Reformed Seth

Moral philosophy affects everyone

2012-03-01T09:58:00.001-06:00

As March begins, I was thinking of a possible theme for the month, you know, a focus for all of the posts. Technology? No, I started another blog for that (haven't written the first post yet...fail). Cosmology? No. I find cosmology very interesting. I read the articles and books, yet I do find myself stuttering and rambling on when I talk about it with others mostly because I'm not a cosmologist so I'm not inclined to include the depths of cosmological arguments in my conversations with people; I'm just not very good at presenting them. Origin of life? Nope, mostly for the same reason I don't plunge into cosmology. Do I understand the arguments? Of definitely, but it's not a serious interest. Moral philosophy? Bingo! That's the one!

Why moral philosophy? Because it affects everyone. You can easily say, "Uh, blogger dude, the intricacies of the universe affect everyone too man." Good point, but not everyone cares. Sad to say, but it's true. The same with the origin of life. The ordinary person most likely doesn't care who his ultimate ancestor is, much less if it is an ancestor common with other species; he just cares about getting his morning coffee, reading the headlines (or watching morning cartoons), and heading off to work. You could say that same ordinary person who doesn't care about science probably doesn't care about morality either. Maybe. Or does he care? I say he does. Moral philosophy affects everyone: our language, our "oughtness," our actions are all rooted in some moral philosophy - I say an objective one.

Everyone believes in objective morality. That's a bold claim isn't it? Relativist moralists are actually living moral objectivists (is that a word?) without knowing it. Almost every moral relativist claims objective moral rules when he or she is affected by moral relativism, e.g. LGBT rights, black rights, women's rights, the list goes on. Why on moral relativism should you treat those who are a different race from your own with equal value and dignity? Or women? Why given moral relativism should they deserver to be treated with equal value and dignity? Why should we help the poor, the sick, and those "weaker" than ourselves if morality is relative? I think questions like those get to the heart of everyone, which is just one reason moral philosophy affects everyone.

We encounter moral philosophy everyday; not just in our interactions with other persons, but we also encounter moral situations when we are alone, when no one is watching or listening. You're alone in your room surfing the interweb and you become a little curious when you see a headline that reads, "J-Lo showing some leg at the red carpet." You check it out thinking there's nothing wrong with that. Wrong? See? Moral philosophy. What makes it "wrong" or "right"? Or, you're alone on the street and see someone in the process of a mugging. The mugger and the victim didn't see you scurry behind the corner of the building, nor did anyone else. What do you do? What is the "wrong" and "right" thing to do? Another situation a little closer to home for those of you who don't live in areas with high crime rates: you're walking along the sidewalk (or driving down the road) and see your best friend's wife hugging and kissing on another guy. What is the "right" and "wrong" thing to do in that situation? They didn't see you, so you can easily avoid the situation.

Moral philosophy affects everyone from the obvious to the not so obvious situations. Every day of your life some kind of moral situation. My goal for March is to post a lot of "stuff" on moral philosophy. I hope you enjoy the posts and learn something from them.

reformed theology baby!

2012-02-29T15:54:00.001-06:00

"What is your only comfort in life and death?"

The answer is: "That I am not my own, but belong--body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him."

The opening question and answer is from the Heidelberg Catechism.You can read the catechism here.

If you're new to reformed theology, you can click here to read and see what it's all about. Personally, I think the video below (part 1 of a totally free series called, "what is reformed theology") will give you a solid overview of reformed theology, but the other link is a good place to go as well.

Reformed links
Entire Heidelberg Catechism

What is reformed theology video series (free to watch online)

Counted righteous in Christ

Quote of the week - J.P. Moreland on utilitarianism

2012-02-27T08:23:00.001-06:00

"...utilitarianism can be used to justify actions that are clearly immoral. Consider the case of a severely deformed fetus. The child is certain to live a brief, albeit painless life. He or she will make no contribution to society. Society, however, will bear great expense. Doctors and other caregivers will invest time, emotion, and effort in adding mere hours to the baby's life. The parents will know and love the child only long enough to be heartbroken at the inevitable loss. An abortion negates all those "utility" losses. There is no positive utility lost. Many of the same costs are involved in the care of the terminally ill elderly. They too may suffer no pain, but they may offer no benefit to society. In balancing positives and negatives, and excluding from the equation the objective sacredness of all human life, we arrive at morally repugnant decisions. Here deontological and virtue ethics steer us clear of what is easier to what is right."

- J.P. Moreland, Utilitarianism and the Moral Life

Quote of the week - James Rachels on human dignity

2012-02-20T11:42:00.001-06:00

"The doctrine of human dignity says that humans merit a level of moral concern wholly different from that accorded to mere animals; for this to be true, there would have to be some big, morally significant difference between them. Therefore, any adequate defense of human dignity would require some conception of human beings as radically different from other animals. But that is precisely what evolutionary theory calls into question. It makes us suspicious of any doctrine that sees large gaps of any sort between humans and all other creatures. This being so, a Darwinian may conclude that a successful defense of human dignity is most unlikely"

-James Rachels, Created from Animals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 171-72. Cf. pp. 93, 97, 171

Kant and hell part two

2012-02-16T15:12:00.002-06:00

In my post Immanuel Kant on the concept of hell I wrote about how one could use Kant's moral argument to argue for hell in the afterlife, though I didn't fully develop the thought, I only briefly wrote about it. After thinking about it some more and talking about it with some friends I think I can develop the idea further in this post, though I may finish up in a part three post. Ready? Let's go!

Hell traditionally (at least from what I know) has been though of as eternal punishment for one's sins here on earth, whether it's eternal fire, torture, or separation from God, still it's an eternal existence of punishment. In opposition to that (or maybe it's the accurate view - there is debate about it) there is also the view that hell is not eternal punishment, but instead it's annihilation, or put another way it's non-existence. Which would make more sense philosophically? Well, let's look at Kant's moral argument again:

From his Critique of Practical Reason:

1. Happiness is what all human beings desire.

2. Morality is the duty of all human beings.

3. The unity of happiness and duty is the greatest good.

4. The greatest good ought to be sought.

5. But the unity of desire and duty (which is the greatest good) is not possible by finite human beings in limited time.

6. And the moral necessity of doing something implies the possibility of doing it (ought implies can).

7. Therefore, it is morally (practically) necessary to postulate: (a) a Deity to make this unity possible (i.e., a power to bring them together), and (b) immortality to make this unity achievable.

According to Kant, human beings will exist after our death here in the phenomenal world and exist eternally in the noumenal world. Now Kant doesn't make clear what the noumenal world is, but instead argues for the practical necessity of God to make the unity possible and immortality to make the unity achievable. So those persons who sought the greatest good will have the privilege of enjoying the greatest good after death. What about those persons who didn't seek after the greatest good? There are immoral human beings in this world who are inexplicably malevolent; what happens to them? What kind of hell would be such persons' punishment? Annihilation or eternal punishment?

Kant's argument is vague (at least to me) on what happens to the persons who do not seek the greatest good. I would think since human beings are contingent upon the Deity who created them, then wouldn't they exist after their material death? If that is true, then an eternal punishment would be due to such persons. Of course, if the cosmic judge is all-powerful as he needs to be, does it not follow that he could cause someone or something to not exist? Therefore, hell would be non-existence if my logic is followed correctly. It's difficult to think of not existing, but it doesn't make it impossible.

Some might argue that the punishment should fit the crime. If that is true, then an infinite time of punishment would not be what is due to a person who committed immoral actions in a finite amount of time would it? Maybe an infinite amount of punishment can be reached? Is such a thing possible? Philosopher Greg Koukl answers the question.

"Lewis says this, "Since the time is infinite, the amount of punishment is infinite." This is the key error. Time in the afterlife is not an infinite for any of us. It is merely everlasting and there is a difference. The future goes on and on without end, but like our expanding balloon, it never will become infinitely long. So forever and ever means that it never comes to an end, but a thing that continues to get older and older still has an age. It never gets infinitely old. Even though one lives forever and ever, one never lives for an actual eternity, which is an infinite amount of time, because no matter how old you get, you always have an age.

The confusion is understandable because time, like numbers, is potentially infinite, but the actual expansion into this limitless arena of possibility has an edge to it. It has a size. There are no limits to the possible size of numbers, but any particular number has a quantity. My point was, in Hell some people suffer more than others. The duration of this difference is everlasting, but it never attains to an infinite.

Suppose you and I count together. I count every number and you count every tenth number. For the entire time that we count, your number will always be ten times larger than mine even though we count forever and ever. Though the numbers may be potentially infinite, you and I are always working with finite numbers, not infinite ones. Our amounts are never equal because, no matter how much time we have, neither of us can count to infinity. Every time we add one, we are still dealing with a finite number. We will never be able to get an actual infinite by adding one number after another.

The duration of our future is much like counting, with the numbers representing successive moments of our existence. There may be no limits to the possible age of a being who lives forever, like you and me, but any particular created being always has an age. It gets larger and larger with every moment, but it still has an age. If it has an age, then the duration of its existence is finite and not infinite. Every created being had a beginning so it can never live for an actual eternity. It is temporal, not eternal.

The simple truth is, even though punishment in Hell is forever and ever, it can never become eternal because no matter how far one lives into the future, he always has a quantifiable age. No one will ever endure an infinity of suffering because no one lives that long. Even though they live forever and ever and ever and never die, no one suffers in Hell for an infinite amount of time, and no one enjoys Heaven for an infinite amount of time."

Understanding an infinite existence in that sense changes the outlook on hell and punishment. The Judge or Deity (whatever you want to call him) can sentence a person to an infinite punishment, while retaining the model: "the punishment fits the crime."

If we use Kant's model, I think we can say that persons who sought after the greatest good will be united after death with the greatest good and enjoy it forever while those who did not seek after the greatest good will be punished based on the severity of their immorality forever and not being able to be united with the greatest good.

Are there holes in this philosophy? Perhaps. I think it could be defended better and maybe I will return to it someday, but I think we can say that hell is a punishment without end for those who didn't seek the greatest good.

Quote of the week - Greg Koukl on the problem of evil

2012-02-13T09:15:00.000-06:00

"God certainly is strong enough to obliterate evil from the earth or to have prevented it in the first place. No question about that. But let me ask you a question. Is it a good thing that God created human beings as free moral creatures, capable of making moral choices? It strikes me that the answer to that is yes. Because God is good--which is one of the things in question here--God created free moral creatures.

But this changes everything, doesn't it? What makes you think that strength has anything to do with God creating a world in which there are genuinely free moral creatures and no possibility of doing wrong?

You see, now we're back to square circles. It's just as ridiculous to ask God to create a world in which we have genuinely free creatures with no possibility to do wrong, as it is to ask Him to create a square circle. The task has nothing to do with His strength. It has to do with the nature of the problem. If you're going to have morally free creatures--that is, human beings that can make moral choices for themselves--and if God is good, then He is going to create creatures that will be truly morally free. But that entails, of necessity, at least the possibility of evil in the world."

Greg Koukl - The strength of God and the problem of evil

presuppositional naturalism and materialism

2012-02-11T18:12:00.000-06:00

The presuppositions of naturalism and materialism.

"The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. Even if the evidence did not favor it, it would still be the best theory available." Richard Dawkins, The Blind watchmaker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 240, 317

"Life arose here on earth from inaminate matter, by some kind of evolutionary process. This is not a statement of demonstrable fact, but an assumption. Is is not supported by any direct evidence, nor is it likely to be, but it is consistent with what evidence we do have." Franklin Harold, The way of the cell: molecules, organisms, and the order of life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 254

"Our starting assumption as scientists ought to be that on some level consciousness has to be an illusion." John Brockman, ed., Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement (New York: Vintage, 2006), 58

"It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori commitment to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intutive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, the materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door." Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons," New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997

Immanuel Kant on the concept of hell

2012-02-08T11:38:00.003-06:00

Did you know Immanuel Kant philosophized on hell? Well, if you want to be factual then it's correct to say he didn't philosophize on hell, but I think you can use his moral philosophy for a philosophical defense of hell. I haven't studied that much, outside of theology that is, on the concept of hell and was wondering if one could develop a philosophy for the need of a place called hell and I actually think Kant's moral argument fits nicely in what one could call a defense for hell. Not familiar with Kant's moral argument? Simplified version: What would have to be true for ethics to be meaningful? There would have to be a god of some kind, one who is just and powerful enough to make the wicked pay for their crimes, perfect in his understanding of the evidence, and he must be righteous and incorruptible. Omnipotent, omniscient, righteous, and holy (sounds like the God of Christian theism, but I won't go there).

From his Critique of Practical Reason:

1. Happiness is what all human beings desire.

2. Morality is the duty of all human beings.

3. The unity of happiness and duty is the greatest good.

4. The greatest good ought to be sought.

5. But the unity of desire and duty (which is the greatest good) is not possible by finite human beings in limited time.

6. And the moral necessity of doing something implies the possibility of doing it (ought implies can).

7. Therefore, it is morally (practically) necessary to postulate: (a) a Deity to make this unity possible (i.e., a power to bring them together), and (b) immortality to make this unity achievable.

Kant points out in his book that we not only exist phenomenally, but also noumenally so morality demands an afterlife and a meeting with the omniscient, omnipotent, holy, and eternal Judge of everything.

How can this philosophy apply to hell? Whether it's annihilation or eternal torment, I think both can apply to Kant's moral philosophy. Our actions in this world (phenomenal) affect our future in the afterlife (noumenal) which said actions will be judged by the one who alone can judge correctly. As Kant said in his moral works, morality only makes sense if there is an afterlife. Why? Because fallible, finite human beings cannot achieve the unity of desire and duty in a limited amount of time. That unification takes an eternity to achieve.

Wouldn't this philosophy imply universalism and not a hell? Not necessarily. Those who lived a life in pursuit of the greatest good then would be rewarded with immortality in a unified bliss of desire and duty, achieving the "holy will" or "perfection", while those who did not live their life in pursuit of the greatest good would be judged and sentenced to hell (whether hell is annihilation or eternal punishment). What about those persons who lived a mixed life? Well, understand the Judge is omniscient (all-knowing) and will judge correctly.

I didn't aim for the bullseye in this post, understand I'm still working this out and blogging my thoughts helps out.

The problems of a liberal education

2012-02-08T08:56:00.000-06:00

DISCLAIMER: The following viewpoints are not those of the blogger, but a friend of his. If this point of view upsets you, you may vent, but don’t yell at the person who posted them. Start a discussion, express and opinion, but don’t yell at the person who didn’t write it, that is just senseless… These writings are the intellectual property of me, the Author, with permission granted to the blogger who is positing them. They may not be reposted or used in any form without express written consent by either myself or the blogger of Reformed Seth.

The Problems with a Liberal Education

What can be said about the Owning Wall Street Movement that hasn't already been said? Pundits come on saying we should support them, as they are 'exercising their free speech' and yet what they are doing doesn't really involve speech, but the illegal act of taking over property that isn't theirs for them to destroy, and make uninhabitable. Do they have a case? Is their cause just? Is the destruction of private, or public, property within their rights? NO!

Here is a group of disenfranchised people who feel it is their God given right, by their god, Obama and the socialist movement with an assist from liberal education, that they can do what they want, when they want, how they want, and not have to pay a price for their actions. Kind of like being a member of a union, where you can do what you want, and with enough time in the union, NOT be held responsible for you actions.

The older people who joined the movement should have known better, but they are the right age to be hippies who miss the 60's - the protest of Vietnam, and Nixon, wanting to relive their glory days - but the younger kids are a product of a school system that has spread across the country who are told that you are precious, that your misinformed thoughts have a right to be heard in whatever forum that you chose. Screw the legal owners, if you want it, TAKE IT! This stems from participation trophies, and how we need to nurture a child through all forms of life, letting them know that they didn't lose because they showed up. Sorry, when was that ever, EVER a good idea? There is a winner in every contest. The person in second place is the first loser. It is a fact of life that is continually glossed over in schools across the country AND IT IS WRONG!

Then the unions got involved with the protests. The cost of our eggs and milk going up is because they have to be rung up by union checkers, taken to your car, sometimes, by union box boys, with a union janitor cleaning up the mess; they have a lot to be upset with, because they think the Occupy Movement is their future bread and butter. Unions joining the protest, when it is unions that drive up the cost of an item, and they make enough money due to strong arm tactics, that they are in the upper 99%, and some of them, in the 1% that they claim to disdain. So, the hypocrisy of a liberal education tied in with hypocritical unions, you now have two of the worst, misinformed groups of people around, wanting everything in the world for free, and no one gets their feelings hurt.

Well, it is time to grow the hell up. People win, people lose. If there is one job opening, and two people apply, SOMEONE IS GOING TO LOSE, but yet some think it is okay to keep blowing sunshine up the skirt of the person who lost the job. WHEN DID COMMON SENSE DIE IN AMERICA?

It is bad enough that we turned a wonderful profession of teaching into baby sitters, but when did it come to the point that they had to be a parent? When did the parents abdicate the right to intercede in the child's education and say, NO, show them real life, someone wins, someone loses, and the Occupy movement is wrong. How proud are the parents of the kids who stood there and were interviewed about how they felt they shouldn't have to pay their college loans back, because they decided to major in something that has no real world applications? Want to major in Art History? Cool, make sure you can pay back those 35,000 dollar loans by working two jobs. Don't stand there saying you are special and rules don't apply to you. That is when you get unions supporting teachers who are molesting students, sleeping with students, because after all, aren't we all special in a special way? Which of course means that we are all the same, and we MUST take responsibility for our actions in life. To not do so means common sense died and the liberal educators and union organizers have won, and we will soon be like bankrupt Europe, both morally and financially.

Or at least, that is how Mark C's it.

Mark on homosexual marriage

2012-02-07T12:44:00.003-06:00

DISCLAIMER: The following viewpoints, or opinions are not those of the blogger, but a friend of his. If this point of view upsets you, you may vent, but don’t yell at the person who posted them. Start a discussion, express and opinion, but don’t yell at the person who didn’t write it, that is just senseless… These writings are the intellectual property of me, the Author, with permission granted to the blogger who is positing them. They may not be reposted or used in any form without express written consent by either myself or the blogger of Reformed Seth.

Homosexual Marriage

As people who have read the articles that I have written for this blog will remember, I am a Christian, by choice, as all of us are born of sin, due to the original sin of disobedience to God. (Genesis, first few chapters)

Now I am sure that people are expecting me to slam Homosexual Marriage. Well, you will be disappointed, but only to a degree.

I think the Homosexual lobby has done a great job in trying to get people to just accept them and their behavior as just something that happens, but is it really? Why does the Homosexual lobby want people to refer to them as Gay? Why should they be ashamed of who they are? They say they are born this way, then why change it from whom they are, Homosexuals, to a less standard term, Gay?

There is a reason I keep using the term Homosexual, as that is what they are. Gay? Not for the most part. When have you seen a group of Homosexuals happy? Were they happy beating a woman in Palm Springs because she was in favor of Prop 8? Other than the 'Pride Parades' you really don't see them happy, and they LOVE playing the victim, that they are still being mistreated, and people are still threatened by them. Yet, when someone stands up, they are 'gay bashing'. Imagine the kid in California who has been found guilty of killing a Homosexual classmate. Had someone, ANYONE, stepped in and stopped him from being harassed by the Homosexual classmate, both lives could still be intact.

All the word ‘homosexual’ does is refer to someone who is attracted to someone of the same sex, and it covers both men and women, and much easier than saying ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’; like a woman loving another woman is different than a man loving another man. (It isn't)

For those who are old enough and remember, it was a slippery slope when states started allowing civil unions. And I could understand why they did. It was wrong for people to be in a committed relationship to not have rights to be with their partner when they were dying, be it of cancer or of A.I.D.S. That is why people started using living wills and directives as to who has the right to make their life ending decisions, whom has the right to do what they want with their communal property.

So, some bureaucrat decided to allow them to get married, which you know would make some Homosexuals mad as hell, as they wouldn't be able to just go in and out of relationships using the lie, "Well I would stay with you forever, if we could only get married". But married made some people mad, so it was Civil Unions, which is fine. You can call it anything you want, they would still be married. But that wasn't good enough for them as a whole. It had to be mainstream; it had to be a redefinition of MARRIAGE, the holy grail of the Bible, of Christianity, Catholic's, and a bunch of other groups. And there in is the rub: people believe that marriage, the biblical kind, has to be under the rules of the bible which is one man and one woman.

So, is it wrong for Homosexuals to want to redefine what marriage is? Yes, but it is also wrong for Homosexuals to want more when they were given what they had asked for: civil unions. As a group, if they want to enact change then do it slowly. People will accept a slow change, but to scream, attack, beat and act like idiots? Doing so, they create more damage to themselves and their cause then they can ever comeback from.

Or at least, that is how Mark C's it.

Check out more of Mark's posts here.

More reading on homosexual marriage

Secular case against homosexual marriage

Secular case against gay adoption (I cite this article only because of the good discussion in the comment thread - the reader can see both sides played out in discussion which is nice)

Same-sex marriage

A queer thing happened to America

Homosexuality: some neglected considerations

Interview with Mark on republican primary and presidential election

2012-02-06T13:10:00.001-06:00

Who do you think will win the Republican nomination? Why?

