chuck Norris. The site is fully of humorous claims about Norris that go way over the top and make him into a sort of deity figure. Some examples:

"Chuck Norris counted to infinity -- twice."
"Chuck Norris doesn't wear a watch -- HE decides what time it is."
"When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn't pushing himself up, he's pushing the earth down."

What's interesting is that we can make many outstanding, seemingly impossible claims about the God of the Bible. But, of course, this doesn't count as humor, just good theology. Here's my attempt:

"God doesn't act according to a moral code; He simply acts and it is morally good."
"God spoke and the universe was."
"God can exist at no time." (timeless)
"God can exist nowhere." (spaceless)
"God lived through His own death."
"God is perfect yet not proud of it." (humble)

Debate with Krueger

2008-03-08T09:18:00.002-06:00

I'm sheduled to participate in an online debate with atheist philosopher, Doug Krueger some time this June. It will probably be hosted by www.infidels.org and will cover the topic: Theism vs. Atheism: Where Does the Evidence Point?

Krueger is a Phd. candidate in philosophy and author of the book, What is Atheism?: A Short Introduction.

Christians: please pray for me.

Top 10 Books on Jesus' Resurrection

2008-02-19T21:52:00.003-06:00

With Easter about a month away, I thought I'd present my top 10 books concerning the historical event that inspired that holiday: Jesus' resurrection.

1. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona

2. Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment ed. Paul Copan and Ronald Tacelli

3. Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? ed. Paul Copan

4. The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright

5. The Historical Jesus by Gary Habermas

6. Jesus Under Fire ed. J.P. Moreland and Mike Wilkins (see William Lane Craig's chapter)

7. The Risen Jesus and Future Hope by Gary Habermas

8. Resurrected? by Gary Habermas and Antony Flew

9. The Case for Christ? by Lee Strobel

10. Risen Indeed by Stephen T. Davis

On Life's Sanctity

2008-02-13T11:51:00.002-06:00

As we near the 2008 Presidential Election, it's worthwhile to remind ourselves of the importance of the abortion issue and how to defend a pro-life stance. Two next excellent books in this regard:

Defending Life by Francis Beckwith
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/105-7196569-8850807?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Francis+Beckwith

Embryo: A Defense of Human Life by Robert George and Christopher Tollefson
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/105-7196569-8850807?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Embryo

Alan Keyes: The Anti-Obama

2008-01-28T11:30:00.000-06:00

I have done public speaking — and sort of done well at it — since I was in high school. In fact, I was involved a lot in oratorical contests, and speech contests, and debate, and things like that, and did very well. So I guess, in that sense, some kind of speaking ability [in me] has been clear since I was young.[But] I think it is a mistake to believe that there is some "special skill" in public speaking. . . . There is no good speech apart from the thought that goes into it and is expressed by it. There is no trick involved that can turn something that has no substance into a good speech. . . . Speech is the business through which citizens communicate to each other, and those who are able to do it well are better qualified to lead than others.

-- Alan Keyes, in an interview with C-Span

Keyes is easily my favorite political figure and scholar. He's voraciously Christian in his approach and seeks to uphold the liberty and theistic stronghold which founded our country. He's adamantly pro-life, anti-income tax, pro-gun rights, solidly against illegal immigration. He's also an excellent thinker and debater.

He is, in essence, everything that Barack Obama is not politically and morally. In fact, they ran against each other for an Illinois Senate seat back in 2004. They debated three times (Obama would not go through with the originally planned six debates) and Keyes had the upper hand -- easily -- in each.

You can find two of the debates online at:

http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/transcript.php?id=373

http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/transcript.php?id=370

All three can be found in video form at:

http://archives.alankeyes.com/video.php

Barack Hussein Obama

2008-01-25T11:11:00.000-06:00

Allow me to take a stab at some brief political commentary. Topic: Barack Obama.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama is the most vehement of abortionists, even denying rights to babies who survive the abortion process and are birthed. He says, let them die, a barbaristic thought that's both chilling and dangerous. What then prevents one from deciding that other human persons deserve death? The elderly, mentally retarded, severely handicapped -- shall we say that their lives should be ended? Here's a slippery slope that Barack cannot avoid.

Pronouncements that Obama is this phenom of public speech and presentation are wrong-headed. How can one be a brilliant speaker and yet say nothing of substance or worth when he speaks? Listen to Obama and you'll find that words flow, but no truth. He says he'll bring "change," unification, and peace. But ask him how and nothing worth listening to will follow. He's rather unlike the great American leaders of times past -- Washington, Lincoln, Reagan -- real men, who knew how to speak and think and live what they believed.

Unlike these men, Obama disbelieves in liberty, self-governance, and a theistic foundation to our country. He instead calls for Marxist, communistic ideals. His are ideas that have long been tried and found wanting -- ideas unsuccessful, but alluring to many, especially those with power. Big taxes, big government, big oppression: all products of leftist thought and action.

Extraordinary evil has no place in the White House. But should Obama enter in, nothing less will dwell there.

Roe v. Wade Anniversary

2008-01-23T11:45:00.000-06:00

January 22, 2008 was the 25th Anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Constitutional amendment.

Mourning all around.

WNY Apologetics

2008-01-22T20:10:00.000-06:00

I've recently helped to organize a new apologetics group/ministry in Western New York that is dedicated to advancing the Gospel in our region through reason and argument. Our goal will be to defend the Christian beliefs in creation, the authority of the Bible, the nature of God, and so forth. We will seek to both engage the secular culture and inform the local church on the issues and seek to show them God's truth.

We've begun a blog related the (as yet unnamed) group. It can be found at:

www.wnyapologetics.blogspot.com

If you're a Christian, please pray for our efforts.

Cell Phones: A Critique

2008-01-17T21:16:00.000-06:00

Neil Postman, the late, great scholar of technology and media often made the point that new technologies are ultimately a Faustian bargain: they might bring some advantages, but they'll bring some (often very serious) disadvantages, too. But in our current age where technology and "progress" are so lauded, one rarely hears of the downsides of technologies. Here, I wish to do so with one the beloved gadget of our day: the cell phone.

1. Cell phones never allow us to leave work. We might exit physically, but never mentally or wholly. Have a question? Need help with an assignment? Oh, just call me on my cell. No matter that I have a life outside work, a family, a home, a God to whom I owe my time. No rest for the weary -- a sad development no doubt frowned upon by the God who Himself rests (see Genesis 1).

2. People out in public are routinely entranced by their cell phone conversations and thereby lose their consideration for those around them (if they ever had any). They're near us but not really "with" us. They're ever present, but ever-absent. Conversations continue to flow; communities continue to fragment.

3. Has the concept of solitude or being alone with God and one's thoughts totally escaped the world? It's unclear whether we'll ever again see an existence without the constant noise of small talk and gossip ringing in our ears. Jesus regularly practiced quietness, prayer, and being alone with the Father. The "convenience" of modernity will have none of this. Here, idolatry thrives.

4. Attention spans seem ever elusive, no doubt with help from the cell phone and its ilk. It's unclear now whether most of the population can sit still for longer than five minutes without picking up the phone. Resultantly, our most healthy habits become non-existent: reading, studying, praying, being with family, listening.

Top 10 Christian Philosophers (continued...)

2008-01-16T22:02:00.000-06:00

Here are the final six:

5. Dallas Willard - Absolute master of the spiritual disciplines (e.g., solitude, fasting, prayer, study, silence) and simultaneously a master of philosophical issues in metaphysics and philosophy of religion. Students and those near him tell of his Christ-likeness and brilliance as a speaker. Has had a major impact on today's Church and his books will continue to do so well into the future. (Recommended books: The Divine Conspiracy, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Renovation of the Heart, see also his website http://www.dwillard.org/)

6. Alvin Plantinga - Perhaps the most heralded Christian philosopher in the secular academy today. Revolutionized the area of religious epistemology with this "Aquinas/Calvin" model of warranted Christian belief. He's also a giant in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and virtually any other area of philosophy he touches. See his interesting work on the problem of evil and problems with evolutionary naturalism. (Recommended books: The Nature of Necessity, Warranted Christian Belief, Naturalism Defeated?)

7. Stephen T. Davis - One of the most clever philosophers of religion working today. Has done fine work in the logic of theistic arguments, the nature and defense of Jesus's Resurrection, and the divine attributes. Writes with an easy yet attractive style that makes you wish to read more. (Recommended books: God, Reason, and Theistic Proofs, Christian Philosophical Theology, Risen Indeed)

8. William Dembski - Perhaps the key player in the ID/evolution debate today. His arguments for biological intelligent design are the finest extant and he continually challenges the Darwinists on their own ground. He's done the most in the ID movement in providing mathematical, philosophical foundations to ID theories. He's also well-versed in philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. (Recommended books: No Free Lunch, Intelligent Design, The Design of Life)

9. Norman Geisler - Perhaps the most prolific writer among all Christian philosopers today. He's written probably around 50 books, including an entire encyclopedia of Christian apologetics. At his best when discussing and defending biblical theology. Has also done fine work on theistic arguments and the Resurrection. A total bulldog who has debated some of the best anti-Christian scholars in the world. (Recommended books: The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Christian Apologetics, Philosophy of Religion, The Battle for the Resurrection)

10. R. Douglas Geivett - Great philosopher of religion, who's also very accomplished in the area of epistemology. Some of his top writings have been on the problem of evil and suffering. He's developed a theistic argument from evil (a form of design argument) that is insightful and powerful. Eminent speaker and debater. (Recommended books: Evil and the Evidence for God, In Defense of Miracles)

Top 10 Christian Philosophers (...or at least my Top 10)

2008-01-15T18:08:00.000-06:00

Here are the first four:

1. William Lane Craig - Craig is the quintessential Christian apologist and scholar. He has revolutionized the field of apologetics with his work on the kalam cosmological argument and the Resurrection of Jesus. This is only the tip of iceberg, as his writings have defended virtually all of the major arguments of natural theology. And through his debates and interaction with atheist scholars, he's shown how to make these arguments hold up against opposition. See also his excellent work in philosophical theology on issues like: God and time, divine foreknowledge, the doctrine of the Trinity, God's relation to abstract objects, divine aseity, etc. (Recommended books: Reasonable Faith, Does God Exist? (w/ Antony Flew), The Kalam Cosmological Argument, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview)

2. Gary Habermas - Probably the top scholarly defender of the Resurrection in the church today. Habermas has written scores of books and articles on this topic and continues to go strong. He's the original formulator of the "Minimal Facts" approach to arguing for the historical Resurrection -- a very powerful methodology. (Recommended Books: The Historical Jesus, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, Resurrected?, The Risen Jesus and Future Hope)

3. J. P. Moreland - Top-notch Christian philosopher and apologist whose writings are pervasive and powerful. Moreland excels in the philosophy of science and holds degrees in chemistry, philosophy, and theology. His arguments for the reality of an immaterial human soul are excellent and he's recently written on how the reality of human consciousness points to the reality of God as Creator. He is just as at home writing and speaking about Jesus's Resurrection, theological issues, and spiritual disciplines. (Recommended Books: Consciousness and the Existence of God, Scaling the Secular City, The Kingdome Triangle, Naturalism: A Critical Analysis, Jesus Under Fire, The Creation Hypothesis)

4. Paul Copan - Very talented and knowledgeable philosopher who is up-and-coming in the world of apologetics. Copan's knowledge is encyclopedic in philosophy religion, metaphysics, and philosophical theology. He's especially good with the Moral Argument for theism (which he wrote his Phd. thesis about) and making complex argumentation accessible to laymen. (Recommended Books: True For You, But Not For Me, How Do You Know You're Not Wrong?, Loving Wisdom: Christian Philosophy of Religion)

False Assumptions About Christianity and the Bible

2008-01-14T20:45:00.000-06:00

In no particular order:

1. Neither the Bible nor the traditional Christian creeds ever teach that God exists outside of time. This is presumed to be true by many Christians, but it is really just a philosophical position that gained favor among theologians throughout the Middle Ages. In fact, the Bible is never clear whether God is timeless or not and many Christian philosophers today argue that God in fact experiences and exists in time. (See William Lane Craig's book, Time and Eternity about this.)

2. Jesus of Nazareth was not purely Jewish in ethnicity. Several of His ancestors were Gentiles.
(See His lineage listed in the Gospels.)

3. The stories of Jesus's birth in the Gospels never state that there were three wisemen who came to visit Him. The text merely states that wisemen came to see him; it never specifies a number. Possibly, three came to be the number used, because there were three types of gifts given (gold, frankincense, and myrrh).

4. The Gospels do not claim that the wisemen visited Jesus in the manger. They say that they showed up later, when Jesus and His family were residing in a house.

5. The Bible never teaches that it is especially virtuous to have a mindless faith without any evidence to defend it. Indeed, in several places Scripture tells us that we should be able to reason about our beliefs and give a plausible reason to those who ask why we believe. Jesus Himself used evidence of His miracles and His pierced hands as evidence that He was divine.

Inevitable Immorality

2008-01-13T17:37:00.000-06:00

I've heard several pastors in previous sermons make the point that immoral, unethical behavior is rather unlearned in human beings. We are never really taught how to lie or steal or be selfish. These all come quite without effort or exertion. The point these preachers make is simply that the Christian doctrine of original sin is one that can be readily seen in everyday life. One needs no fancy philosophical arguments or theological insights to realize that something dreadful infects humankind.

But, as one interested in Christian apologetics, I'd take this point a bit further. For not only does the everyday behavior of those around us, and, indeed, our very selves point to the phenomenon of original sin, it also points to the deficiency of rival worldviews to explain it.

Take naturalism, as an example. This perspective states that there is no God, no transcendent, no supernatural. Humans (like the entire universe) are the result of blind evolutionary developments -- we are but intelligent beasts. But given naturalism, why is it that humans have a propensity for immorality or doing the wrong thing? Why didn't we simply evolve into kind beings? Why isn't the world such that "only the kind and virtuous survive"? All the naturalist can appeal to is chance: the world just happen to come to be this way. But to appeal to happenstance is simply to state that you have no actual explanation.

Christianity, though, does have an explanation of why mankind engages in seemingly inevitable immorality. Christians believe that humans are sinful; sin has stained all of us down to our very nature such that we cannot escape it. Their explanation, of course, is that the first humans (Adam and Eve) chose to sin against God when they disobeyed Him in the Garden. Mankind tasted sin and it began to crave it. They have struggled in fighting against it ever since. Ultimately, man could not save himself from sins demands; God had to save them through His Son Jesus -- on the Cross.

Thus, our thought experiment reveals Christianity to be superior to naturalism in explaining why humans are depraved. Interestingly, comparing the Christian worldview to various other competing perspectives provides the same result. For instance, many Eastern religions disbelieve that there are such things as good and bad. Thus, humans never do bad or wrong anyone. But this is so clearly false, that Christianity is easily seen to be the better viewpoint. Lesson learned: only Christianity can explain the problems of mankind, and only Christianity provides their solution.

John Piper online

2007-12-14T08:38:00.000-06:00

I recently came upon an excellent resource for Christians wanting to heighten their theological and Scriptural knowledge. Famed theologian and pastor, John Piper has virtually all of his books, sermons, etc. online at his ministry website: www.desiringgod.org.

Note that you aren't required to purchase these items. You can simply read his books in PDF format directly on the site. This is a treasure trove and shouldn't be missed.

Kingdom Triangle Blog

2007-11-22T21:20:00.000-06:00

Back in June of this year, Christian philosopher and apologist, J.P. Moreland published a book entitled, Kingdom Triangle (Zondervan, 2007). It is a treasure trove of biblical, philosophical, and pastoral wisdom coming from the pen of one of the finest scholars in church history. Anyone with a passion for the Kingdom of God and its advancement in the earthly realm must read this volume.

Essentially, Moreland discusses how, in order to truly fulfill God's Great Commission (as delineated in the New Testament) to make disciples in all nations, Christians must commit to three things: sharpening their Christian thinking and apologetics skills, master the spiritual disciplines that enable us to become more like Christ, and lastly recover a sense of God's miraculous intervention in everyday lives and affairs and allow God to work in this way in our evangelism and testimony.

Moreland discusses these themes and his book at his blog at:

www.kingdomtriangle.blogspot.com

If you are a Christian, CHECK THIS OUT!!! Discover how to become a true disciple of Christ herein.

5 Reasons Why Islam is False

2007-10-29T22:15:00.000-05:00

In no particular order; for more details on points such as these, see Norman Geisler's book Answering Islam:

1. According to Muslims, the Koran is considered the inerrant, holy scripture that comes directly as a revelation from Allah. However, there have been many examples of factual errors and inconsistencies throughout the book. Thus, either the Koran did not really come from Allah, since Allah cannot be in error or think inconsistently. Or Allah produced the Koran but he is not perfect. Either way, a major tenet of the Islamic faith is disproved; it is a false religion.

2. The Islamic scriptures teach that Jesus never actually died on the cross. He is alleged to have departed from the cross before fully expiring. This is simply historically inaccurate, however, as essentially no New Testament historian (even the most radically anti-Christian) believes Jesus survived crucifixion.

3. Muslims hold that God can have no Son and no equal, as Christians allege in their doctrine of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God). But there exists ample evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the Son of God, just as He taught. Moreover, Jesus testified to the reality and the divinity of the Holy Spirit. [On the historical Jesus, His identity, and His teachings in this regard, see the works of Gary Habermas, William Lane Craig, Darrell Bock, Craig Blomberg, Ben Witherington, and Craig Evans (to name some top scholars)].

4. The Islamic deity commands unjust and unholy wars. He is thus not morally perfect and is unworthy of worship. But any deity that is unfit for worship cannot be the greatest conceivable being, i.e., God.

5. There are good reasons to believe that the Bible is divinely inspired. Evidences include fulfilled prophecies, the remarkable coherence of the text despite its myriad authors and stories and time frames. The Bible's accuracy has been substantiated greatly by modern archaelogy and classical historical studies. The Bible contains no proven factual errors or contradictions (unlike the Koran) and is attested to as God's Word by Jesus Christ,whom we have good reason to believe was divine Himself. Since the Bible is God's Word and it contradicts the Koran, we can be sure that the Koran is not divinely inspired. Islam is inaccurate in this regard and thus demonstrably false.

Holiness: Mark of the true God

2007-10-26T23:15:00.000-05:00

The function and purpose of the Old Testament Law, as revealed in such books as Leviticus or Deuteronomy is oftentimes puzzling to contemporary Christians. Why does God make such intricate and apparently overly restrictive demands of His chosen Israelite people? Why command a certain method of eating and dressing and appearance? Is God a legalist?

