While the murder trial of abortion provider Dr. Kermit Gosnell is receiving a little more national media attention than when the trial began, the press is still missing the point of the story. Abortion is not an issue of the cleanliness of the clinic or the safety of the women undergoing the abortion or the qualifications of the people assisting Dr. Gosnell in performing … [Read more...]
The Secret Garden: The Book of Nature and Religious Pluralism
At any given time, I am reading a non-fiction book and a work of fiction literature. I never choose one based on the other, but occasionally I am surprised by a marked correlation between the two. That very thing happened to me over the past two weeks as I read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and The End of Christianity by William A. Dembski. … [Read more...]
Book Review: Has Christianity Failed You?
One of the major obstacles that I come against in defending the Christian worldview is simply a misunderstanding of the worldview. So many times people tell me that they reject Christianity based on one thing or another that Christianity teaches. In the vast majority of the cases people are rejecting something that is not Christian but they believe is Christian. In Has … [Read more...]
The Value of Existential Apologetics
As part of my exploration of new approaches to apologetics, I’ve been reading through Clifford Williams’ book Existential Reasons for Belief in God. So far, the hardest thing about understanding Williams’ thesis has been getting my head around the difference between an evidential argument for faith that uses needs as evidence of God and the existential argument for faith which … [Read more...]
The Myth that the Bible is a Myth
Rice Broock's recent opinion piece on FoxNews speaks about the strong popularity of the History Channel’s “Bible” miniseries and describes how it has once again unearthed the debate over whether the events chronicled in Scripture are history or fiction. Atheists and skeptics have consistently answered that question with the assertion that the Bible is nothing more than a … [Read more...]
Is Religion a Negative Force in the World?
It's common for the nonreligious to claim that religion is to blame for all of the negativity in the world: wars, overpopulation, ignorance of science, bad parenting, and so on. Religion is a terrible, horrible thing they contend and is fit only for elimination. After that, the world can go on. But is religion as horrible as these folks claim? A user at ThinkAtheist named … [Read more...]
Case For Atheism: Incompatibility of Bodiless Person?
In Philo, the Society of Humanist Philosophers published journal of Philosophy, Theodore M. Drange presented 10 incompatible properties arguments against the existence of God. In this article I explored Drange’s 7th argument, namely the incompatibility of a nonphysical person. Drange outlined “The Nonphysical-vs.-Personal Argument” as follows: If God exists, then he is … [Read more...]
Sho Baraka, The Gospel, And N**** Island
I wrote in my review of Sho Baraka's Talented 10th about the song "Chapter 9: Jim Crow", a song that featured several unedited use of the word "n*****". A few months have passed since the album dropped but now Sho Baraka is starting to get some heat for this controversial stance. Several bloggers have weighed in with their opinions about the controversial song, some supporting … [Read more...]
The Strange Story of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and the National Press
"Why isn't the national press reporting about the Gosnell trial?" Several of my friends on Facebook asked that question recently. Here was my quick response to one of them. … [Read more...]
The Comfort of Atheism
Understandably, atheist and writer, Susan Jacoby, is exasperated: "At the endless talk about faith in God as the only consolation for those devastated by the unfathomable murders in Newtown, Conn." (NYT Sunday, 1/6/2013, 6) Newtown seems to expose atheism’s irrelevance and inadequacy in the face of life’s tragedies – death and suffering. However, Jacoby feels that atheism … [Read more...]