Romney will win the nomination, plain and simple. As was pointed on MSNBC (Or as one commentator called it, MSNLSD) Newt is only in this for Newt. They were talking about how Newt's campaign is in the hole financially, but yet he continues to get paid. His personal organizations, hosting web chats, entertainment and such, they have been paid, but yet his campaign is still almost 700,000 in the red. Newt has yet to show anyone that he has the country's best interest at heart and is doing this to change the direction of the country, from demagoguery to a democracy. And if you look at Newt's past, as pointed out by Ann Coulter 1, he personally is more like the current President than anyone else on the Republican side. So, mainly it is Romney's nomination due to people not wanting Newt, not because he is the best person for the job, just the best one who is sticking it out to the end.

What are your predictions on the 2012 elections?

This election will be ugly, across the board. Romney will take a lead in the polls, and suddenly the liberal left and their cronies will start off with, LOOK AT THEM, BEATING UP ON THE POOR BLACK MAN (which is just a load of crap). Barack Obama hasn't been poor in a long long long long long long time. And you know they will pull the race card whenever they get the chance, as that is all they have to run with, just like in the first election, all they had to run with was he was an unfortunate outsider. The only political record he has shown is his inability to make a decision, to vote for something that matters, and that he has an ego bigger the bin Laden's. The left loves pulling out the underdog card whenever, or however they can, playing to white guilt, where there really shouldn't have any. So, it will come down to who makes the most mistakes, and with Romney being Mormon, it will be ugly when they pull out the black card, as Mormon theology stated long ago that Blacks carry the original sin. That Cain killing Able was the first sin, not disobedience to God in eating from the forbidden Tree. So in Mormon theology, God turned Cain black for killing his brother, so others wouldn't kill him and he would live his life in shame. It was in 1978 that the NAACP was suing the Mormon Church over racial discrimination, because they wouldn't allow blacks to be ministers. JUST before the case was to go to court, they got a revelation from Joseph Smith that it was okay for blacks to hold ministerial positions within the church, and the case went away. Pulling the curtain back on the Mormon church and their beliefs, like Dave Hunt's book The God Makers will show that Mitt might be a little challenged in his thinking, and then it will come back to religion instead of the issues, because on the issues, Obama SUCKS!

Do you think the Republican candidate can win against Obama? If so, what should his strategy be?

Huntsman was the perfect candidate to go against Obama due to the fact that he was Obama's choice to be ambassador to China. So, he was liberal approved, and that would have taken out half the wind in the liberals sails. But yes, Romney can beat Obama, but he will have to keep dragging the campaign to the facts, to the issues and not personality. Romney will have to keep dragging the Obamacare vs. Romneycare debate about how he learned from the mistakes made in Massachusetts and can make better choices then Obama has made when it comes to fixing health care. He will have to show, continually that Obama is an egotistical lying ass, who says he wanted transparency, until it came time to be transparent, they will have to show the Chicago connections to Blagoavich, and how Obama says he only met him once, but there are tons of pictures showing they had an obvious connection, show the connection continues with Rahm and how dirty Chicago politics are and how they should be avoided. How Rahm lived in D.C. for two years, but Chicago judges says that he actually lived in Chicago, when he didn't, so he could become Mayor of Chicago. That right there shows the polluted logic of most Chicago politicians, and how corrupt the thought process is in Chicago, and a good part of Illinois. The only choice and chance exists on dragging the argument back to the issues, the false numbers, the facts...

Off topic: Do you think 2012 is the "doomsday" year?

If Obama gets re-elected, yes. America won't be able to continue its place of dominance in the world, we will become a colony of England, again, or maybe China, who is taking over the place we use to have. We need people who are intelligent, not book smart, but common sense smart, and that isn't Barack. It might not be Mitt, but it has to be someone who isn't Barack Hussein Obama. As for the Mayan Calendar prediction that the world will end on December 12th, 2012, I think they might have been a little preoccupied with being conquered by Spain to keep up with the calendar

1 http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2012/01/25/reelect_obama_vote_newt

http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2011/12/21/newt_helped_formulate_christmas

http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2011/12/07/newt_presents_a_fresh_new_virtual_face

Quote of the week - John Locke on reading

2012-02-06T08:39:00.000-06:00

"This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in; those who have read of everything, are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections ; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment."

- John Locke, as quoted in "Hand Book : Caution and Counsels" in The Common School Journal Vol. 5, No. 24 (15 December 1843) by Horace Mann, p. 371

Romney or Gingrich?

2012-02-03T09:22:00.003-06:00

Usually Mark handles the political posts on this blog, so I don't blog often on politics, but today is different. In this post, I want to ask the question: Romney or Gingrich? I will not throw my opinion in on who would be the better candidate, I'll remain silent on that part to let you the reader decide.

Gingrich's baggage

One of the main things I've heard personally and around the blogosphere about Gingrich is his baggage. What is the baggae? Put simply: mistakes made in his personal life. There are quite a few people who think his mistakes will hold him back from winning the Presidential election, thus he he is not electable in their eyes.

Thomas Sowell wrote:

This is not just another election, and Barack Obama is not just another president whose policies we may not like. With all of President Obama’s broken promises, glib demagoguery, and cynical political moves, one promise he has kept all too well. That was his boast on the eve of the 2008 election: “We are going to change the United States of America.”

Many Americans are already saying that they can hardly recognize the country they grew up in. We have already started down the path that has led Western European nations to the brink of financial disaster.

Internationally, it is worse. A president who has pulled the rug out from under our allies, whether in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, tried to cozy up to our enemies, and bowed low from the waist to foreign leaders certainly has not represented either the values or the interests of America. If he continues to do nothing that is likely to stop terrorist-sponsoring Iran from getting nuclear weapons, the consequences may be beyond our worst imagining.

Against this background, how much does Newt Gingrich’s personal life matter, whether we accept his claim that he has now matured or his critics’ claim that he has not? Nor should we sell the public short by saying that they are going to vote on the basis of tabloid stuff or media talking points, when the fate of this nation hangs in the balance.

Even back in the 19th century, when the scandal came out that Grover Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock — and he publicly admitted it — the voters nevertheless sent him to the White House, where he became one of the better presidents.

Do we wish we had another Ronald Reagan? We could certainly use one. But we have to play the hand we were dealt. And the Reagan card is not in the deck.

Leaving Gingrich's personal mistakes aside, what was his time as Speaker of the House like? When Gingrich was speaker was the last time we cut government, balanced the budget, and reformed entitlements; the mainstream media called it the "Clinton surplus" but Sowell got it right: "...all spending bills start in the House of Representatives, and Gingrich was speaker of the House." Consider what happened after he left: the spending got out of control, we got Sarbanes-Oxley, and they all took a blind eye to the housing issues. Does the "baggage" truly outweigh the accomplishments?

What about Romney?

Sowell wrote:

Romney is a smooth talker, but what did he actually accomplish as governor of Massachusetts, compared with what Gingrich accomplished as speaker of the House? When you don’t accomplish much, you don’t ruffle many feathers. But is that what we want? Can you name one important positive thing that Romney accomplished as governor of Massachusetts? Can anyone? Does a candidate who represents the bland leading the bland increase the chances of victory in November 2012? A lot of candidates like that have lost, from Thomas E. Dewey to John McCain.

Sowell didn't have many positive things to say about Romney. Is there anything positive to say about Romney? Many on the right think he is a liberal disguised as a conservative, that if he is a conservative then he's not conservative enough, or he is at best a moderate; tea partiers don't want a man that fits any of those descriptions, they want a true conservative. Can you blame them? The best the Right has been able to dish out are McCaines and Bushes, neither have been anything to be proud of from a conservative's point of view. Back to the point: what good can be found if Romney becomes President? Jonah Goldberg found the silver lining.

Let me try to offer some solace. Even if Romney is a Potemkin conservative (a claim I think has merit but is also exaggerated), there is an instrumental case to be made for him: It is better to have a president who owes you than to have one who claims to own you. A President Romney would be on a very short leash. A President Gingrich would probably chew through his leash in the first ten minutes of his presidency and wander off into trouble. If elected, Romney must follow through for conservatives and honor his vows to repeal Obamacare, implement Representative Paul Ryan’s agenda, and stay true to his pro-life commitments.

Moreover, Romney is not a man of vision. He is a man of duty and purpose. He was told to “fix” health care in ways Massachusetts would like. He was told to fix the 2002 Olympics. He was told to create Bain Capital. He did it all. The man does his assignments.

In this light, voting for Romney isn’t a betrayal, it’s a transaction. No, that’s not very exciting or reassuring for those who’d sooner see monkeys fly out their nethers than compromise again. But such a bargain may just be necessary before judgment day comes.

What do you think?

Sources

The case for Romney - Jonah Goldberg

Gingrich's past, our future - Thomas Sowell

Quote of the week - Dinesh D'Souza on conservatism

2012-01-30T08:17:00.002-06:00

"Conservatives recognize that there are two principles in human nature—good and evil—and these are in constant conflict. Given the warped timber of humanity, conservatives seek a social structure that helps to bring out the best in human nature and suppress man’s lower or base impulses. Conservatives support capitalism because it is a way of steering our natural pursuit of self-interest toward the material betterment of society at large. Conservatives insist that there are evil regimes and destructive forces in the world that cannot be talked out of their nefarious objectives; force is an indispensable element of international relations. Finally conservatives support autonomy when it is attached to personal responsibility—when people are held accountable for their actions—but they also believe in the indispensability of moral incubators (the family, the church, civic institutions) that are aimed at instructing people to choose virtue over vice."

- Dinesh D'Souza, Letters to a Young Conservative (Basic Books, 2002), pg.3

Related D'Souza posts
Debates and lectures

Progressive revolutions revealed (3 part video lecture)

Voting as a Christian

R.C. Sproul on the Christian mind

2012-01-26T15:10:00.001-06:00

"What God reveals is intelligible; we can understand it with our intellect. He doesn’t ask us to throw away our minds in order to become Christians. There are people who think that to become a Christian, one must leave one’s brain somewhere in the parking lot. The only leap that the New Testament calls us to make is not into the darkness but out of the darkness into the light, into that which we can indeed understand. That is not to say that everything the Christian faith speaks of is manifestly clear with respect to rational categories. I can’t understand, for example, how a person can have a divine nature and a human nature at the same time, which is what we believe about Jesus. That’s a mystery—but mysterious is not the same as irrational."

More here. (image taken from the same link)

For or against Calvinism?

2012-01-24T08:27:00.000-06:00

Michael Horton, for calvinism, and Roger Olson, against calvinism, discuss their differences over grace and free will recorded live at Biola University.

Part 1 here.

Part 2 here.

You can also check out my post "bad arguments against calvinism" here.

Image taken from this website.

Quote of the week - Adam Smith

2012-01-23T08:07:00.000-06:00

"The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board."

- Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Flying spaghetti monster

2012-01-19T11:22:00.002-06:00

If you've ever been in a long conversation with someone about the existence of God, there is a strong possibility the, "well, couldn't you replace the word 'god' with, oh I don't know, 'flying spaghetti monster'? I don't see how those arguments can explain God." You've answered the person's questions on existence, morality, science, and then as if you haven't answered anything, out of the clear blue sky, the person responds with this super-duper-awesome defeater known as...wait for it...oh here it comes...*cue empire music from star wars*...the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Behold! The noodly monster who destroys all reasonable arguments! Bow to its (or his) infinite coolness and hardness! None hangs harder than the great

Yeah, ok.....

Let's read how William Lane Craig answers the following question.

Dear Professor Craig,

The cumulative case for the existence for God proceeds from some data (physical constants, sentient souls, testimonies for miracles, etc.) to the existence of God as the best explanation of these data. There are some important objections. 1. Such inference does not show why theism is a better explanation than, say, the hypothesis of the existence of a very powerful Flying Spaghetti Monster. 2. Neither it says why some evil being - some powerful, malevolent being, say, something like Satan - is not a better explanation than God; especially when the existing evil is included in the data. How would you counter? Thank you very much.

Vlastimil

Craig writes

Your question is really about what the various arguments for God’s existence, if sound, enable us to infer about the nature of the being proved by such arguments. Different arguments will enable us to infer different attributes, so that the case for God’s existence is, as you state, cumulative.

...

it’s plausible that any ultimate explanation must involve a personal being which is incorporeal. For any being composed of material stuff will exhibit precisely that specified complexity that we are trying to explain. The old “Who designed the Designer?” objection thus presses hard against any construal of the Designer as a physical object (see my “Richard Dawkins’ Argument for Atheism in The God Delusion” in the Question of the Week Archive). That immediately rules out the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a final explanation.

What about the other theistic arguments? The contingency argument, if successful, proves the existence of a metaphysically necessary, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal Creator of the universe (see “Argument from Contingency” in the Question of the Week Archive). That conclusion is also incompatible with the Sufficient Reason of all things being the Flying Spaghetti Monster, since as a physical object (even if invisible to our senses) he can be neither metaphysically necessary, timeless, spaceless, nor immaterial.

The kalam cosmological argument, if sound, gives us grounds for believing in the existence of a beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, changeless, immaterial, enormously powerful, Personal Creator of the universe. Again, a being with such attributes cannot be anything like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The moral argument complements the cosmological and design arguments by telling us about the moral nature of the Creator of the universe. It gives us a personal, necessarily existent being who is perfectly good and whose nature is the standard of goodness and whose commands constitute our moral duties. This argument rules out any suggestion that the metaphysical ultimate is some evil being akin to Satan. As a privation of goodness, evil is parasitic upon the Good and so cannot exist as the highest being.

Finally, the ontological argument gives us reason to think that God, as the greatest conceivable being, is metaphysically necessary and maximally excellent, that is to say, omnipotent, omniscient, and all-good. The poor Flying Spaghetti Monster is, alas, left trailing in the dust.

I think you can see that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is vastly overrated, both as a parody and as a being. As a parody, he fails to show that an inference to an intelligent designer of the universe is either illegitimate or unwarranted. What the parody shows is that we are not justified in attributing to our explanatory postulates arbitrary properties that are not justified by the evidence. Natural theologians have always known this. That’s why, for example, Thomas Aquinas, after his five brief paragraphs in his Summa theologiae proving the existence of a being “to which everyone gives the name ‘God’,” goes on to discuss in the next nine questions God’s simplicity, perfection, goodness, limitlessness, omnipresence, immutability, eternity, and unity.

As a being, the Flying Spaghetti Monster comes up drastically deficient as an explanation of those phenomena, some of which you list, which lie at the basis of the arguments for God’s existence. Those arguments, if all sound, as I think they are, require cumulatively a being which is the metaphysically necessary, self-existent, beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal, omnipotent, omniscient Creator and Designer of the universe, who is perfectly good, whose nature is the standard of goodness, and whose commands constitute our moral duties.

The real lesson to be learned from the case of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that it shows how completely out of touch our popular culture is with the great tradition of natural theology. One might as well be speaking a foreign language. That people could think that belief in God is anything like the groundless belief in a fantasy monster shows how utterly ignorant they are of the works of Anselm, Aquinas, Leibniz, Paley, Sorley, and a host of others, past and present. No doubt part of the fault lies with equally ignorant Christians who have no answer when called upon to give a reason for the hope within and who therefore give the impression of arbitrary and groundless belief. But it must also be attributed to poor education, intellectual laziness, and a lack of curiosity. Given the revival of natural theology in our day over the last half century, we have no excuse for such lame caricatures of theistic belief as belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster."

When one resorts to spaghetti and meatballs, pizza, 1/4 pounder with cheese, etc., it's nothing more than rhetoric. I don't think any serious thinker actually has confidence in counters like the appeal to the FSM. Spaghetti and meatballs are within the human domain, created by intelligent beings and dependent upon the existence of the universe.

Read Craig's full response here

The unicorn argument revisited

What would you do if there were no God?

2012-01-17T14:54:00.000-06:00

Quick thoughts on this question. I've read the question many times and I've had some ask me the question: what would you if there were no God\god\gods? Would I rape? Murder? Rob? Pillage and plunder? Would I do all of those things all of the time? To answer quickly (as I mentioned in the beginning of this post): without God, this question is meaningless because there would be no duty-bound, intrinsically valuable humans with moral faculties. As Paul Copan said in response to this very question asked by Michael Shermer: "Shermer wrongly thinks he can rest content in knowing moral truths concerning human rights and obligations (i.e., in the realm of epistemology) and yet ignore the basis for those truths (i.e., the realm of metaphysics)."

If God did not exist, then the world would be a very different place. Questions of this kind only make sense against the backdrop of a theistic worldview. On theism, the divine Creator transfers His image to his human creatures giving them dignity and moral knowledge. The theist acknowledges that people can live by and know objective moral values and duties without believing in God and without having a Bible.My answer to the question is: if there were no God*, then we would not have moral knowledge, i.e., we would not have a sense of moral duty, dignity, and selflessness. All we would have is reciprocal altruism and kin selection at best.

* I'm convinced that if there were no God, then I would not be writing this blog post. :) Nor would you be reading it.

Quote of the week - William Lane Craig

2012-01-16T07:54:00.001-06:00

"...if there is no God, any basis for regarding the herd morality evolved by Homo sapiens as objectively true seems to have been removed. Take God out of the picture, and all you're left with is an apelike creature on a speck of solar dust beset with delusions of moral grandeur."

-William Lane Craig, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2010), pg. 144

Five books I recommend

2012-01-10T10:35:00.002-06:00

Occasionally, people ask me what books do I recommend them to read and I ask them if they mean fiction, non-fiction, and then the genre of both types. So, I came up with a top-five list of books I recommend to people. Later on, I'm going to write a book review for each book and will post the review here and on Amazon.

1. Mossflower

If you're not familiar with the book series Redwall, well you're missing out on some excellent books. Redwall is not a series that you have to read book 1 then book 2, etc. Each book in the series is an isolated story (except for Mariel of Redwall and the Bellmaker - the Bellmaker is a continuation of M of Redwall). Did the author, Brian Jacques, have a chronological order for the books? Yeah he did, but there is no story value in reading the books in his order.

Redwall is a fantasy series involving no humans at all. The characters are of the rodent variety (mice, rats, weasels, squirrels, etc. with a few exceptions of wolverines and cats), anthropomorphic of course, and while one could say the world has a medieval setting, it's not like Narnia at all because there are no mythological creatures nor is there any religion in the books. The author does show there is good and evil, but also does deal with some gray issues in a few books.

Mossflower is my favorite in the series and a good starting book for a new Redwall reader.

2. What's so great about America?

"America is the greatest, freest, and most decent society in existence," writes Dinesh D'Souza. "American life as it is lived today [is] the best life that our world has to offer." The books is full of good arguments and D'Souza's humor. The book is not dry at all. Critics and champions of America alike should read this book. Learn why America is great.

3. What's so great about Christianity

This was the second book in Christian apologetics I read and I have to say: I wish it had been the first one. Listening to a debate between Hitchens and D'Souza on the existence of God and then another debate he had with Shermer caused me to rethink my positions on ultimate issues. I was a devout postmodernist (the label I use as a blanket label for relativism, nihilism, and apathy) thinking all theists were dumb, lived under rocks, and believed in a cosmic genie or a cosmic carnival of some sort; I didn't know about the arguments *for* God. The only "arguments" (I use that term loosely) I had heard before listening to debates like that were the following: well ya just gotta' have faith my boy; well you can't disprove god; didn't you see that spiritual experience he/she/they had?; you don't want to burn in hell do you?; and the list of bad arguments goes on.

Anyway, to put it simply, listening to "God" debates slowly changed my position from postmodernist to a Christian theist. This book helped me to learn deeper the arguments for Christianity. Also, the book is written by D'Souza so you won't be bored at all even if you find books like this boring, give it a try. I also don't expect every atheist/skeptic/non-Christian that reads this book will magically become a Christian, but I think every person who reads this will have *some* or even one question answered in a positive way.

4. God is not great

On the other end of the debate, I recommend this book because you will understand the basic arguments for why a person is not a theist (I understood the arguments here well because a lot them were my reasons for not being a theist, particularly a Christian). If you're a Christian and for some reason you don't want to read this book, then I say you do at your own peril (by peril I mean, you may not understand your non-theist friends, or worse, their arguments). Of course, you could at least watch debates, but I highly recommend the book. Are there are other good atheist books? Sure. However, none are written as well as Hitchens' book.

5. Contending with Christianity's Critics

My fifth recommendation was probably the most difficult because there are so many good books! Do I add another fiction or non-fiction? Well, obviously I decided to go with non-fiction and add another philosophy work to round out my philosophy recommendations. This book would be a fine book to read after reading D'souza's book I think. The book is in essay format and topical, so there is no need to read from page one to the ending (you will want to read the whole book, just maybe not in order). What the book does great is organize the book into three parts: part one is on the existence of God, part two is on the Jesus of history, and then part three is on the coherence of Christian doctrine.

There are some books I wanted to add to the this list, but of course I didn't. I have A LOT of favorite books, but the five I mentioned are the top five books I would recommend because I think Mossflower is the best in fiction and the non-fiction books I mentioned are the best in their genre.

