"Matthew Coniglio's Georgia home held a trove of child pornography, more than 50,000 images and videos stored on laptops, external hard drives and thumb drives. Among the stash, hidden in a bedside table turned around to conceal the doors, authorities made an even more horrifying discovery: 56 8-millimeter cassette tapes they say show him raping and molesting girls. All were … [Read more...]
Why should I believe something?
People believe all sorts of things. Some believe in aliens, while others don’t. Some believe in global warming, while others don’t. Some believe in evolution, while other's don't. Some believe in a God or gods, while others do not. Why the disagreement, given there are certainly people of good intention and intellect on either side of many important issues? Why should we … [Read more...]
Why Does Opposition to Apologetics Come From Mostly Within the Church?
Apologetics is a branch of Christian theology that helps give reasons for the truthfulness of the Christian faith/worldview. The word “Apologia” means “to give reasons, make a legal defense” (Acts 26:2; 2 Tim. 4:16; 1 Pet 3:15). The apostles approach to spreading the message of the Gospel is characterized by such terms as “apologeomai/apologia” which means “to give reasons, … [Read more...]
Parents: Don’t Train Your Kids On Your Own
I became a Christian when my first two children were very young. They have no memory of me prior to my conversion. But all four of my kids were raised in Christian community. I didn’t train, mentor or prepare them on my own, and you shouldn’t either. Young Christians are facing a formidable task as they get ready to enter an adult culture growingly hostile to the Christian … [Read more...]
Objection(s) to the Ontological Argument
It may be strange to some that there are philosophical objections raised by Christians against arguments for belief in God. For example, St. Anselm's "Ontological Proof" (as it would come to be called) was taken under a critical lens when Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) took consideration of the argument in his epic Summa Theologiae (ST hereafter). Over the last year or so, I have … [Read more...]
Is the Ontological Argument Valid? – Part 2
(I continue from Part 1 last month into Aquinas' response to the argument.) Almost two hundred years later, St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) rejected the ontological argument; he believed that God’s existence was self-evident in itself, but not to us. Aquinas asserted that we cannot know God’s essence directly, but only through his effects, thus all valid arguments for his … [Read more...]
Was The Gospel of Mark Forged?
Was the Gospel of Mark a fake? That’s something you might hear liberal scholars ask, not just about Mark, but about many of the New Testament documents. In fact, in a book called Forged, Bart Ehrman said that “the vast majority of these apostolic books were in fact forged” (p.218). For example, he says The Gospel of Mark really wasn’t written by Mark. Instead, later scribes … [Read more...]
Convince Me There’s A God – Archaeology 13
Moses never existed … or if he did, he was only a minor historical character and most of his life was expanded by legend. When I was an atheist I believed Moses never existed. The Jews made him up to bolster their religion. However, if someone by the name of Moses really did live he wasn’t anything like the stories about him in the Bible. No way he called down the wrath of … [Read more...]
Creatures Point to Christ
Death always seems to be a negative or morbid subject. Whatever connotation it may have, the only thing significant about it is that it is real - i.e., we are going to die one day. As Blaise Pascal put it into words: "When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill. . . I am frightened, and shocked at … [Read more...]
Culture and Biblical Literacy
Hollywood is beginning to realize that there are incredible financial benefits for making Christian movies. It isn’t rocket science. A large part of our population at least identifies as Christian, and you know that when you produce a Christian movie, churches and youth groups everywhere will be renting out movie theaters to bring everyone to the show. As a business, you have … [Read more...]