Anyone who’s ever taken a class on how to share their faith has heard some well-intentioned teacher say, “You don’t need to learn a lot of big words. Just tell them your story. Just tell them how Jesus changed your life. No one can argue with that.” Then everyone sighs a big sigh of relief because they thought they’d have to spend time learning how to answer hard questions. … [Read more...]
Strange Bedfellow
In a recent New York Time article, Thomas Nagel offers a brief but robust explanation why a purely physical explanation of the universe will not work. This may not seem, at first glance, to be a big issue. However, if it is true that the universe is only physical, then there can be no human mind/soul and certainly no god. Here is the kicker: Dr. Nagel is an atheist. And, he … [Read more...]
Vajrayana – Fast Track to Nirvana
Vajrayana Buddhism, also called “Thunderbolt Vehicle” or “Diamond Vehicle,” is considered by some to be the third vehicle in Buddhism, the other two being, Mahayana, and Theravada. It is widely believed that this school of thought originated as a reaction to the highly philosophical Mahayana Schools in India in the Nalanda University, one of the earliest universities in the … [Read more...]
Abortion and A Flawed Brain-life Theory
Tracking Baruch Brody’s view, brain-life theorists claim that, being fully human, a being must possess properties “such that their loss would mean the going out of existence (the death) of a human being”(Brody 1975, 102). The property of being human, they argued, is human brain function. J Savulescu, for example, contended: If we cease to exist when our brain dies, we only … [Read more...]
Boys in the Girls' Locker Room?
Last week in California, a news article reported that state legislation was passed to enable "students in California schools to compete on sports teams and use facilities, including restrooms, based on their gender identity, regardless of whether they are listed as male or female in official campus records." This basically means that if a boy believes he is a girl, despite his … [Read more...]
Slideshow: What Best Explains Jesus’ Empty Tomb?
There is little to no debate among both Christian and non-Christian historians on the facts of Jesus’ empty tomb. By contrast, there is widespread debate as to what best explains those facts. The historical facts of Jesus’ death and empty tomb are these: Jesus was murdered and buried. Three days afterward, his body went missing. Accounts of Jesus’ appearance to both his … [Read more...]
The Wolverine: Dark Roads, Monsters, and Men
"The great battle, I always thought with Wolverine, is the battle within himself." - Hugh Jackman, aka Wolverine _____________________________________________________________________________ Since the disastrous events at the end of the last X-Men film, Logan (aka Wolverine) has retreated into the woods, living a life of solitude among the another animals. His past haunts him … [Read more...]
Defining the good: The Golden Rule
A major argument for God’s existence is that, if there is no God, there is no “true” good, because truth is that which corresponds to reality, to real being. A common counter-argument heard from atheists, agnostics, and skeptics is that this does not account for the definition of moral goodness. If God is the source of goodness, does he define what it means to be good via his … [Read more...]
The Resurrection of Jesus: A Christian Apologetics Cornerstone
Jesus' resurrection after his crucifixion and death is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. The apostle Paul, after giving an account (1 Cor 15) of this event, says that if it didn't happen, the Christian religion is useless. He adds that, then, Christians should be most pitied because they are still in trouble with the God of the universe. But even on a practical note, it … [Read more...]
Is Morality Objective?
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws.(1)” He helped build the Civil Rights movement upon these moral laws: whites are not superior to blacks and … [Read more...]