The following books are some that almost made it to my top five list. It was a struggle, but I'm still satisfied with my top five list (note these are books that I've read and not books I've heard are good - the list could be longer, but I don't want to bore with you all of the books I've read through the years)

Fiction
* Lord of the Rings trilogy
* Martian Chronicles
* Illustrated Man
* The Giver

History
* Patriot's History of the U.S.
* Liberal Fascism
* The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach

Philosophy
* Who Made God? Searching for a theory of everything
* Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (a debate book featuring Bill Craig and Quentin Smith)
* On Guard
* Basic Writings of Nietzsche
* Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
* The Philosophy Book
* Reason and Responsibility: readings in some basic problems in philosophy

Theology
* The Holiness of God
* Discovering the God who is

Quote of the week - Friedrich Nietzsche on Joy

2012-01-09T11:10:00.000-06:00

"The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness."

- Friedrich Nietzsche
Human, All Too Human, II.77, 1878

Is the Bible a love letter?

2012-01-06T15:02:00.001-06:00

First off to answer my title: I hope not. Have you ever heard people say that? "I believe God’s Word is His love letter to the human race," is what I heard and still hear every now and then. When I was a skeptic, hearing statements like that made me laugh. Now, as a Christian, hearing statements like that cause me to a) almost barf and b) want to smack the person on the back of the head (hey, I'm only roughly a 3 year old Christian).

Why does hearing a statement like "the bible is a love letter" cause me to feel such things? Because it's ridiculous to think the Bible is a love letter. Have you ever wrote a history paper, then give it to your crush\date\spouse as a love letter? I know I wouldn't. If I had been given one as a love letter I would have seriously wondered what I done wrong in the relationship. The bible records historical accounts, has wisdom literature, prophetic works, biographical works, and then pastoral letters to struggling churches; hardly what I would call a love letter, but many people think so. Click here to see how many do.

Honestly, to call the Bible a love letter, to me anyway, is to devalue the book. I think it's a low-view of the Bible and of God. I think when you have that kind of view of God and the special revelation he has given us through history and man, which was recorded in the Bible; then you have a distorted view of Christianity. When I read the Bible I don't read anything at all that reads like a love letter (there are some love statements, particularly in the poetry section of the Bible). In the Bible I find wars, genealogies, suffering, biographical accounts, etc.; not a whole lot of, "Oh baby, I miss you so much. You're my everything."

When I read the Bible, there are moments of awe and adoration of God, e.g., chapter 3 of Paul's letter to Titus: "But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." You know what though? Paul's letters are tough. They're not at all like love letters. Instead, he takes the approach of tearing down, then building up, which is actually the best approach (subjectively speaking of course).

I don't want to discourage anyone from reading the Bible because it's actually a very good book. I personally am convinced that it is an inspired and holy book; a book that should be read by all Christians who are able to have a Bible. I think the Bible deserves more respect than labeling it a "love letter."

John Macarthur gives things to avoid while studying the Bible.

"Don't make a point at the cost of proper interpretation . In other words, don't make the Bible say what you want it to say. That's like the preacher who proclaimed that women shouldn't wear their hair on top of their heads. His text was "Top Knot Come Down," supposedly from Matthew 24:17, which says, "Let him who is on the housetop not come down" (King James Version). Obviously that's not what the passage is about! Don't try to find verses to support a preconceived idea. I know if I try to make a sermon, I end up forcing the Bible to fit my sermon. But if I try to comprehend a passage, a message will flow out of the understanding that follows.

In 2 Corinthians 2:17, Paul says, "For we are not like many, peddling the word of God." The Greek word translated "peddling" is kapeleuo, which referred to selling something deceitfully in the marketplace--something that wasn't what it claimed to be. You must not force the Bible to illustrate your preconceived notions. Be careful not to interpret the Bible at the cost of its true meaning.

Avoid superficial Bible study . Unfortunately, some Bible studies consist of nothing more than person's saying, "I guess this verse means..." or "What does this verse mean to you?" Basically that's a pooling of ignorance--a lot of people sitting around telling what they don't know about the verse. To have a successful Bible study, someone has to study the passage beforehand to find out what it really means. Only then can you discuss it intelligently and apply it. Interpretation requires work. Don't take the easy way out and believe what everyone tells you the Bible says. Check the facts out yourself. Don't assume there are many interpretations of a biblical passage. There may be many applications, but there is only one true interpretation. God's Word is precise. It is not ambiguous. God has given us the ability to discover its meaning.

Don't spiritualize the text . The first sermon I ever preached was really bad. My text was, "The angel rolled the stone away" from Matthew 28. I entitled my sermon, "Rolling Away the Stones in Your Life." I talked about the stone of doubt, the stone of fear, and the stone of anger. Doubt, fear, and anger are all legitimate topics, but they have nothing to do with that verse! I call that "Little Bo Peep Preaching" because you don't need the Bible; you can use anything--even "Little Bo Peep."

Picture a preacher saying this: "Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep. All over the world people are lost. And can't tell where to find them. But they'll come home--ah, they'll come." Then you hear a tear-jerking story about sinners who came home "wagging their tails behind them!" Ridiculous? Yes, but unfortunately not too hard to imagine.

Many people tend to do that with the Old Testament. They turn it into a fairy tale with all kinds of hidden meanings--anything but what the text plainly states. Don't spiritualize the Bible. It deserves more respect."

Commenter Tony-Allen has a few things to say about the Bible being labeled a love letter.

"It's what happens when you take a single trait of God and overemphasize it at the cost of all of God's other traits. That's where a lot of this spiritualizing that MacArthur mentions comes from. You pick and choose what you desire to believe or emphasize about the Lord.

The biggest problem, aside from the superficial theology it will give you and the "Little Bo Beep preaching" it will produce, is that you'll be eaten alive when you meet critics of the faith who know scripture better than you do. Christopher Hitchens was often quick (and rightfully so) to call out Christians who refused to deal with what text said. After all, if the Bible is God's "love letter" to to mankind, then what love did He show the people of Sodom and Gomorrah? What love did He show everyone outside the ark when the flood waters came? Do I believe God has love? Yes, but how can you know love unless you know upon what basis you can judge such love? I believe God showed love by taking my place on the cross and bearing the wrath and judgment I rightfully deserved, so that on the day of judgment I would not end up like those in Sodom, Gomorrah or the land outside the ark. If we can't realize that God is much more than superficial love, then we can't even pretend to think we understand God."

Quote of the week - Hegel

2012-01-02T17:15:00.000-06:00

"The goal to be reached is the mind’s insight into what knowing is. Impatience asks for the impossible, wants to reach the goal without the means of getting there. The length of the journey has to be borne with, for every moment is necessary;..."

- Hegel

The Phenomenology of Mind (1807)

Why we should all be grateful for the Tea Party

2012-01-02T17:10:00.000-06:00

Why we should ALL be grateful for the Tea Party

I realize that there has been no force as hated and vilified by both sides of the of the political spectrum as the Tea Party. The question that needs to be asked is why?

Why hate an organization that did what it said it would do? I realize it is a massive departure from the normal crap that happens in Washington D.C. to say differently would be to lie, and the Tea Party isn't about lies. They are about truth, deeply rooted, unapologetic truth. America has been screwed by both the right and the left. The Right has done something about it, the Tea Party, the left can't do anything about it, because if they do, then they will have to admit that their policies and desires are Socialist or Communist, and well, that will never happen, because then they have to admit, they were wrong and Capitalism is a failure, which is what they are trying to do anyway, with Obamacare, Dream Act, and the fact that for the two years they had complete control over the political system, no budgets, just continuing resolutions that added trillions to the bottom line, they will finally have to admit that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are all Ponzi Schemes, and the future is being bent over and screwed.

The Tea Party stood up saying ENOUGH!!!!! The stood there saying they wouldn't pass Continuing Resolutions, or a National Budget without finding a way to pay for it. They have started to expose the dirty secret of Beltway Politics, it is all smoke and mirrors, unless someone has the testies and nerve to say black is black white is white and we have to fix things NOW.

Tea Party members have been called terrorists, hate mongers, racists (because they don't have Black Americans and Mexican Americans involved - yet they have more of them involved then the Occupy forces who were and still are mostly lilly white!)

Here is a group of people who have stood up to the same ol thing, and have been bashed and hated for it. So ask yourself why? Why hate people who have proven their love for this great country? Why hate people who say we can't do the same old thing? Why not support them, help them fix what is wrong?

To do what they have done takes courage. To take the ridicule and abuse that would be considered hate crimes by the left, if they were black, Mexican, homosexual, transgender etc... But they are REPUBLICANS, so they must be treated as if they are syphilitic whores who can't get medical treatment.

I say they are true Americans who have been maligned by the left liberal media, the Huffington Post, (even though considering the Huffington Post to be a true news outlet is the same as considering the National Enquirer as being the best written weekly on the face of the earth.)

Or at least that is how Mark C's it.

Happy New Year to all! May you all have the courage to stand up for your convictions!

Immanuel Kant - Quote of the week

2011-12-26T09:00:00.002-06:00

"Criticism alone can sever the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which can be injurious universally; as well as of idealism and skepticism, which are dangerous chiefly to the Schools, and hardly allow of being handed on to the public"

-Immanuel Kant

-Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787) Preface to 2nd edition, B xxxiv

Philosophy Quote of the week

2011-12-19T13:04:00.001-06:00

I'm starting a quote of the week. The quote of the week will be posted on Mondays. Each quote will be from an important philosopher. I will start things off with a quote from Soren Kierkegaard.

“When the world commences its drastic ordeal, when the storms of life crush youth’s exuberant expectancy, when existence, which seemed so affectionate and gentle, changes into a pitiless proprietor who demands everything back, everything that it gave in such a way that it can take it back-then the believer most likely looks at himself and his life with sadness and pain, but he still says, “There is an expectancy that the whole world cannot take from me; it is the expectancy of faith, and this is victory. I am not deceived, since I did not believe that the world would keep the promise it seemed to be making to me, my expectancy was not in the world but in God.”

- Two Upbuilding Discourses (16 May 1843) in The Expectancy of Faith From Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. p. 23-24

Theology of Christmas

2011-12-19T08:27:00.002-06:00

With Christmas being just around the corner, I thought I would share (again) this message by John Macarthur on the Philippians 2:5-11. This is one of my favorite messages by Macarthur. If you're not interested in video or audio the transcript of the message is here.

Should Obama get credit for killing Osama bin Laden?

2011-12-19T08:20:00.001-06:00

DISCLAIMER: The following viewpoints, or opinions, are not those of the blogger, but a friend of his. If this point of view upsets you, you may vent, but don’t yell at the person who posted them. Start a discussion, express and opinion, but don’t yell at the person who didn’t write it, that is just senseless… These writings are the intellectual property of me, the Author, with permission granted to the blogger who is positing them. They may not be reposted or used in any form without express written consent by either myself or the blogger of Reformed Seth.

Should Obama get credit for killing Osama bin Laden? As we enter this election cycle, which will consume our airways for the next 10 months, I think it is a fair question. And after stating this opinion to a friend on Facebook, I realized, this is a very touchy subject!

My friend is a Progressive, and thinks that the current president has not gone far enough to the left to make him happy, but at the same time, feels that since he is president, he deserves the credit for killing bin Laden. I was kind of slammed and called unpleasant names because I think differently on the matter.

He is of the opinion that since the President is at the top, anything that is done that is good, is done by him. Of course, anything that is bad is done by the Republican Party and those 'damn Tea Baggers'.

I think the credit should be given to the members of Seal Team Six who went and actually did the job. To the C.I.A. who got the intelligence, and those who did the planning of the raid. THAT makes sense. All the President did was give the green light.

We have heard that there were no thoughts to capturing bin Laden, that it was always going to be death, so why is it that the President, Secretary of State and all the others were in the photo op, to show they were the ones who said "GO!"? But do they deserve the credit? I say NO! Not just because Obama is going to run this into the ground during an election year: how he was tough with the Islamic extremist, how he had the power of life and death in his hands, and had the cajones to pull the trigger and get the most wanted, hated, and vile man inside the United States of America (Barney Frank being the second most hated man).

I look at it this way. What would have happened if Obama had said no, don't go after him, and it had come out? He would have been a shorter termed President than he already will be. They would have started impeachment proceedings against him if he hadn't done what he did, so he gave the okay, to keep his job. When it would have been better if he was just DOING his job.

Imagine the intelligence we would have gotten if the death had been kept quiet for a few months, which of course with the loss of the helicopter would have made it very difficult, but not impossible. So, instead of taking the smart road, Obama took the expedient road, and put the crown on his head saying, "LOOK WHAT I DID! I DID THIS!" Sorry, but if he won't take responsibility as President of the United States, for the stupid and irresponsible things that he and his administration have done, almost on a daily basis, then he doesn't get to take credit for the good thing that they have done either.

He, like the rest of us, can't have it both ways.

Thus endth the lesson!

Or at least, that is how Mark C's it.

Sausage Grinder epistemology

2011-12-16T11:40:00.008-06:00

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. How do we know what we know? What is the source of that "knowing"? Its limits? What about its structure? Well that is the purpose of epistemology, to answer questions like that. Before Immanuel Kant, there were two camps in this study of philosophy: rationalists and empiricists. Parmenides, Plato, Augustine, and Leibniz would be seen as rationalists. Heraclitus, Aristotle, Aquinas, Bacon, Locke, and Hume would be empiricists.

Rationalism

Above I mentioned two words that need defining: rationalists and empiricists. What is a rationalist? A rationalist claims there are significant ways we gain knowledge and concepts independently of sense experience. The key to understanding both camps in epistemology is to remember: it's all about sense experience. Your view on how important the role sense experience plays in our gaining concepts and knowledge will put in one of these camps.

So we now know rationalists claim there are other ways than through sense experience that we gain concepts and knowledge. What are those other ways? From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "First, they argue that there are cases where the content of our concepts or knowledge outstrips the information that sense experience can provide. Second, they construct accounts of how reason in some form or other provides that additional information about the world." Further, rationalists claim we have innate ideas that are "before experience." This knowledge is part of our rational nature, so it's not gained by intuition, deduction, or experience because it was there all along. Our experiences can trigger or set-off that knowledge, but experience didn't provide us with the knowledge itself. Rationalists disagree on how we gained this a-priori knowledge. Some say God stamped it on us at creation. Others say we gained it in an earlier existence, while there are those who say it was gained through natural selection.

Empiricism

You can probably guess empiricism is all about. Yep, it's all about sense experience. John Locke claimed that the human mind at birth is a "tabula rasa" or blank slate, which means we are born with a mind without inclinations. Empiricists argue for a posteriori knowledge, that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge. From the SEP, "Empiricists present complementary lines of thought. First, they develop accounts of how experience provides the information that rationalists cite, insofar as we have it in the first place. (Empiricists will at times opt for skepticism as an alternative to rationalism: if experience cannot provide the concepts or knowledge the rationalists cite, then we don't have them.) Second, empiricists attack the rationalists' accounts of how reason is a source of concepts or knowledge." As I said before, sense experience is "ultimate" for the empiricist, there is no other foundation for knowledge. At this point, it's important to note that empiricists do not think we have empirical knowledge, but that our only avenue for knowledge, if at all, is by experience.

Transcendental Method

Yes, there has been a third way and this way was achieved by Immanuel Kant with his transcendental method of knowledge. Kant more or less took the best of both camps (rationalist and empiricist) to establish his method. Sense experience was the starting point for Kant. He disagreed with the rationalists' innate ideas, such as Descartes, but he distinguished between "prior to experience" knowledge and innate ideas with mental categories; a two-step approach if you will. For fear of over-simplifying I will give a link to Kant's method. We have mental categories of things that Kant would call "appearances" and then we have "things in themselves," i.e. things that are absolutely real.

Kant's words:

"T]he objective validity of the categories, as a priori concepts, rests on the fact that through them alone is experience possible (as far as the form of thinking is concerned). For they then are related necessarily and a priori to objects of experience, since only by means of them can any object of experience be thought at all.

The transcendental deduction of all a priori concepts therefore has a principle toward which the entire investigation must be directed, namely this: that they must be recognized as a priori conditions of the possibility of experiences (whether of the intuition that is encountered in them, or of the thinking). Concepts that supply the objective ground of the possibility of experience are necessary just for that reason."

You can think of Kant's method as a sausage grinder: sensations going into mental categories. What comes out of the sausage grinder? Knowledge. Kant argues that the categories are necessary for experience; without the mental categories we would have no way to experience anything. Do you think Kant's philosophy helped epistemology by finding a bridge between the camps? Or do you think he even made a bridge? One thing is certain: his method changed philosophy, so much so that philosophers to this day have various interpretations of the transcendental method, disagreeing over this aspect and that aspect. One could say this method created a crisis in philosophy and not just a change.

Kant's method is heavy reading to be sure, but it's also enjoyable (if you like philosophy that is) even though the method's complexity is high on the complex scale.

I highly recommend reading the links underneath "further reading" if you're interested in epistemology.

Further reading
Rationalism vs Empiricism

Transcendental method (SEP) here is the method in Wikipedia

Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason

As always, a fair amount of resources can be found here at Apologetics 315.

Philosophy links

2011-12-05T13:32:00.000-06:00

Like philosophy? Do you like free stuff instead of purchasing books? My answer to both questions is "Yes! Yes I do!" Here are some links to free philosophy resources I use. *I only like to recommend things I've used. If there are resources related to this you've found useful, then let me know in the comments section* I'll be adding to this list occasionally too.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This is the site I use the most online to learn about philosophers and their work.

Reasonable Faith (Free, painless registration is required to get all the free resources)

Evangelical Philosophical Society

Does Calvinism produce a God who is a moral monster?

2011-12-05T11:38:00.000-06:00

Michael Horton asks and answers the question, "Does calvinism make God a moral monster?" His article was probably wrote to give a sneak peek of his new book "For Calvinism" which is one of two books on the debate for and against Calvinism; the author of "against calvinism" is Roger Olson. Horton sets up the article saying that Calvinism and Arminianism have to answer the question "Is God a moral monster?" He writes that both camps have to answer such questions such as: "If God knew that Adam and Eve were going to transgress his law, why didn’t he change the circumstances so that they would have made a different choice? and Why would God create people he knew would be condemned for their original and actual sin? Both camps have a view of predestination, so neither camp is free from the challenge or weaker than the other. Horton writes, "...the only difference is whether it is determined without purpose or with purpose." That is the main issue.

I haven't read Olson's book, but I take Horton's word when he wrote the following:

"Roger Olson states his own view: “God is sovereign in the sense that nothing at all can ever happen that God does not allow” (100). So, if the fall happened, then God allowed it. The fall “was not a part of [God's] will except to reluctantly allow it” (99). OK, but then the fall was in some sense a part of God’s will. Calvinists acknowledge that it was not part of God’s revealed (or moral) will, but that he willingly permitted it as part of his plan. Yet Roger is looking for something in between: God “permits” it, but it is not a “willing permission” (64). Aside from the fact that any act of God in permitting something is already an act of will—a choice, my main point here is that Roger’s weaker claim is still strong enough to get him into the same hot water with the rest of us. Roger agrees that God knows everything that will happen. God even supervises everything that will happen. Nothing escapes his oversight. “I believe, as the Bible teaches and all Christians should believe, that nothing at all can happen without God’s permission” (71).

And yet, Roger rejects R. C. Sproul’s statement, “What God permits, he decrees to permit” (78). Now, what could be more obvious than the fact that when someone with the authority to do otherwise permits something contrary to his revealed will, he is deciding, choosing, decreeing to allow it? Here again, Roger’s notion of a presumably unwilling permission is an oxymoron. To permit something is to make a positive determination, even if it in no way makes the one permitting it responsible for the action. So what is the substantive difference between saying, with Roger, that “nothing at all can ever happen that God does not allow,” and with R. C. Sproul, “What God permits, he decrees to permit”?"

I think Roger's view is weak and gets him into the same trouble as the Calvinist, albeit, a different route of course. Granted, I haven't read Olson's book, but I am confused with his statement that "nothing can ever happen that God does not allow," and his disagreeing with Sproul on God decreeing to permit certain things to happen. He also notes that there are fringes Calvinism called hyper-Calvinism that teach God is the author of sin, i.e., God creates fresh evil in the hearts of man and directly causes man to sin, which is not only against scripture, but also against the teachings of reformed theology. God does not create fresh evil in man, nor does he directly cause our sinful or un-sinful actions. Horton finishes his article with the next three paragraphs.

" The real difference between Calvinism and Arminianism is whether God has a purpose when he allows sin and suffering. Again, both views affirm that nothing happens apart from God’s permission. However, Calvinism teaches that God never allows any evil that he has not already determined to work together for our good (Rom 8:28). Nothing that he allows can terminate in evil. What would we say of a deity who “reluctantly permitted” a terrible disaster or moral tragedy, without a determination to overcome that evil with good? But that takes a plan and that plan must necessarily comprehend the evil that he is to conquer.

Any view that makes God the author of sin does indeed turn the object of our worship into a moral monster. However, any deity who merely stands around reluctantly permitting horrible things for which he has no greater purpose in view, is equally reprehensible. In the one, God is sovereign but not good; in the latter, God is neither. Once you acknowledge that God foreknows a sinful act and chooses to allow it (however reluctantly) when he could have chosen not to, the only consolation is that God never would have allowed it unless he had already determined why he would permit it and how he has decided to overcome it for his glory and our good. Mercifully, Scripture does reveal that God does exactly that. Roger agrees that God “chose to allow” suffering and sin (72). The Calvinist says that God chose to allow them for a reason. It’s permitting rather than creating, but it’s permission with a purpose. Permission without purpose makes God a “moral monster” indeed.

