Have you heard of intersectionality? Unless you’ve been hanging around the rarified halls of academia lately, this may be a new term to you. Intersectionality theory was introduced by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in a 1989 paper with the unwieldy title, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory … [Read more...]
No, Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand Is Not A Parallel To Blind Evolution
Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine, notes that in the United States, those who are predisposed to believe in the benefits of free-market capitalism and also most likely to be skeptical of the theory of evolution. These findings are unfortunate because if anyone should embrace the theory of evolution it is conservatives. Charles Darwin’s theory of natural … [Read more...]
Miracles Are Useless, If….
The Bible is replete with miracles [1]. Sincere Christians who worship the Triune God will objectively believe every recorded miracle in the Bible. Miracles are intended to glorify God, meet human needs and establish the supernatural basis of revelation. Sincere Christians will also affirm miracles subjectively. They will subjectively assert their existence as a product of … [Read more...]
You Gotta Be More Specific
A blogger named MarkCC demonstrates a few common misunderstandings regarding Intelligent Design (ID). First we need to clarify some terms, as there is some jargon given in the post that the reader may not be familiar with. Specified Event – The phrase “Go Take Out the Trash” is a specified arrangement of letters. The jumbled letter sequence “smets qwoand nduams iba” is … [Read more...]
What About God of the Gaps?
If you present the cosmological or design arguments to skeptics at least a few times, it’s extremely likely that you’ll hear the words “That’s a ‘God of the gaps’ argument.” This objection is rooted in the idea that because a number of things throughout human history have been wrongly attributed to the supernatural activity of God or gods, we can now safely dismiss God as a … [Read more...]
William Lane Craig on Three Types of Cosmological Arguments
I am privileged to be one of the general editors of the upcoming Dictionary of Christianity and Science (Zondervan, April 2017). Paul Copan, Tremper Longman, Michael Strauss, and I–along with our excellent team at Zondervan–have endeavored to create a reference work that tackles the most important terms, concepts, people, and debates at the intersection of Christianity and … [Read more...]
The Awe of Dreams and the Surreal
Have you ever woken up in a dream and realized that you're still asleep? Have you ever been convinced that you were awake only to find that were still in a dream? Have you dreamt of a future that never existed? What about about a past that never happened? Last night I looked up at the moon in the dark night sky and I was utterly shocked when it came into my mind that I'm … [Read more...]
Expert Testimony: The Anthropic Principle, Anthropology, and Historicity
“The Christian faith does not call for us to put our minds on the shelf, to fly in the face of common sense and history, or to make a leap of faith into the dark. The rational person, fully apprised of the evidence, can confidently believe...” –William Lane Craig What is faith exactly? Is it unyielding belief in the absurd as Richard Dawkins has suggested? Is it trust in … [Read more...]
Why Do You Believe in God?
If someone asks me, "Why do you believe in God?" I don't necessarily say "I just have faith." Many might say that. But for someone who asks that question, I need to know how to defend my faith. So my response is this: I think it's very reasonable to believe in God. Let me tell you why: 1. The universe exists and it must have a cause, everything that begins to exist … [Read more...]
Book Review: Programming of Life- Part 2
Last month I began a review of "Programming of Life" by Donald E. Johnson (paperback, video, quotes) with summaries of the first five chapters This month I will summarize the final chapters and offer my thoughts and recommendation. Chapter 6: Prescriptive Programming Information in Life Johnson now discusses another type of information that is found in both computer code … [Read more...]