Often overlooked in such discussions is the fact that the Law as revealed in the Old Testament had a main (though not sole) focus, namely to discipline the Israelites into becoming holy -- that is, morally pure -- just as God is holy. As I've observed elsewhere on my blog (see my post quoting H.H. Farmer titled, "On Fighting the World"), the process of making humans holy is one that must be decisive and drastic. The gravity of human sins requires equally grave measures to defeat it.

Thus, in this sense, God's Law was severely restrictive, not because God hates pleasure and wants His children to suffer through a lackluster life full of bleakness. Rather, His law was drastic so as to reveal the Israelites' sinfulness in its light and thus their need to rely on God for guidance and redemption. It was a first, intrusive step towards turning their souls in the right direction.

But while this is all very significant in itself, another lesson embedded herein is equally so. That is, of all deities competing in the world's marketplace of religions, which one demonstrates (or purportedly demonstrates) such a dedication to holiness? It's not the god(s) of Eastern religions and Buddhism, who typically see no distinction between good and evil (both are illusions) and thus do not even pretend to be holy. It is not the Islamic god who does not have universal love, as does the biblical God and who demands unjust and unholy wars (jihad).

Go through all faiths and you'll find no plausible candidate but the God of the Pentateuch who displays such holiness or who is so set apart morally. Philosophers of religion are agreed that any being deserving of the title "God" must be a being "worthy of worship." In short, He must be a being with the great-making attributes of moral purity (holiness), omniscience, omnipotence, etc. He must be maximally excellent.

If we therefore limit our choices of potentially real gods to those worshipped in the religions around the globe, we find that merely one deserves the name of God with a big 'G.' He is Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jesus.

APOLOGETICS EVENT

2007-10-25T08:51:00.000-05:00

The following is an event I'm helping to organize involving two apologetics-oriented lectures from philosophy professors from universities here in Western New York. If you are from western New York, or know someone who is, or you'll be in western New York, or know someone who will be, please tell them about this!!

CAN WE HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD?: SCHOLARS SPEAK OUT

Is the universe a mere accident or the creation of a divine designer? Can a sincere search for God help us to know Him? Come hear answers to such questions in these lectures free of charge and open to the public:

Dr. James Beebe (Professor of Philosophy, SUNY Buffalo):

"Design or Chance?: The Fine-Tuning Argument for the Existence of God"

Dr. John Zeis (Professor of Philosophy, Canisius College):

"Believing in Order to Know"

ALSO:

Q&A Sessions with the speakers
Free literature
Books for sale on the related topic
Refreshments

DATE: DECEMBER 8, 2007

TIME: 2:00-4:00pm

LOCATION: GRUPP FIRESIDE LOUNGE

(CANISIUS COLLEGE STUDENT CENTER)

PRICE OF ADMISSION: FREE

New Article: First Draft

2007-07-04T09:06:00.000-05:00

Here is the initial draft of the piece I recently wrote for the anti-Christian, anti-conservative publication, THE BEAST, published here in western New York state. The editor will likely run a response to the article by Ian Murphy, the fellow to whom I'm responding in this article. Murphy is a writer for the publication and has run several vitriolic critiques of Christianity, as well as even a mean-spirited article about my own church.

Christianity: Trickery or Truth?

In some recent commentaries, Ian Murphy has ridiculed Christianity as a creed that only the mindless or irrational could adopt. This is a strange assertion considering that intellectual giants the likes of Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Isaac Newton, C.S. Lewis, and countless others in the past and today have found the faith reasonable and true. Indeed, examining the writings of polymaths like these allows us to find not only the intriguing questions they produced, but also their reasons for finding Christ the answer.

Gottfried Leibniz, the great 17th century mathematician/philosopher, for example, posed a most basic philosophical question: why is there something rather than nothing? It seems our universe didn't have to exist (we can certainly imagine it not existing). But then why does it exist? What's its explanation? This question is supplemented greatly by modern science, which indicates that space-time came into existence ages ago. Astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking admits, “.....” Since objects cannot pop into reality uncaused from nothing (imagine a roaring elephant or a Volkswagen appearing from literally nowhere!!), something outside of space-time must've caused the universe. But this means that there exists a timeless, spaceless being, having the unfathomable power and knowledge to create a universe out of nothing. As Leibniz himself believed, this being is seemingly the God spoken of in Genesis.

Another 17th century mathematical/philosophical genius, Blaise Pascal, went further, pondering not the universe, but those inhabiting it. For him, mankind was the utmost paradox: capable of both the greatest achievements and the greatest tragedies. Humans have after all produced drastic scientific and moral progress while also perpetuating horrors like Nazism and totalitarianism. Pascal realized that this is precisely what we'd expect if Christianity were true. For on that view, man is a great being made in God's image, but has chosen to rebel against God and live wickedly. Inevitably, just as Pascal found the Christian diagnosis of this problem true, he likewise found the truth of its solution: Jesus Christ.

Jesus taught that indeed mankind was so sinful and rebellious, that it couldn't avoid permanently separating itself from the Holy God – the giver of life – thus resulting in its own eternal death. Jesus's good news, however, was that He had come as God in the flesh to reconcile man and God by suffering this death in man's place. “I come not to condemn the world, but to save it.” Indeed, not only would Jesus suffer this death on the Roman cross, but He would defeat it by His resurrection on the Sunday afterward. He in effect paved the way for us: if we take His gift of dying in our place, we'll be saved and will ourselves be resurrected to new, eternal life in Heaven.

Readers may be skeptical that any of this really happened. However, virtually all New Testament scholars today agree that, (i) Jesus died by crucifixion, (ii) His tomb was found empty two days later, and (iii) appearances of Jesus were witnessed for weeks after. Scholars also agree that secular explanations of these facts have failed miserably. Theories such as Jesus's body was stolen or His disciples were deceivers have long been refuted. Currently, the best explanation is precisely: God raised Jesus from death.

Of course, having scholarly arguments and evidence isn't necessary to see that Christ is the truth. What primarily led men like Pascal and Leibniz to God was a genuine, open-minded desire to find Him. If we have this, God promises that He'll find us and save us through Jesus's sacrifice.

On Fighting 'The World'

2007-06-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

And then there is the vainglory of life—the self-conceit, the desire for praise and deference, the delight of being thought an important and significant person, of wielding power over others, of being in the lime-light; all the empty vanities of fashion and custom and title and office and uniform and status, the little snobbish impostures into which men tumble before ever they are aware of it. It matters not that our circumstances are narrow, the stage on which we play our part small and hidden. It matters not that we know in our heart of hearts that when we come before God it will all avail us nothing. The mean little ego will still have us out on our stage, prancing and strutting and posturing, even though he be the only spectator.

Why then does the Apostle call all this sort of thing —the lure of the body, the covetousness of the eye, the pride of life—the "world"? The word "world" conveys the idea of organized power, something larger than the individual in which the individual is, and by which he is continually influenced and shaped. This is important. We have not seen the real problem of the moral and spiritual emancipation of men, until we realize that the desire of the body, the desire of the eye, and the vainglory of life are a world in this sense. These distorted visions, false ambitions, wrong ideals, impostures and unrealities, have constructed a social organism in harmony with themselves which begins at once to bind and shape every new life which is born into it. That is what makes the problem of our regeneration so difficult. All the time we are being subjected to the influences, so subtle and unnoticed many of them, of a society, a world, built up on these perverted values of comfort and acquisition and vain-glorious reputation. You thrust it out of your being at one point, and it has crept in at another. Quite plainly, to get a man out of this world or system, to emancipate him from all these false values, is going to be a tremendous operation. It will need to be drastic, violent, decisive. We have only to look into our own hearts to know that.

--H.H. Farmer, The Healing Cross: Interpretation of Life (London: Nisbet and Co., 1938)

New Publication (Probably)

2007-06-05T22:53:00.001-05:00

Recently, I have been engaged in dialogue with a staff writer/graphic designer from a Buffalo, NY-based, securalist publication entitled, THE BEAST (www.buffalobeast.com). A couple of years ago, this explicit and quite anti-Chrisitan magazine ran an article critiquing the church I currently attend (www.thechapelatcrosspoint.com). The writer did an undercover job, interviewing some of the pastors there (without them knowing it was for publication) and presenting a vitriolic review of the church, its services, and its congregation.

In response, I recently emailed this writer asking if I could provide a pro-Christian retort. I thought this fair in light of the fact that earlier he took unforeseen shots at my home church. Surprisingly, I've been told that I can submit a 400 word article to the publication in which I can include a brief case for/summary of the Christian faith.

Any Christians readers of this blog this, please pray that God grants me the appropriate words so as to reach some non-believers with this essay.

Tom's Rebuttal

2007-05-28T10:38:00.000-05:00

Here's my first rebuttal to John's arguments against the Christian God (see www.thechristiangod.blogspot.com).

Loftus's arguments are typically question-begging and uniformly unsound.

To believe in the Christian God, it is necessary and sufficient to believe:a) A theistic God exists who created the universe and its inhabitants.b) God is three persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all of whom have all of the divine attributes.c) The Son entered earth as Jesus, who was executed and resurrected to save human sinners from eternal separation from God (Hell).

To disprove God, Loftus must disprove either a, b, or c.

1) Even if parts of the Bible were mythical, this would only falsify God if they showed a, b, or c mythical. None of Loftus's examples do that; they're red herrings.

Moreover, Loftus's argument against Genesis begs the question: why believe the universe is as ancient as he says? Even so, there are plausible interpretations of Genesis accomodating a billions year-old universe.

Loftus cites no evidence of Eden-like stories predating the Genesis tradition. Concerning Egypt and Canaan, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Only the latter can falsify these. Besides, historical evidences do buttress them.

2) He gives no argument showing it's problematic for the Trinity to always agree. Moreover, he's wrong, since they won't disagree on what is true (omniscient) or what is good (omnibenevolent). What would they disagree about?

He says there's no God without beginning or end, since everything we experience has beginning or end. But this is false or question-begging: things like moral law, numbers, sets, propositions, universals, etc. seem to exist without end or origin.

Why believe our uniform experience shows order growing incrementally? Seems false: the universe's order was inherent in its origin (big bang or creation). Many believe the origin of mankind and beasts occurred instantaneously. Are they wrong? Also, our experience only shows contingent order (sometimes) grows incrementally. But why believe God is contingent?

Loftus never explains why God's immateriality disallows His acting in the world nor why His having all knowledge without learning it is problematic. How does he know that time is a “function of movement and bodily placement?” Philosophers of time would disagree. Lastly, I don't believe God is timeless, thus circumventing Loftus's argument in that regard.

Why believe God would do the same thing we would in every moral circumstance (e.g., burning child)? A doctor cuts someone open if they need surgery. I wouldn't, because I don't have a doctor's knowledge. God may deal with evil in a different way, because His knowledge isn't limited like ours (e.g., he may allow evil so good we can't foresee will ultimately result).

Loftus gives no reason to believe it's necessary to “weigh temporal alternatives” and choose who one is to be a person.

3) God demanded that certain wicked peoples be killed because they would ruin His plan to save others throughout history from eternal punishment. God accomplished the greater good through these commandments.

Loftus fails to document his claims that God commanded the rape of women, mistreatment of slaves, or frivolous divorce. Also, why is the blood sacrifice of animals evil?

Why think there's no cogent explanation of Jesus's atoning for sins? Why believe there's not enough evidence to believe Jesus is Savior?

4) How does Loftus know that God could create some other natural system or reveal Himself more clearly to us and yet not end up with a worse balance of good vs. evil in the universe?

5) Believing God revealed Himself in the Bible is not essential to believing the Christian God exists (see a, b, and c). This last argument is irrelevant.

Debate Begins

2007-05-28T10:35:00.000-05:00

On May 22, John W. Loftus uploaded his opening statement for our debating regarding the Christian God. The entire debate can be found at www.thechristiangod.blogspot.com.

I will cross-post each contribution here as the debate goes. Here are John's opening arguments:

1) The Bible is filled with mythic folklore. Here are just a few examples: There isn’t any way to harmonize the creation accounts in Genesis with the age of the universe, granting the time necessary for galaxy, star, solar system, earth, animal, and human formation. The stories of Adam & Eve, Cain, the pre-flood ages of men, and the flood itself have no basis in historical fact. There are similar polytheistic stories like these which predate Genesis by as much as 350 years. Since older sources are to be considered the more reliable sources, then a monotheistic God was not involved, if these events happened at all. There is also no archeological evidence for the Israelites in Egyptian slavery for 400 years, or of their wilderness wanderings for 40 years, or of their conquest of Canaan.

2) I find it implausible to believe that a Triune God (3 persons in 1 who always agree?) has always and forever existed without cause and will always and forever exist (even though our entire experience is that everything has a beginning and an ending), as a fully formed being (even though our entire experience is that order grows incrementally), without a body (and yet acts in the material world), in a timeless existence (and yet creates time), having all knowledge (who consequently never learned anything), and who is the source of all complex information found in the details of the makeup of this universe. This God purportedly has all power (but doesn’t exercise it like we would if we saw a burning child), and is present everywhere (and who also knows what time it is everywhere in our universe even though time is a function of movement and bodily placement). How is it possible for this being to be called a "person," who thinks (which demands weighing temporal alternatives), and who freely chooses who he is and what his values are (even though we never find a time when such choices were made by him)?

3) This barbaric God commanded that witches and people who worship other gods should be killed. He commanded that men should rape women in the spoils of war, and even commit genocide. He allowed people to own slaves which could be beaten within an inch of their lives. He commanded that men should divorce their wives simply because they had a different religion, and women were pretty much defenseless without a husband. He demanded blood sacrifice in order to forgive sins. There is no cogent explanation for how Jesus’ death atones for our sins. He will eternally punish those who don’t see enough evidence to believe in Jesus, while not providing enough of it to believe.

4) The world this God created is not like the world we would expect to find if a good God exists. There is too much natural suffering in it for man alone to be blamed. The law of predation is simply unnecessary. If God exists he could’ve made us all vegetarians and made edible plants grow like weeds do today. If God exists he could end the wars between religious faiths by revealing himself more clearly in this world.

5) God revealed himself in a historically conditioned book before the printing press, even though almost anything can be rationally denied in history, even if it happened. For an omniscient being, he chose a poor medium to do so. I challenge Tom to find one passage in God’s OT revelation to be considered a prophecy (and not wish fulfillment) of the life, death, or resurrection of Jesus which singularly points to him.

The Good Fight vs. Debunking Christianity

2007-05-22T23:28:00.000-05:00

Atheist author John W. Loftus a blogger at Debunking Christianity (www.debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com) has in fact agreed to debate yours truly in a small exchange.

The title of the debate is simply, "The Christian God: Is the Evidence Against Him?" The gist of the engagement will be whether or not there is good evidence to conclude that the Christian God is non-existent. John says yes; I say no.

This will be a short event: John's opening statement, my rebuttal, his rebuttal, and then my closing statement. Each round will be around 500 words.

This should be fun and interesting, at least. It will be shown in its entirety at www.thechristiangod.blogspot.com. And both John and I will be posting each round to our respective blogs throughout the exchange.

Blog vs. Blog

2007-05-20T21:25:00.000-05:00

Out of my love for debating philosophical/theological topics (e.g., "Does God Exist?", etc.), I've decided to try and find a naturalist/atheist blogger out there who would like to engage in such a small exchange.

I'd like to merely have 300-500 word contributions each round, with possibly three rounds (opening, rebuttal, conclusion) total.

The biggest obstacle is finding a competent atheist blogger who's willing to do so. We could then post the exchanges on our respective sites. I think this might prove fun and interesting -- never a bad mix.

I've emailed John Loftus, former professing Christian turned skeptic. He runs the Debunking Christianity blog (www.debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com). He allegedly used to participate in much ministry work, including the study and teaching of apologetics. Now, he's turned that on its head. A discussion between us would prove confrontational, if nothing else.

Matt Young's Mistakes

2007-05-16T22:55:00.000-05:00

The following is a dialogue I had with Phd scientist Matt Young, an atheist and avid opponent of Intelligent Design Theory. Young is the author of No Sense of Obligation: Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe.

This discussion took place in the Feedback section of www.infidels.org in September 2003. Young had written an essay summarizing his book and posted it at that site. I responded.

TOM WANCHICK
I want to address two mistakes (of many) that Matt Young makes in his article, "Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe." For one, his comment that "philosophers of religion seem as unwilling to incorporate the discoveries of modern science into their worldviews as are the Biblical literalists" is simply false. Prominent Christian philosophers of religion in fact quite happily use the findings of science to bolster their apologetic efforts. It's odd that Young fails to recognize this since the work of such scholars (e.g., Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, Robert Koons, Michael Rea) is readily available and widely discussed. Young, for example, agrees that the Cosmological Argument is supported by the scientific evidence of the universe's beginning (i.e. Big Bang cosmology). But for some reason he fails to see that contemporary philosophers like W.L. Craig cite that very data in their own work?

This leads to my other point. Young agrees that the universe probably was caused to exist. But, he says, this is unimportant since that doesn't imply that God did the causing. I beg to differ. In admitting such a cause, Young admits to the reality of a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, being who can bring the universe into reality out of nothing. Now this is precisely what theists have said of God since ancient times. How is there no theistic implication here? At the very least we ought not shrug the issue off hastily like Young does in his article.

One parting point: When it comes to the evidence for theism, Mr. Young seems to be the one who can't come to grips. For example, of the Anthropic Design (Fine Tuning) argument he says this is circular. I can't think of any sophisticated philosopher who makes such an accusation of that argument. Young appears rather unfamiliar with the current philosophical discussions surrounding this issue. Thus, in the end, we find Young himself--much like the "biblical literalists" he denigrates--refusing to properly grapple with the evidence as it stands.

MATT YOUNG
September 21, 2003, 09:31 PM
Mr. Wanchick needs to read more carefully. What I actually wrote was, "except for a few philosophically minded scientists, philosophers of religion seem as unwilling to incorporate the discoveries of modern science into their worldviews as are the Biblical literalists ." I have read Swinburne, Arthur Peacocke, John Polkinghorne, and others. I think of them as theologians writing Christian apologetics, not philosophers (just as I think of Paul Davies as a physicist, not a philosopher). But maybe the dichotomy between theologian and philosopher is a distinction without a difference. To avoid a pointless argument on who is a philosopher and who is not, I will concede that the remark was intemperate and perhaps I should not have written it.