Reformed theology has maintained consistently that Scripture teaches God’s exhaustive sovereignty and human responsibility. God does not cause evil. In fact, God does not force anyone to do anything against his or her will. And yet, nothing lies outside of the wise, loving, good, and just plan “of him who works all things after the council of his own will” (Eph 1:11). That God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are true, no serious student of Scripture can deny. How they can be true is beyond our capacity to understand. As Calvin put the matter, following Luther, any attempt to unravel the mystery of predestination and human responsibility beyond Scripture is a “seeking outside the way.” “Better to limp along this path,” says Calvin, “than to rush with all speed outside of it.”

You can read Horton's full article here.

Related posts

Five bad arguments against calvinism

Is divine election fair?

What is reformed theology?

Thinking about the resurrection

2011-12-02T12:04:00.004-06:00

If Jesus of Nazareth was not bodily raised from the dead, then Christianity would be "dead." Paul of Tarsus wrote to the Corinthians "...if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless," and "...we should be pitied more than anyone." Strong conclusions huh? If Jesus Christ has not been raised, then Christianity is not worth living, much less thinking about. True, the arguments for God are not thrown out the window, but as far as I know, one could not argue for *Christian* theism without the resurrection of Jesus.

Theologian R.C. Sproul wrote,

"The claim of resurrection is vital to Christianity. If Christ has been raised from the dead by God, then He has the credentials and certification that no other religious leader possesses. Buddha is dead. Mohammad is dead. Moses is dead. Confucius is dead. But, according to Christianity, Christ is alive." 1

We understand how important the doctrine of the resurrection is. How do we know it happened? Can we know? Given the evidence we have I think we can. Generally, apologists use the "minimal facts" approach to the argument for the resurrection of Jesus, which are the following: the empty tomb, the appearances and the early belief in the resurrection. Given my rookie status as a defender for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth by God, I'm going to take a different approach, one I am most comfortable arguing for and that is: given the data we have, the best explanation for the appearances of Jesus is that it was Jesus Himself that appeared to the disciples, the women, and the 500. What are some of the other explanations for the appearances? The most popular one is the hallucination hypothesis; this is the conclusion I want to make you think about.

What is a hallucination? Hallucinations are like dreams, they're subjective. I can't see your dreams nor can you see mine, they happen in the mind. There's no objective reality outside the mind that more than one person could see. And since the appearances of Jesus happened in groups, it could not have been a hallucination. Historians agree on the appearances being seen by groups. In chapter 8 of the Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Fr. Ronald Tacelli gave thirteen arguments against the hallucination theory:

"(1) There were too many witnesses. Hallucinations are private, individual, subjective. Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples minus Thomas, to the disciples including Thomas, to the two disciples at Emmaus, to the fisherman on the shore, to James (his "brother" or cousin), and even to five hundred people at once (1 Cor 15:3-8). Even three different witnesses are enough for a kind of psychological trigonometry; over five hundred is about as public as you can wish. And Paul says in this passage (v. 6) that most of the five hundred are still alive, inviting any reader to check the truth of the story by questioning the eyewitnesses -- he could never have done this and gotten away with it, given the power, resources and numbers of his enemies, if it were not true.

(2) The witnesses were qualified. They were simple, honest, moral people who had firsthand knowledge of the facts.

(3) The five hundred saw Christ together, at the same time and place. This is even more remarkable than five hundred private "hallucinations" at different times and places of the same Jesus. Five hundred separate Elvis sightings may be dismissed, but if five hundred simple fishermen in Maine saw, touched and talked with him at once, in the same town, that would be a different matter. (The only other dead person we know of who is reported to have appeared to hundreds of qualified and skeptical eyewitnesses at once is Mary the mother of Jesus [at Fatima, to 70,000]. And that was not a claim of physical resurrection but of a vision.)

(4) Hallucinations usually last a few seconds or minutes; rarely hours. This one hung around for forty days (Acts 1:3).

(5) Hallucinations usually happen only once, except to the insane. This one returned many times, to ordinary people (Jn 20:19-21:14; Acts 1:3).

(6) Hallucinations come from within, from what we already know, at least unconsciously. This one said and did surprising and unexpected things (Acts 1:4,9) -- like a real person and unlike a dream.

(7) Not only did the disciples not expect this, they didn't even believe it at first -- neither Peter, nor the women, nor Thomas, nor the eleven. They thought he was a ghost; he had to eat something to prove he was not (Lk 24:36-43).

(8) Hallucinations do not eat. The resurrected Christ did, on at least two occasions (Lk 24:42-43; Jn 21:1-14).

(9) The disciples touched him (Mt 28:9; Lk 24:39; Jn 20:27).

(10) They also spoke with him, and he spoke back. Figments of your imagination do not hold profound, extended conversations with you, unless you have the kind of mental disorder that isolates you. But this "hallucination" conversed with at least eleven people at once, for forty days (Acts 1:3).

(11) The apostles could not have believed in the "hallucination" if Jesus' corpse had still been in the tomb. This is very simple and telling point; for if it was a hallucination, where was the corpse? They would have checked for it; if it was there, they could not have believed.

(12) If the apostles had hallucinated and then spread their hallucinogenic story, the Jews would have stopped it by producing the body -- unless the disciples had stolen it, in which case we are back with the conspiracy theory and all its difficulties.

(13) A hallucination would explain only the post-resurrection appearances; it would not explain the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, or the inability to produce the corpse. No theory can explain all these data except a real resurrection. C.S. Lewis says,

"Any theory of hallucination breaks down on the fact (and if it is invention [rather than fact], it is the oddest invention that ever entered the mind of man) that on three separate occasions this hallucination was not immediately recognized as Jesus (Lk 24:13-31; Jn 20:15; 21:4). Even granting that God sent a holy hallucination to teach truths already widely believed without it, and far more easily taught by other methods, and certain to be completely obscured by this, might we not at least hope that he would get the face of the hallucination right? Is he who made all faces such a bungler that he cannot even work up a recognizable likeness of the Man who was himself?" (Miracles, chapter 16)

I find the above 13 arguments to be satisfactory defeaters (all or some, take your pick) for the hallucination theory. I don't intend to reiterate what has been said in the arguments, but I will go over some thoughts that have come to mind from reading other work on the hallucination theory. Historian N.T. Wright makes a good point: if people were individually claiming to see the risen Jesus, it's inexplicable that these appearances seem to have suddenly stopped. If people were going about claiming to have seen Jesus just to be trendy and fit in (like owning an iPad), we shouldn't expect those claims to all of a sudden stop. People would have been doing just that.

What about the group appearances? Do the group appearances undermine the hallucination theory? I don't think so. Groups of people claim to see the mother mary in re-fried beans right? If you and I were looking at clouds and I say, "Hey, see that dinosaur?" You might would say, "Nope. Oh, wait a minute, yeah I do." Remember this answer though in argument (3) "Five hundred separate Elvis sightings may be dismissed, but if five hundred simple fishermen in Maine saw, touched and talked with him at once, in the same town, that would be a different matter. (The only other dead person we know of who is reported to have appeared to hundreds of qualified and skeptical eyewitnesses at once is Mary the mother of Jesus [at Fatima, to 70,000]. And that was not a claim of physical resurrection but of a vision.)" I think the numbers are important in this argument against the hallucination theory. If just a few people were witnesses to this resurrection, then the hallucination rebuttal would be weighty and effective, but given the data we have, I don't find it to be weighty and effective.

Maybe the apostles saw something or somebody who resembled Jesus, and they believed it was him. The problem with this reasoning is that the apostles weren't expecting to see Jesus. One reason, as Bill Craig often points out, is that Jews who believed in resurrection all seemed to think of resurrection as an eschatological event. It was something that happened on the last day, not in the middle of history. And the resurrection was supposed to be general, not individual.

To wrap up, I'll borrow from an illustration I heard listening to a podcast: Think of somebody you know to have died, like a relative or something. Maybe your parents. What would you honestly think if you saw that person standing right in front of you right now? It seems like you'd have a few options: you're dreaming. you're hallucinating, you're seeing a ghost, the person never died to begin with, the person has risen from the dead. Honestly, I would probably think I saw a ghost, which is what the apostles first thought. They only believed after touching the scars and such. I don't buy the hallucination theory. If we only had the appearance to Paul, which was more like a vision, then I probably would.

I must give credit where credit is due. I learned a lot about the rebuttal to the hallucination theory from a discussion between Greg Koukl and Sam Harper on the radio show, "Stand to Reason." Harper's printed work can be found here. Is the evidence for the resurrection perfect? No, but given the data we have, I'm convinced that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Check out how the arguments for the bodily resurrection of Jesus play out in debates. The one below is a debate between William Lane Craig and Jame Crossley.

If you don't like watching video you can listen to audio by downloading the mp3 file from Apologetics 315 here.

You can also find more debates and lectures on the resurrection here.

Trusting in God's sovereignty

2011-11-18T09:20:00.002-06:00

I was thinking on God's sovereignty today, remembered Macarthur's answer to a question about trusting God, then remembered how I felt once I understood God is sovereign. Macarthur was asked the following

"HARDY: Some raise that with the whole concept of trust; that affirming this doctrine and growing in your understanding of it actually builds and increases your trust in God instead of trusting --

MACARTHUR: The greatest thing that a believer can do above and beyond everything is worship. That is the highest responsibility. The sovereignty of God is the single most glorious reality about God. Even His grace would lose its luster if He weren't really in control of it. His mercy would be diminished. It is His sovereignty that over-arches everything. And, you know, when I worship the Lord just as a way of life, it doesn't matter what happens. It doesn't matter if I'm well or sick; it doesn't matter if I live or die; it doesn't matter if things go well or don't go well. It just never interrupts my confidence in the sovereignty of God. So, you know, I think that's the key to my -- to just living life on the same high level of joy, come whatever comes, because you know that this is all fitting into His perfect plan.

I remember -- this is a good illustration. I remember a few years ago we had some people come here from another church. And, of course, that's not uncommon. But they came from a church where their families were in leadership in the church, pastoral leadership. And so coming here was a big thing. And they came from a charismatic church. And they came here, if I understand the story right, they came here one time when I preached on the sovereignty of God. And they never went back. And what they said to me was we've lived our whole life under the sovereignty of Satan. This is absolutely transforming. Satan makes you sick; Satan messes with your babies; check the kids at night, 3 o'clock in the morning Satan might kill your baby with SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome; pray Satan out of your bedroom, bathroom, dining room, Satan's liable to do -- I mean, you know, Satan made the planes crash into the Towers, Satan does -- everything's -- and poor God, you know, is -- (Pastor indicates by wringing His hands.) And this caused paroxysms of fear, heart palpitation, panic attacks; really unbelievable kind of things.

I mean who could possibly worship God in that kind of environment? Then you get the people together, and you whip them into some kind of emotional frenzy; call it worship. But down underneath it is a theology that literally makes it impossible to worship God, because God's not in charge. The opposite of that, of course, is to understand that everything works within the framework of God's purpose and will. And no matter what happens, you know, even the worst of things, are intended for your good and His ultimate glory."

I also remembered what R.C. Sproul wrote, "Our problem is this: We do not yet possess the full light of the remote. We are still looking in a dark mirror. We are not utterly devoid of light, though. We have enough light to know that God has a good purpose even when we are ignorant of that good purpose.

It is the good purpose of God that gives the final answer to the appearance of vanity and futility in this world. To trust in the good purpose of God is the very essence of godly faith. This is why no Christian can be an ultimate pessimist.

The world in which we live is not a world of chance. Its beginning was not an accident, its operation is not an accident, and its telos, or goal, is not an accident. This is my Father’s world and He rules it without caprice. As long as God exists, vanity is a manifest impossibility."

Given the sovereignty of God, you might wonder the same thing a questioner asked William Lane Craig recently. He wrote, "Your Middle Knowledge response, as far as I can ascertain, is that God knew before he created these people that they would reject the Gospel, so he put them in second century Tibet where it didn't matter anyway. No harm, no foul." Now, Craig gives a long answer (one worth checking out), but I will only post an excerpt:

"1. God is all-powerful and all-loving.

and

2. Some people never hear the Gospel and are lost.

The Free Will Defense attempts to show that the religious pluralist has not been able to prove a logical incompatibility between (1) and (2) and, moreover, that we can show (1) and (2) to be compatible by adding a third statement which is compatible with (1) and entails (2), to wit,

3. God has created a world having an optimal balance between saved and lost, and those who never hear the Gospel and are lost would not have believed it even if they had heard it.

Now your objection, Steve, is only to the second part of the Free Will Defense. You don’t think that (3) is possible or plausible.

...

But now you raise a quite different objection aimed specifically at (3). “Before God sticks Fred in second century Tibet wouldn't He have to ascertain that Fred would freely reject the Gospel in all circumstances, not just some of them?” Well, He wouldn’t have to, but that’s my hypothesis. Clearly, God could place a person anywhere He wants in human history, regardless of how that person might freely behave in different circumstances. But my suggestion is that God, being so merciful and not wanting anyone to be damned, so providentially orders the world that anyone who would embrace the Gospel if he were to hear it will not be placed in circumstances in which he fails to hear it and is lost. Only in the case of someone who would be saved through his response to general revelation would a person who would freely respond to special revelation, if he heard it, find himself in circumstances where he doesn’t hear it.

I’m mystified that you find this suggestion “intuitively unattractive.” On the contrary, I think it magnifies the goodness and abundant graciousness of God, that He would prevent anyone’s being lost though the accidents of history and geography. God is so good that He won’t allow anyone to be lost if that person would under any circumstances respond to the Gospel and be saved.

In any case, you then go to your plausibility objections. These are just irrelevant, as explained above. So long as (3) is even possibly true, which you seem to concede, it shows that (1) and (2) are logically compatible, Q.E.D.

But I can’t resist saying something about the plausibility of (3). Why isn’t (3) plausible? You suggest that God would have to vet all the options in order to actualize such a world. That’s not really true, but is in any case no problem because the doctrine of middle knowledge entails that God knows which of all the possible worlds known to Him via His natural knowledge are feasible for Him to actualize. All feasible worlds are given to Him by His middle knowledge, so sovereignly picking one is just no problem.

You suggest, more plausibly, I think, that that there are no persons whom God could have created who would under all circumstances reject His grace for salvation. Maybe you’re right; but how can you know? I just don’t think we’re in a position to make those kinds of judgements. You talk about the insanity of unbelief; and yet such persons are all around us, people who have heard the Gospel again and again, who have the Bible, who have read apologetics material, and yet who refuse to believe. In fact, I’ve had unbelievers say to me on more than one occasion, “Even if I knew that Christianity is true, I still wouldn’t bend the knee!” (Remember we're talking only of freedom-permitting circumstances here.)

How do you know that God couldn’t put together a world in which the unreached are people who wouldn’t bend the knee under any circumstances? In fact, this hypothesis has real implications for other issues like the wider problem of evil. For example, maybe only in a world involving scads of natural and moral evil could God arrange the sort of world we’re envisioning. Maybe His desire to achieve an optimal balance between saved and lost overrides the benefits of a world with less natural and moral evil. It may well be that getting the right counterfactuals of creaturely freedom in place to achieve (3) involves putting up with a lot of otherwise gratuitous evil.

Now you ask, why create “Fred” in the first place? Here’s the real nub of the issue, I think, and why you find my hypothesis unattractive. You think God could have just left Fred out. But that’s not true, if my hypothesis is correct! There may be no world feasible for God involving universal, freely embraced salvation which comes without other overriding disadvantages. Sure, God could have refrained from creating Fred (or both Fred and Sophie), but then the resulting world might have been even worse or at least no better. The hypothesis is that God has done the very best He can, given the true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which confront Him.

Your claim that “there are an infinite number of beings God can create who would freely accept the Gospel without somebody else rejecting it” is guilty of the same error you alleged earlier, namely, speaking without a context. Suppose that for any possible person there may be circumstances under which he would be freely saved without someone’s being lost; it doesn’t follow that there is a feasible world in which every person would be freely saved without someone’s being lost. For the relevant circumstances may not be compossible. Your pun on Sophie’s Choice (a choice between two bad options) reveals that you haven’t yet grasped the theory of middle knowledge, for God doesn’t create such a choice for Himself. The counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which confront Him are outside His control. He has to play with the hand He has been dealt.

So I’m a good deal less confident than you are about our ability to pronounce on what worlds are feasible for God. Therefore, I’m not inclined to regard (3) as implausible. In any case, we both agree that it is possible, and that suffices for the purposes of the Free Will Defense."

Being finite creatures, our scope is limited, we don't have the full light of the remote as Sproul said so we can't know perfectly things like "Why did God create Fred knowing Fred wouldn't be saved?" Notice I said we can't know perfectly things like that, but we can have some grasp on such things. I think Craig gives a good answer to such a hard question. Some Christians do think unbelief is insanity, however there are those who don't. Like Craig, I've heard answers that echo "Well, even I knew for certain Christian theism is true, I still wouldn't bow my knee to such a God." Others wouldn't. Some don't think the evidence for Christian theism is hard enough and consequently don't put their faith in God; these people have said they would believe if there was just harder evidence. The list goes on for reasons why people are Christian theists.

The probability of a world existing of free moral creatures and all of them freely embracing salvation is zero I think. To be truly free, creatures need moral freedom and moral freedom entails at least the possibility of evil in the world. God wanted to accomplish plenitude - the highest good possible; the best of all possible worlds requires moral freedom, which also brings the possibility of evil.

The sovereignty of God is a challenging, yet comforting doctrine. It's challenging due to the raising of questions like "Why did God create person X, knowing he or she wouldn't put faith in Him?" and the other, "Why did God allow this to happen to me or them?" They are hard questions, but they aren't without good answers. The doctrine is comforting in that I know God has a good purpose even when I am ignorant of what that purpose is at the time. Honestly, I am going through some junk right now in my life personally and outside my experience, i.e. my family is going through some junk too. If God was "up there" ringing his hands, trying to keep everything together for everyone then I would wonder just powerful He really is. Would he not be like the mythological gods? I think so. I'm not sure how worthy of worship a god like that would be. Is God's sovereignty a crutch? Not at all. Though it's comforting at times, other times I am upset and quite mad at the lot in my life at that time. I'm human after all. At the end of the day though, I agree with a statement made by William Lane Craig, "...even though the problem of evil is the greatest objection to the existence of God,...God is the only solution to the problem of evil. If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering. God is the final answer to the problem of evil."

Further reading
Molinism and the soteriological problem of evil once more

Why suffering?

Why do some people not believe?

Check out the multiple resources on the problem of evil here at Apologetics315

Unicorn argument revisited

2011-11-15T08:41:00.003-06:00

Due to the increase in traffic for the post, "The unicorn argument," I decided to repost it with additional links and text. Enjoy!

I'm so glad Brian Auten (Apologetics 315) shared the link to "Atheists and Unicorns: Emotional Appeal," by J.W. Wartick because I think all theists grow tired of the "you can simply use the word unicorn instead of God for that argument" argument. I've read a lot of atheist comments using the unicorn argument. I'm not trying to be a jerk when I say this, but it seems it is used only when the skeptic/atheist is out of ammo. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Anyway, here is an excerpt from the blog post:

"You may have heard it before. “I’m an a-unicornist, just like I’m an atheist.” “I don’t believe in unicorns, nor do I believe in God.” “There’s as much evidence for unicorns as for God.”

What are these statements supposed to show?

Whether intended or not, these kinds of statements are simply emotional appeals. The atheist is attempting to psychologically discredit Christianity without ever engaging any kind of logical reasoning."

I agree. He then goes on to write:

"But what about another common use of the unicorn within atheism? Namely “I can’t prove there is no God, just like I can’t prove there are no unicorns.”

While this initially seems plausible, it only remains plausible if one assumes positivism. We can actually prove there is no God. If the Christian’s account of God was found to be incoherent, then God would not exist. It would, in fact, be impossible for God to exist were his nature contradictory.

So even in this use of the phrase we find that the atheist is committed to a dogmatic assumption of positivism. By assuming that God can only be disproven by empirical evidence, they uncritically advance a philosophical enterprise which has largely been abandoned within modern philosophy.

A word of advice: focus on the arguments at hand, not pejorative language."

Positivism has been abandoned with modern philosophy. For example, positivism fails to prove there are not abstract ideas, principles, and laws beyond our sense perception or that we can even know of them. There are also other, better developed, refutations of positivism; one by William Lane Craig can be found here.

Be sure to read the full article by Wartick by clicking here.

*****Update*****

Newer post by J.W. Wartick. The post covers a debate he had with Cathy Cooper over this topic. Click here to read it.

The following excerpt is from a post by Rich Deem discussing the invisible pink unicorn, flying spaghetti monster, and santa clause.

"Can we determine the existence/non-existence of invisible pink unicorns? Actually, the answer is "yes." Unicorns would be pink if they reflected pink electromagnetic radiation (i.e., light). However, in order to be invisible, the unicorns would reflect no electromagnetic radiation. Therefore, the term "invisible pink unicorn" is self contradictory. Therefore, we know absolutely that they could not exist. I don't know who invented the term "invisible pink unicorns," but they were obviously deficient in their physics education."

