Every now and then, you meet a “former Christian” who explains how painful it was to lose his cushy job at the seminary, his financial security, all of his friends, and his social standing by abandoning the faith. This is a tragedy on two levels. First, it’s a tragedy for the guy who is going …
If God made me this way, how can it be a sin? If I was born this way, how can I be punished for it? What kind of “justice” punishes me for something I have no control over? Freedom of choice is often illusory. Modern science has collected reams of evidence showing that we’re often …
I spent several years convincing Christians to give up their religious beliefs. I felt that most Christians had absolutely terrible reasons for believing, and I loved challenging them to defend their reasons. Much later, it began to dawn on me that the reasons they eventually accepted for being atheist were just as bad as the …
According to atheist materialism, free will is an illusion, and math is simply a useful fiction. As a Calvinist, I’m not going to take a glorified view of man’s free will. But I find it interesting that atheists proudly hew to such determinism. Determinism is the only honest position for a materialist to take, but …
The claim is sometimes made that, “evidence for an intelligent designer should be readily available in the graffiti of DNA”. Perhaps something like “Designed by Yaweh” embedded in the sequences of DNA. Similar suggestions have been made about the number pi. Alex Tbarrok has dubbed this the “Slartibartfast Principle“, after the planetary designer in Douglas …
In his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul admonishes Christians, “In regards to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults”. This is a great statement, because it comes from a man who described himself as “chief among sinners”. Paul was complicit in the religious persecution and murder of Christians before seeing the light. …
Years ago, I read a couple of Muslim theologians who argued strenuously that God’s “hand” in the Bible was truly a physical hand. At the time, I found the debate to be ridiculous and absurdly literalist. But I’m reconsidering that opinion. Christianity believes in a God incarnate, and Judaism initially believed in a physical God. …
Do you need to be a Christian to go to heaven? No. Christianity is a creedal religion, meaning that membership in the group “Christianity” is determined by profession of a creed. The thief on the cross did not profess a belief in the resurrection or the Trinity, so he was not a creedal Christian, yet …
Many theists reject materialism, believing that only dualism is compatible with theism. Very few seem to realize that Christianity has been the primary defender of a material-based soul for 2,000 years. The Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed, which are the definitive statements of faith for virtually all of the world’s Christians, profess belief in …
Atheists are almost all materialists, asserting that everything in the universe is wholly reducible to the physical. For the atheist, this includes the mind — all of our memories, dreams, and intentions. The orthodox atheist position is that the mind is like a computer program running on the physical substrate of the brain (the computer). …