I agree that the present universe probably began with the big bang. I have no idea what went on before the big bang. But "admitting" that the universe is the result of a causal process is a far cry from admitting that the cause was a purposeful being, let alone "a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, ([I]sic) being." I don't know what is meant by a spaceless, timeless, immaterial being, and neither does anyone else. Additionally, many physicists think that the big bang was not causal but the result of an uncaused quantum fluctuation; if they are right, there goes the argument from first cause.

I do not much care whether philosophers have noticed that the anthropic "principle" is circular. It certainly seems so to me: The universe is hospitable to life; we are here; therefore the universe was designed to be hospitable to life. How do we know? Because we are here.Supporters of the anthropic principle sometimes try to buttress their argument with the fine-tuning argument: the fundamental constants are somehow fine-tuned so that life will be possible. Victor Stenger, who has written a lot about the anthropic principle, has dealt with this claim. Briefly, Stenger argues that long-lived stars are necessary for life. Rather than arbitrarily changing one fundamental constant and demonstrating that life will not be possible, Stenger varies four fundamental constants randomly over 10 orders of magnitude. Over half the universes he has examined will support stars with a lifetime over 1 billion years. Stenger concludes that the fundamental constants are not necessarily tuned for life, though he notes that the form of life that develops might not be anything like life as we know it [1, 2]. Indeed, one hidden assumption behind the anthropic principle is that only one kind of life is possible -- else its supporters would not be so quick to argue that the universe is fine-tuned. At this very moment, in another universe in our meta-universe, an intelligent green slime (whose life is based on element 14) is basking in soft X-rays at 80 degrees Celsius and marveling that the universe is so finely tuned to support life.

Finally, as for my "refusing to properly grapple with the evidence as it stands," I can only note that my article was necessarily brief. For detailed discussions, see Ref. 3. Let us hope that my other purported errors are more substantive than these.

[1] Stenger, Victor J. 1995. The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology. Buffalo, N. Y.: Prometheus Books.[2] Stenger, Victor J. 2004. "Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Us?" Chapter 12 of Young, Matt, and Taner Edis. Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. Piscataway, N. J.: Rutgers University Press (in press).[3] Young, Matt. 2001. No Sense of Obligation: Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe. Bloomington, Ind.:1stBooks Library.

TOM WANCHICK
September 23, 2003, 07:25 PM
I know Dr. Young is busy so I won't belabor my points here. But I must say some things in response to his last post.

He accuses me of grossly misreading his comments about theistic philosophers and their ignorance of science. But he's the one with the misunderstanding. His article says that merely some philosophically oriented scientists utilize modern science in their philosophical arguments for theism. He implies there that there are virtually no theistic philosophers who do so. His latest comments don't help; now he merely grants that some theologians also use science in their apologetics. But what Dr. Young manages to overlook is the plethora of literature coming from theistic philosophers (who are neither scientists nor theologians) in support of their religious stance, much of which is saturated with discussions of modern science and how its findings buttress theism. That Dr. Young fails to see this is especially strange since he has devoted a book to theism and its supporting evidence. How can he appear so ignorant of the work of such brilliant Christian philosophers as W.L. Craig, Robin Collins, and others who so extensively employ scientific evidence in their work?

Contrary to what Dr. Young says at the end of his last post, these misstatements on his part are not unimportant. In a culture (like ours) where science and scientists are often looked at (wrongly) as the sole providers of truth and rationality, one can conceive of many readers coming across Dr. Young's (a professional scientist) essay and concluding that theism and theistic scholars are somehow out of touch with the "hard facts" of science. Unfortunately, this is simply untrue and thus Dr. Young's article is apt to mislead sincere readers.

When it comes to the big bang and its implications for religion, Dr. Young appears to be the uninformed one. He says that possibly the big bang resulted from a quantam fluctuation. But even if that were so, the universe would not come from nothing since the substances underlying this event are in fact something. But then we must ask what caused those substances to exist. We're back to the cosmological argument. Dr. Young agrees that something can't come from nothing. Thus, if time and space came into existence then something nonspatial and nontemporal must've brought it into being. The probability of theism's truth raises substantially with that realization. Dr. Young says he can't conceive of a nonphysical, nontemporal being. But in admitting a cause of space and time, he admits to the existence of such a being.

Dr. Young also presents a version of the Design Argument which no serious theistic scholar even employs. Thus, he seems to be as uninformed on the arguments for theism, as are the "biblical fundamentalists" he finds so uninformed in things scientific.

I Know Who is My Beloved!!!!

2007-05-14T20:36:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite old hymns is entitled "I Know Whom I Have Believed," a song based on 2 Timothy 1:12: "That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day."

Here, the Apostle Paul explains that his life of trouble and toil becomes bearable when it's set in the light of Christ. Christ will see him through to glory; the heartache of the present world thus becomes dim and weak.

I (as I hope all Christians) of course share in this hope whose only source is ultimately Jesus. But while Christ is the final root of this hope, it's worth noting that, indeed, God sometimes uses his human agents to transfer it into our lives. Sometimes there are those Christians who act as "the fragrance of life" (2 Corinthians 2:16) for us.

I in fact came upon such a Christian about a year ago when I met Stacy Weber, a follower of Jesus who not only loves the Lord, but who shows constantly His love to others. As kindhearted as she is devout, Stacy has been to me a constant bearer of Christ's light into my life in even my toughest days.

Never have I met a woman whom I could so trust with my love. So much so, that this past February, I asked for (and received) her hand to be married.

To refashion the old song a bit: I know who is my beloved. I love you Stacy!!

Revolutionary New Book

2007-05-14T20:27:00.000-05:00

My last post mentioned J.P. Moreland's new blog. In this post, I'd like to mention his new, revolutionary book to be published June 1, 2007.

Moreland's latest is entitled *Kingdom Triangle.* The triangle here represents three facets at the foundation of the Christian life: recovering the Christian intellect, renovating the soul through spiritual disciplines, and restoring our connection with the power of the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives.

Moreland recently announced this new publication -- one he's calling his greatest contribution to the church, his magnum opus -- here (http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/
pdf/KT_Announcement_to_ScriptoriumDaily.pdf)

Read this book and gain some massively important insights into becoming a "radical for Jesus" (as Moreland says).

Moreland & Craig (new and improved)

2007-05-14T20:17:00.001-05:00

My two biggest heroes in the Christian faith recently renewed and greatly expanded their presence on the world wide web.

Christian philosopher and professor (at Talbot School of Theology), William Lane Craig, has a new ministry called Reasonable Faith (also the title to one of his classic books on apologetics), which is devoted to providing a rational defense of the Christian faith, as well as communicating that defense to the unbelieving world. His new site has a wealth of awesome material including scholarly and popular articles, a "Question of the Week" personally answered by Craig, audio files of his various lectures and debates (a treasure trove), podcasts of his Sunday school apologetics teachings at his church, and a ton more.

See the site at www.reasonablefaith.org.

Similarly exciting is my other favorite Christian philosopher, J.P. Moreland's (also of Talbot School of Theology) entrance into the world of blogging. Moreland is among the greatest apologists in the history of the church and he continues to spread his knowledge to the church through his books, articles, and lectures. See his excellent blog contributions at:

www.scriptoriumdaily.com

These sites are an answer to prayer! A wealth of excellent teaching at the click of a button.

Fighters for God

2007-03-18T06:52:00.000-05:00

UFC 68: The Uprising saw one of the biggest upsets in MMA history when Randy "The Natural" Couture at 44 years old defeated the giant Tim Sylvia to regain the UFC heayweight championship belt. It is easily considered one of the most amazing feats in the sport.

What is equally stunning are the number of Christian testimonies coming from the fighters that night. At least five of the winners in the night (including some of UFC's biggest stars) noted their dedication to Christ and His work in their lives. Here are some of the quotes from post-fight interviews.

"...I want to dedicate this fight tonight to two people. Jesus Christ who died for our sins and the American G.I. who steps up and dies for our freedom on a daily basis. This is for them!" Randy Couture

"I want to give thanks to God who saw me through my training and I honestly want to thank him for October 14th as well." Rich Franklin

"I've become closer to God, I'm born again." Tim Sylvia

"The Lord our God is one. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Matt Hughes

"All thanks to Jesus. I gave my life to Jesus." Jason Lambert

God as Best Explanation

2007-01-16T23:09:00.000-06:00

Dr. Paul Copan is Chair of the Philosophy Department of Palm Beach Atlantic University and is an excellent Christian scholar, philosopher, and speaker.

I recently found a link to his reading of one his recent essays regarding the God of theism as the best explanation of the various physical and metaphysical realities we find in the world. Anyone interested in the intellectuall issues surrounding Christianity should read Copan.

His fine lecture can be found at:

http://www.ttpstudents.com/content/scholar/pcopan

(Click on God as the Best Explanation near the top of the page.)

Gift Unparalleled: Christmas Thoughts

2006-12-19T23:41:00.000-06:00

Have you ever received a Christmas gift you found excessive? Maybe someone gave you a very large gift you weren't expecting or a card with a high-dollar check in it -- a lot higher than you anticipated.

Unfortunately, such gifts are often met with anxiety, since you perhaps didn't do the same. Sure, you bought that person a gift, too. But chances are yours didn't have the same value. All of a sudden you feel inadequate or embarrassed. How will you make up for the incongruence?

It's strange that this circumstance in a sense highlights the beauty and truth of Christmas. For Christmas, as we should know, is the celebration of God's Son, Jesus entering space and time -- an entrance, and finally a death (crucifixion), necessary and sufficient to wash clean our sin and moral blemishes. With this gift, sin and death lose their sting. With this, we escape the darkness.

But what have we given God in return? Indeed, what can we give? Our time? Our treasure? Surely, we can give those -- and many do -- but they pale. Compared to God's brilliant gift of forgiveness and sacrifice, ours are faint and fleeting. Indeed, the gift of Jesus is essentially unequaled.

We have, then, the epitome of unequal gifting. God presents Himself to us; no return present can come close. But here the similarities to the opening paragraph end. For while we often stand shamed or self-conscious when we can't match large gifts of money or goods, feeling that way when receiving God's Christmas gift has no point. For it was Jesus Himself who said that He came not to condemn the world, but to save it. As we wash our sin in Jesus's blood and revel in our new, eternal life, God too revels.

God, then, is the paragon of giving. For upon our utter inability to match His ultimate present, we feel not embarrassment or anxiety. Alas, those are vanquished. Peace and rejoicing instead enter in.

Apologetic Myths

2006-12-16T00:52:00.000-06:00

Myth #1: "If there are no good arguments for Christianity, it's not a rational belief."

Reply: This is a sentiment often believed by even the most dedicated Christians, especially those trying to do apologetics. However, it's simply a misconception. The book of Romans clearly states that we come to know the living God via His Spirit testifying to our spirit that He is the Truth. But surely God can do this even if we have no good arguments for Christianity. We can therefore know Christianity is true even if we have good external evidence (or even if there were good evidence against it). But then certainly if we know it to be true, we are rational in believing it so.

Myth #2: "We have to be highly aggressive in our claims and arguments for Christianity when approaching the skeptic."

Reply: Popular apologists often reflect this understanding when they attempt to make big claims like, "Jesus's Resurrection has as much evidence as Napoleon's existence." While this may be true, nothing this strong has to be claimed in order for us to present a good case for the faith. All we'd have to say is that there is enough historical evidence for the Resurrection that it can be established as a fact based on historical measures alone. This more modest claim is both easier to establish to the skeptic (thereby giving us a higher probability of success in establishing it) and sufficient to prove the event evidentially.

Myth #3: "If someone isn't a Christian, we should do our best at presenting a rational case for the faith to them right away."

Reply: But what if they are simply in need of the Gospel message? Many people simply see the compelling truth of the Gospel upon hearing it or meditating on it. For these, an apologetic isn't needed and may act as a hindrance or distraction to this person's newfound relationship with Christ. It's best to simply give people the Gospel first. If they object, bring on the apologetic.

The Spoils of Atheism

2006-11-24T08:43:00.000-06:00

"Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24)

"High levels of organic atheism are stongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low poverty rates...however, throughout much of the rest of the world -- particularly among the poorest nations with highest birth rates -- atheism is barely discernible." [Phil Zuckerman, "Contemporary Numbers and Patterns," in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 61.)]

A Few of My Favorite Things

2006-11-22T23:04:00.000-06:00

I don't know why but when I'm around others, I often ask them about their "favorites." What's your favorite book of the Bible? Who's your favorite pro athlete?

I've never really known why I do this. In fact, I never really noticed THAT I do it at all, until people observed this in me and mentioned it. But now that I've thought about it a little, I've reasoned that this is perhaps my unconscious way of coming to understand who people are or what is important to them. Indeed, it could even be a way of trying to understand someone's spiritual standing or position. If someone consistently prefers things with a gothic theme, for example, they may have a rather dark spiritual underpinning.

So, in light of my love for "favorites," I've decided to list (in no rational order) a bunch of mine. Maybe it won't mean much ultimately, but it's fun, nonetheless. Here goes:

Favorite Historical Figure: Jesus of Nazareth
Book: *Does God Exist?: The Craig-Flew Debate* ed. Stan Wallace
Author: William Lane Craig
Political Figure: Alan Keyes
Color: Orange
Sport: Mixed Martial Arts (i.e., "ultimate fighting")
Song: "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"
Drink: Pepsi or Coke [tied]
Snack Food: French Fries
Entre: Chicken Cordon Bleu or Buffalo Wings (from Western NY
only) [tied]
Animal: Dog
American State: New York (tentatively)
Active Pro Athlete:Rich Franklin (mixed martial artist); Vitaly Klitschko
(boxer)
Retired Pro Athlete: Rex Chapman (NBA player)
Season: Spring
Clothing Co.: Ralph Lauren
Non-U.S. Nation: Australia
University: Grove City College (Grove City, PA)
Movie: Signs (starring Mel Gibson)
NFL Team: Cleveland Browns
NBA Team: Cleveland Cavaliers
MLB Team: Cincinnatti Reds
NHL Team: Buffalo Sabres
Cartoon: Mighty Mouse
Pro Wrestler: Rowdy Roddy Piper (old school WWF)
Comic Book Hero: Daredevil; Incredible Hulk [tie]
Bible book: James
Philosopher: William Lane Craig
Historian: Gary Habermas
Theologian: William Lane Craig
Scientist: Kurt P. Wise
President: Ronald Reagan
Pastor: Alistair Begg (tentatively)
Novel: *Oliver Twist* by Charles Dickens
Shoe Co.: Nike; Puma [tied]
Video Game: NBA Live '95 (Super Nintendo)
Autobiography: *Surprised by Joy* by C.S. Lewis
Musical Instrument:Guitar

Craig vs. Sobel

2006-11-21T23:29:00.000-06:00

In his recent book, Logic and Theism, Dr. J. Howard Sobel attempts to refute the kalam cosmological argument, often focusing on defenses of the argument proffered through the years by Christian philosopher, William Lane Craig.

I recently found Craig's reply to Sobel (at Sobel's website), which is due to be published in the *The Canadian Journal of Philosophy* in the near future. It's an interesting and powerful response, which I believe ably dismantles Sober's position.

Go here to find it:

http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~sobel/OnL_T/SobelOnKalamCosmoArg.pdf

The Apologetic Call

2006-11-18T09:36:00.000-06:00

Accomplished apologist James Sire presents some sage advice to those struggling to know whether they are built for Christian apologetics:

"Finally, there is the test of practice, practice, practice. If doing apologetics--not just the study of apologetic arguments--begins to become second nature and you just can't stop doing it...well, that should clinch the argument. Doing will become knowing." [A Little Primer on Humble Apologetics (Downer's Grove, IL: IVP, 2006)]

Irreducible Complexity: A Brief Defense (Part II)

2006-11-18T09:20:00.000-06:00

In the previous post, I noted that the mere possibility of a Darwinian explanation of irreducible complexity does not suffice to overcome the prima facie greater probability of the design explanation. Irreducibly complex structures initially appear to be unified wholes made for specific purposes. If evolutionists want to say that the various parts of the complex whole had different functions in the past thus salvaging their theory, they have to give some reason to believe this. Merely pointing out a possible Darwinian explanation does nothing to increase its probable truth, let alone overcome the initally greater probability of the design explanation. Thus, design stands as the better theory of irreducible complexity.

A second often overlooked reason to accept design over evolutionary explanations of such complexity is the criterion of simplicity. All else equal, the simpler of two competing theories should be at least tentatively accepted. Thus, if we can explain a murder by positing only one killer, this is simpler and more plausible than holding that 20 killers were involved. We shouldn't complicate our explanations of things unless the evidence warrants it.

It becomes evident, though, that the design theory of irreducible complexity is simpler than the Darwinian one. For design theorists can say that such structures were merely brought into being by an intelligent agent all at once as a unified whole. This is surely less complicated than an evolutionary scenario that postulates thousands upon thousands of mutations and chance events ultimately producing the vastly complex biological feature.

Simplicity, then, presents another reason to prefer the design of irreducible complexity over its alleged evolution. The deck against Darwinism is stacked still higher.

Irreducible Complexity: A Brief Defense

2006-11-15T23:19:00.000-06:00

Lehigh University biochemist, Michael Behe rocked the Darwinian community in 1996 with his book, *Darwin's Black Box.* There, Behe made explicit the irreducible complexity of many biological structures found in animals and humans. Roughly, irreducible complexity exists when a biological structure consists of various intricate/complex parts, none of which would have a function or purpose without the others.

To use a non-biological example (that Behe also uses), a mousetrap consists of multiple parts together serving to catch unwanted mice. However, when you disassemble a mouse trap you have nothing functional. That is, the individual parts themselves taken apart from the whole do nothing useful.

This is a problem for Darwinism, which claims new biological features evolve in response to the environment -- the organism evolves these features or else doesn't survive. But if, as Behe notes, many parts of organisms function only within an integrated whole, why would those parts evolve without or prior to that whole? These would apparently be newly evolved features that serve no function and don't aid in survival. Thus, it would seem that on Darwinism, these parts would not have come to be. Their existence is, then, evidence against that view. It seems more reasonable to believe these wholes come to be intact; they didn't evolve piecemeal.

In response to this ingenious argument, Darwinists typically just assert that possibly these parts did in fact have a function before they eventually were integrated into the whole system. Thus, they would seemingly have a place in a Darwinian hypothesis.