I were going to write-up a post on the "invisible pink unicorn" myself, I would have taken the approach by Deem. The invisible pink unicorn is self-contradictory and I don't think anyone under a western worldview would buy the concept. What about if we drop the pink part though? Deem writes,

"Technically, it would be very unlikely that any organism would be invisible. The only reasonable chemical basis for living organisms in this universe is carbon-based life. This would ensure that unicorns would always be visible. Although possible that unicorns might be invisible due to being made of anti-matter, such existence would be problematic, since their interaction with ordinary matter would result in their immediate and spectacular destruction. Could unicorns be made of exotic matter? While possible, there is no evidence from physics that any creatures could be made of exotic matter. At present, it is possible to detect exotic matter only indirectly through particle physics and through its ability to bend light (only detectable through gravitational lensing of distant galaxies). At this point, we would be unable to detect a unicorn made of exotic matter. So, although we can be fairly certain that invisible unicorns do not exist in the universe, we could not take the strong aunicornist stance."

The flying spaghetti monster, to be fair, is nothing more than humorous rhetoric and not worth any more time in refuting it than to say that there is no way spaghetti and meatballs could be a self-existing, necessary being.

Deem also takes on the santa clause argument.

"According to tradition, Santa Claus is a man who lives at the North Pole on planet earth. Explorers and satellite images have failed to detect the dwelling place of Santa Claus, so we can be fairly certain that he does not exist. Since the polar ice cap is likely to melt within the next 100 years, we will have further evidence that nobody actually lives at the North Pole."

We can see that pink unicorns, spaghetti and meatballs, and santa clause are all dependent upon the existence of the universe. God is not dependent on the universe or confined by time. The above objections can be nothing more than rhetoric if one is going to use them. They're not serious objections given by serious atheist/agnostic thinkers (no offense, but that is the case).

Read the entire post by Rich Deem. Click here.

*sumo santa is a character in the game: Clayfighter

*The unicorn image can be found here.

Looking back on Pascal's wager

2011-11-08T08:53:00.002-06:00

I've been listening to an overview of philosophy during my commutes to and from work. Yesterday, the professor lectured on Blaise Pascal, who was a 17th century mathematician and philosopher. In the world of philosophy he is best known for his "wager," which is in the Pensees writings that were published after his death.

I have to admit, when I first read Pascal's wager, I wasn't that impressed. Did it make sense to me? Yeah it did, but it didn't convince me or even move me to be a Christian theist. The first time I heard it was in church by a preacher when I was a teen during the altar call session of the night. The music was playing lightly while the preacher gave his version of the wager. He seemed like a host of a game called "You bet your life!" and I just wasn't impressed. The preacher gave the presentation nicely. I understood the argument that if God does exist I should live as if He exists so as not to face cosmic justice in the afterlife; if He doesn't exist, what did I lose? I lived a good moral life instead of a life of indulgence, so what did I lose? What I lost was a life of indulgence! I could have done whatever I wanted without regret. I could have been selfish! Now, I must confess, when I was a practical atheist I lived a straight-edge lifestyle (I abstained from drugs, alcohol, and sex outside of a monogamous, loving relationship) so I most likely lived better than some Christians did around me (according to the stats I read at that time, Christian teens were just as sexually active as and partied like the "heathen"). I mentioned that because I didn't want to live a life of indulgence. I knew then and know now that such a life is a wasted life. However, Pascal's wager falls because some want to live that way (I would argue that many want to, but let's just be conservative for argument's sake). Some want to "live for the moment." Like some person once said, "party today because tomorrow we die!" Some people like that lifestyle and find Pascal's wager lacking. I understand their point.

What caused me to think differently about Pascal's wager was in the lecture I heard yesterday. Pensees was published after the death of Pascal, so his work was incomplete. The professor said Pensees was Pascal's reflections or thoughts on life and not meant to be taken as arguments for the existence of God. I assume Pensees was more of an existential work then an apologetic work then, which actually changed my view of Pascal's wager. I was under the impression that his work was meant to be an argument to move the atheist to theism, which is the reason I found the wager lacking and didn't have respect for it.

The argument is best used for those in the middle I think. Like commenter Bossmanham said on this post: "I think, however, that since he was dealing with a population that primarily was Christian, he was basically trying to get them to stop being so apathetic. In that sense, there may be some worth to it. For instance, I've seen some philosophers who are kind of agnostic, but say that if there is a true religion, Christianity would be it. I think Anthony Flew was in that camp. Perhaps there's some value in it for them?"

I think the wager is best used for those who find themselves to be agnostic and sympathetic toward Christian theism. That is where Pascal's wager has weight. The wager probably is best for those to, who doubt God's existence emotionally instead of intellectually. If Bob has no problem with the basic arguments for Christian theism (the cosmological argument to the resurrection of Jesus), but instead doubts emotionally, i.e. he continues to "what if..." himself, then Pascal's wager could alleviate the emotional doubt.

Knowing now that Pascal was not trying to convince atheists to be theists, I now respect the wager. I still think it is a bad argument for theism and that no one should use it in an attempt to convince someone to theism. Instead, I think the wager would be best used in conversation with those who are agnostic, but sympathetic toward theism and for those who are emotional doubters.

More information on Blaise Pascal click here.

The goal of Christian living

2011-11-02T14:06:00.001-05:00

R.C. Sproul's teaching series Pleasing God is available to watch online for free at Ligonier's website.

Here is the first lecture in the series on the goal of Christian living.

Watch the rest of the series, click here

What about a talking snake and donkey?

2011-11-01T08:47:00.008-05:00

This question is usually projected to make the bible and theism in general look stupid, but you know when actually thought-over, the question is stupid. I know I say, "There aren't stupid questions, just stupid answers," but this question is foolish. Think about it. If one, like myself, is convinced that God exists, given the arguments, and then convinced that God raised Jesus from the dead given the arguments, then wouldn't a talking snake and donkey be probable? Couldn't God use those animals to make His points? Once God is realized, then miracles aren't thrown out the window. Now, if I had zero evidence for God and the resurrection, then yeah, it would be ludicrous for me to believe that a snake and donkey talked at some point in history; I completely understand that line of thinking. However, there is good evidence for God and also good evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

The question must be asked and looked at in light of the whole scope of evidence for Christianity and when it is, one can understand the question is rather weak and does no harm at all to Christianity. I don't mean to insult the questioners because they are told the question is glorious and super-duper awesome defeater to throw at Christians. Well, it's actually not strong at all given the evidence we have for Christian theism.

I tried to keep the post short, but a friend of mine suggested I should list the basic arguments for Christianity; I thought it was good advice. I'm going to give quick summaries of the arguments for Christian theism; keep in mind, these are quick shots of much fuller arguments, so if you want to explore the arguments further click on the links I gave above and below.

1. The Cosmological Argument from Contingency
The cosmological argument comes in a variety of forms. Here’s a simple version of the famous version from contingency:

Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
The universe exists.
Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).
Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4)

2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument based on the beginning of the universe

Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.

3. The moral argument based on moral values and duties

If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Therefore, God exists.

4. The teleological argument from fine-tuning

The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
It is not due to physical necessity or chance.
Therefore, it is due to design.

5. The ontological argument from the possibility of God’s existence to His actuality

It is possible that a maximally great being exists.
If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.
Therefore, a maximally great being exists.

For a more thorough explanation of each argument, I recommend clicking here. Dr. Craig explains each argument, then gives a refutation from Dawkins, and then refutes the objection made by Dawkins.

Arguments for the resurrection of Jesus

-the burial narrative
-the empty tomb
-the appearances
-the early belief in a bodily resurrection.

How do we explain those facts? Wintery Knight gives a rundown of the possible explanations and his critique.

1) Jesus wasn’t really dead
- crucifixion is lethal and you can’t fake being dead
- this doesn’t explain the early belief in the resurrection, since
a half-dead Jesus would not inspire a belief in the resurrection

2) Jesus’ disciples moved the body and lied about it
- it doesn’t explain the appearance to Paul, etc.
- it doesn’t explain why the early church was willing to be persecuted

3) The Jews moved the body and lied about it
- they had no interest in helping a rival sect
- it doesn’t explain the appearance to Paul, etc.

4) The Romans moved the body and lied about it
- they had no interest in helping a trouble-making sect
- it doesn’t explain the appearance to Paul, etc.

5) Somebody else moved the body
- it doesn’t explain the appearance to Paul, etc.
- there is no evidence to support the claim

6) The early church hallucinated the appearances
- group hallucinations are impossible
- it doesn’t explain the empty tomb
- it doesn’t explain the theological mutations about “resurrection”, since seeing a ghost does not imply a bodily resurrection

To learn more about the argument for the resurrection of Jesus click here.

*****Update*****
Commenter Mike brought to my attention the Presuppositional arguments! I forgot about that avenue of apologetics.

Excerpt from Wikipedia:

" transcendental argument...attempts to prove that the Christian God is the precondition of all human knowledge and experience, by demonstrating the impossibility of the contrary; in other words, that logic, reason, or morality cannot exist without God. The argument proceeds as follows:^[2]

If there is no god, knowledge is not possible.
Knowledge is possible (or some other statement pertaining to logic or morality).
Therefore God exists.

Cornelius Van Til likewise wrote:

We must point out that [non-theistic] reasoning itself leads to self-contradiction, not only from a theistic point of view, but from a non-theistic point of view as well... It is this that we ought to mean when we say that we reason from the impossibility of the contrary. The contrary is impossible only if it is self-contradictory when operating on the basis of its own assumptions.

—(A Survey of Christian Epistemology [Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969], p. 204)"

An overview of Van Til here.

Explore presuppositional apologetics by clicking here.

Keep in mind, I just gave the basic arguments without explaining the premises. I highly recommend checking out the links I've posted throughout this post.

Arguments for the existence of God: debate audio, lecture audio, and book reviews click here.

Arguments for the resurrection of Jesus: debate audio, lecture audio, and book reviews click here.

*Image take from this website.

Why Dawkins won't debate Craig

2011-10-20T14:45:00.003-05:00

I read Richard Dawkins' article today on why he won't debate William Lane Craig and I still find his answer(s) unsatisfactory. Should he change his answer to meet my need for a satisfactory answer? Not at all. Why does he not debate Craig? He refuses to debate Craig because, "The Christian philosopher is an apologist for genocide." After insulting Craig and bringing up the supposed genocide of the Canaanites he then says, "Would you shake hands with a man who could write stuff like that? Would you share a platform with him? I wouldn't, and I won't. Even if I were not engaged to be in London on the day in question, I would be proud to leave that chair in Oxford eloquently empty."

The article is much longer than that, but I only pasted Dawkins' answer for not debating Craig. So it seems he won't debate Craig because Craig doesn't shy away from giving an answer to the "genocide" account in the bible. I might be wrong, but wouldn't the debate be on the existence of God? How does arguing for or against the existence of God have anything at all to do with the account in Deuteronomy? I think Dawkins' answer is lousy. I know he has arguments against the existence of God so he should use them in a debate against Craig to show why his arguments dismantle Craig's arguments for the existence of God. His answer of Craig being an apologist for genocide is ridiculous.

Come on Dawkins! You're better than that....aren't you?

I think Paul Copan has a much better answer to the Canaanite problem in Deuteronomy.

"We should carefully note the language of "driving out" and "thrusting out" the Canaanites (Exod. 23:28; Lev. 18:24; Num. 33:52: Deut. 6:19; 7:1; 9:4; 18:12; Josh. 10:28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 39; 11:11, 14) or "dispossessing" them of their land (Num. 21:32). "Driving out" is not at all the same as the "wiping out" or "destroying" passages found in these same contexts. Upon examination, the former references are three times as numerous as the latter.[52] When a foreign army might pose a threat in the ANE, women and children would be the first to remove themselves from harm's way?not to mention the population at large: "When a city is in danger of falling," observes Goldingay, "people do not simply wait there to be killed; they get out. . . . Only people who do not get out, such as the city's defenders, get killed."[53] Jeremiah 4:29 suggests this:

At the sound of the horseman and bowman every city flees; They go into the thickets and climb among the rocks; Every city is forsaken, and no man dwells in them.

Hess draws the following conclusions: "There is no indication in the text of any specific noncombatants who were put to death." Indeed, the "justified wars" of Joshua "were against combatants."[54] We read in Joshua (and Judges) that, despite the "obliteration" language, there are plenty of Canaanite inhabitants who are not "driven out" but rather are living in the areas where Israel has settled. Joshua himself refers to "these [nations] which remain among you" (Josh. 23:12?13; cp. Josh. 15:63; 16:10; 17:13; Judg. 2:10?13). The process of driving them out would be a gradual one, as even Deuteronomy 7:22 anticipates and is reaffirmed in Judges 2:20?23.[55]

Israel's occupation of Canaan involved not simply military activity, but also infiltration and internal struggle.[56] In my previous article, I note that the text of Deuteronomy 7:2?5, Joshua, and Judges suggests that we have the language of (i) obliteration as well as (ii) acknowledgment of Canaanites as future neighbors. Goldingay comments that Israel knew how to read Torah: "It knew it was not to assume a literalistic understanding" of destroying the Canaanites. That is, Moses did not mean for this to be taken literally. Rather, as Goldingay notes, "Israel was to dispossess the Canaanites and destroy their forms of religion and have nothing to do with them." That is, Israel took this "totally destroy" command metaphorically or hyperbolically?which reflected the ANE language of bravado and exaggeration in warfare.[57]

To summarize, we should distinguish between two central aspects of the Canaanite question. On the one hand, herem includes stereotypical language of "all" and "young and old" and "man and woman"?even if women and children are not present. So far as we can see, herem is carried out in particular military/combatant settings (with "cities" and "kings"); this specific combatant scenario could well apply in the Amalekite case (1 Sam. 15). In these limited settings, herem is thoroughly carried out (involving even livestock [for example, 1 Sam. 15:9, 14])?though it allows, and hopes for, exceptions (for example, Rahab). The sweeping language which appears to involve only combatants is truly all-inclusive here. On the other hand, evident in Deuteronomy?Judges is the clearly exaggerated ANE language of utter obliteration and total destruction. These hyperbolic references to "totally destroy[ing]" run on parallel tracks with regular mention of many remaining Canaanite inhabitants after the "total destruction" (for example, Judg. 1). Additionally, we should take seriously the many references of "driving out" the Canaanites, to clear away the land for habitation, which does not require killing. Civilians would flee when their military strongholds were destroyed and no longer capable of protecting them."

Read the whole article by clicking here.

Update: WK responds to Dawkins' article.

"His entire column is easily dispatched using Dawkins’ own words against him, because he contradicts himself.

Dawkins has previously written this:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
(“God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American, November, 1995, p. 85)

Meanwhile, in his column, Dawkins claimed that God’s command to destroy the Canaanites was an instance of evil:

Most churchmen these days wisely disown the horrific genocides ordered by the God of the Old Testament. Anyone who criticises the divine bloodlust is loudly accused of unfairly ignoring the historical context, and of naive literalism towards what was never more than metaphor or myth. You would search far to find a modern preacher willing to defend God’s commandment, in Deuteronomy 20: 13-15, to kill all the men in a conquered city and to seize the women, children and livestock as plunder.

So, in one statement, there’s no good or evil, and in the next statement, there’s evil. That’s a contradiction, and it undermines his entire column, Q.E.D. You can’t claim that there is no standard of good and evil in one breath, and then make judgments of good and evil in the next. It’s self-refuting. Dawkins didn’t even try to respond to any of Craig’s standard arguments for God’s existence in the editorial, he just went off on a tangent about a few Bible verses that, even if true, might only defeat Judaism and Christianity in particular, but not the existence of God in general. And the debate “Does God Exist?” is about the latter."

Read the rest of his post here.

*****Update*****

Skeptic Daniel Came writes that Richard Dawkins' refusal to debate William Lane Craig is cynical and anti-intellecutalist.

Excerpt:

"In his latest undignified rant, Dawkins claims that it is because Craig is "an apologist for genocide" that he won't share a platform with him. Dawkins is referring to Craig's defence of God's commandment in Deuteronomy 20: 15-17 to wipe out the Canannites. Here is Craig's offending passage:

"[If] God's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of [the Canannite] children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven's incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives."

I am disinclined to defend the God of the Old Testament's infanticide policy. But as a matter of logic, Craig is probably right: if an infinite good is made possible by a finite evil, then it might reasonably be said that that evil has been offset. However, I doubt whether Craig would be guided by logic himself in this regard and conduct infanticide. I doubt, that is, that he would wish it to be adopted as a general moral principle that we should massacre children because they will receive immediate salvation.

But whatever you make of Craig's view on this issue, it is irrelevant to the question of whether or not God exists. Hence it is quite obvious that Dawkins is opportunistically using these remarks as a smokescreen to hide the real reasons for his refusal to debate with Craig – which has a history that long predates Craig's comments on the Canaanites.

As a sceptic, I tend to agree with Dawkins's conclusion regarding the falsehood of theism, but the tactics deployed by him and the other New Atheists, it seems to me, are fundamentally ignoble and potentially harmful to public intellectual life. For there is something cynical, ominously patronising, and anti-intellectualist in their modus operandi, with its implicit assumption that hurling insults is an effective way to influence people's beliefs about religion. The presumption is that their largely non-academic readership doesn't care about, or is incapable of, thinking things through; that passion prevails over reason. On the contrary, people's attitudes towards religious belief can and should be shaped by reason, not bile and invective. By ignoring this, the New Atheists seek to replace one form of irrationality with another."

Why suffering?

2011-09-30T09:50:00.002-05:00

It has been a busy month, so that is why it's been a while since I've written a blog post. Anyway, this first post will be on the question, "If God is all powerful and all good, why does he allow suffering?" This is a powerful question. Think about it for a second. If indeed God is all powerful, would he not be able to eliminate evil from the world? A being that is all powerful would be able to do so. If he doesn't then he is not good. Yet, Christians claim their God is all powerful and all good. If the God is all good, he wouldn't want his creatures to suffer at all, would he? I certainly wouldn't want my children to suffer. I would do everything in my power to stop the suffering and evil plaguing them. So, what's the deal? This God must not be all powerful and also all good. Or either he is indeed all good, but not all powerful. Something is up.

Mr. Hitchens has given the illustration that God is "up there" looking down on His creation with folded arms looking at the creation with indignation, like a malevolent dictator. On the surface, especially after hearing the dilemma I wrote above, that would seem how God is. Why is there suffering if God can do something about it? Since He doesn't, it would seem He doesn't care at all what happens to us.

Some pastors and Christians say a person suffers due to the judgment of God on their lives. I don't think we are in a position to say that. How can I know if a person's sickness or a person's car having been stolen is due to God's judgment for some sin in their life? R.C. Sproul wrote, "In the ninth chapter of John, the Pharisees say to Jesus, “Why was this man born blind? Was it because of his sin or the sins of his parents?” Jesus said, “Neither one.” We can’t come to the conclusion that an individual’s suffering in this world is in direct proportion to that individual’s sin. That was what Job’s friends did when they came to him and tormented him by saying, “Boy, Job, you’re really suffering a lot. This must be an indication that you’re the most miserable sinner of all.” But the Bible says that we can’t use such a formula. The fact is, if there were no sin in the world, there would be no suffering." 1 We are in no position to judge.

A better answer to the question comes from Greg Koukl. He tackles the question by asking a question (He learned this from Doug Geivett). He asks, "What makes you think that taking away evil in the world has anything to do with God's strength?"

Koukl then goes on to say:

God could have created us to make free will decisions without the possibility of choosing evil, but would we have genuine freedom? No, we would have had freedom in the larger sense of freedom, i.e., the freedom to make choices (what to eat, vocation, leisure), but we wouldn't have freedom in the narrow sense, which is moral freedom; we wouldn't have been able to make moral choices. Why is that important? Because God wanted to accomplish plenitude - the highest good possible; the best of all possible worlds requires moral freedom, which also brings the possibility of evil.

All that God made is good, even those things that appear evil to us are good. Our scope is limited because we are finite. If we could view things as a whole, we would be able to see that those things which appear to be evil are actually contributing ultimately to the greater good. This is difficult for us to understand, especially in a time when we are suffering because we want to know why x event is happening to us, but we simply do not know why we were in that place at that time. Some things are easy to know why. For example, if you touch a hot stove, you will get burned or if you willingly take a risk attempting to do a back-flip on your dirt bike; those are things that have answers, but not all of human suffering has easy answers. Cancer for instance does not have an easy answer, nor does being at the scene of a crime have an easy answer. These are things we are simply not in a position to judge "why" they happened.

William Lane Craig wrote, "To borrow an illustration from a developing field of science, Chaos Theory, scientists have discovered that certain macroscopic systems, for example, weather systems or insect populations, are extraordinarily sensitive to the tiniest perturbations. A butterfly fluttering on a branch in West Africa may set in motion forces which would eventually issue in a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean. Yet it is impossible in principle for anyone observing that butterfly palpitating on a branch to predict such an outcome.

