3 More Cultural Engagement Tips Today, we’re moving on in my new series of posts called, “7 Tips on Engaging Skeptics Like Paul Did in Athens.” In part one, we took a brief look at some historical background and focused on two simple lessons from Paul’s encounter in Acts 17: Care About People Prepare for Insults and Interest In this article, I’ll share 3 more cultural … [Read more...]
Convince Me There’s A God – Archaeology 2
Solid evidence. Something an investigative journalist can sink his teeth into. That’s what I needed to see in 1971. Christians I had invited on my radio talk show to intimidate and make fun of were turning the tables on me. Me! A well-known, hard-core atheist talk show commentator, I was actually listening to Christians talk about why they believed in the existence of God. … [Read more...]
A Response to the Friendly Atheist (Part 2)
This post continues a response to the July 30 CNN opinion piece article by Hemant Mehta, “The Friendly Atheist”, entitled “Why are millennials leaving church? Try atheism”. In Part 1, we looked at a number of arguments Mehta makes that I believe are either flawed or weak. Let’s now examine a few more. … [Read more...]
GOD: The Best Explanation? Part 2
Can Atheism Explain the Existence of our Universe? Part 1 In this second installment of our new miniseries, "GOD: The Best Explanation?", we begin to investigate whether a personal Creator God might or might not be a good explanation of the features we observe about our universe and reality in general. In this video we will take a look at Feature #1 that needs to be … [Read more...]
Is Naturalism Rational? The Self-Defeating Epistemology Behind Evolutionary Theories of Cognition (Part 3)
This is Part 3 in a 3 part series on evolutionary theories of cognition. This part discusses Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. Part 1 examined C.S. Lewis’ Argument from Reason and part 2 covered Plantinga’s Argument from Proper Function. See Part 1 of this article here and Part 2 here. Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against … [Read more...]
A Response to the Friendly Atheist (Part 1)
It’s rare for me to get worked up anymore over statements that atheists make about Christianity. For many years now, I’ve debated and exchanged dialogs—both in person and over the Web—with many atheists and hatetheists (there is a difference) and have gotten pretty used to the primary arguments of the former group and the flawed caricatures / misrepresentations of the latter, … [Read more...]
Religion and Violence
“Religion poisons everything. As well as a menace to civilization, it has become a threat to human survival.” – Christopher Hitchens (1) We are often told that religion, including Christianity, is the cause of great evil in the world—that in the words of Christopher Hitchens, “religion poisons everything." It is claimed that if religion is removed violence will be greatly … [Read more...]
No Christian Children?
In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins writes that “a Christian child” is nonexistent. As he puts it: Atheists need to raise their own consciousness of the anomaly: religious opinion is the one kid of parental opinion that – by almost universal consent – can be fastened upon children who are, in truth, too young to know what their opinion really is. There is no such thing as a … [Read more...]
In The Cultural Apologetic Box?
If you are anything like me, you never really fit into a box. People try to put you in a box, and you search for the box you should fit into. This is what we do in Western culture; we identify people by their boxes. I am a Myers Briggs ESTJ, a senior engineering design technologist with an associate in theology and an MA in apologetics, an Australian with an American wife, a … [Read more...]
The Raven Boys
"You're looking for a god...watch for the devil. When there's a god, there's always a legion of devils." Blue, her mother Marua, and her aunt Neeve have a strong affinity for the supernatural, an awareness of the darker forces lurking behind the veil, and a pretty keen desire to explore realms best left hidden. As part of her magical heritage, Blue is under something of a … [Read more...]