There are many problems with this response. But one that many don't appreciate is the prima facie plausibility of intelligent design over evolutionism in this case. That is, an initial look at these apparently irreducibly complex structures inclines us strongly to think that they came into being as a whole -- they wouldn't have evolved step-by-step. Since the evidence lends itself initially to design over evolutionism, the burden of proof now rests on evolutionists to explain why their explanation is as good or better. But merely hinting that possibly these features evolved in some way certainly doesn't meet that burden of proof. The mere possibility that something is true is no reason to believe it's true. These biological structures could've popped out of thin air, too. But that doesn't make the "out of thin air" theory as plausible as design. Unless they move beyond mere possibilities, evolutionists must admit that irreducible complexity stands as a reason to believe in design over evolution.

The Church Lady

2006-10-19T23:21:00.000-05:00

Mark Linville is one of my favorite (and one of the least known) Christian philosophers. He is a professor at Atlanta Christian College and has done excellent writing in the area of ethics and how ethical truths count as evidence for theism.

Occasionally, Dr. Linville addresses other topics, as he did in this Christianity Today article from about a year ago. He explains his childhood church background and its cast of characters (every church seems to have one) and how it has proved valuable to him as an adult. He offers the same advice for other kids.

Read the article here:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/november/28.64.html

Reach of the Cross

2006-10-19T23:08:00.000-05:00

William Dembski holds Phd.'s in math and philosophy. He's one of the most notable Christian scholars today and one of the great leaders of the modern intelligent design movement. His writings disputing Darwinism and upholding design are among the best available and no one has done more to further the cause of intelligent design.

Dembski is also very talented in theology; he holds a Master's Degree in it, in fact. He is currently Research Professor in Philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

On his website (www.designinference.com), he offers a new, original essay on the Cross of Christ and how on it, Jesus endured the greatest suffering, beyond just the physical.

The link is here:

http://www.designinference.com/documents/
2006.10.the_reach_of_the_cross.pdf

Old Sin Nature?

2006-09-30T08:10:00.000-05:00

You often here pastors and even theologians express the idea that man has a "sinful nature" and, for that reason, Christ had to die to redeem us and allow us eternal life. This idea is so prominent and repeated, that it's accuracy is often unexamined by the Church and it thus continues to be promulgated time after time.

The problem is that the idea is actually false. In philosophical terms, to say something is "by nature" a certain way, means that that being MUST have that trait in order to be who or what it is. For example, human beings are by nature rational beings. Anything that has no capacity (even an undeveloped or hindered one, e.g., a fetus or a mentally retarded person) for reason or knowledge is simply not a human being. This idea can be expressed by saying that the capacity for rationality is "essential" (another philosophical term) to human beings. It is an essential property of humans.

From this, we see that the claim that humans are sinful by their very nature is actually unbiblical. For it is not essential to human beings that they be sinful. Adam and Eve, for example, had no sin when they were first created, but they were obviously human. In fact, God proclaimed them to be part of His distinctly "good" creation. Moreover, humans will not sin in Heaven. But they are human, nonetheless.

Christ did indeed die to redeem mankind from its sin. But this doesn't require the idea that man is essentially sinful. Rather, sin is a deadly parasite on human nature and can only be removed by the blood of Christ. It is only then that our true, unblemished natures can ultimately be revealed.

Doug Groothuis Lectures (MP3 format)

2006-09-30T08:07:00.000-05:00

I found this list of lectures by Dr. Douglas Groothuis (who has a blog at www.theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com). These appear to date back a few years but of course still contain valuable information and teachings from a renowned Christian apologist.

You can listen to them at:

http://www.relyonchrist.com/lecture.htm

Ken Shamrock: Christian Fighter

2006-09-18T18:24:00.000-05:00

I've always been a fan of Ken Shamrock. He's been in Mixed Martial Arts since the early 1990's and is one of the great pioneers of the sport.

Recently, he was interviewed for Pat Robertson's TV show, 700 Club, where he told his story of coming to Christ and a little bit of his personal and athletic background.

His final fight will be October 10 against Tito Ortiz (his bitter rival dating back 10 years) at Ultimate Fight Night 6 on SpikeTV. It will be his retirement match. May God keep his hand on him!!

Read the interview on the 700 Club at:

http://www.cbn.com/entertainment/sports/
700club_shamrock091806.aspx

J.P. Moreland debate

2006-09-17T18:10:00.000-05:00

Professor J.P. Moreland is one of my personal heroes in the faith. He's a renowned and brilliant philosopher and apologist, who teaches at Talbot School of Theology. I've read almost all of his books, but had never seen one of his public debates until I found one online recently.

Dr. Moreland debated Professor Clancy Martin from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in December 2005 on the question, "Does the Christian God Exist?"

It's an interesting exchange that I think Moreland clearly wins (unsurprisingly). Watch and learn one of the masters of apologetics at his craft.

Here's the link: www.wolc.com/sermonaudio/asx/1134422503.asx

The Real Crusades

2006-09-15T19:41:00.000-05:00

With the ever present terrorist and jihad agendas today, we often hear comparisons of modern-day Muslim fanatics with the Christian crusaders of the Middle Ages. Typically, it's said that the Crusades were unjust wars used in attempts to merely increase the power of the Catholic Church or to destroy Islam for no apparent reason.

However, this is simply revisionist history, often motivated by anti-Christian sentiments in the modern media and intelligentsia. The actual Crusades were rooted in noble causes (e.g., defending Middle Eastern Christians against persecution from Muslims; defending Christian and Jewish pilgrims to the Holy Land against violent Islamists). While some crusaders acted unjustly or harmed those they shouldn't have, this is a mere byproduct of all wars, and simply shows that not all participants were Christians in thought or deed. But this is hardly surprising.

An excellent write-up on the real facts concerning the Crusades can be found in Daniel Hoffman's article, "Hollywood vs. History: Kingdom of Heaven and the Real Crusades," in a recent edition of Christian Research Journal.

Here's the webpage: http://www.equip.org/free/JAH303.htm

Nothing New

2006-08-31T23:34:00.000-05:00

That which has been is that which will be,and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Several wise writers whom I've read (e.g., C.S. Lewis, Thomas Sowell) have noted that oftentimes what passes as a new, unique idea or notion is really just an old one that was tried, found wanting, and finally rejected. In fact, several of my favorite authors have highlighted some particular and unexpected examples.

1. Alan Keyes has observed that many of the proponents of gun control seem to harken back to an ancient pagan view of inanimate objects. Among such people, guns are considered killers or evil inherently. But, as Keyes says, this is simply a mistake. For a gun is neither good or bad in itself, but is only used to accomplish good or bad (or neither) when used by a person. Its is persons, not guns, who kill. To say that the weapon itself is a killer reflects the old pagan idea that objects have personalities or inherent qualities of moral good and evil. This is not a new, "progressive" stance but one passed down from the ancients.

2. Today's Christian church has a mild obsession with "postmodernism." Postmodernism is allegedly the idea that there is no absolute truth; all truth is relative. Supposedly, such a position dominates today's landscape both in the universities and among the common man. But this appears plainly false. As William Lane Craig writes, "postmodern" people virtually never believe that ALL truth is relative. After all, they believe the earth exists or that cancer is deadly. The only two things that are widely taken as being relative today are religion and ethics. That is, things that aren't "scientific" or technological are looked at as unverifiable and thus as mere opinion. But then we see that this "postmodern" outlook is merely the standard modernism of the past. Enlightment era modernists held precisely this view of truth and of religion and ethics. Postmodernism is simply modernism by a different name.

3. The Hollywood elite like to ramble about politics these days, even though virtually no one cares to listen. This is apparently a new fad among the thespians, but it's really not. After all, says Thomas Sowell, actors have been strangely and overly agressive politically at least since the time of John Wilkes Boothe.

4. Darwinism, the idea that all life on earth, evolved from chemicals and elements in one large hierarchy was not a new thought given to us by Darwin himself. Indeed, such a position was held among certain ancient Greek thinkers around or before the time of Christ.

5. Whittaker Chambers in his famous tome concerning the Alger Hiss spy case, told of his experience among and as one of the Communist party. Chambers writes:

The revolutionary heart of Communism…is a simple, rational faith that inspires men to live or die for it.

It is not new. It is, in fact, man’s second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: “Ye shall be gods.” It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man’s relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.

Communism is seemingly as old as mankind.

Cloud of Witnesses

2006-08-16T18:25:00.000-05:00

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1)

Have you ever believed something mainly because someone else you know believes it? We probably all do this in some area(s) of our lives. Maybe you came to believe that a Ford is better than a Toyota, because your dad said so. Or you believe Osama Bin Laden lives in a cave, since that's what the best news sources claim.

Sometimes it's inappropriate to base your beliefs on the beliefs of others. You shouldn't believe, for instance, that this 1975 Volkswagen runs perfectly just because a used car salesman predicts it will.

What about the truth of the Gospel? Is the fact that certain others believe (or have believed) the Gospel story to be true sufficient for us to accept it as such? Many will answer 'no' to such a question. Especially in the area of religion or eternal questions, we are told, we should investigate truth claims for ourselves. Allegedly, we ought to subject the Bible to skeptical scrutiny, just as we would the Koran or Buddhist scriptures. Eternal life (or lack thereof) is too important to accept on the claims of our fellow man.

But, upon closer examination, these sorts of assertions seem suspect. What if the lives of those Christians before and contemporary with us bear the ring of truth? That is, what if many of them have a sort of authenticity, goodness, and perspective that is so distinct, so fine that their philosophy of life apparently has to be true? If Christianity is false, why have there been today and historically so many Christians who have seemingly found how life should be lived both in themselves and in relation to others?

The Christians who bear these features are numerous and varied: William Lane Craig, Corrie Ten Boom, George Washington, Thomas Aquinas, Mother Theresa, Sebastian Bach, and thousands upon thousands of others both well-known and just people in our personal, daily lives.

As far as I know, no other faith or ideology has produced the sort of grand people found in Christ's church throughout time. But, then, why has Christianity been so prolific in this regard? The only rational explanation I can find is precisely that the guiding principle of these people's lives is true: Christ the Savior lives and infiltrates the lives of those He loves.

Tozer and Entertainment

2006-07-19T16:49:00.000-05:00

Dr. Douglas Groothuis (one of my favorite Christian philosophers/apologists) recently posted this piece at his own blog ("The Constructive Curmudgeon"). It is Tozer's 1955 critique of modern man's obsession with entertainment or being entertained. I liked it so much, and found it so pertinent, I had to copy it here.

The Great God Entertainment
by A.W.Tozer

A German philosopher many years ago said something to the effect that the more a man has in his own heart, the less he will require from the outside; excessive need for support from without is proof of the bankruptcy of the inner man.

If this is true (and I believe it is) then the present inordinate attachment to every form of entertainment is evidence that the inner life of modern man is in serious decline. The average man has no central core of moral assurance, no spring within his own breast, no inner strength to place him above the need for repeated psychological shots to give him the courage to go on living. He has become a parasite on the world, drawing his life from his environment, unable to live a day apart from the stimulation which society affords him.

Schleiermacher held that the feeling of dependence lies at the root of all religious worship, and that however high the spiritual life might rise, it must always begin with a deep sense of a great need which only God could satisfy.

If this sense of need and a feeling of dependence are at the root of natural religion, it is not hard to see why the great god Entertainment is so ardently worshiped by so many. For there are millions who cannot live without amusement; life without some form of entertainment for them is simply intolerable; they look forward to the blessed relief afforded by professional entertainers and other forms of psychological narcotics as a dope addict looks to his daily shot of heroin. Without them they could not summon courage to face existence.

No one with common human feeling will object to the simple pleasures of life, nor to such harmless forms of entertainment as may help to relax the nerves and refresh the mind exhausted by toil. Such things, if used with discretion, may be a blessing along the way. That is one thing, however, the all-out devotion to entertainment as a major activity for which and by which men live is definitely something else again.

The abuse of a harmless thing is the essence of sin. The growth of the amusement phase of human life to such fantastic proportions is a portent, a threat to the souls of modern men. It has been built into a multimillion dollar racket with greater power over human minds and human character than any other educational influence on earth.

And the ominous thing is that its power is almost exclusively evil, rotting the inner life, crowding out the long eternal thoughts which would fill the souls of men, if they were but worthy to entertain them. The whole thing has grown into a veritable religion which holds its devotees with a strange fascination; and a religion, incidentally, against which it is now dangerous to speak. For centuries the Church stood solidly against every form of worldly entertainment, recognizing it for what it was—a device for wasting time, a refuge from the disturbing voice of conscience, a scheme to divert attention from moral accountability.

For this she got herself abused roundly by the sons of this world. But of late she has become tired of the abuse and has given over the struggle. She appears to have decided that if she cannot conquer the great god Entertainment she may as well join forces with him and make what use she can of his powers.So, today we have the astonishing spectacle of millions of dollars being poured into the unholy job of providing earthly entertainment for the so-called sons of heaven. Religious entertainment is in many places rapidly crowding out the serious things of God.
Many churches these days have become little more than poor theaters where fifth-rate "producers" peddle their shoddy wares with the full approval of evangelical leaders who can even quote a holy text in defense of their delinquency. And hardly a man dares raise his voice against it.

The great god Entertainment amuses his devotees mainly by telling them stories. The love of stories, which is a characteristic of childhood, has taken fast hold of the minds of the retarded saints of our day, so much so that not a few persons manage to make a comfortable living by spinning yarns and serving them up in various disguises to church people.

What is natural and beautiful in a child may be shocking when it persists into adulthood, and more so when it appears in the sanctuary and seeks to pass for true religion. Is it not a strange thing and a wonder that, with the shadow of atomic destruction hanging over the world and with the coming of Christ drawing near, the professed followers of the Lord should be giving themselves up to religious amusements? That in an hour when mature saints are so desperately needed vast numbers of believers should revert to spiritual childhood and clamor for religious toys?

"Remember, 0 Lord, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned ! For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim." AMEN. AMEN.

Taken from Root of the Righteous, Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, 1955, p. 32-33.

Chambers on Evil

2006-07-16T21:54:00.000-05:00

Whittaker Chambers knew a lot about fighting against the evils of secularism. He was a key witness (hence, his book entitled, Witness) in the 1950's case against U.S. government agent and Communist spy, Alger Hiss. (Hiss and Chambers formerly worked together for the government.)

Chambers was widely disregarded, laughed at, and insulted as he participated in that case. However, in the end, it was in fact proven that Hiss was a spy as just Chambers claimed.

Chambers has said in his book that his motivation for fighting Communists was his faith in Christ. He was himself a Communist for many years until he realized the inhumanity and terror found in the movement. God transformed his heart and turned him into a brave witness concerning the evils of man turned against Him.

Chambers interestingly summed up the struggle against evil in the world:

"...evil is not something that can be condescended to, waved aside or smiled away, for it is not merely an uninvited guest, but lies coiled in foro interno (in the inner chamber of conscience) at home within ourselves. Evil can only be fought."

Let the modern Church bear this in mind!

UFC 61: Bitter Rivals

2006-07-07T23:36:00.000-05:00

Time for another UFC pay-per-view event and time for more of my insightful predictions about the matches scheduled. Here we go:

1. Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski

I'm proud to say that I predicted the fight between these two correctly back in April (UFC 59). Surprisingly, the rubber match is occurring only three months later. My pick remains the same, though. Everyone thought I was crazy for picking Sylvia via KO last time and Sylvia proved me right. I'll stick with him again. Arlovski showed a weak chin and poor boxing in their last fight. He'll do so again and will get KO'd again in the first round as a result.

2. Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz

This is another grudge match dating back almost ten years. These guys fought originally in 2002 at UFC 40, with Ortiz earning an dominating victory. However, at the time, Shamrock had a torn ACL and was zapped of energy from cutting weight incorrectly. Despite all that, he still fought valiantly and even came close to knocking Tito out on his feet. Tito has the better wrestling and ground game, but Shamrock is going to come out fuming in what could his last fight ever. He looks in top shape and he has far better skill both in submissions and kickboxing than the critics say. I'm going out on another limb and I'll take Shamrock by decision.

3. Yves Edwards vs. Joe Stevenson

Battle of two lightweight (155 lbs.) fighters. Edwards has one of the best in that division for years. Stevenson formerly fought at welterweight before moving to 155 after UFC reinstated the division. Stevenson has the advantage in strength and wrestling. The two seem even in jiu jitsu skills, while Edwards has far better stand-up skills. This will be a hard fought battle and I believe it will last 3 whole rounds. Edwards wins by decision.

4. Frank Mir vs. Dan Christison

This is a tough call. It's hard to know what kind of shape or mindset Mir will show up with as he still tries to rebound from his 2004 motorcycle accident. He looked terrible at UFC 57 against Cruz, but the was a while ago. I predict he still has the better submissions and wrestling than Christison. However, Christison is far taller with better standup and is also knowledgeable in the ground game himself. I'm going to predict that Mir will be ready, however. I pick Mir by submission in round 2.

5. Josh Neer vs. Josh Burkman

A battle between two impressive welterweights. Neer is unbelievably tough and will fight through anything (see his fights against Guillard and Stevenson), while Burkman is always game and has impressive skills, especially in wrestling. I give the slight jiu-jitsu and boxing advantages to Neer, however. This will be a war. I'll predict Neer to take it by TKO in the third.

6. Drew Fickett vs. Kurt Pellegrino

Fickett is an excellent wrestler, with good submissions, and decent boxing. I've never seen Pellegrino, but hear he is fairly well-rounded. His lack of UFC experience, however, may hurt him. I'll pick Fickett by submission in the first round.

7. Jeff Monson vs. Anthony Perosh

Monson is an awesome heavyweight with great grappling and submissions and pretty good striking ability. He's definitely on his way to a title shot if wins here (he'll fight the Sylvia/Arlovski winner). Perosh is an Australian fighter I know nothing about. Given his recent sucess, I give the edge to Monson. He'll win by TKO--2nd round.

8. Gilbert Aldana vs. Cheick Kongo

I know nothing about either of these heavyweights except that Aldana is a brawler who likes to stand and punch. I'll take Aldana by knockout, round 1.

9. Hermes Franca vs. Joe Jordan

Two lightweights. Franca is great at jiu-jitsu and has some power in his hands. He was formerly one of the premier fighters in his weight class (see his fine battles with Yves Edwards). I have no knowledge of Jordan. My heart tells me Franca will win, though, by decision.