The brutal murder of an innocent man or a child's dying of leukemia could send a ripple effect through history so that God's morally sufficient reason for permitting it might not emerge until centuries later or perhaps in another country. Our discussion of divine middle knowledge (chapter 26) stressed that only an omniscient mind could grasp the complexities of directing a world of free creatures toward one's pre-visioned goals. One has only to think of the innumerable, incalculable contingencies involved in arriving at a single historical event, say, the Allied victory at D‑day. This has relevance to the probabilistic problem of evil, for we have no idea of the natural and moral evils that might be involved in order for God to arrange the circumstances and free agents in them requisite to some intended purpose, nor can we discern what reasons such a provident God might have in mind for permitting some evil to enter our lives. Certainly many evils seem pointless and unnecessary to us ‑ but we are simply not in a position to judge." 3

In a lecture on the problem of evil, Craig said that the best thing we can do when we are suffering is to ask ourselves, "What can I learn from this?" He mentioned that he had to learn that, just like us, the hard way. He has dealt with suffering, just like the rest of us. The intellectual answer to the problem of evil is easy to deal with, but the emotional problem is tougher. I'll let Craig finish this post for me.

"Christ endured a suffering beyond all understanding: he bore the punishment for the sins of the whole world. None of us can comprehend that suffering. Though He was innocent, He voluntarily underwent incomprehensible suffering for us. And why? - because He loves us so much. How can we reject him who gave up everything for us?

When we comprehend his sacrifice and his love for us, this puts the problem of evil in an entirely different perspective. For now we see clearly that the true problem of evil is the problem of our evil. Filled with sin and morally guilty before God, the question we face is not how God can justify Himself to us, but how we can be justified before Him.

When God asks us to undergo suffering that seems unmerited, pointless, and unnecessary, meditation upon the cross of Christ can help to give us the moral strength and courage needed to bear the cross that we are asked to carry. So, paradoxically, even though the problem of evil is the greatest objection to the existence of God, at the end of the day God is the only solution to the problem of evil. If God does not exist, then we are locked without hope in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering. God is the final answer to the problem of evil, for He redeems us from evil and takes us into the everlasting joy of an incommensurable good, fellowship with Himself." 4

Sources:

1. R.C. Sproul - If God is all powerful, then why does he allow suffering?

2. Greg Koukl - The strength of God and the problem of evil

3. William Lane Craig - The problem of evil

4. Craig, ibid.

2 step program to any type of study

2011-09-23T11:27:00.000-05:00

I was checking out the weekly apologetics links at the super awesome blog Apologetics315 and clicked on the 12 step program to theological studies. The whole program is informative of course, but steps 10 and 11 are very important steps not just for theological studies, but for just about every study you will find yourself in.

10. Take a position

Some people are in a hopeless spiral of always listening to something new. They get into this method of studying theology and remain forever agnostic. We sometimes call this “academic agnosticism.” This relates to number two. Don’t be scared to take a position. Yes, it will separate you from others who don’t share your conviction, but it is the ultimate purpose of your studies. While indecisiveness is often the best position you can take (and is taken precisely because you have studied the issue (“informed agnosticism”)), it is not always the best decision. Take a position and hold to it to the degree that your studies will allow.

11. Discover the relative importance of the issue

Just because you may have taken a position does not mean that you are to militantly hold this position. Some theological issues are more important than others and, therefore, require a greater level of commitment.

These two steps are helpful. Yes, agnosticism is an easy position to take because all that is required is to say, "hey, I don't know!" and throw your hands in the air. Now, I know informed agnostics probably know a good deal about the two sides, but they could probably learn more by taking a position and studying further.

Step 11 is a humbling position and should be followed by all people. Because you take a position don't be militant. Study opposing arguments honestly and then weigh the evidence. There is a possibility you could be wrong.

Read the full twelve step program by clicking here.

Read all of the links at Apologetics315...it's a good site.

problem of pain, suffering, and general evil

2011-08-30T11:35:00.001-05:00

How original of a title right? Most philosophers label the human condition of suffering as "the problem of pain," "problem of suffering," or "the problem of evil," so I thought I would include each one. This weekend a friend of mine told me his tale, a very painful tale (emotionally) of suffering and addiction he has had to deal with for years upon years. Up until recently, the suffering was brutal; he has just recently gotten over the addiction part and he has entered recovery. Though the war in his mind and body is over, the grief and pain lingers with him. The question of why still rings the bell of his mind. Why do bad things happen to young people? He understands bad things happen, but why do bad things happen to innocent children? After hearing his journey, I honestly couldn't give an answer because I so absorbed the man's misery and anguish; how could I reply? I have never experienced the pain he went through. Some of you might be wondering what the man went through, but it's not my story to tell. It's his and I will leave it at that.

I mentioned that I couldn't give an adequate answer because I was so absorbed and burdened for the man. I knew what to say but I couldn't. I wonder if any of you have experienced that problem. I assume it was because I could almost see the misery all over him as he was telling me about his past problems and pain. I guess if he had been fully recovered at the time of the event, I wouldn't have been so empathetic and we could have had a discussion about suffering and God. This was a very existential moment for me. The human condition of such strong emotional suffering was right before my eyes; I had no idea what to say and then I realized that listening and showing concern through that is sometimes all the grieved want (notice I said sometimes).

What Kierkegaard wrote, "My life is one great suffering, unknown and incomprehensible to all others," sums up what my friend told me of his life thus far. Grief is not a strong enough word for such emotional suffering. True human depression is a terrible thing. My friend told me, I'll never forget it, that he has wished time and again that he was an animal so he wouldn't have to worry and deal with the things human beings deal with. Can you imagine that? His suffering is so real, so monstrous, that he wishes he was a cat, dog, bird, anything but human so he doesn't have to experience his suffering. I cannot imagine.

He didn't tell me this, but his situation reminds me of Heidegger's idea of the human condition. He said (I'm using my own words) that man is thrown into a world, without any prior knowledge or option, that was there before their existence and will be there after their existence. Why his account reminded me of Heidegger is because my friend asked why his problem happened at such a young age. Why? He didn't choose for that to happen to him. It was as if he had no option. Like an innocent citizen who witnesses a murder and then suffers the consequence of witnessing the murder, my friend didn't plan his predicament either. He had no option. It's as if he was thrown into the situation.

Why does this happen? Why do we seem to find ourselves in a world or situation we didn't plan? Well, in short, "stuff happens." That's what some folks say, "You know, stuff happens," but I find that inadequate and evasive. I think we all know deep down that chance isn't a good enough answer. Although, chance does take the blame off of "fate" or "God," so perhaps that's why some say in a chaotic, random, universe unplanned bad things happen to people. I don't think we have to resort to that conclusion.

Pain is real. Suffering is widespread. There is evil in the world.

In the next series of posts I want to examine the problem of evil a little further. Think of this as an online research between me and you. Morality has been the focus of my research (you can tell by looking around this blog), so the problem of evil seems like a good transition. I have posts on evil, but they aren't my words or research; I merely shared what I found, so I would like to do my own writing. In doing so, maybe we'll find the answers to our questions.

Why people are disappointed with marriage

2011-08-24T10:17:00.000-05:00

Fun. Laughter. Happiness. Good times. No worries. Is this how life is supposed to be? Is our definition of loving life and seeing good days measured by the amount of happiness in our lives? Now, this isn't just aimed at the "singles," rather the post is aimed at marriage and what people tell us a good marriage is.

I was contemplating the notion that a marriage is defined as "good" by how "happy" the couple is. Now, I don't want you to get the impression from me that I think a couple isn't supposed to be happy in a marriage, no-no, I want to give you something to "munch" on. I found this article by Greg Koukl. The topic was on happiness and this is just one gem from the article:

"In the pursuit of happiness, human institutions are valid not because of transcendent ethic but because of temporal fulfillment, which is essentially self-centered. For example, marriage is a valid commitment as long as you're happy. If you're not happy anymore in the marriage, then you have reason to dissolve the marriage. But I would contend that if you're getting married to be happy, then you're getting married for the wrong reasons. Not that personal fulfillment is not a valid goal in some measure, but that's not what it's all about."

Notice Greg didn't condemn happiness in a marriage, rather he was making the point that happiness isn't the goal of marriage. So, what is the goal of marriage?

"You marry as a covenant agreement between two people to maintain a family unit in society to accomplish certain things, to help each other and embrace the events and issues of life together as helpmates, to raise a family and provide a stable environment for them. Though all of those things may breed a measure of happiness, they breed a measure of misery as well. That's why the covenant, the agreement, the commitment between husband and wife is not based on happiness. If it was you'd have to amend your vows to say, 'Until unhappiness do us part.'"

Did you catch it? We don't marry to be happy. Why do we marry? To "maintain a family unit in society to accomplish certain things, to help each other and embrace the events and issues of life together as helpmates, to raise a family and provide a stable environment for them." That's why man and woman marry. A person pursuing happiness alone will be horribly disappointed with marriage because marriage is not an institution for happiness alone.

Why are people disappointed with marriage? Well like I said above, both parties or a single party in the marriage is only seeking happiness. He or she usually thinks the other person can bring happiness because "Well, gee, Darin is just so funny, charming and fun...surely he can make me happy!" or "Man, Jane has a smoking body, surely she alone can satisfy me," and then shortly after marriage Darin is not so charming and funny anymore and Jane doesn't satisfy her husband's cravings. Why is that? Well, as Greg says later in the article: we have a cultural value, a cultural emphasis, on happiness. The pursuit of happiness becomes the rationale for all sorts of inappropriate behavior--"But she's not happy married to him. She's happy with me." "I'm not happy raising my children." "But I'm not happy when I'm not high." "I'm not happy going to work every day." These are the kinds of comments children make, not adults.

Greg is exactly right: "These are the kinds of comments children make, not adults." Instead of marriage being the incubator for raising a family, it's become the incubator for raising one's happiness and when marriage is defined that way, people will be disappointed with it every time. That's why some people are disappointed with marriage and why our culture is the way it is. When desire and happiness is your destiny, then you're going to have horrible results. Not to get too off topic, but consider what Robert McCain wrote:

"When you see a businessman divorce his wife of 30 years in order to marry his receptionist, or when Mary Kay LeTourneau wrecks her life to pursue a taboo romance with Vili Fualaau, these are manifestations of the same basic concept at the root of the gay-rights lobby’s “born that way” argument: Desire is destiny, and of all the happiness that we are free to pursue, no pursuit is more important than a sexual partner who fulfills our deepest longings.

When a belief so pervades a culture as this one has pervaded our culture, it becomes impossible for most people to understand it rationally, for they have no other frame of reference. We might compare it to liberal bias in the news media. As I’ve often said, most journalists don’t notice liberal bias for the same reason fish don’t notice water — it’s everywhere, and it’s all they’ve ever known."

When one's goal is happiness, one will almost always fail because happiness isn't a meaningful goal due to the "I want this and I want it now!" attitude. Greg says, "we cling to this expectation of personal happiness, we will define good life, appropriate life, successful living in the context of freedom from problems and pain. And it's to that degree that life will deliver to us the severest disappointment, because life is not like that."

How should we look at marriage? I married my wife because I love who she is. I wanted to raise a family with her. I wanted to be faithful to her, to protect her, and to grow old with her. We fit together. Do we disagree on some things? Yeah, but not on major things like our goals, which is very important in a marriage. I don't recommend marrying someone you disagree with on goals and ultimate issues. Different tastes in movies and music are understandable (actually I learned of new music from my wife, which is cool).

I really like how Greg ends his piece: "Make it your goal to be faithful. Happiness will take care of itself. And the times that it doesn't, so what? Generally, if I'm really bummed out, I don't despair because there's probably nothing critically wrong with me, and it probably won't last. And if I'm really thrilled about something I enjoy it, but I don't cling to it because sooner or later I'll return to normal living, and that's OK--no guilt trips. And I never expect anything in this life to sustain me at anything like a blissful level."

I couldn't end this post any better.

Is woman the dream of man?

2011-08-18T08:43:00.002-05:00

*This post goes along with the post Are men used by women for children?

To contrast with yesterday's post, I looked up another view on woman and the view comes from the 19th century existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Two quotes I want to share with you.

"The man who feels no impulse toward the study of women may, as far as I am concerned, be what he will; one thing he certainly is not, he is no aesthetician."

"When God created Eve, He let a deep sleep fall over Adam; for woman is the dream of man."

Both quotes come from his work, Either/Or.

You can see Kierkegaard's view of woman does indeed contrast sharply with that of Nietzsche who said, "Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent," and "Woman's love involves injustice and blindness against everything that she does not love... Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or at best cows..." 1. However, I still agree with what I wrote I yesterday on how some women to use men as a means for a child. Some women are like that, but just because some women are like that doesn't mean *all* women are only interested in having a child. There are women who want a long, loving, lasting relationship with a man. Kierkegaard did not condemn all women like Nietzsche apparently did (I haven't read all of Nietzsche's works), rather he held women in a higher regard.

Consider the first quote how Kierkegaard basically said the man who doesn't study women obviously doesn't care for the beauty. What Kierkegaard is saying here is that woman is "the beautiful" and the man who doesn't seek the woman or appreciate the woman or even put the woman on a pedestal does not care for anything of beauty at all. Woman is the "dream of man," as Kierkegaard put it.

Good women are worth dying for. I believe that. Good women are to be put on the highest pedestal and the husband should love her more than himself. I agree totally with Martin Luther that, "There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage." Consider what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves, "Need-love says of a woman 'I cannot live without her'; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection — if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all."

I have not lived long enough myself to give experiential advice on love, women, and man, however I do study and respect, those who are older than me and those who died long ago, their words and wisdom on such things. Pessimistic as he was, Nietzsche was correct in his view on bad women and such women should be avoided because they will only bring you pain (also for my female readers bad men will only bring you pain-it cuts both ways) but Kierkegaard is correct in that woman is the "dream of man," and such a woman should be pursued, studied, and loved sacrificially because she is beautiful and more than worth your time.

Sources

1. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra - On the Friend

Are men used by women for children?

2011-08-17T08:30:00.002-05:00

Consider "For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child," by Friedrich Nietzsche. I was reading Nietzsche this morning when I came across this line and I realized Nietzsche wasn't too far off in his thinking this and he would be even more convinced of this if he was living with us today. Think of how many children today are born without knowing their father, either because of "accidental" pregnancy or by artificial insemination; most out-of-wedlock pregnancies are not unplanned.

From the article "Rejecting men, embracing children" by Helen Alvare':

"The recent news of the nearly 40% out of wedlock birth rate in the United States should pretty much rock our world as citizens and as Catholics. According to the Centers for Disease Control report, this means 1.7 million children were born to unmarried mothers in 2007, a figure 250% greater than the number reported in 1980"

What is the cause? She writes:

"First, the researchers concluded that the majority of children born to lone mothers could not correctly be deemed “unplanned.” Rather, many were planned or actively sought. And the majority were somewhere in the middle between planned and unplanned. In other words, many of these very young couples (it was not uncommon for the mothers to be 14 or 15 years old) explicitly or implicitly wanted a baby in their lives. Their reasons by and large would be familiar to anyone who has ever hoped for a child. They wanted someone who was an extension of their beloved, a piece of him or her. They wanted to love another person deeply."

The father? Nah, leave him out. He's not important is he? If women aren't using men as a means to an end, the end being children, then could it be for praise? Controversial it may be, but Ann Coulter recently made this very point:

"The mainstream media and Hollywood studios are constantly issuing propaganda about the joys and triumphs of single mothers. Thus, for example, the noted scientific periodical Us Weekly celebrated single motherhood with an article titled "The New Single Moms and How They Do It," which delusionally proclaimed that the 'sisters are doing it for themselves.'"

I know not every woman uses a man as a means to a child, but I also must admit Nietzsche wasn't radical in thinking such a thing. Is the thinking of a woman wanting a child without a man radical thinking? I wouldn't argue against the thought, nor should you because you need very strong arguments to prove otherwise.

Controversial for his arguments against single-motherhood, Wintery Knight details why single-motherhood is harmful and why traditional marriage is fruitful in this post on the Casey Anthony trial (you'll also find a cornucopia of other resources). Agree with him, hate him, WK has heard it all.

Thoughts on 2012 Election

2011-08-15T14:39:00.001-05:00

An interview with Mark of "How Mark C's It..."

How long have you been a conservative republican?

I don't know if I can actually qualify this question, as I don't think I was ever a democrat, so the answer would probably be most of my life.

What part of conservative ideology most persuaded you?

Being born in 1960, I am actually a child of the 60's, and it was more, as a kid, of what the Democrats stood for than what the Republicans believed. I knew I didn't like what the Democrats believed. Back then, Roe vs Wade was being decided, and I knew that abortion was murder and the Democrats were for it. I wasn't. That the Democrats seemed to be the ones who were happy with, and pushing drugs, and I was all against drugs and drug use. With Richard Nixon in the White House, Democrats were big in fighting for everything the President was against, and as a child, we were taught the President was the leader of our country, and we needed to follow what he was saying. This was before liberals had taken over the education system and started pushing that liberals and the left are always right, and that the right and conservatives were always wrong.

Is there anything in the left's ideology that you find helpful to the U.S.?

The need for a proper education is one of the things that I agree with on the left. The need for teachers to be better paid, and to have better opportunities to do their job. Teachers also need to have more leeway in what they teach, not follow set guidelines, and not be forced to teach some of the leftist thoughts, of white guilt, to the black and brown man. Teachers also need to NOT be unionized, as proven in the Los Angeles School Systems, most of the money given to schools for education is wasted on union bureaucracy, instead of where it should go, to books, classroom supplies, teacher incentives.

That is would be nice to have the safety net of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, but they are not sustainable with the left trying to give everyone everything without anyone having to pay anything for it.

What do you think conservative politicians need to campaign on to win the 2012 election?

Obama and his ilk are very big in running a bully pulpit on how Republicans don't care about the poor, the middle class, only the rich, and big business. The Republicans understand the world and how business is run. There is an old saying on the Golden Rule, not the REAL Golden Rule of 'Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you", but He who has the Gold, MAKES THE RULES. Businesses make money, for themselves and their shareholders, and they will always make money. If you took all the worlds wealth and split it equally to all the inhabitants of the world, in a few years, all of those who are currently wealthy, would be so again. So, Conservatives need to show their concern and empathy for the middle and lower class, and to do things to help them, and to thump their chests when they do, because that is exactly what the Democrats do, they thump their tiny sized chests and say, LOOK AT ME and what I did. And that garners them TONS of attention. But in reality, that is all they care about, the photo op, the press release, the sound bite. If Barney Frank, and Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid really want to do something for the poor and unfortunate, then let them give away their personal wealth to the organizations that help the poor. Somehow Barack Obama made 7 million last year, by his tax return, so, come on, cut some loose, give some to a CHURCH that feeds the poor, to a HOMELESS SHELTER, that takes care of those less fortunate. Democrats are good at spending money that ISN'T THEIRS to help those who need it, and then blaming others when someone says, "But who is going to pay for it?"

Is there one Republican candidate (so far) who you think can win the 2012 presidential election?

Boy, is that a tough one. Michelle Bachman is way to polarizing, and will tear the Republican Party apart, as it is, being a Tea Party Selectee, she will have part of the established party against her. Rick Perry is too wishy washy, even though he just entered the race, he waited, and that doesn't sit well with myself or others. Ron Paul has GREAT ideas, but he is more than a RINO, he is more a Libertarian. Herman Cain is GREAT, has run companies, successfully, something Barack Obama has never done, and Barack keeps saying he inherited the problems, that he as a Senator helped put into place, and after 31 months, still has no answers to fix. Rick Santorum, well, I know virtually nothing about him, and as for Newt, well, he is more than done, and should drop out very soon, following the lead of Tim Pawlenty. As for the leading candidate, Mitt Romney, he really can't decide if he is a Democrat or a Republican. The things he did as Governor of Massachusetts, showed he tried to be a Democrat, and look how well it turned out for them. The Health Care in that state is a disaster, and I don't see Mitt standing up to take responsibility for it. I won't even get into his religion, as I feel that Mormons are misled. The rest, well, they are just filler to take up space and get ideas into the campaign, but should drop out soon enough. Sadly, none of them really can take on the Barack machine and win. Barack has the media on his side, and none but Fox News will call him on his bullshit, and then they are branded racists because they don't follow him blindly like G.E./NBC and the others do.

Is there a Republican you think should run, but isn't running in this election?

Chris Christie is the best chance to destroy Barack, and he is the Governor of New Jersey, and he is happy to be so, and is happy to do what he was elected to do. And I do find favor with him for it. Rick Perry is kind of deserting Texas to run for President, which is why I think if people want to run for and elected position, they should quit the job they currently have. Step out into the unknown, succeed or fail, but not fall back position. Rick should step down as Governor of Texas, Ron Paul and Michelle Bachman should step down from their positions, etc... And if there was any justice in the world, Barack Hussien Obama would step down as President, AND NOT RUN again.

What does President Obama need to do to recover from his failings, or can he even recover?

He needs to do something he has yet to do, grow a pair of balls, step up and say, I am in over my head, always have been, and need help fixing this thing. Man Up and say he has been wrong to keep placing blame on others when he is as clueless as a newborn babe, and say that tough choices need to be made, on his watch, to the entitlement programs he has championed, and that he can fix things, with the right help. Take responsibility for crappy decisions, and dumbass people he has put in place. Timothy Geithner has been a failure as has Ben Bernanke. Look to people who are smarter than him, as there are so many, and listen to their opinions, foment a plan, and then implement the plan. Then he could garner some respect.

