John W. Loftus, in his recent book, attempted to make the case that the Bible does not value animals, and that the Bible and its authors would condone animal cruelty. The opposite is true. As I demonstrated in my recent debate with him, the Bible is very much concerned for the welfare of the animals, and Loftus’ view otherwise is founded in various misunderstandings regarding … [Read more...]
Who Do You Say That I Am? Not Michael!
The identity of Jesus is the most important question that we can wrestle with. Forget the age of the earth. Forget the dating of the Gospels. Who is Jesus? That is what we need to know. Every religion and philosophy has a different answer to that question. For the Jehovah's Witnesses, the answer is the archangel Michael. For Christians encountering that claim for the first … [Read more...]
Islamic Fundamentalism, Islamism and Extremism – Introduction
“The mere fact of adherence to Islam has profound political consequences.” - Daniel Pipes, In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power. The topic of Islamic fundamentalism, Islamism, and extremism is being widely studied, discussed, and researched in academia, in almost all the top secular Western universities, parliaments, media, and communities. Its prominence came in the … [Read more...]
The Maze Runner
The Maze Runner took the YA world by storm in 2009, winning the New York State Charlotte Award, the Kentucky Bluegrass Award, the Oregon Reader’s Choice Award the New Hampshire Isinglass Teen Read Award, the Missouri Truman Readers Award, the Illinois Abraham Lincoln Award , the Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award, the Arizona Grand Canyon Reader Award, the Georgia Peach Book … [Read more...]
Honor Living: How the Moral Absolutes Elevate Human Life
On the evening of January 1st, 2008, at approximately 7:30pm, a call came in to the Irving, TX, 911 emergency response line. A female voice came screaming onto the line, “Help me … my dad shot me and now I'm dying!” The caller was 17-year-old Sarah Said. She and her sister Amina, 18, had been shot multiple times in a taxi cab which had been abandoned at the service entrance of … [Read more...]
Sufism – Assessment
The main quest of Sufism is a mystical experience of God like that of Prophet Mohammed. Main line Muslims argue that the experience of Prophet Mohammed was a unique one. We as Christians think it’s a demonic experience that Prophet Mohammed had. That is exactly what he thought first, before being convinced by his first wife, Khadija, and her uncle that he actually had … [Read more...]
The 5th Wave: I Am The Battlefield
“I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running, not staying, but facing. Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity. And if this is humanity’s last war, then I am the battlefield.” - Yancey's favorite quote from The 5th Wave Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave … [Read more...]
A Defense of the Minimal Facts: Part 1
I was recently sent an article by Matthew Ferguson of Adversus Apologetica where he attempts to knock down the minimal facts approach. Looking through the article, I was largely unimpressed. For those interested, it can be found here: The minimal facts approach is used by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. This strategy take facts that even liberal scholarship acknowledges and … [Read more...]
Sufism – Origin and History (Part 2)
Prophet Mohammed seems to be the first Sufi, communing directly with Allah. The early followers who were with him received revelations from God directly through them and formed the early Sufi school. The Hadith talks about ‘Ihsan’ or worship as one of the aspects of Islam and the Quran also talks about the purpose of God creating humans and Jinns is so that they may worship … [Read more...]
It’s Evidential
A review of Discovering Intelligent Design: A Journey into the Scientific Evidence by Gary Kemper, Hallie Kemper, and Casey Luskin When Hallie Kemper, a homeschool educator and science teacher, set out to locate a curriculum for intelligent design (ID), she couldn’t find one that met her needs. So she and her husband Gary, a former aerospace scientist and ID skeptic who had … [Read more...]