The Logic of WMD's

2006-07-07T00:33:00.000-05:00

Throughout the current American occupation of Iraq, liberal opponents of that effort have been distraught that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD's) were never found. Supposedly, this counts as irresponsibility on President Bush's part. Who starts a war over something that never existed?

But examining these complaints shows them poorly reasoned. First, it's hard to see how the President can be responsible for any incorrect prediction about WMD's. After all, it was the well-qualified, multi-national intelligence experts that informed Bush here. Even liberal American politicians (e.g., John Kerry) supported an invasion of Iraq based on their word.

Surely, the President -- who is in charge of protecting American soil militarily -- can't gamble when the experts inform him. Even if the experts were only, say, 40% sure, wouldn't it still be prudent to send troops? What sort of probabilities should we play with in protecting America from nuclear threats?

Even if we conclude that WMD's were never there, that doesn't mean Bush made a bad decision. People make decisions on uncertain probabilities all the time. Football players wear helmets. But that doesn't mean they would've surely hurt their heads without them. Maybe they would've been fine. But, again, it's not worth the gamble.

Lastly, why believe that the WMD's were never held in Iraq? Is it just because they haven't been found there? That's like saying, since Abraham Lincoln isn't in Illinois right now, he was never there.

Liberals say WMD's never existed. Conservatives say they were probably moved out of Iraq. Why should we accept the liberal explanation over the conservative? In fact, the conservative view has better evidence, since they at least have the testimony of intelligence agencies who said that Hussein most probably had WMD's. Unless liberals can give better or equal evidence for their view, their attacks on President Bush are unfounded.

The (Horrific) Income Tax

2006-07-02T22:31:00.000-05:00

I happen to be one of those rare tax professionals who actually wants to see the federal income tax system and code abolished -- a somewhat self-defeating position to take.

I follow along the ideology of constitutional and governmental scholars like Alan Keyes, Neil Boortz, etc. many of whom propose and support the FairTax (a certain type of sales tax that would ideally replace income tax). The founding fathers didn't believe in instituting a federal income tax (as Keyes documents), making our current system therefore out of line with the underlying philosophy of our nation.

Here are some great quotations on the harms and annoyances of the income tax:

"Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought for was representation without taxation." --Fletcher Knebel

"Capital punishment: the income tax." --Jeff Hayes

"To steal from one person is theft. To steal from many is taxation." --Jeff Daiell

"Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents?" --Peg Bracken

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." -- Albert Einstein

"No nation ever taxed itself into prosperity." --Rush Limbaugh

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." --George Bernard Shaw

"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money." --G. Gordon Liddy

"The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr." --Will Rogers

"Isn't it appropriate that the month of the tax begins with April Fool's Day and ends with cries of 'May Day!'?" --Rob Knauerhase

Great Resurrection Debate

2006-06-17T07:23:00.000-05:00

My favorite philosopher and apologist, William Lane Craig recently engaged in a debate on the historical Resurrection of Jesus with famed liberal Jesus scholar, Bart Ehrman, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina.

This is a good read and exchange between two well-known writers in this area. I believe Craig easily wins, however. Reading it is, of course, a helpful look at how to present and defend these issues against a knowledgeable opponent.

The debate can be found here:

http://www.holycross.edu/departments/crec/website/resurrdebate.htm

Christianity and Self-Defense

2006-05-28T22:11:00.000-05:00

Despite popular beliefs to the contrary, the Christian God is an advocate of fighting -- in the right circumstances.

In Luke 22:36, upon instructing His disciples to go be ready for His earthly execution, he tells them to acquire swords, if they haven't already. So urgent is the need that He directs them to sell other valuables in order to gain the weapon. The obvious intent here being that such a tool will be necessary if the disciples are faced with gratuitous violence.

This is just one of the many places in the Bible that depicts God directing His followers to be ready to fight physically with their enemies. Consequently, anyone who thinks fighting is to be entirely rejected by the church has an unfamiliarity with Scripture.

Many people claim that fighting in the Bible is only self-defense. Any sort of fighting practices are allegedly disallowed. But surely anyone who seeks to defend himself has to be proficient with his chosen mode of defense -- be it physical or weaponry. But typically the practice required to gain this familiarity is in a sense violent. One often must experience violence to fend off violence.

Against my taste for the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA), some claim that my faith conflicts with my interest. But, as I've noted, Scripture itself advocates self-defense, and thus implicitly allows training in that area. Thus, since training and practicing MMA is simply a way of mastering self-defense methods, MMA itself is not inherently in conflict with biblical Christianity.

Only if one uses his MMA skills to inflict unprovoked harm on others does it so conflict. But this is never done by professionals. Even in the ring or Octagon, such skills are used only against another man ready to end the fight. Both fighters are in self-preservation mode.

Anyone seeking to show MMA and Christianity to be contradictory needs to overcome such considerations.

Gary Habermas website

2006-05-21T21:54:00.000-05:00

Gary Habermas is an excellent Christian philosopher and Resurrection scholar who teaches philosophy at Liberty University.

He has written extensively on apologetics and especially on Jesus's Resurrection since the early 1980's. He (along with William Lane Craig) is perhaps the greatest defender of the historicity of the Resurrection writing today.

Several months back I was pleasantly surprised to find his website (www.garyhabermas.com). At the start, the site didn't have much content, but for the past few months, there's been a lot of items added there.

See especially his online text copy of his book, Dealing with Doubt and the various audio lectures and interviews available.

Habermas's work is a treasure to the church and a great inspiration to apologists. Let us read and learn.

Reppert on Judging the Debate

2006-05-21T11:32:00.000-05:00

After having seen the assessments/judging for my debate with Richard Carrier, I was dumbfounded to see that the judges didn't follow Rule 7 of the debate, which explicitly said their own personal opinions of the arguments/evidence cannot play a role in their evaluation of the debate.

The judging was supposed to follow "college debate" rules. On this, judges merely determine whether or not the debaters were able to provide coherent, pertinent objections to each other's arguments and counterarguments. At the end of the day, the winner is the debater who was able to present the most unrebutted arguments and defeat more of his opponent's arguments.

If you read the judges' assessments of my debate, however, one quickly sees they didn't follow this judging methodology in the least. Rather, they merely decided to tell us which arguments they "liked" or were "persuaded by." But their own opinions on the strength of the arguments is irrelevant to college debate judging. Indeed, my whole point in requesting college debate rules was to avoid the subjectivism inherent in such judging.

If such subjectivism is allowed, all you'll get from the judges is a mere restatement of their own opinions coming into the debate. But who benefits from that? The point of the judging isn't to merely trot out your own likes/dislikes in the philosophy of religion, but to give a straightforward summing of which debater was ultimately to salvage his own arguments and rebut the others', regardless of what strength the judge would assign those arguments.

Since the judges clearly didn't follow the rules set out before the debate began, I requested that the moderator of the debate disallow them on the debate webpage. We could post them at the Secular Web, but only as sidenotes, not the official scoring, since the official scoring was to be done by college rules, not subjective ones.

Carrier has continually said I'm wrong in thinking the judges violated this rule. But they clearly did do so, as is shown throughout their assessments. Moreover, Dr. Reppert, a philosophy professor who agreed to judge the debate, has blatantly admitted taking matters into his own hands and judging it on his own terms, not those in the debate rules. He admits this at his "Dangerous Idea" blog at http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2006/05/assessment-of-carrier-wanchick-debate.html.

The proof is there for all to see.

Islamic 'Londonistan'

2006-05-21T11:21:00.000-05:00

Upon watching C-Span's Book TV this weekend, I came across the excellent British author and scholar, Melanie Phillips (www.melaniephillips.com).

She recently wrote a book entitled Londonistan, which details how Muslims have invaded England's society and taken root. This was evidenced by the Islamic bombings that recently took place in the city of London.

In a nutshell, Phillips documents that this Islamic foothold has largely been gained because traditional British culture and values have been abandoned. In their place is an irreligious apathy or nihilism that is so obsessed with 'openness' to new cultures that it will let even its enemies to flourish within their borders.

Phillips's books sounds highly insightful and interesting (I plan on buying it soon). Judging from the excellent articles/columns at her website, this should be a valuable bit of reading.

UFC 59: Reality Check

2006-04-15T17:21:00.000-05:00

UFC 59 is tonight and I can't wait. This one will draw a record crowd, as it takes place at Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, CA. This is the first UFC in California, since the state just recently lifted its ban on MMA events being held there.

The crowd will be huge; so will the fights. Here are my picks.

1. Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski

This is the main event, a heavyweight title match between the current champ (Arlovski) and a hungry contender in Sylvia. These two fought in February 2005 also, with Arlovski making it look easy with a submission win. I think it'll be a different story this go around. Sylvia is in his best shape ever and has a renewed striking arsenal. He has flexibility, speed, and savvy that he didn't have before he began training with Billy Rush. Arlovski is no doubt awesome, but everyone is beatable. This guy has had a long winning streak, but it's gotta end some time. I take Sylvia by second round knockout.

2. Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin

This is the fight I'm most anticipating. We'll see Griffin take on his first big-time opponent since his appearance on The Ultimate Fighter show. Ortiz makes a historic comeback, as he's been away from the company for about a year. I think this will be a far closer fight than most will admit. Griffin has better hands than Ortiz and I think is equal in size and strength. I even give the submission skills advantage to Griffin. The problem is Tito's takedowns. Most fighters can't stop him from taking them down and pounding on them. Forrest will battle fiercely, but I don't think he'll be able to counteract Tito fully. I'll pick Ortiz by decision.

3. Nick Diaz vs. Sean Sherk

Another great fight with two awesome fighters. Sherk is a champion wrestler with great strength and conditioning. Diaz is well-rounded: a good boxer and great at jiu-jitsu. Diaz will be vulnerable to Sherk's takedowns, but I have a feeling he'll be able to pull the fight out despite that. His back is against the wall with two straight losses recently. He has too much heart and fighting IQ to let this one go. I think he'll overtake Sherk with his superior submission ability. Diaz by submission in the 3rd.

4. Evan Tanner vs. Justin Levens

An interesting bout with newcomer Levens against the renowned veteran Tanner. Tanner, like Diaz above, is in a tough spot. He's lost two in a row and needs this to stay in the UFC ranks. He's got great grappling and submissions with average standup. Levens apparently is a ground-n-pound guy mainly who has a great record with some great fights under his belt. I think Levens's first time in the Octagon will be too nerve-wracking though. Those jitters along with Tanner's skills and experience will be overwhelming. Tanner by ref stoppage, 2nd round.

5. David Terrell vs. Scott Smith

This is like the Tanner-Levens fight in that it showcases a newcomer in Smith, who actually defeated Levens for the WEC light heavyweight belt recently. Smith has great power in his hands and can defend submissions very well. Terrell is an awesome jiu-jitsu practitioner with some good standup (especially kicks). This is a bit of toss-up. But Terrell's previous appearance in the Octagon seemed to indicate he's psyched out on the big stage. He'll get beat up by Smith's superior hands. Smith by knockout in Round 2.

6. Jason Lambert vs. Terry Martin

Martin is undefeated except for a fluke loss against James Irvin in his first UFC appearance. He's a great wrestler with good boxing. Lambert is an excellent technician who also has good hands and his generally well-rounded. I haven't seen much of either of these guys fight, but from what I hear, I'll take Lambert by decision.

7. Karo Pariysan vs. Nick Thompson

Parisyan is a judo great who brings an unorthodox style of judo throws, submissions, and ground-n-pound to the Octagon. It always seems like he should get beaten, but he always ends up with wins and is in fact a top 10 fighter at welterweight. Thompson is allegedly a tough fighter who I believe is well rounded, though I've never seen him fight. I'll take Pariysan by decision.

8. Pe de Pano vs. Jeff Monson

These two are rivals from their professional grappling days. Apparently, they vastly dislike one another. Monson is a very good wrestler with great strength. He has okay standup and a very good chin (as shown against Chuck Liddell). Pe de Pano is a jiu-jitsu expert with awesome submissions. He also showed some ground-n-pound skills against Frank Mir. Ultimately, I think Monson will beat him with a mix of punches on the feet and pounding/grappling on the ground. Monson by ref stoppage, 3rd round.

9. Thiago Alves vs. Derrick Noble

I know little about Noble and have never seen him fight. I believe he is mostly a submissions guy with decent striking skills. Alves is also mainly a submissions fighter who can mix it up a little on his feet. These two met before with Noble taking it by rear naked choke. This time I think Alves will strike back. Alves by submission, 2nd round.

Secular Totalitarianism

2006-04-14T22:48:00.000-05:00

At the beginning I said there were Personalities in God. I will go further now. There are no real personalities anywhere else. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. Sameness is to be found most among the most "natural" men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints. -- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Such were the words of the famed Oxford don. Lewis recognized a fact that can be found by any Christian living in the workaday world. It's ironic that secularists who resist Christian belief or at least resist dedication to a Christian life do so often on the grounds of "freedom." Allegedly, Christianity or "religion" is akin to a Communist tyranny: it will control you and place you in line with the rest of the conforming crowd; any sense of self-governance or freedom to "become who you are" (or want to be) evaporates.

But, as Lewis alludes, quite the opposite seems true. In observing secularism among my own peer group I find precisely the monotony Lewis speaks of. Irreligious lives are all quite alike: work, go home, get drunk at the bar/club, go back home. This is a pattern not isolated to a chosen few: every non-Christian I know in this demographic does the same thing -- cyclically. Not only that, but they dislike/disrespect those unwilling to do likewise. It is they who want to make the rest of us conform to a strictly non-Christian agenda. Secularism is a jealous god and a blatantly cruel one at that.

The Christian path is quite distinct. Christ gives us the very freedom we need to find our true purpose and fulfillment in life. It seems true that God intends all of us to do something to serve He and His Kingdom. But it is in this common purpose where variety and uniqueness peak. Think, for example, of the great Christian philosophers (Ockham, Duns Scotus, Craig), musicians (Handel, Cowper, Keaggy), or missionaries (Livingstone, Carey, Mother Theresa). All alike in their goals to serve Christ; all vastly different in their abilities, feats, and testimonies. Locating ourselves with Him presents the opportunity to discard the totalitarian pressures of the secular world bidding us to become sheep in the secular herd. The godless monotony is over; we can take the road and adventure that God has planned for us to ultimately advance His cause and advance our potential in Him -- experiences that are unique and invigorating for us all.

Wanchick vs. Carrier: Final Statements

2006-04-09T11:05:00.000-05:00

Finally, my exchange with Richard Carrier comes to a close. The final statements for both of us were posted on April 4. See also the "Final Assessment" section on the debate website. That contains the biographies of the four judges and explains how and when their final judgements will be given. Right now, their statements are scheduled to appear April 18.

In brief summary, I was a bit surprised at how the debate went. I thought I came out with far stronger, better formulated arguments. Carrier often presented premises without justification and used fallacious inferences. There were some things I'd change about my own presentation if I had the chance, but I was happy with it in the end.

I think I earned a solid victory, but it'll be interesting to see what the judges have to say.

Commentary on my Debate

2006-03-31T18:48:00.001-06:00

Atheist writer/columnist, Martin Foreman has written a short piece on my debate with Richard Carrier.

Foreman compliments our exchange as being entertaining and worthwhile reading. You can see his essay Read it here.

Tribute to a Cleveland Philosopher

2006-03-31T18:37:00.000-06:00

Ronald Nash, who has long been one of my favorite Christian philosophers/apologists, died March 10, 2006. Dr. Nash, a long-time professor of philosophy at Western Kentucky University was the quintessential Christian gentleman: knowledgeable, well-read, willing to confront his opponents, tenacious in the defense of the faith.

Nash was a prodigious writer, authoring dozens of books, including some of my favorites like Faith and Reason and The Gospel and the Greeks. He also wrote excellent works on history (The Meaning of History), economics, and government. One fellow apologist has said that if you ever needed a "Life Line" on the show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" you'd want Dr. Nash; his vast knowledge was unparalleled.

His seminary students have said that Nash was outspoken and animated in his teachings. He wanted his students to learn the truths of Christianity and how to articulate them and his passion showed in his work. Indeed, Nash's passion for the Gospel came through in his occasional tears when speaking on the subject.

As another interesting fact, I recently learned that Nash was from the hometown of my own parents: Cleveland, Ohio. He and his brilliant contributions to the church will be sorely missed.

Second Rebuttals Posted

2006-03-08T20:48:00.000-06:00

The third installment of the Wanchick-Carrier debate has been posted at Infidels.org. In these statements, Carrier and I defend the arguments we gave in our opening statements.

Read it here.

First Rebuttals Posted

2006-02-17T18:24:00.000-06:00

The new First Rebuttals have been posted in my debate with Richard Carrier.

Take a look here.

Ann Coulter on Islam

2006-02-13T21:50:00.000-06:00

Ann Coulter is brilliant, insightful, and hilarious. What a combo. She has her own perceptive and witty take on the "Religion of Peace", i.e. Islam.

See her column here.

Defeating Islam

2006-02-10T23:14:00.000-06:00

Reading the columns of conservative scholar Thomas Sowell is always an enlightening event. Unfortunately, it can be quite dismal, too. For Sowell shoots straight and doesn't mince words.

Sowell has noted recently that it won't be long until those in the terrorist regime will have the sort of nuclear weapons to literally destroy America as they consistently proclaim they'll do. Anyone who doubts that such dedicated Muslims will follow through with their threats needs to better understand the enemy.

As an American not serving in the military, it's hard to know what to do to help the country in such troubling times. As an amateur philosopher and writer, however, I do have something in mind: namely, attack Islam not pejoratively, but intellectually and show its ideas false and harmful.

If I and other writers in religion complete such a project successfully and make it widespread among Americans, I see at least two things occurring. First, it will help reveal to many that Islam is not something to be respected or taken seriously as a religious faith. This will diminish the number of those converting to Islam and possibly reach some of those presently in its camp. And decreasing the number of Muslims in the world can only help the American cause. Secondly, exposing Islam's false and radically harmful ideas and tenets will reveal to those sympathetic that this is a faith not to be respected, ignored, or taken lightly. We ought to shun Islam and attack Islamic terrorists before they attack us again. At its core, Islam is a hateful, unintellectual faith conveying a diminished concept of God, one which denies Christ His place as God and Creator. Islam is simply idolatry and a violent sort at that.

I hope to have some posts taking aim at the Muslim faith, showing its falsehoods and myths, all the while mulling over other ways to contribute to the American cause.

Opening Statements Posted

2006-01-25T20:20:00.000-06:00

The debate between Richard Carrier and myself on Theism vs. Naturalism is officially underway, as our opening statements have finally been posted.