Favorite President?

Hard to say, Kennedy did some wonderful things, and some think he was more Republican then Democrat, which says a lot being from where he was from, but his father's business background, it would make sense. Lincoln freed the slaves, which is monumental, and got the country back together, which was even MORE monumental. Teddy Roosevelt did great things in his time in office, including showing the importance of national parks, and conservation. And then there is Tricky Dicky, Richard Nixon, who helped to stop a recession, get us out of a war, and he ruled with an iron fist, there was no questioning, he just did it. I know some would say Reagan, and he did some very good things, but he also helped to increase the debt ceiling, and to lead us towards this down fall that we are in. Yes, defeating the Soviet Union and keeping freedom alive was expensive, but there was no plan for follow up, and that lead us down an ugly road.

Mark Driscoll thinks I'm an atheist?

2011-08-03T09:19:00.000-05:00

I usually like Mark Driscoll, but I must take contention with his thinking Cessationists are in the same camp as atheism and deism. To be honest, I'm not sure how even puts atheism and deism in the same camp either, but it's really radical to put cessationists in there. Why does he do it? I'll let him speak for himself.

"Now some of you will have resistance to this and let me tell you why, this will be very controversial, it may be because you are worldly. Cessationism is worldliness. Let me explain it to you, you've got Renee Descartes "Cogito ergo sum", I think therefore I am. In an effort to defend Christianity from some of its critics, he begins with his epistemological presupposition: "Where will I start? I think therefore I am". So the two founding, if you look at this like a Jenga game, the first two pieces that get laid down in something called the modernistic enlightenment project, individualism and rationalism. "I think", that's in "I'm an individual and my mind, my brain, the three pounds of me between my ears", that is the essence of what it means to posses the "Imago dei", to bear the image and likeness of God. Out of that what invariably comes is the modern enlightenment project, based upon individualism and rationalism. Now, out of this comes as well skepticism, after a while you start reading in the Bible, "Jesus walked on water?". You start becoming skeptical of supernatural claims. So it's like William Barclay come[sic] along " well maybe he's walking along the shore of the water and it look like he was walking on the water", we're trying to find ways to explain away what the Bible says plainly. Because it doesn't fit cleanly within a modernistic, rationalistic uh paradigm of thinking. So in that way Christians start thinking more like Hume than C.S. Lewis. Alright?

Hume is really the modern rationalistic thinker who set in motion opposition to the supernatural, to the miraculous. So it starts with rationalism, individualism as part of modernism, this leads to skepticism, right?. If there is a God, then God created the world, and to use the language of Al Pacino in the devil's advocate, he's now an absentee landlord, and that he's left us here and he's governing life as we know it by a set of laws; but he's so sovereign that he's gone, he's not transcendent and imminent, just gone. What happens then is the assumption is made that none of these natural laws can be violated, therefore the supernatural is impossible if not unlikely.

This plays itself out in three ways: Number one, there's atheism. There is no God, there is no supernatural, there is nothing beyond the physical material world that can be objectively tested and retested according to scientific methodology. There is a vestige of modernism that tries to accommodate the spiritual aspect and it becomes deism. Where there is a God but this "god" is not involved in our world, he doesn't break in and violate natural law; the supernatural is not possible. This is Thomas Jefferson who sits down on the white house with a set of scissors and cuts all of the miracles out of the bible and publishes something called The Philosophy of Jesus Christ. This includes Unitarians, this includes very liberal mainline so called Christian denominations who are basically deists. There is a god, he is far away, doesn't have anything to do with us and the miracles can all be explained away, they are primitive, superstition, myths, misunderstandings. So it goes to Atheism, Deism and this will be controversial, Cessationism.

Now you know why I haven't said this publicly, I'm not sure I have a helmet big enough to deal with it, I'm gonna get battered a lot. But I believe that a result of modernistic worldliness in Christian form is hard cessationism. And that is saying: God could do a miracle but He doesn't and He won''t, but He could. So within that God's not really speaking, God's not really working and the supernatural gifts are not in operation; Healing, revelation, speaking in tongues, those kinds of things they are over in the God-used-to box. Even though I was reading this book that said he was the same yesterday, today and forever.

And so their argument even comes down to 1st Corinthians 13 which gets turned into origami, right? When the perfect comes the imperfect disappears, we'll see him face to face, the perfect is Jesus. The perfect is Jesus. But then what happens is, to defend this sort of modernistic rationalistic, cessationistic position, we throw up the craziest cooks in the charismatic camp and say well you don't want that do ya? uh no, no we don't. If it's nothing or that it's a real coin flip, cause neither is the real win."

The full pdf can be read here.

What's interesting is Driscoll thinks cessationism is modern or wasn't around untile Hume. As Frank Turk has pointed out:

"I am dying to see the historical evidence for the continuation of the gifts in the first 3 centuries of the church when it cannot be found in any of the primary sources for that period. You say elsewhere in the talk that you have it, and I'm looking forward to you showing us your evidence. When guys like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tatian, Clement, and Tertullian don't mention it at all, and they are framing the first post-biblical case for Christianity, and they can't possibly have modernistic, rationalistic, individualistic Enlightenment biases because it's 14 centuries too early for that, I hope you have something more than self-confidence and a winning smirk to carry the day."

I, like Frank, want to see the evidence.

So, what is cessationism? To begin, cessationism is not what Mark thinks it is. Cessationism is the view that the miraculous gifts such as tongues, healing, and prophecy ceased being practiced early on in church history. One reason for such a view is what Frank Turk pointed out that such gifts are not mentioned within the first post-biblical era. The classical view holds that the "sign" gifts (tongues, prophecy, and healing) are not in operation today by folks. Does God still intervene? Certainly. I would argue that it's highly unlikely such intervention is what you see on Christian television, e.g., crazy revivals broadcasted on GTV (Lakeland revival).

More resources on cessationism and the gifts

Cessationism and continuationists

Holy Molars

Gift of tongues

Charismatic gifts (21 pages)

Jesus, the recycled redeemer?

2011-08-01T12:34:00.001-05:00

*my title is from a STR resource

This post is going to be focused on sharing resources about Jesus and the dying-God savior myths.

First here is a video made by Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason.

More resources

Jesus, the recycled redeemer

Was Jesus Christ just a copycat savior myth?

Jesus myth lies: Dying and Rising Savior gods Argument Based upon Lies

Christians like wearing blindfolds

2011-07-29T09:18:00.003-05:00

Does a Christian have to be irrational in order to believe the truth-claims of the Bible? A step further, is it even irrational to be believe in a creator God of the universe? It all depends on the person actually. To be honest, there are irrational theists. There are those who find great comfort in saying, "It takes faith," when asked about their worldview. I will be so bold to say there are those who not only have comfort in that answer, but actually take pride in the answer of "I take it on faith," because they think they are really "spiritual" for leaving their mind in the street in matters of God and religion.

Let's look at some examples. The following example is from an article written by Kenneth Copeland.

"You have to act by faith, not according to your feelings or reasoning. Faith is based on eternal truth and is more dependable than the evidence of your physical senses. According to 2 Corinthians 4:18, we are not to look at things which are seen,but at things which are not seen. The things which are visibleare temporal, or changeable. The things which are invisible are eternal—they never change. Don’t focus your attention on what you perceive through your five physical senses. Keep your heart fixed on the Word of God. Then what you see will come in line with the Word."

I understand not making a decision based on feelings because a decision based on emotion is not a good move to make. However, how are you to act by faith if you abandon reason? I also must wonder what Copeland means by "Don't focus your attention on what you perceive through your five physical senses. Keep your heart fixed on the Word of God." How is one to fix his heart on the word of God if he must not perceive using his five senses? I know that's a bit sarcastic, but Copeland is promoting blind faith as if blind faith is virtuous and that irrationality is foreign to God and the Christian life. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Consider what R.C. Sproul says in this article.

"Any discussion of faith and reason has to ask the question, “What is faith?” The biblical answer, according to the author of Hebrews, is that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (11:1). The author goes on to say that by faith we understand that the world was formed by the Word of God. The first thing we notice in this assertion is that faith is something that is substantial, not ephemeral. Secondly, faith represents a type of evidence. It is the evidence of the unseen. At the heart of the concept of New Testament faith is the idea of trust, namely, that faith involves placing one’s trust in something. In this regard all human creatures are subject to depending at one point or another on faith. I am not an expert in medicine, so I must give a certain trust to the diagnoses offered to me by experts in the field. That trust may be provisional until I find that it is not based in substance or evidence. But in the meantime, to trust what we do not see is not necessarily a matter of being irrational. Without reason, the content of biblical faith would be unintelligible and meaningless. So we say that biblical faith is not the same as reason, but that faith is rational and reasonable. The first assertion that faith is rational means that faith is intelligible. It is not absurd or illogical. If biblical revelation were absurd and irrational, it would be utterly unintelligible and meaningless. The content of the Bible cannot pierce the soul of a sentient creature without first going through the mind. It was Augustine who declared that faith without evidence is credulity. At this point we understand that though faith is rational, it is also reasonable. Biblical faith does not call people to crucify their intellect or take irrational leaps of faith into the darkness with the hope that Christ will catch us. Rather we are called to leap out of the darkness and into the light."

Sproul accurately describes faith. Trusting in the evidence given by an object or person. I trust my mechanic to fix or service my car. I have good reason to put my faith in the mechanic to service my car with excellence. Why? Because of the track record. He has given me good reason to believe so! If faith is how Copeland explains it, i.e., wishing and speaking positively in attempt to make it true then the whole time I'm waiting on my car to be done I better look at the mechanic and speak, "You will fix my car! I know you will! I speak it and confess that it's true!" Why? Because I can't trust that my mechanic will fix my car based on his proven record of fixing my car in the past and rest easy knowing he is a good mechanic and my care is in good hands because that would be using reason and reason is a thing to be despised if you're a true Christian. What an absurd thing to believe.

I know I'm being snarky, but it's just so annoying to hear things like, "Christian, you must act on your faith by blindly wishing and speaking those things into existence, " or "Ya just gotta take those things on faith." Why? You wonder if these folks have studied church history or even read the Bible.

Consider what Greg Koukl says here:

"Here is what Peter said. Acts 2:36, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." There it is again. "Know for certain."

This is throughout the entire Scriptures. Exodus, Acts, Romans 1:4. Paul talked about Jesus who is the Son of God, who is declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. How do we know Jesus is the Son of God? Is that just a faith statement? Is it something we just wish were the case? Is that something we hope for in a leap of faith? Paul says he was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection. We know he was the Son of God because He raised Himself from the dead. Now, that is evidence."

In the book of 1 John we see this all brought together. 1 John 5:13, "These things," John says, "I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life."

You can know it, ladies and gentlemen. Remember how John started out his book? He started out by saying those things which we have seen, those things that we know personally. "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld and our hands handled concerning the Word of Life, and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life."

Do you think he is trying to get a point across there? He is saying, we've got the goods. We've got the evidence. Therefore our faith is not vain hope. It is not simply wishing. We've got convictions. We have put our trust in God based on the evidence, and that's what Biblical faith entails."

I can guarantee you your Christian life will be lived much better living a life of true faith. I hear people all the time (I have friends and family who subscribe to the Copeland idea of faith) speak as if they can't say anything "wrong" about themselves, e.g., you can't say "I have a cold," or "I'm having hear trouble," because then you don't have "faith" in God. I cannot imagine ever that God wants us to live that way. I don't read anywhere in scripture about people speaking positively 24/7 and never acknowledging their suffering. If you have a cold, you have a cold. Speaking the contrary will not heal you or make it go away. Faith is not wishing friends, faith is trusting in God and His promises based on evidence given to us by revelation.

What is the evidence you ask?

Start by looking here. Wintery Knight has an abundance of Christian resources for you to know for certain God exists and is the God as described in the Bible.

I don't buy kisses anymore

2011-07-27T09:45:00.002-05:00

*Had some time for a blog entry today. Didn't take long to write.

I don't normally give movie recommendations on my blog, but it's nice for a change.

I don't buy kisses anymore

Touching is a word that comes to mind for the movie. While admittedly a slow movie (I don't mean to be cruel using slow) it is a good movie. It's not as funny as I thought it would be, but few few movies have all the right elements. I experienced many emotions in this movie and somewhat related to Bernie, though I've never been manipulated by a woman, I can relate to being looked down on for being a fat under-achiever and not being smooth with the ladies. It's true.

The story is all about Bernie. One might think his love interest would be the star, but Bernie actually is. It's a story about a loser rising above his low self-image and actually coming out on top; socially and ethically. Personally, I didn't want him to forgive the girl, but I guess forgiveness is a part of overcoming oneself.

My rating? 7/10

It's a good movie. I would have bumped it up a point or two if it had a few more laughs. A 7 is a good score coming from me. I don't hand out 9's and 10's loosely.

Taking time off

2011-07-21T11:53:00.001-05:00

As the title says, I'm going to take some time off. I hope this post doesn't read with an arrogant tone, i.e., I'm not saying I have so many readers and admirers that I must tell them all I'm taking time off from blogging for a while to keep them from thinking I'm dead or quit blogging all together. I just thought I would be nice and say I won't be blogging for a while.

Why? Because I want to spend more time studying for a certification exam my employer wants me to take. Blogging, believe it or not, came be a time wasting hobby and it has taken time away from my studies.

I will still respond to comments and if my buddy Mark writes anything, I'll post it, but I'm taking time off from my writing and commenting on other blogs.

Will be back blogging again soon. Once I pass the certification exam I want to undertake a long blog series on Kant's moral argument, contrasting with Nietzsche's philosophy; that will be fun.

Google Plus will change the web

2011-07-21T08:33:00.003-05:00

Jason Hiner predicts that Google+ will change the web, here are some of his reasons.

Excerpt:

"Even with its rough edges and without the masses of humanity having access to Google+, the core experience is pretty powerful, and it’s easy to see where Google is going with this.

As I wrote over the weekend while diving into Google+, the most attractive part is how easy it is to find, add, and organize your friends (I cited that as the main reason you won’t hate Google+). The friend issue is the heart of all social networks, although it’s so obvious that it’s often overlooked. In fact, Twitter still isn’t very good at it, Facebook is a little better, but both of them now look like neophytes compared to the way Google+ does it.

The friend feature on Google+ is called “Circles,” and it turns out to be an intuitive mashup of friending (from Facebook) and following (from Twitter). Circles are basically sets of friends that you can drag and drop into groups, mirroring your existing social circles — Family & Friends, Colleagues, Local Techies, etc. — rather than just the one big lump of friends you have on Facebook that can result in moments of “worlds colliding,” since you have to share all of your updates with all of your friends. On Google+, you can selectively send updates to different circles, and you can quickly click between the news streams of your different circles.

You can also make circles for people you don’t necessarily know but are interested in following their updates (e.g. Tech Journalists, Famous Engineers, Web Celebrities, etc.). This is where Google+ echoes Twitter, because people don’t have to follow you back in order for you to add them to one of your Circles. At that point, you’ll see all of their public updates, and most of these folks make the majority of their updates public in order to be seen by more people (it’s the whole social media narcissism meme, and it has already transplanted itself on Google Plus).

The real killer feature to Circles in Google+ is how easy it is to find and add friends. Everywhere you see a user’s name or avatar you can simply mouse over it, click “Add to Circles,” and then select which circle to add them to. On Twitter, it took me about three years to find about 200 really interesting people (mostly in technology and the media) worth following. It took me less than three days to find that many on Google Plus. Of course, most of them are the same people, so Google+ has the advantage of speed by letting us quickly re-coagulate our existing social graph on the new service."

I’m not predicting Google+ will replace Facebook and/or Twitter. This will definitely not be a zero sum game. Facebook has the most to lose from Google Plus, but it’s going to be years before Aunt Jenny and your plumber show up on Google+ the way they recently showed up on Facebook (and it’s possible they never will). All three of these social networks — Facebook, Google+, and Twitter — will still be going strong three years from now. People will gravitate to them for different reasons. They’ll go to Twitter for news and to cyber-stalk celebrities. They’ll go to Facebook for private networking, water cooler chats, and games."

I have some friends who are test driving Google+ and they really like it. One said he liked it because when he goes to Google to search his social networking is right there in front of his face. I wouldn't like that, but hey everyone has different likes and dislikes. I'll definitely give Google+ a go just to try it out. I'm with Jason in that I don't think Google+ will replace Facebook or Twitter at all because none of the features are so outstanding that I want to delete my FB account and run to Google+. Some of things you can do in Google+ you can also do in FB. So, right now, there isn't anything Google+ is offering causing me to drool all over myself wanting it.

Read the rest of the post here.

Common misunderstandings of cosmological argument

2011-07-20T08:38:00.000-05:00

I don't write on the cosmological argument very much, mostly because I think I need to understand it MUCH better before I try to explain the details of it to others. I have a basic understanding of the argument so I could give the rundown of it to someone in person, but to thoroughly explain it, well I leave that to those who understand the argument in the finest of detail.

Wintery Knight shared the post, "Ed Fiser explains common misunderstandings of the cosmological argument" and it's an excellent post explaining why certain objections to the argument fail and aren't really objections to begin with, but rather are better understood as misunderstandings.

You can read the post by clicking here.

Here are the misunderstandings Fiser lists:

The argument does NOT rest on the premise that “Everything has a cause.”
“What caused God?” is not a serious objection to the argument.
“Why assume that the universe had a beginning?” is not a serious objection to the argument.
“No one has given any reason to think that the First Cause is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, etc.” is not a serious objection to the argument.
“The argument doesn’t prove that Christianity is true” is not a serious objection to the argument.
Science has shown such-and-such” is not a serious objection to (most versions of) the argument.
The argument is not a “God of the gaps” argument.
Hume and Kant did not have the last word on the argument. Neither has anyone else.
What “most philosophers” think about the argument is irrelevant.

Be sure to read the post in full at WK's blog.

What is hyper-calvinism?

2011-07-18T09:51:00.000-05:00

Kevin DeYoung gives a short summary of a book titled The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Non-conformity 1689-1765 written by Peter Toon; Kevin gives three lessons within the book. I'll give an excerpt focusing on the second lesson and then if you're interested, you can click on the link I'll provide to read the other two.

"2. Toon gives a solid definition of Hyper-Calvinism and it’s not the same as being really, really Reformed. In common parlance, Hyper-Calvinist simply means “I think you are too much of a Calvinist.” But that’s not a fair use of the term. Historically, Hyper-Calvinism has referred to a set of theological conclusions and practices, none of which mark any of today’s leading Calvinists.

Here’s Toon’s summary (with some paragraph breaks added):

[Hyper-Calvinism] was a system of theology, or a system of the doctrines of God, man and grace, which was framed to exalt and honour and glory of God and did so at the expense of minimising the moral and spiritual responsibility of sinners to God. It places excessive emphasis on the immanent acts of God–eternal justification, eternal adoption and the eternal covenant of grace. In practice, this meant that “Christ and Him crucified”, the central message of the apostles, was obscured.
It also often made no distinction between the secret and the revealed will of God, and tried to deduce the duty of men from what it taught concerning the secret, eternal decrees of God.
Excessive emphasis was also placed on the doctrine of irresistible grace with the tendency to state that an elect man is not only passive in regeneration but also in conversion as well. The absorbing interest in the eternal, immanent acts of God and in irresistible grace led to the notion that grace must only be offered to those for whom it was intended.
Finally, a valid assurance of salvation was seen as consisting in an inner feeling and conviction of being eternally elected by God. So Hyper-Calvinism led its adherents to hold that evangelism was not necessary and to place much emphasis on introspection in order to discover whether or not one was elect. (144-45)

So the main tenets include: little attention to message of the cross, no free offer of the gospel to call, no summons for men to be born again, a highly introspective doctrine of assurance, and collapse of the hidden and revealed will of God. This was Hyper-Calvinism, not simply being seriously Reformed."

For the other two points Kevin identifies click here.

R.C. Sproul gives a good, short explanation of Hyper-Calvinism in his commentary on Romans. I don't have the exact quote with me, but the main point he makes is that Hyper-Calvinists teach a symmetrical view of predestination, i.e., God decreed the elect's salvation from eternity, in time intervenes in their lives and creates saving faith in their hearts by grace. Those who aren't saved, God in time, intrudes into their lives and creates fresh evil in their souls (God causes sin) enuring their ultimate damnation. That is not orthodox reformed theology.

Explaining the Trinity

2011-07-15T12:01:00.003-05:00

I noticed in my stats tab an increase in reading Defense of the Trinity part 3, so I thought I would put all parts in one post.

The trinity is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. Mystery, unlike antinomy and paradox, does not mean contradiction, rather it means beyond reason, but not against reason. It is known only by revelation. The word trinity does not appear in the Bible, however, the concept is taught in the Bible. What is the concept? Simple:

1. There is one God

2. There are three distinct persons who are God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I'm quite certain that Christian and Jew alike agree that there is one God, no problem, yet there is some disagreement on the second part of the trinity concept: three persons who are God. This is quite controversial. On the surface, one might think it's even contradictory. Before I dive into scriptural proof for the trinity, I want to focus on the logic of the trinity; a philosophical defense of the trinity you could call it.

