In part one we looked at the arguments advanced by Professor Radisson, now we come to the arguments Josh put forward as he took the floor. The first argument Josh talked about is called the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God. This comes in many different versions, all of which have interesting aspects. Yet all of them have in common the idea of a first cause, … [Read more...]
Is There a Way to Avoid a Universe with a Beginning?
After examining the evidence, cosmologists and physicists have largely embraced the fact we live in a universe that began to exist at a point in the distant past. At this point of “cosmic singularity” all space, time and matter came into existence abruptly, beginning in an extremely hot and dense state and expanding rapidly. Everything came from nothing. This view of the … [Read more...]
Questions That Are Off-Limits- Part 2
Last month we looked at questions that atheists tend to shy away from for whatever reason, and we looked at questions that are truly off-limits to those in an atheistic world. Today, we will see if Christianity has any such questions. What is Off Limits In The Church? One of the great advantages of Christianity over atheism is that the questions that are off limits in … [Read more...]
Jesus of Testimony
Greg Spencer of Roseburg, OR, was a police officer in narcotics enforcement in the 1990s. His work kept him immersed in a world of violence, death, and depravity on a regular basis. In addition he was a deputy medical examiner, which meant he had to view autopsies, often on bodies whose life had ended in a horrible death. He was dedicated to his work, but it turned him into a … [Read more...]
Gnosticism 2.0 – Knowing that one knows God
Normally on this blog I focus on issues that should be of interest to skeptics, people who are not convinced that God exists or that Christianity is a belief system to be taken seriously. Today I’d like to instead discuss Christianity directly. Lately as I’ve read the Bible some interesting themes have popped out, particularly in the book entitled 1 John. To those who are … [Read more...]
UnWholly
In Unwind, Neil Shusterman gave us a brilliantly disturbing look at a culture in which parents can have teenage children “unwound” – a process which kills them as every part of their physical body is separated and given to someone else. Shusterman introduced some weighty concepts in Unwind: Do we have souls? Do people have intrinsic worth? What makes human life … [Read more...]
Questions That Are Off-Limits- Part 1
I have always been a curious person. I love to ask questions. What things work, how they work, and why they work. Math and the sciences had a great appeal to me in school. I always interacted with the teacher or professor. I was always trying to make connections among different pieces of knowledge that I was being taught. As I got older, if someone told me something, I liked to … [Read more...]
The Legitimate Use of Thomas Aquinas in Apologetics
Much has been said of the 13th-century philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, from both secular as well as religious critics alike. For instance, Bertrand Russell once wrote with respect to Aquinas that he “cannot. . . feel that [Aquinas] deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times” [1]. This is due to Aquinas’ apparent prior commitment to … [Read more...]
5 Arguments for the Existence of God
Why should one make an argument for the existence of God? Why, moreover, provide five of them? Is it that the evidence for God is so weak, that believers need multiple arguments, working together in their persuasive power, to change the minds of unbelievers? Questions of whether or not these arguments are useful, or if they can actually coerce religious belief has been an area … [Read more...]
Nietzsche and Two Unpleasant Implications of Darwinism
“There was a type of enjoyment in overpowering and interpreting the world in the manner of Plato,” contended Friedrich Nietzsche, “different from the enjoyment offered by today’s physicists, or by the Darwinians and anti-teleologists who work in physiology, with their principle of the ‘smallest possible force’ and greatest possible stupidity”(Nietzsche 2002, 15-16) Nietzsche’s … [Read more...]