Richard presents five arguments for his worldview and I provide six for mine. This will be an interesting exchange.

The statements can be found here

Universes, Ad Infinitum

2006-01-21T09:01:00.000-06:00

In the past several decades, the "Fine-Tuning" teleological argument has come roaring onto the philosophical scene. Top advocates of the argument (e.g., Robin Collins, William Lane Craig) even note that argument is possibly the most powerful theistic argument extant today. It roughly states that since the conditions needed for life are so improbable, it seems the only reason the universe has them is that it was designed by a divine mind.

It's interesting to note the atheistic rebuttals to the argument. By far, the most prominent states that, possibly, there are infinite universes outside of our own, each having their own set of conditions and laws. Given so many, it was only bound to happen that at least one universe would show up with the conditions to allow life.

A strange consequence of this rebuttal is sometimes neglected. Namely, such a view makes not only the fine-tuning probable, but virtually everything else too. So, for instance, if I flip a coin 1000 times and end up with heads each time, this shouldn't be improbable if there are infinite different universes. After all, there's got to be at least one universe that allows such an improbable scenario. We could repeat this for just about any strange event we can think of. Literally nothing becomes improbable in a world populated by infinite universes.

The problem, however, with this atheistic response is that we know some things are just improbable and thus can't just be the result of being one of myriad universes. If someone won the lottery 13 times in a row, we'd know this is fraud, not simply the deterministic outcome of the many-universe theory of atheism. But since we can know this, then this must entail that the many-universe view is false.

1. If the many-universe view is true, then there are no events having specified improbability (e.g., someone winning the lottery every week).
2. But there are events having specified improbability (e.g., a consistent lottery winner is a known fraud).
3. Therefore, the many-universe view is not true.

What Would Happen If....?

2006-01-17T22:54:00.000-06:00

When I was a kid I loved comic books and superheroes. In fact, I was so enamored with these characters, that I did some fairly deep thinking about them. I used to always wonder what would happen if two characters who normally don't interact ever fought each other. Who would win: Batman or Spiderman, Superman or The Hulk, Voltron or the Thundercats?

These are intriguing indeed. But now that I've grown, my musings still sometimes involve fantasy confrontations, but typically in the world of philosophy. I personally love philosophy debates (I'm engaged in one right now...see my prior posts) and I've always been curious as to who would win these matchups in a public debate setting:

William Lane Craig vs. Michael Martin (Theism vs. Atheism)
C.S. Lewis vs. Bertrand Russell (Theism vs. Atheism)
Alvin Plantinga vs. William Rowe (Theism vs. Atheism)
Kurt Wise vs. Kenneth Miller (Creationism vs. Evolutionism)
Thomas Sowell vs. Barack Obama (How can black America better its future?)
Gary Habermas vs. Michael Goulder (Did the Resurrection Happen?)
Ergun Caner vs. Jamal Badawi (Christianity vs. Islam)
William Lane Craig vs. James R. White (Molinism vs. Calvinism)
Alan Keyes vs. Jimmy Carter (Separation of Church and State)
Russell Humphreys/Kurt Wise vs. Hugh Ross/Walter Bradley (Young Earth vs. Old Earth)
Ann Coulter vs. Maureen Dowd (Why Women Should Be Conservative/Liberal)
Francis Beckwith vs. Blake Ostler (Christianity vs. Mormonism)
J.P. Moreland vs. Jaegwon Kim (Substance Dualism vs. Physicalism)
J.P. Moreland vs. John Searle (Does Consciousness Indicate God?)
William Dembski vs. Richard Dawkins (Intelligent Design vs. Evolutionism)
Paul K. Moser vs. Ted Drange (Is God Too Hidden?)

New William Lane Craig Articles

2006-01-13T23:17:00.000-06:00

William Lane Craig is, in my opinion, possibly the greatest Christian philosopher/apologist the church has ever known. With company like Augustine, Ockham, Duns Scotus, Aquinas, and the like, that is very high praise. But I think it's deserved.

Craig has an excellent website wherein you can find many of his debates, articles, and his speaking schedule.

Unfortunately, for a long time his articles section hadn't been updated. Luckily, I found that he has recently posted new articles in the area of Christian Particularism. The whole site, including these newly added articles, is a great resource and read for those wanting to learn more about apologetics and how to argue for Christian theism.

Take a look!

Quitter!

2006-01-08T00:00:00.000-06:00

Have you ever been told something so often over such a long period of time that you find yourself believing it without any good reason? Those who tell you the item seemingly don't have any reason to believe, so why should you?

I, for one, have always heard it emphasized that we as persons ought not be "quitters." Allegedly, from what I hear, to quit something is somehow to show your inferiority or your weakness and thus to show yourself terribly flawed.

But this way of thinking seems to have little to commend it, now that I think about it. Why, after all, should you not quit something like an athletic team or a job or a certain church? Won't every case be different and have its own set of circumstances? How then can we judge all "quitters" to be doing so wrongfully? Quitting some things, of course, is good. We surely ought to be quitters when it comes to alcoholism or drugs and any number of other bad habits or activities.

Thus, quitting itself is not inherently bad, it's only bad if you quit something you shouldn't quit. But on what basis do we decide we shouldn't quit something? Who determines what is good or right for our life in this sense? Suppose I quit a job. One might be apt to negatively label me a quitter and proceed to morally denounce me. But what if I quit the job for a better one or because I disagreed with the workplace ethic or because the job was simply a terrible one? It's not at all clear in these instances whether the quitting was bad in anyway. Indeed, in many of these cases, it seems the right thing to do.

Ultimately, when one says you shouldn't be a quitter, they seem to imply (yet rarely explicitly say) that you shouldn't quit something if that thing will benefit you or if you are perhaps putting others in a bad position in doing so.

But, if this is the qualified sense in which quitting is wrong, then the standard and always-used mantra "You should never quit" should be abandoned. For there are all kinds of things we SHOULD quit or at least that will not be harmful to quit. Thus, another typical popular culture idiom is seen to be exaggerated, overused, and yet barely useful.

Debate Webpage Launched

2006-01-03T20:47:00.000-06:00

I announced here earlier that I'd be debating naturalist philosopher and writer, Richard Carrier on the issue of "Theism vs. Naturalism." The debate will be published at the Secular Web and will have four judges giving their own opinion of who comes out successful.

The webpage for the debate has been launched and can be found here. The site so far contains the debaters biographical information, the rules of the debate, and the theses to be defended.

Opening statements will be submitted January 16, 2006. From there, rebuttals, and second rebuttals will be given. Please stay tuned for this exchange. It will be both entertaining and enlightening.

The Hypocrisy of Anti-Creationists

2006-01-02T10:53:00.000-06:00

Mocking creationists and their theory of origins has become commonplace, indeed a pastime of, contemporary evolutionists and non-theists of varied stripes. Even theistic evolutionists often level even poke fun at such scholars.

In reading some the exchanges between the creationist camp and their foes, I've always been struck at the unexpected cleverness and breadth of scientific argument on the part of YEC advocates. They are generally unafraid to confront and be confronted when it comes to talk of origins. And, far more often than not, they seem to win the exchanges. See, for instance, the great success of Duane Gish and Henry Morrison in their famed exchange with evolutionist scientists on college campuses.

But what is truly interesting about many of the critics of YEC is their seeming hypocrisy when it comes to scientific theory. I've seen often many of these scholars advocate scientific explanations that are so odd and radical that they are the only ones who believe it. But isn't that supposed to be what YEC believers are famous for?

An example of such a skeptic is atheist physicist Victor Stenger. In his books, papers, and debates, Stenger defends theories of time and cosmological origins that, Bill Craig observes, no other scientist in the world accepts. Stenger believes in some form of "backwards" time prior to the universe and other strange musings. But if he is willing to endorse such an obviously false view, how can he slight YEC proponents for allegedly doing so. Similarly, Richard Carrier, an Internet skeptic popular among Internet atheists, has written several papers where he rejected Big Bang cosmology despite the fact that the theory is almost unanimously accepted by cosmologists. This didn't faze Carrier who said the evidence doesn't point that way even though he's almost the only one knowledgeable in science who thinks so. Apparently, YECers can't go against a widely-held scientific theory, but atheists like Carrier can, as long as they avoid theism in doing so. Indeed this disdain for the widely held Big Bang theory (which requires a beginning of the space-time universe and thus the need for a cause of the universe) has been shown by myriad scholarly nontheists like Antony Flew, Michael Tooley, and Douglas Jesseph among many others, even though the theory is so well substantiated by science today.

Such skeptics should take a lesson from themselves. They ought not denigrate a movement (YEC) which cuts against mainstream theory. Indeed, they often denigrate the movement and note that that movement denies the mainstream only for its "religious purposes." But they, of course, have done precisely the same, attempting to challenge the Big Bang and its implications purely out of an aversion for the supernatural.

Gratuitous Evil and God

2005-12-31T17:39:00.000-06:00

The Evidential Argument from Evil is often cited as the most powerful extant argument for atheism. Roughly, the argument says that there probably exist gratuitous evils in the world (evils that don't serve any higher purpose or are not necessary for any equal or outweighing good) and that this makes God's nonexistence probable, since God would not allow such evil if He was real.

I think this argument has been sufficiently answered by theistic philosophers in the past and into today. Philosophers the likes of William Alston, Peter van Inwagen, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, and Daniel Howard-Snyder have all presented powerful refutations of the argument.

But I recently ran into a response to this argument from evil that many have not noted. It stems from a passage in a chapter by philosopher Richard Gale, who apparently used to be an atheist, but now thinks that there is good evidence that some kind of God exists. Gale brings up this item in his debate with Bruce Reichenbach in *Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion* edited by Michael Peterson.

Gale presents an argument for the reality of a god who is similar to the theistic God but who is not apparently fully omnipotent or ominiscient. He is very powerful and intelligent but not necessarily maximally so.

Gale's conclusion is that this diminished god exists in all possible worlds. Interestingly, he explains to the reader that he cannot believe that a full-blown omniscient, omnipotent, perfect being could exist in this way because if He did, counterintuitive things result. For instance, notes Gale, if this God exists in all possible worlds, there is no possible world where gratuitous evil exists. But, he says, there is surely a world where such an evil exists, therefore this maximally great God must not exist in all worlds.

What's interesting about this argument is that Gale never states why he's so confident that gratuitous evil could exist but a necessary God could not. Indeed, here the theist might have an ingenous reply to the evidential argument from evil. He could reply that God's existence is just as conceivable as the reality of gratuitous evil, but if God exists, gratuitous evil does not. That is, it certainly appears that this God exists in at least some possible world. This possibility seems just as obvious as the reality of gratuitous evil in our own world. But if God possibily exists, such evil is impossible.

So, we at least come to a standstill about which reality appears possible gratuitous evil or the necessary God. If we cannot decide which is possible and which is not, we havd to admit that this argument from evil is inconclusive. It thus can't disprove theism.

Is MMA Unethical?

2005-12-10T08:26:00.000-06:00

Many people have argued that my favorite sport, Mixed Martial Arts, is inherently unethical. This sport, they say, is intrinsically violent and therefore immoral. It is wrong, supposedly, for fighters to try and end a fight either by knocking their opponent out or forcing him to submit. Thus, many, especially media pundits such as the annoying Donny Deutsch and opportunistic politicians like the annoying John McCain wish to see the sport banned globally.

Here, I take issue with their typical arguments against MMA or at least what precious little they've set forth as argument.

1. MMA is intrinsically brutal and violent and is thus immoral

This is the main criticism of the sport, but it is flawed. Firstly, MMA is not intrinsically brutal if by "brutal" we mean gratuitously violent, as shown by the fact that there have been myriad fights where neither fighter gets harmed, let alone brutalized. See, e.g., Lee Murray vs. Jorge Rivera or Forrest Griffin vs. Bill Mahood. Both are UFC fights which ended in around a minute by a submission hold that was broken up before any fighter was hurt. These sorts of fights happen all the time. Thus, it can't be said that MMA is inherently brutal.

Is MMA inherently violent, however? This seems so only if by "violence" we mean something like two parties trying to combatively defeat the other. But even if MMA is like this, it's not clear why that is immoral. For one, I've noted that many fights end without injury. Secondly, there many other sports that are equally as violent in this sense and yet are considered great sports by mainstream media. Boxing, football, and rugby are but three examples. Even the Olympics has combat sports like boxing, judo, karate and the like which are violent, but no one wants these outlawed.

2. There have been too many deaths and serious injuries in MMA. It should thus be banned

But this just seems factually false. The only known death in an MMA match was an unsanctioned one that didn't take place in an organized MMA entity. But then that doesn't count as an official MMA match. Of course, serious injuries do take place in MMA, but they also take place in most other sports. Thus, if you can't fault other sports for this feature, you can't fault MMA either. Even more, football, boxing, and even pro wrestling have resulted in far more serious injuries and deaths than MMA ever will. Thus, those should be banned far before MMA, if we're using death and injury as a main criterion.

3. "Cagefighting" is human cockfighting and is thus primitive and resorts back to tribal behavior

This odd objection never made sense to me. Martial arts are performed all the time outside cages, so why aren't those also considered "human cockfighting" or primitive? What difference does a cage make? Moreover, the cage is not there for atmosphere or primitive feel. It is there to make sure the fighters don't fall out of the octagon (like they do often in boxing, resulting in injury), which lessens the number of injuries in the sport. Secondly, fighters are grown men, and thus not helpless animals being thrown into a fight at their unknown peril. People should have the right to fight professionally if they want to, just like boxers and martial arts practitioners do all the time.

4. Martial arts like karate and judo aren't bad themselves, but it is bad to combine them all into one sport

I've seen this weird reasoning from Donny Deutsch. Unfortunately, he never gives anyone any reason to believe it's true. If the individual combat sports aren't inherently bad themselves, how can it be inherently bad when they're done in tandem? Critics have never answered this. Indeed, we could say the opposite: those trained in various combat sports know the various defensive moves of those sports and therefore are better prepared to protect themselves than are other martial artists.

In the end, the various objections to MMA mostly come down to unjustified assertions. Critics can't just outlaw MMA because they dislike it. They have to give well-reasoned criticisms against it, which they virtually never do. Nor do they apply their poor reasoning to equally "brutal" and combative athletic events.

Is Apologetics Combative?

2005-12-04T14:48:00.000-06:00

Having studied apologetics for around 8 years now, I've continually seen apologists and authors announce in their writings that in doing apologetics we shouldn't see things as "us vs. them". When we encounter unbelievers and discuss or debate with them the intellectual merits of Christianity, we should see ourselves as trying to win a convert for Christ, not as an enemy to be defeated. I've heard this sort of outlook from Hank Hanegraaff (The Bible Answer Man) and R. Douglas Geivett, for example.

But I just can't get myself to agree. For instance, in confronting an avowed skeptic of Christianity who in effect challenges the truth of our faith important things are stake. Firstly, the person is in effect trying to show you why your belief in Christ should be abandoned. But to abandon Christ is evil and thus the skeptic here is trying to perform an evil act on you, so to say. But how can one defend against an evil act if he doesn't combat it? We can't simply see this as a friendly exchange of ideas, for eternal destiny is at stake. Evil has to be combatted in order to be stopped and doing apologetics is one way of doing so.

Secondly, skeptics often wish to sway other people away from the faith. This too is of course evil. Thus, in doing apologetics and arguing against the skeptic here we are, in effect, fighting for eternal destiny. Again, this seems incompatible with a view whereby we're somehow sympathetic to our skeptic friend and want to stay friends so long as we don't come off as combative. Better to be combative than to lose souls to evildoers.

Lastly, Jesus Himself seemed combative in His dealings with detractors such as the Pharisees. Jesus confronted these false teachers in the intellectual arena and did so with vigor and urgency. He wasn't overly nice or empathetic: He sought to stamp out evil and hatred for God where He found it and before it evaded the masses further. We also see Jesus overturning the temple marketplace and calling Herod a "fox". Jesus was by no means pacifistic when it came to apologetic encounters.

Apologetics ultimately reduces to a battle of good vs. evil: a battle to save men from the evil forces (whether they be human or Satanic) who wish to turn him against God. And the battle against evil is always combative.

Debate with Richard Carrier

2005-11-22T16:28:00.000-06:00

Secularist readers of this blog have probably read some of the writings of philosopher/historian Richard Carrier. Carrier is a prolific Internet writer and has also been published in books and respected academic journals. He his currently earning his doctorate at Columbia.

I'll be participating in an online debate with Carrier at the Internet Infidels website beginning at the beginning of December. The topic is "Theism vs. Naturalism" and I'll be defending the theism side.

The event will have four judges, two being atheists and two being theists. Victor Reppert and Richard Schoenig are both university philosophy professors and Glenn Miller and Jeff Lowder are lay writers and researchers in philosophy of religion. They are all qualified and familiar with the areas pertinent to the debate.

I'll be giving more details on the start date and the statement postings as the debate progresses. This should be interesting and competitive; I fully expect a victory. Please tune in and feel free to send any comments you wish to convey.

Traditional Hymns: Why Prefer Them?

2005-11-21T09:24:00.000-06:00

Every time I tell someone that my favorite Christian songs are traditional hymns, I get either a look of confusion or disgust. How can a guy who is fairly young (26) enjoy music that is so old? Isn't this music for the elderly among us? After all, I'm told, the music of Third Day, Jars of Clay, and Chris Tomlin (to name a few) are cooler, "edgier", and just better sounding to modern ears.

But my reasons for this preference are in fact fairly well-defined. Reflection on the motivations behind both classic hymns and contemporary Christian music reveals that the former comes from a far deeper source. That is, the original authors of these hymns found their inspiration not in the promise of money and fame, but in the very experience of Christ working in their lives. One reads "Come Thou Fount" or "O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing" and one recognizes that the writers, who never had recording contracts or concert tours, penned these words as a sort of testimony of the power and richness of Christ. Christ made all things new for them and they subsequently wrote of their experience and appreciation.

Today's songs and artists seem to have little in common with those of old. On today's Christian radio we hear all kinds of songs that seemingly blend together into one "pop rock wannabe" sort of sound. They try their best to sound like the secular rock stars, but they never quite pull it off. Oddly, the songs typically consist of perhaps one Bible verse and go on repetitively for six stanzas. Often, people tell me that these contemporary works are quite good because they consistently quote Scripture (over and over and over and over) in their lines. But that seems to be a certain part of the problem: they simply quote words, but never reflect on their power or meaning for their lives or for the world. Today's Christian music appears to be a quick fix: songwriters take Scripture and set to secular sounding music and anxiously await their payday.

I've heard a fine pastor (Alistair Begg) once say that there exists a direct correlation between Christian suffering and depth of faith. The more one suffers for Christ, the more powerful his faith often becomes. This is vividly seen in the hymns up through the nineteenth century. The songwriters of that era reflect a faith that was, by necessity, deep and profound; they had no big contracts or big money and their faith showed that in the great classics they produced. The spoils of today's artists apparently prevents them from producing the greatness of generations past.

Good People, Bad Things?

2005-10-16T18:38:00.000-05:00

"Why do bad things happen to good people?" Such is the age-old query that is leveled at Christians who affirm the reality of a perfectly good God who oversees a world full of suffering and evil.

Many Christians take the question as reasonable in itself and proceed to try and answer it with various apologetic strategies. I myself think most of the answers to this "problem of evil" are quite good and, among philosophers and professional apologists, the argument that the reality of pervasive evil disproves God's reality has been sufficiently refuted.

But what if we take a different approach to this question than that of most apologists? That is, what if we question the very legitimacy of the query itself? Interestingly, it appears laced with an assumption that is in fact at odds with what Christians believe.

The church, in accord with Scripture, has traditionally disbelieved that any human person is really good. It's true that some people do some good things, but ultimately everyone is sinful and bad and in fact deserves eternal punishment in the eyes of a holy being, i.e., God.

From God's vantage point, then, no humans are good. Thus, from a Christian perspective, this classic question is mistaken initially. The real question becomes, "Why do bad things happen to bad people?" (I first heard the question reformed in this way in Norman Geisler's excellent book, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.

This changes the context considerably. For if people are truly bad and deserving of Hell, as Christians hold, then is it really true that we would expect God to salvage us from bad events? If we found that a serial killer somehow was killed in a hurricane, would we feel bad about this? Surely we wouldn't. We would in a sense say that he got what was coming to him. But then why should we say anything differently about "good" people who experience suffering? It's true that they are not as bad as a serial killer, but they are morally bad and blemished nonetheless, so much so that they deserve eternal torment.

Putting this question in this new light shows the question to less striking than originally thought. Humans don't, after all, deserve good lives. They have remarkably good lives only because the morally perfect God has chosen to be merciful to them. This is, in effect, a privileged, not a deserved contentment. If this contentment is intruded upon by suffering, we should be neither appalled or accusatory towards God -- the only truly good Person.

UFC 55 Predictions

2005-10-07T20:20:00.000-05:00

Alright, it's time for another excellent UFC pay-per-view event, this one falling on a Friday rather than Saturday. I can't wait. While not having the hype or the highest caliber of fighters as many other UFC cards, UFC 55 does have some fine matchups and will make an entertaining night. Herein lie my predicitions, fight by fight.

1. Andrei Arlvoski vs. Paul Buentello

A fight between two heavyweights with quick, powerful hands. Boxing-wise, I give the speed to Buentello, but the technique to Arlovski. Apart from the standup game, however, I think it's all Andrei. Besides punches, he has an arsenal of kicks and knees, as well as an excellent ground game. Buentello always has a chance for a knockout with his striking skills, but I think Arlovski will hold him off and beat him with some part of his varied arsenal. Arlovski by TKO, round 1.

2. Forrest Griffin vs. Elvis Sinosic

Griffin continues his TUF fame and takes on a wily veteran in his second PPV bout. Griffin has always been well-rounded -- great grappler, good striker -- and has surely honed his skills since reaching the UFC. Sinosic is experienced and well-versed in the submission game. He'll definitely want to take things to the ground. Griffin, though, can hold his own anywhere in the Octagon and I give him the edge. Griffin by submission in the second round.

3. Joe Riggs vs. Chris Lytle

This is the matchup I'm dying to see. Two welterweights with great boxing ability and ground games. I give Riggs the edge in power, since he moves down to welterweight here from his previous middleweight position. However, Lytle is a professional boxer and has never been knocked out, which doesn't bode well for Riggs. These two will bang away much of the time, but at some point it will go to the ground where Riggs will overpower Lytle. My estimation: Riggs by TKO in round 2.

4. "Babalu" Sobral vs. Chael Sonnen

A matchup of excellent grapplers, Babalu has been a tear the last couple of years. He was at least his last 8 fights and I don't see the streak ending here. He has the whole game: strking, wrestling, submissions. He is both powerful and quick. Sonnen is no slouch and has a fine ground game, too. But Babalu is top-ten caliber in this weight class. He'll beat Sonnen by submission in round 1.

5. Dennis Hallman vs. Jorge Rivera

An interesting matchup of contrasting styles. Rivera is a Golden Gloves winner in boxing and has a decent ground game. Hallman is very skilled in submissions (submitted Matt Hughes twice) with a decent striking game. I give the edge to Rivera due to the weight advantage (Hallman is moving up from welterweight for this fight). Rivera by knockout, round 2.

6. Keigo Kunihara vs. Marcio Cruz

A heavyweight bout between fighters I know nothing about. I blindly take Kunihara by TKO in round 3.

7. Ron Faircloth vs. Alessio Sakara

Same as above, but this time with light heavyweights. Prediction: "Ronzilla" by knockout in the first round.

8. Sean Gannon vs. Brandon Lee Hinkle

I only know a little about Gannon who has controversy surrounding him. The Boston cop is said to have excellent boxing skills (Gold Gloves winner) and is an expert in judo. If that's true, he'll prove a powerful force in the UFC heavyweight division. I know nothing about Hinkle. I estimate Gannon will win this by knockout in round 2.

Ultimate Fight Night 2 predictions

2005-10-02T19:37:00.000-05:00

SpikeTV has another excellent line up of Mixed Martial Arts television this Monday, October 3. The highlight of the night is of course the Ultimate Fight Night 2 live event featuring seven fights with some of the best young fighters on the planet.

This is the second Ultimate Fight Night put on by UFC and Spike and should prove to be as exciting as the first. Of course, part of the fun of fight events is making my predictions and comparing them to the actual results. I've done this previously on this blog and been fairly sucessful. I try again here. (I will make comments only on four of the fights, since I am unfamiliar with the fighters in the other three.)

1. David Loiseau vs. Evan Tanner

This is an awesome main event featuring two of the brightest stars in the UFC. Tanner is an accomplished veteran and has an impressive list of wins in his long mixed martial arts career. Loiseau is a young, exciting kickboxer with excellent ground skills too. This is a very tough call. It almost certainly won't go to decision since both guys are good finishers. Loiseau is the better striker, but I think Tanner will be significantly better on the ground and as a grappler. Tanner's standup should be sufficient to hold of Loiseau's attack until he can take Loiseau to the ground. From there, I give an edge to Tanner, who will get the win by TKO in the 2nd round.

2. Chris Leben vs. Edwin DeWeese

Leben is an exciting, well-rounded fighter who has an iron chin. The guy has massive knockout power and is slick on the ground too. Deweese is perhaps more talented on the ground, but does not have nearly the power or striking of Leben. Both are tough young guys, so this will prove to be an exciting bout. I give it to Leben by knockout in round 2.

3. Drew Fickett vs. Josh Koscheck

Koscheck was a great, great collegiate wrestler and NCAA champion. He is fairly new to MMA, but has progressed well with his excellent training squad at American Kickboxing Academy. He's also shown ability with submissions, as well (i.e., his previous fight against Pete Spratt). Fickett is also an excellent wrestler (not as good as Koscheck) and probably has superior jiu-jitsu than Koscheck. In the end, I think Koscheck will control Fickett on the ground, however. I doubt he'll be able to submit Fickett and certainly won't knock him out. Thus, I take Koscheck by decision.

4. Brandon Vera vs. Fabiano Scherner

Never seen either of these guys fight, but Scherner is an awesome jiu-jitsu practicioner. I'm not sure of his standup ability. Vera appears to be Olympic-caliber wrestler with good muay thai skills in addition. He also seems well-trained in jiu-jitsu. As a somewhat blind prediction, I'll predict Vera taking this one by knockout in round 1.

Van Til's Argument, Part 2

2005-10-01T20:17:00.000-05:00

In my previous post I mentioned that the Transcendental Argument expounded originally by the late apologist, Cornelius Van Til has been oft-refuted by fellow Christian scholars. Erudite critics the likes of William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and Norman Geisler (among others) have all taken shots at the "presuppositionalist" Van Tillian apologetic. See the book Five Views on Apologetics ed. Steve Cowan in this regard.

The complaint of these critics is that Van Til's fundamental claim -- that nonChristians cannot even reason or argue without first presupposing God's reality --is never backed up with any sort of argument or support. In his writings, Van Til seemingly never explained why one should believe this. Thus, his argument is simply question-begging at best.

I agree with this criticism of Van Til, but several commentators on this blog have said I'm wrong. They hold that Van Til's argument was well articulated and not at all question-begging. Apparently, they claim, I have not read the works by contemporary Van Tillians like Greg Bahnsen or John Frame.

But this is mistaken. I have read them, but my worries are not addressed by them. In fact Frame himself admits that Van Til never fully supported his claims and that without doing so the Transcendental Argument cannot work. Others have told me that James Anderson, another modern presuppositionalist, shows Van Til's argument to be valid in a paper written earlier this year. The problem with Anderson, though, is that ultimately he says Van Til relied on four sub-arguments that supported his Transcendental Argument. Frame echoes this same sentiment, saying Van Til would've had to rely on other arguments to ultimately construct his presuppositional approach.

But here Frame and Anderson must be wrong, since Van Til adamantly opposed a cumulative case approach to apologetics. That's why he favored presuppositionalism rather than traditional classical apologetics. Van Til disdained natural theology and thought it irresponsible to try and argue the unbeliever to God. He notes this over and over in his pamphlet, Why I Believe in God, for example.

Thus, Van Til would eschew such a syllogistic model. Rather, I think he would've pressed the idea that believers must help the unbeliever see the hidden assumptions he makes in reasoning and even reasoning against God. That is, we don't have to make arguments to show that God must be in place before we can reason or discuss anything, including God. Rather, the apologist must make the implicit, explicit. The unbeliever is like the... From what I can tell, Van Til's apologetic was merely to show the nonChristian what he was missing.

But this doesn't require deductive or inductive arguments on the apologist's part. He doesn't argue; he digs. He digs into the unbelievers thought life and shows him what must be in place while he's thinking, namely God.

This seems like a reasonable approach to me. For reasoning of course requires the immaterial laws of logic and morality. Morality comes into play in the sense that we always feel the requirement or obligation to follow a line of reasoning to its end. Failing to do so is to be dishonest in a sense, even if only to one's self. Moral and logical laws are real but transcend time, space, and matter. Moreover they are necessary; they exist in all possible worlds. Interestingly, they press in on us and when we push against them we feel obligation and guilt. We, as thinkers, then, interact with an invisible realm of morality and discourse which rules us in a sense.

This realm is peculiar also in the sense that the truths it holds are discovered, not invented by us. The truths are in a sense "held" there for us to find. Also telling, is the fact that for us to think rationally, our faculties must be attuned to this nonspatial dimension specifically. Our minds can "intuit" certain facts and discern facts in a specific manner, as if humankind and the transcendent truths were meant to meet.

With these thoughts in mind, it seems the nonChristian must agree with us then that in his rational conversations he relies (even implicitly) on a realm of invisible, immaterial laws of logic and morality and true propositions. The remarkable that humankind has the specific faculties to interact with these things will undoubtedly arouse the problem of anticipation: were these things simply waiting for humans to exist, as if they were meant for human minds?

This is all very peculiar if the standard naturalist (or any other nonChristian) theory of the world is true. Out the window with standard materialism; in with a world full of spirit-like being emanating truth and morality. In fact, the nonChristian appears to have been all along in agreement with the opening chapters of the Gospel of John which speaks of Christ, the Logos who formed the world and all in it and Who is the Truth and Light. Without Him, nothing would exist, including truth.

Thus, denying God and any transcendent foundation for this thought or life, the unbeliever discovers that He has known God all along and suppressed that fact. For his thought and life have had their foundations on the Logos Himself--the very Lord Jesus Christ.

This, I think, is the spirit of Van Til's thought and insight to apologetics. That, to me, is the most natural way to read him. He did not fully articulate these things, but nonetheless I think he hints at such a method. It is at least my attempt to revive his apologetic, an attempt far more successful in my opinion than most of his other supporters.

Van Til's Argument, Part I

2005-09-17T19:35:00.000-05:00

The late Christian philosopher and theologian, Cornelius Van Til is simultaneously the source of much fanfare and disdain in the world of Christian apologetics. Van Til is typically seen as the originator of what is today known as the "presuppositionalist" method of Christian defense. This method has been further expounded and refined by Van Til followers such as Greg Bahnsen and John Frame among others.

Van Til utilized a "Transcendental Argument" for Christianity. In essence, he noted that in order for reasoning of any sort to be possible, God must exist and be its source. To argue that God is non-existent, Van Til inferred, was like constructing a logical argument for the nonexistence of logic. Such reasoning defeats itself. For the very thing being denied in the argument (e.g., logic) must exist in order to make the argument.

Thus, Van Til and his camp have relied on the claim that if any sort of reasoning can take place, God must exist to make this possible. God is the source of all things including the laws of logic and our thought life. Thus, the very fact that the atheist is reasoning demonstrates that God exists. Upon arguing, then, the atheist has conceded the reality of God.

Critics of Van Til's argument are myriad and include the Christian apologists working today: Craig, Moreland, Geisler, Habermas, etc.

From reading the critiques of these critics, I tend to agree that the Transcendental Argument as it has been interpreted by Vant Til's followers and his critics is fallacious. It simply posits that God is necessary for reasoning and leave it at that. The question is never answered as to WHY we should think that if God is nonexistent, then reasoning is impossible.

Of course, one could construct an argument that if God is nonexistent than logic and minds and thus reasoning won't exist. This has in fact been done with great success by scholars like Plantinga, Reppert, Quentin Smith and others. However, in taking this approach, one abandons the "presuppositionalist" school and opts for traditional argumentation in proving God's reality.

However, I'm not sure one must opt for the traditional route in this way. The controversy seems to lie with what the nontheist is willing to grant regarding the preconditions of argumentation. If one agrees that logic requires the reality of nonphysical laws of logic and that such laws must reside in a mind, then one in effect does seem to concede that a personal mind like God does exist. For humans discovered logic, they didn't invent it. Thus, there must be a mind outside of and prior to humans that holds these logical laws.

Thus, if the atheist concedes this much, then the apologists need not ARGUE that reasoning requires God. He merely has to point out to the nonbeliever that according to the nonbelievers own beliefs a God must be real. The atheist's very reasoning presupposes it. Thus, the "presuppositional" apologetic is back in full force.

But how can we make atheists agree to or see that they really do have these preconceptions about reasoning and logic? That's something I wish to explore in the next post.

Evolutionism and the Vision of the Anointed

2005-09-03T07:45:00.000-05:00

I wrote recently concerning what the great columnist Thomas Sowell has called the "vision of the anointed" (see his book by the same name). That vision is, in essence, one of superiority.

The "anointed" are typically the liberal elites: professors, media pundits, politicians, judges. Their vision of the world rests on their belief that they are wiser, more morally virtuous than the common man. As such, they wish to impose their vision of the world on the rest of us via expanded government roles. As Sowell notes, there is a pattern to the anointed's thinking and implementation. For instance, "Sex Education" was pushed rigorously in schools by the anointed because they saw a "crisis" of teenage pregnancy. Thus, they sought to infiltrate the schools with sexual lessons that most parents didn't want their kids to get and which most parents deemed inappropriate. This despite the fact that teenage pregnancy and STD's were DECLINING prior to the development of sex ed.

Why did the anointed see a "crisis" then and push for this terrible solution to it? Sowell notes that the crisis was generated in the anointeds' own minds, as they believe that kids should be "liberated" in sexual areas and should not be constrained on sexual issues in the way that most common Americans and Christians wish to do. They saw their view as liberating and the traditional view as repressive, thus reinforcing their idea that they're morally superior. They then undermined families and public opinion to impose their idea of how kids should learn and what they should know about sex.

The results of this have been tragic. Teenage pregnancy and sexual disease have spiked significantly since the implementation of sex ed. The problem is seriously worse than prior to such programs. The anointed's policy has backfired, a fact we seldom hear about and certainly won't hear about from the anointed in the media or education systems.

These mistakes and problems have occurred in a string of social issues: sex ed, the Welfare state, environmentalism and myriad other issues. Such policies are meant as "solutions" to "crises", although they standardly make the crisis far worse than ever. The problem as Sowell states is that the anointed vision does not deal in reality or evidence. They have a skewed vision of the nature of the man and the world and base their ideas on those. This vision is so fundamental to their life and thinking that it overrules any counterevidence to its truth. Thus, the policies they implement cannot accurately address problems and cannot be altered since they are not open to conflicting evidence.

I have one more area where I believe the vision of the anointed runs rampant: origins. Evolutionism is a view of origins which states that all living creatures are products of chance and time and they have no intelligent maker. Most of the world's elitists are strict evolutionists and most common folk are not. The power of the vision of evolutionist elites can be seen in their interpretation of evidences. For instance, the fossil record contains no significant signs of evolution, but nonetheless evolutionists believe it occurred billions of times throughout earth history. Also, we all learned in school that there was a "chemical soup" on earth 14 billion years ago that ultimately gave rise to the first life by mere coincidence. Of course, there was never empirical evidence for such a "soup". Its existence came straight from the minds of the anointed in their determination to provide naturalistic view of the world.

Evolutionists carry all the signs of the vision of the anointed. They see a "crisis" in origins (i.e. "How do we account for all this apparent design) that can be resolved by appealing to Darwinism. But the crisis seems imagined since it is fundamentally obvious that the world is a designed order as observed such thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas and most great thinkers through history. Why apply a naturalistic vision to a world that is obviously made a supernatural person? Evolutionism also seems impervious to criticism and counterevidence as has been noted by creationists and intelligent design advocates for a long time. Even many evolutionists themselves state that we must at all costs rule out any other theories of origins. And we certainly can teach counter-theories in school, despite the fact that most people want this taught. Evolutionists also see themselves as morally and intellectually superior to their supernaturalist opponents. The vitriol spewed towards creationists is unmatched in the academic world. There have been numerous examples of professors being fired for not teaching evolutionism or for teaching its rival theories. Creationists are often deemed at having an uninformed bias, while evolutionists are "objective".

The same problem that haunts most theories of the anointed haunt evolutionism. Its teachings denigrate the human person and see him as an animal among animals. It helped tear down the Christian tradition in Europe and the social results are clear and tragic. Moreover, it will keep people from knowing the truth about their origins and, most importantly, their Creator all for one reason: because the vision of the anointed rules the day and, if it's up to them, our lives.

Clayton, Einzege, and the Anointed Vision

2005-08-28T15:55:00.000-05:00

Two of my most critical commentators on this blog are Clayton and Einzege, both secularists adamantly opposed to any and all of my theistic/Christian evidences. I make a general response here to their typically mistaken remarks.

To Clayton and Einzege:

Your responses to me are often interesting in the sense that they verify the inferences of many "right wing" thinkers who have studied the thought and ideas of "skeptics" and liberals like yourself.

You many times have condescendingly inquired whether I ever question arguments for theism. The implication being that I somehow don't care about truth and am simply willing to accept AND endorse any argument for God, as long as it furthers my belief and agenda.

You, on the other hand, as members of the anointed intelligentsia are much more honest in your research. You are attempting to seek the truth and you won't resort to accepting just any old argument for atheism. You, unlike I, have integrity in your philosophical reasoning and search for religious truth and objectivity. You wish to reach the masses with facts, not faith.

This attitude you both have bears out perfectly the work of Thomas Sowell, the fine political/historical scholar from Stanford. See Sowell's excellent book "The Vision of the Anointed". Sowell has noted that liberals and "freethinkers" like yourselves often hold themselves up as being morally superior and far more honest than your Judeo-Christian, conservative rivals. You seek the truth, but your opponents are shallow brutes who push an agenda dishonestly. They can't see past their entrenched tradition and brainwashing.

Of course, as Sowell notes, this caricature is just that -- a gross caricature of Christian and conservative thinkers in general. Such thinkers are typically as honest, and probably more so, than their anti-Christian foes. The fact that their thinking often is far more in line with reality can be seen in the consequences of the ideas of the visions of the anointed, which were roundly opposed by Christians and conservatives, mostly. See, for instance, the failed work of such liberal social constructions as the Welfare state, sex education in schools, environmentalism, consumer protection, and the like. All were social policies issued and spurned by the anointed, anti-Christian elite and all have ended in disaster, becuase they were simply out of touch with reality. They were meant to promote a vision and agenda rather than to find real solutions.

Though I think your accusations of intellectual dishonesty against me are plainly false and not worth mentioning, I should note that I, in fact, do question many arguments for theism. I won't go into all of them, since it would take too long.

But I have a rather interesting question for my secular thinkers who are so self-congratulatingly honest intellectually:

Have you, by chance, ever met a theistic argument that you like?

Matt Hughes on Spirituality

2005-08-27T08:11:00.000-05:00

I've commented on this blog previously on the interesting correlation between Christian mixed martial and their success in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts.

List the current major MMA champions and you find that most ascribe to Christianity: Franklin, Hughes, Silva, as did former UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champ, Randy Couture. Other great fighters in that category are Shogun Rua, Matt Lindland, Josh Barnett, Nathan Marquardt, Rampage Jackson, Vitor Belfort, and various others.

After presenting this idea to others, including fans of MMA, I'm often attacked as being ridiculous or just being a "Bible thumper" (whatever that is). But, within recent days, my suspicions on the importance of the faith to one's in-ring success has been supported by none other than Matt Hughes, the most dominant welterweight MMA champ in history.

Hughes has held the WW belt seemingly forever and has only been defeated 4 times in around 42 total fights. He's the king of 170lb. fighters. Interestingly, in his recent premier on SpikeTV's The Ultimate Fighter reality show, Hughes noted the importance of his spiritual state to his fighting prowess. Hughes noted that fighters must be strong mentally, physically, and spiritually to have their best chance at ultimate success in the fight game. By "spiritually" Hughes unmistakeably implies a Christian spirituality, as that is the faith to which he holds.

I realize there are great fighters who are non-Christians. But that fact does nothing to undermine the interesting connection between Christian faith and fighting success. The best fighters in the world continue to be predominantly Christian in orientation, which I think requires some form of explanation. Does God truly protect those who are faithful to Him (as expressed in the Psalms and other places), at least in some important cases?

Perhaps you think fighting and God are irrelevant to one another. And it's certainly your right to have that view. Just don't express it to Matt Hughes.

UFC 54 Predictions

2005-08-20T08:49:00.000-05:00

UFC 54 is finally upon us. Many fans have said this is possibly the best UFC fight card in that organization's history, I wouldn't disagree. It features greats like Liddell, Couture, and Horn and none of the matches are easily picked. Nonetheless, I propose to try my hand at doing just that.

Chuck Liddell vs. Jeremy Horn

This is of course the main event and will determine the reigning LHW champion. Will Liddell retain his belt or will Horn come like a thief in the night? This a great matchup and is actually a rematch between the two, who fought each other in 1999. Horn won that bout with a late submission, but I see this one going differently. Horn needs to take Chuck to the ground to win this fight and I think that will be too tough of a challenge. Taking Chuck down is one of the toughest feats in MMA and keeping him down is even tougher. Unfortunately, Horn just cannot stand with Liddell for a full five rounds. In fact, I don't think this will go past the third. I take Liddell via knockout in mid-third round.

Randy Couture vs. Mike Van Arsdale

Another LHW battle, this one featuring the legend Couture in his first match after losing the belt to Liddell. Both of these guys are phenomenal wrestlers. (Rumor has it that Van Arsdale beat Couture in a wrestling match in their younger days.) Both are also former heavyweights who currently are around 40 yrs. old. But I don't think things are as evenly matched as one might assume. Couture is simply too experienced and MMA savvy to lose this fight. Van Arsdale is tough but while he matches Randy in wrestling, he doesn't equal him in MMA ability or knowledge. I take Randy with a 2nd round TKO.

George St. Pierre vs. Frank Trigg

This will be an awesome welterweight matchup. These guys probably rank #2 and #3 in the WW division behind Matt Hughes. Trigg is a great wrestler who has good stand up. St. Pierre, a young and awesomely well-rounded fighter, probably has better kickboxing and submissions than Trigg, but will obviously not outwrestle him. This will be an all-out war. I see St. Pierre winning by decision.

Matt Lindland vs. Joe Doerksen

A very interesting middleweight fight. Doerksen stepped in for an injured Joe Riggs for this fight. Lindland is an Olympic wrestler who takes most guys out with ground-n-pound. Doerksen is probably superior at jiu-jitsu and stand-up, making this a tougher call than some think. However, I give the edge to Lindland just because world-class wrestling. He'll get Doerksen down eventually and will do damage. Lindland via decision.

Tim Sylvia vs. Tra Telligman

Both heavyweight fighters with big power in their hands. Telligman is a pro boxer on top being of a pro MMA fighter and Sylvia is known for knocking guys out standing. Neither of these guys wants to be on the ground. Telligman will have the more refined boxing technique and skill, but Sylvia is just too big. The guy is 6'8 265 compared to Telligman who is 6'2. That reach will prove too much for Telligman who will get knocked out in round 2.

Diego Sanchez vs. Brian Gassaway

This bout marks Sanchez's UFC debut after winning the middleweight division of The Ultimate Fighter reality show in April. He is a seasoned wrestler, great on the ground and excels at ground-n-pound and submissions. Gassaway is a pro kickboxer (10-0 record) and will easily have the advantage in the stand-up aspect. The trick for Gassaway, though, will be to keep the fight standing. I don't think he'll be able to do that, as Sanchez is too good and too experienced at getting opponents down and having his way with them. Sanchez will take this by submission in round 1.

Trevor Prangley vs. Travis Lutter

This is my least anticipated fight, since I think the mix of styles here will prove boring. Prangley is a world-class wrestler who has a powerful right hand. Lutter is a black belt in jiu-jitsu with limited stand up ability. Lutter will be slick on the ground and will no doubt seek submissions throughout. But I believe Prangley trains with too good of a team (American Kickboxing Academy) to be caught by surprise. He'll defend against submissions and will pound Lutter out on the mat. I take Prangley by TKO in the 3rd.

James Irvin vs. Terry Martin

Martin makes his debut in UFC tonight, coming in with a 10-0 record in MMA. Irvin's only loss was his UFC debut at UFC 51. Things have changed for Irvin though in that he now moves to a more natural 205 weight class. He won't be overpowered by a bigger guy this time around. Experts say Martin is fairly well-rounded, but I think Irvin will prove to be too much in the stand up. I predict Irvin by KO in round 2.

Benefits of Belief

2005-08-20T00:04:00.000-05:00

Pragmatism, like other "philosophies" has both its merits and its downside. As a theory of truth, it fails miserably. What is true is not necessarily always "what works." However, as a guide in practical decision-making, it can be rather useful. (If I want a workout, I should take the stairs, not the elevator.) Philosopher Paul Copan makes these points aptly in his fine boo, How Do You Know You're Not Wrong? recently published this month.

But pragmatic considerations can possibly lend a hand to the case for theism, too. A few years ago, philosophy professor Stafford Betty wrote a conference paper dealing with the benefits of religious belief and whether or not such belief heightens the quality of human life.

Betty argued that, generally, when a certain belief benefits us, it is more likely true than not. He cites distinct examples of this, although my memory does not serve me to rename them here. Moreover, Betty says, the benefits of traditional religious belief in a personal God have been well-documented in the medical and psychological professions. Religious believers tend to be healther than their nonbelieving friends both physically and mentally. I think he also cited other apparent benefits that have been documented in religious believers.

Thus, if Betty is correct in saying beliefs that benefit us are more likely true than not generally, and theistic belief generally benefits humans, then we have another reason for thinking theistic belief is more likely true than not.

Of course, my brief rehearsal of this argument does not establish its soundness, nor is it meant to do so. I merely note that it is an interesting, suggestive bit of natural theology that might well be worth looking into by Christian apologists.

The Scales of Evidence

2005-08-14T15:33:00.000-05:00

Philosopher Paul Draper is a noted agnostic when it comes to God's existence. He doesn't know whether God exists or not. In his essay in the book Divine Hiddenness: New Essays, Draper goes through the arguments for theism and naturalism and finds the cases for both worldviews equally compelling. Neither has a clear advantage.

But Draper makes an interesting statement at the end of his contribution. He notes that this situation with the ambiguous evidence appears almost intentional, as if humans have been given enough evidence to find God, but not enough to give them utter certainty regarding His reality.

This is an interesting statement indeed, and I think it gives the advantage to the Christian theist. The Bible states that God has given ample evidence of Himself through His creation so as to see His reality even apart from special revelation like the Bible. It also implies, however, that man can shun God's reality and suppress belief in His existence if they are unwilling to submit to Him. To the obstinate human, God's existence will not seem clear. This is a typical consequence of bias. For instance, if we prejudge someone and assume they are a bad person, we may never see the goodness they have to offer--even if it is readily available to see.

I disagree with Draper in that I think the evidence for theism is far greater than any purported evidence for naturalism. Thus, theism is the clearcut winner. But even granting his point, the Christian position comes out on the winning end. For the apparent ambiguity of the evidence seems intentional as Draper notes and thus the work of an intelligent mind. Moreover, Scripture states that God has in fact made His reality ambiguous to the unrepentant. Such ambiguity would thus simply be in line with Scriptural indications.

Christian Argument against the Population Boom

2005-08-12T22:42:00.000-05:00

Liberal politicians and pundits are panicked--constantly, it seems. Growing up in public schools, I for one, was consistently indoctrinated with the liberal perspective on issues like environmentalism, the history and legacy of Europe and the West, AIDS, and the like.

The ideas often spun out were ones of urgency. "If we don't stop pollution, the earth will be destroyed by the next generation", "AIDS is not primarily a homosexual disease--all lifestyles are equally threatened by it!!"

One area often spoken of by leftists is their fear of the "population boom." According to such thinkers (almost all of whom, not incidentally, advocate abortion-on-demand), unless we start controlling our "breeding" habits as humans, we'll end up with a shortage of food, water, and natural resources. We're all doomed.

As the excellent economist, political analyst, and historian Thomas Sowell has noted, such proclamations are sounded loudly, but with little empirical evidence to back them. How do we know this about the population? For all that I've heard on these issues, virtually none of it has been in the form of argument or documentation.

In fact, not only do pundits have little evidence for their population thesis, there actually all sorts of evidences against it. One formidable argument is distinctly Christian.

Christians hold that the world will end when Christ returns and all people will be forever cast into Heaven or Hell. The Bible clearly implies that humans will in fact still be thriving on the earth at that time, and there will be many involved in the endtime events.

This means that humans will have the food and resources needed to populate the earth up until the Creator brings this earthly sojourn to an end. That being so, the typical environmentalist claim that we could run out of resources before the universe dies out naturally, is false.

Formally, the argument goes like this:

1. The Christian God exists.
2. If the Christian God exists, then humankind will populate earth until He comes back to end the universe as we know it.
3. If the population boom claim is true, then it is possible that mankind will die out before the end of the universe.
4. It is not possible that mankind does so (see premise #2).
5. Therefore, it is not possible that the population boom claim is true.

A Unique Evidence for the Gospels' Reliability

2005-08-07T11:28:00.000-05:00

Many volumes have been written on the historical Jesus and the reliability (or unreliability, depending on who you read) of the historical record presented in the four Gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke, & John) in the New Testament.

The Gospels, of course, were accounts of Jesus of Nazareth's life and ministry written by His followers in the first century AD, following His death on the cross. The actual years in which the books were penned is disputed among scholars, though I hold that Mark, probably the earliest Gospel was probably written some time around 52-55 AD.

Various evidences are given by certain historians as to why the Gospels can be considered reliable history. See the scholarship of Craig Blomberg, F.F. Bruce, and Paul Barnett, for example. But many of these scholars often overlook one interesting piece of evidence for the Gospels' trustworthiness.

Dallas Willard (a Christian philosopher) has noted previously in an article that Jesus uses profound and distinct logical reasoning in His discourses as recorded in these documents. Douglas Groothuis, another philosopher, has also recognized this aspect of Jesus's teachings in his book On Jesus.

But this opens a new kind of argument for the reliability of the Gospel text. For if Jesus, as noted in those texts, used a subtle logic that was apparently foreign to the Jewish thought of His day, does this not indicate that the Gospels were faithfully recording Jesus's words? One must merely ask how else the Gospel writers would come up with such reasoning or insight. Did they simply make up this up and then attribute it to their mythical teacher?

Such a position seems implausible. What would be the motivation for doing this? Why attribute this to Jesus rather than simply starting a new movement yourself? How in fact did they come up with new thinking when they were all steeped in traditional Jewish life and thought?

It seems better to assume, instead, that such teachings were in fact Jesus's to begin with; the Gospel authors truly recorded what He said. But that, of course, give us another indication that Gospel authors, and the Gospels themselves, are truthful.

Ultimate Fight Night predictions

2005-08-06T12:05:00.000-05:00

Tonight (Saturday, 8/6) is the inaugural night for all Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fans. This marks the first live event on the new SpikeTV television contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The event features eight new fights, the majority being exciting, hard-to-call matchups.

The card includes fighters from the first season of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) reality show on SpikeTV (season two starts 8/22). Most of them will face UFC veterans, which for most will be their toughest test to date.

In this post, I propose to lay out the fights and present a brief prediction of their outcome.

1. Nathan Marquardt vs. Ivan Salaverry

This is the headlining matchup and for good reason: these are both superb fighters. Both are very well-rounded and very experienced. I've never seen Marquardt fight, although all the experts praise him. I personally hope he gets the win, since he's a Christian. Of course, Salaverry is a force and is perhaps the top contender in the UFC's MW division. The guy can standup or go the ground--and he'll beat you at either one. I give this to Salaverry via an early 3rd round submission.

2. Stephan Bonnar vs. Sam Hoger

These are two TUF alumni. Bonnar is best known for his fight with Forrest Griffin in April's TUF season 1 finale. He's an excellent boxer and ground fighter. Hoger is a sleeper and appears underrated. He looked good on the show with his Muay Thai ability and looked even better with a big win over Bobby Southworth at the TUF finale. But I give Bonnar the edge on both standup and ground. I'll take Bonnar with a second round TKO.

3. Chris Leben vs. Patrick Cote

This is the fight I want to see most. Two big punchers with good chins. Cote has the more refined boxing skills, but Leben might have a little more power. Leben is also probably better on the ground. However, I give the advantage to Cote since he's fought big opponents in the UFC before and Leben might come in star struck a bit. Prediction: Cote with a knock out in round 2.

4. Nathan Quarry vs. Pete Sell

A real toss-up and an excellent match-up. Sell is great at jiu-jistu and won big over Baroni at UFC 51. Quarry is probably the most talented fighter from TUF and looked good in his wins against Sincaid and Carter in the UFC. Quarry has the better stand-up and is good enough on the ground to defend against Sell there. I give this to Quarry by decision.

5. Gideon Ray vs. Mike Swick

Both of these guys have very good stand-up technique and power. Both will come out swinging hard. However, Swick probably has better ground skills due to his training at American Kickboxing Academy; he could bring those skills into play. Also, Ray took the fight on only three weeks notice, which makes his conditioning questionable. I'll take Swick (my favorite TUF fighter) by TKO in round 2.

6. Alex Karalexis vs. Kenny Florian

Both fighters are TUF veterans and both seem to be the least deserving fighters on the card. I doubt either should be in the UFC, but this will a decent fight, nonetheless. Karalexis has the better standup and power; Florian has far better ground skills. Classic ground vs. stand-up match. In the end, I lean towards Florian by submission in the 1st round, just because he seems like a gamer.

7. Josh Neer vs. Drew Fickett

Neither of these guys come from TUF, but are at about that level in their careers. Neer is said to be well-rounded. Fickett is best at grappling and ground-n-pound. I don't know enough about either participant to make a good estimate. But I'll pick Fickett by TKO, round 1.

8. Josh Koscheck vs. Pete Spratt

Koscheck (from TUF) takes on a UFC vet here. Koscheck is an excellent, NCAA champion wrestler who's only trained MMA for a little over a year. His best chance here is to take Spratt down and pound on him (like he did against Sanford at the TUF finale). However, if Spratt can keep the fight standing, he easily has the advantage with his kickboxing prowess. This will be an interesting fight. I take Koscheck via ground-n-pound TKO in the second round.