The Logic of the Trinity

There are principles of knowledge, one of which is the law of non-contradiction and it is the fundamental law of all rational thought. The law of non-contradiction informs us that something cannot be true and false at the same time and in the same sense. The doctrine of the trinity does not violate this law. To show this, I will state what the trinity is not.

Taken from the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics:

"The Trinity is not the belief that God is three persons and only one person at the same time and in the same sense. That would be a contradiction. Rather, it is the belief that there are three persons in one nature...Further, the Trinity is not the belief that there are three natures in one nature or three essences in one essence. That would be a contradiction. Rather, Christians affirm that there are three persons in one essence. This is not contradictory because it makes a distinction between person and essence. Or, to put it in terms of the law of non-contradiction, while God is one and many at the same time, he is not one and many in the same sense. He is one in the sense of his essence, but many in the sense of his persons. So there is no violation of the law of non-contradiction in the doctrine of the Trinity."

So, one could say that God has one "What" and three "Whos." The three persons (Whos) share the same essence (What). Norman Geisler stated, "So God is a unity of essence with a plurality of persons. Each person is different, yet they share a common nature." God is one in his substance. The unity is in his essence, while the plurality is in God's persons, or how he relates within himself. Descriptions of this relationship are within the Bible, showing how the Son and the Father relate, and how the Father sends the Spirit as a Messenger, and the Spirit is a Witness to the Son (John 14:26). Reading descriptions like that help us to understand the functions within the unity of the Godhead. "Each is fully God, and each has his own work and interrelational theme with the other two. But it is vital to remember that the three share the same essence, so that they unify as one Being," (Geisler).

Illustrations of the Trinity

The illustrations given will be my attempt to show the unity of God while showing a simultaneous plurality. Hopefully, the following analogies will shine light on some misunderstandings. First, there is a misconception that believing in the Trinity is believing in three gods; doesn't 1 + 1 + 1 = 3? It does if you add them, but what if you multiplied one three times? Will you not get one? God is triune, not triplex. So, we can see from this that there is no mathematical contradiction to the Trinity.

Another illustration is the triangle, probably the most popular illustration of the Trinity. A triangle has three corners, inseparable, and simultaneous to one another. This explains the Trinity well in a simple way that is easy to remember. There is also a moral illustration suggested by Augustine. *The Bible informs us that "God is love" (1 John 4:16). Love involves a lover, a beloved, and a spirit of love between lover and loved. The Father might be likened to the lover, the Son to the beloved, and the Holy Spirit to the Spirit of love. This is a strong example because it is personal, in that it involves love, which comes from persons.

There is also an illustration based in human nature; the relation of the human mind, to its ideas, and the expression of those ideas in words. So we have mind to ideas to words. There is a unity among the three without having an identity, in that sense, the three illustrate the Trinity.* So I hope the above illustrations give a better understanding of the Trinity. In my opinion, they are great examples to share with others for their simplicity and they are also very illustrative.

Scriptural Defense

Ah, here comes the part the critics have been salivating at the mouth for me to get to: the evidence in scripture. Are you ready? I'm ready to get into it too because there is good evidence in the Bible for the Trinity. I'm quite sure most Christians understand God as Father, there really isn't much debate on that so I'll start with the deity of Christ, or the Son of God and then end with the Holy Spirit.

The Son is God

Jesus claimed to be Yahweh God; YHWH translated in some versions Jehovah, was the special name for God revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14, the "I AM WHO I AM," scripture. Jesus declared "Before Abraham was, I am," in John 8:58. That declaration claims equality with God and existence before Abraham. Also, when you couple the verses Luke 4:8, "And Jesus answered him, "It is written, "'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve." and Hebrews 1:6, "And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him," you see that God is the only being to be worshiped, yet the Son is worshiped in Hebrews 1:6, along with Joshua 5:13-15; Mark 5:6; John 9:38; Luke 24:52; Rev. 7:9, 10; and Phil. 2:10,11. In those verses the Son is worshiped, yet God alone is to be worshiped, so we can see that the Son is God.

Now, it's important to note that the Son and the Father are not two separate beings, for God is one being: "The Lord our God, the LORD is one" (Deaut. 6:4). Both Jesus (Mark 12:29) and the apostles repeat this formula in the NT (1 Cor. 8:4, 6). So, there is one being and that is God.

The Holy Spirit is God

The Holy Spirit is called "God" (Acts 5:3-4). Walter Martin explains the verse well, "The literal force of the Greek verb translated "to lie" is to impose a lie upon someone. In this case the someone was not men (verse 4) nor even Peter, but God in the Person of the Holy Spirit. The parallel of verses 3 and 4 clearly indicates that the Holy Spirit is a person and is God."
*The Holy Spirit possesses the attributes of deity: omnipresence (Ps 139:7-12) and omniscience (1 Cor. 2:10, 11). He is associated with God the Father in creation (Gen. 1:2). He is involved with other members of the Godhead in the work of redemption (John 3:5-6; Rom 8:9-17, 27-27; Titus 3:5-7). He is associated with other members of the Trinity under the "name" of God (Matt 28:18-20). Finally, the Holy Spirit appears, along with the Father and Son, in New Testament benedictions (for example, 2 Cor. 13:14).

I hope to communicate clearly that not only does the Holy Spirit possess deity, but that he also has a differentiated personality. I'll give three reasons why the Holy Spirit has a differentiated personality.

Personal Pronouns

Scripture refers to the Holy Spirit with personal pronouns (John 14:26; 16:13).

He Does Things Only Persons Can Do

Teach (John 14:26; 1 John 2:27)
Convict of sin (John 16:7-8)
Be grieved by sin (Ephesians 4:30).
Intercedes (Romans 8:26).

The Holy Spirit has intellect (1 Cor. 2:10, 11), will (1 Cor. 12:11), and feeling (Eph. 4:30).

I will close with an excerpt from an article written by John Macarthur:

In describing the Trinity, the New Testament clearly distinguishes three Persons who are all simultaneously active. They are not merely modes or manifestations of the same person (as Oneness theology incorrectly asserts) who sometimes acts as Father, sometimes as Son, and sometimes as Spirit. At Christ’s baptism, all three Persons were simultaneously active (Matt. 3:16–17), with the Son being baptized, the Spirit descending, and the Father speaking from Heaven. Jesus Himself prayed to the Father (cf. Matt. 6:9), taught that His will was distinct from His Father’s (Matt. 26:39), promised that He would ask the Father to send the Spirit (John 14:16), and asked the Father to glorify Him (John 17:5). These actions would not make sense unless the Father and the Son were two distinct Persons. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit intercedes before the Father on behalf of believers (Rom. 8:26), as does the Son, who is our Advocate (1 John 2:1). Again, the distinctness of each Person is in view.

There is only one God. The members of the Godhead are co-existent, co-equal, one in essence and yet three in person. Remember the mathematical illustration of 1 x 1 x 1 = 3, and the love illustration to help you with understanding the doctrine of the Trinity. It is a monotheistic belief rooted in scripture; not a belief in three gods in one or a belief of one person manifesting himself in three ways. Norman Geisler puts the Trinity in words as, "while God is one and many at the same time, he is not one and many in the same sense. He is one in the sense of his essence, but many in the sense of his persons."

Sources:

Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics

Augustine, On the Trinity

Walter Martin, King James Study Bible

John Macarthur, "Our Triune God."

More information

My discussion with a oneness on why he doesn't hold the Trinity as true

R.C. Sproul, "Mystery of the Trinity."

William Lane Craig, "The Trinity and God's Omni-Attributes

William Lane Craig's "higher learning" article on the Trinity.

Walter Martin Video What is the Trinity?

Excellent article, "What is the doctrine of the Trinity?" by Matt Perman

The Trinity: One What and Three Whos by Ken Samples

Image taken from this website.

Nietzsche, "Kant became an idiot."

2011-07-13T11:49:00.001-05:00

This line is from Friedrich Nietzsche's book The Anti-Christ. Why does Nietzsche call Immanuel Kant an idiot? Here is an excerpt:

"A word now against Kant as a moralist. A virtue must be our invention; it must spring out of our personal need and defense. In every other case it is a source of danger. That which does not belong to our life menaces it; a virtue which has its roots in mere respect for the concept of “virtue,” as Kant would have it, is pernicious. “Virtue,” “duty,” “good for its own sake,” goodness grounded upon impersonality or a notion of universal validity — these are all chimeras, and in them one finds only an expression of the decay, the last collapse of life, the Chinese spirit of Konigsberg. Quite the contrary is demanded by the most profound laws of self-preservation and of growth: to wit, that every man find his own virtue, his own categorical imperative. A nation goes to pieces when it confounds its duty with the general concept of duty. Nothing works a more complete and penetrating disaster than every “impersonal” duty, every sacrifice before the Moloch of abstraction. — To think that no one has thought of Kant’s categorical imperative as dangerous to life! …"

"'Duty'… impersonal and universal – phantom expressions of decline, of the final exhaustion of life… each one of us should devise his own virtue, his own categorical imperative… Kant’s categorical imperative should have been felt as mortally dangerous… What destroys more quickly that to work, to think, to feel without inner necessity, without a deep personal choice… as an automaton of duty? It is a recipe for decadence, even for idiocy… Kant became an idiot." 1

Nietzsche was not subtle in speaking out against Kant's moral philosophy. To understand Nietzsche's critique of Kant's moral philosophy, we must first understand Nietzsche's moral philosophy. In his critique of Kant's deontological ethics and categorical imperative you can read that Nietzsche thought "...each one of us should devise his own virtue, his own categorical imperative," essentially going for a relativistic approach to morality and against objective morality. Nietzsche found moral systems based on good and evil to be a "calamitous error" 2 and sought to devise a more naturalistic moral system. The best moral system according to Nietzsche is one called master-slave morality, which borrows from Homeric Greece and is as follows: value arises from those things that are "life-affirming" e.g., health, wealth, power; which are labeled "good," and "life-denying" e.g., poor, weak, pathetic, sick; which are labeled as "bad."

We can see here that Nietzsche, whether he admitted it or not, had a very naturalistic sense of morality. He obviously grounded morality in a survival of the fittest philosophy. The strong survive and should not be suppressed by the Christian morality of submission. Now, Nietzsche thought morality as in submission, charity, kindness, etc. is good for the masses, but exceptional people should be left to follow their inner law. The will to power should not be suppressed by the idea of being selfless. Nietzsche thought of virtue as being our own invention, i.e., "...personal invention springing out of personal need and defense". Ah, so if Nietzsche were alive today he would agree with the idea of man having a selfish gene (selfish desires disguised as moral actions; think of "I'll scratch your back if you scratch my back," and seemingly moral actions are actually your genes wanting to make it into the next generation - a mother rushing into a burning building to rescue her child).

Nietzsche said the exceptional people should become who they are. He wanted the exceptional people to live like the Homeric heroes, unrestrained by slave-morality and become supermen\overmen. Nietzsche said "What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.... The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth.... Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss … what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end." 3

I suppose Nietzsche thought of Kant's moral philosophy as imposing on exceptional people becoming who they are and thus stopping the coming of the overman. Maybe I'm wrong, but that would be why Nietzsche called Kant an idiot because of a major difference in worldview. Nietzsche essentially said, "You idiot! Don't you understand who man is? Don't you understand what man needs to become? Your ridiculous moral-system is holding you, no us, back!" I didn't write it quite as eloquent as Nietzsche would have, but you get the point.

I do wonder how a formal debate over morality would have went between Nietzsche and Kant. I'll wrap up the contrast between Nietzsche and Kant in another post.

Sources:

1. Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ § 11

2. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, "Why I Am a Destiny", §3

3. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Prologue, §§3–4

Wikipedia.

Image taken from this website.

The conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.

2011-07-13T08:11:00.000-05:00

Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.

"The conservative is not opposed to social improvement, although he doubts whether there is any such force as a mystical Progress, with a Roman P, at work in the world. When a society is progressing in some respects, usually it is declining in other respects. The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.

Therefore the intelligent conservative endeavors to reconcile the claims of Permanence and the claims of Progression. He thinks that the liberal and the radical, blind to the just claims of Permanence, would endanger the heritage bequeathed to us, in an endeavor to hurry us into some dubious Terrestrial Paradise. The conservative, in short, favors reasoned and temperate progress; he is opposed to the cult of Progress, whose votaries believe that everything new necessarily is superior to everything old.

Change is essential to the body social, the conservative reasons, just as it is essential to the human body. A body that has ceased to renew itself has begun to die. But if that body is to be vigorous, the change must occur in a regular manner, harmonizing with the form and nature of that body; otherwise change produces a monstrous growth, a cancer, which devours its host. The conservative takes care that nothing in a society should ever be wholly old, and that nothing should ever be wholly new. This is the means of the conservation of a nation, quite as it is the means of conservation of a living organism. Just how much change a society requires, and what sort of change, depend upon the circumstances of an age and a nation.

Such, then, are ten principles that have loomed large during the two centuries of modern conservative thought. Other principles of equal importance might have been discussed here: the conservative understanding of justice, for one, or the conservative view of education. But such subjects, time running on, I must leave to your private investigation.

The great line of demarcation in modern politics, Eric Voegelin used to point out, is not a division between liberals on one side and totalitarians on the other. No, on one side of that line are all those men and women who fancy that the temporal order is the only order, and that material needs are their only needs, and that they may do as they like with the human patrimony. On the other side of that line are all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal."

Taken from the Russell Kirk Center

I hope you've enjoyed the 10 conservative principles.

What is a democrat? Updated version

2011-07-12T14:38:00.003-05:00

But I also realize it isn't easy being a Democrat. There are people who are trying to hijack your party, they are Liberals and Progressives, who all wear the Democrat hat. Unlike Republicans who only have Conservatives who claim to be Republicans, they at least have the same goal and thoughts in mind. And no, you cannot really place the Tea Party in with the Republicans, as they themselves aren't very sure what they believe in, as there are so many factions of the Tea Party.

So, what does the dictionary say is a Democrat?

Definition of DEMOCRAT
1
a: an adherent of democracy b: one who practices social equality
2
capitalized: a member of the Democratic party of the United States

Okay, that isn't to say that Republicans aren't believers in Democracy, anyone engaged in the political system of the United States fits that description. So, let's look at the two subsets of the Democratic Party.

Definition of LIBERAL
: a person who is liberal: as a: one who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional, or established forms or ways b capitalized: a member or supporter of a liberal political PARTY (see 1LIBERAL) c: an advocate or adherent of liberalism especially in individual rights

How about Progressives, what does the dictionary say about Progressives?

Definition of PROGRESSIVE
1
a: one that is progressive b: one believing in moderate political change and especially social improvement by governmental action

So, a liberal is all for change, in individual rights. That explains why Homosexuals and Potheads want to be liberals. They can do what they want, and no personal responsibility. I find it interesting that Democrats/Liberals believe in killing an unborn child, abortion, but do not, in any way shape or form accept punishment for crimes, if it involves the death penalty.

So, they believe in killing the innocent and protecting the guilty???? WTH? They accept the premise that what you do in your own home is fine. Which is kind of a good thing. But what if what you do in your own home is against the law? Incest, against moral laws. Growing and selling pot/weed/ganja/marijuana, all if it is acceptable, even if the government says no, it isn't right. And that is where we have to decide, as a country what is acceptable behavior, both in and out of the home, as it will eventually spill OUT INTO THE PUBLIC. The child who gets mistreated, to a democrat, should be allowed to do whatever they want, including murder, they aren't responsible because they had a rough childhood, and it is owed them. HORSECRAP! I believe we have a perfect example of what a liberal is, two of them actually. Casey Anthony and Jared Loughner, who the media portrayed as a Right Wing Republican, and upon entering his house, it was found he was a liberal, and very far left leaning liberal. THAT is often left out of discussions about the heinous crime he committed... The left, or liberal media would have you continue to think that Loughner was and is a right wing nut who is big into guns and killing, not that he is actually part of the 'thinking and caring culture of the left'.

Democrats/Liberals always want to do things with your money, to make up for something you didn't do, or have anything to do with.

A good example of government intrusion is found in this article, "Should parents lose custody of super obese kids?" found here.

Excerpt:

It has happened a few times in the U.S., and the opinion piece in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association says putting children temporarily in foster care is in some cases more ethical than obesity surgery.

Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist at Harvard-affiliated Children's Hospital Boston, said the point isn't to blame parents, but rather to act in children's best interest and get them help that for whatever reason their parents can't provide.

State intervention "ideally will support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible. That may require instruction on parenting," said Ludwig, who wrote the article with Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and a researcher at Harvard's School of Public Health.

"Despite the discomfort posed by state intervention, it may sometimes be necessary to protect a child," Murtagh said.

This is, of course, just a simple guide to what a democrat is by a republican, and I am sure a democrat would write something about republicans being unthinking, uncaring, socially backwards, big business drones who don't care about the people who are driven into the dirt by the overlords. And they would be wrong.

Democrats believe in giving everyone everything they want, without actually having to do anything for it. They believe in entitlements, such as the pyramid of social security and Medicare, which has been set for failure since its inception. Currently the Republican Party wants to make the tough choices and fix it. Democrats want to spend 64% of the national Gross Domestic Product to pay for all of this fairytale that was foisted on the American Public by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Who, by the way, was a progressive democrat. So, people who never paid into the system were allowed to take from it, and now the great great great great great great grandchildren will be paying the tab for it.

So, while the Democrats like to think they are progressive, Obama thinking he is among the best progressives, they are actually hurting and slowly killing our country.

On a personal note, the reason I didn't like Obama had nothing to do with him being black, it had to do with him being an empty suit. Full of bullshit and bluster, but no ideas. I was a disgusted at the Republican party for not putting up someone to run against him other than the old guard.

At least that is how Mark C's it...

So, do you think I am right, wrong, or just don't care? Let Reformed Seth know, and trust me, he will let me know.

Sources:

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democrat

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/liberals

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/progressives

Conservatives perceive the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions

2011-07-12T07:58:00.000-05:00

Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions

"Politically speaking, power is the ability to do as one likes, regardless of the wills of one’s fellows. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic. When every person claims to be a power unto himself, then society falls into anarchy. Anarchy never lasts long, being intolerable for everyone, and contrary to the ineluctable fact that some persons are more strong and more clever than their neighbors. To anarchy there succeeds tyranny or oligarchy, in which power is monopolized by a very few.

The conservative endeavors to so limit and balance political power that anarchy or tyranny may not arise. In every age, nevertheless, men and women are tempted to overthrow the limitations upon power, for the sake of some fancied temporary advantage. It is characteristic of the radical that he thinks of power as a force for good—so long as the power falls into his hands. In the name of liberty, the French and Russian revolutionaries abolished the old restraints upon power; but power cannot be abolished; it always finds its way into someone’s hands. That power which the revolutionaries had thought oppressive in the hands of the old regime became many times as tyrannical in the hands of the radical new masters of the state.

Knowing human nature for a mixture of good and evil, the conservative does not put his trust in mere benevolence. Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web of restraints upon will and appetite—these the conservative approves as instruments of freedom and order. A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty."

Taken from the Russell Kirk Center

Conservatives uphold voluntary community and oppose involuntary collectivism

2011-07-11T13:56:00.000-05:00

Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism

"Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. Some of these functions are carried out by local political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they are kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community. But when these functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority, then community is in serious danger. Whatever is beneficent and prudent in modern democracy is made possible through cooperative volition. If, then, in the name of an abstract Democracy, the functions of community are transferred to distant political direction—why, real government by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human dignity.

For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little communities of which it is composed. A central administration, or a corps of select managers and civil servants, however well intentioned and well trained, cannot confer justice and prosperity and tranquility upon a mass of men and women deprived of their old responsibilities. That experiment has been made before; and it has been disastrous. It is the performance of our duties in community that teaches us prudence and efficiency and charity."

Taken from the Russel Kirk Center

Freedom and property are closely linked

2011-07-08T09:39:00.000-05:00

Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked.

"Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress. Getting and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth is much to be desired.

Sir Henry Maine, in his Village Communities, puts strongly the case for private property, as distinguished from communal property: “Nobody is at liberty to attack several property and to say at the same time that he values civilization. The history of the two cannot be disentangled.” For the institution of several property—that is, private property—has been a powerful instrument for teaching men and women responsibility, for providing motives to integrity, for supporting general culture, for raising mankind above the level of mere drudgery, for affording leisure to think and freedom to act. To be able to retain the fruits of one’s labor; to be able to see one’s work made permanent; to be able to bequeath one’s property to one’s posterity; to be able to rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own—these are advantages difficult to deny. The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully."

Taken from the Russell Kirk Center

Conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability.

2011-07-07T08:45:00.000-05:00

Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability.

"Human nature suffers irremediably from certain grave faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: 'the ceremony of innocence is drowned.' The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell."

Taken from the Russell Kirk Center.

Reformed Seth

Moral philosophy affects everyone

reformed theology baby!

Quote of the week - J.P. Moreland on utilitarianism

Quote of the week - James Rachels on human dignity

Kant and hell part two

Quote of the week - Greg Koukl on the problem of evil

presuppositional naturalism and materialism

Immanuel Kant on the concept of hell

The problems of a liberal education

Mark on homosexual marriage

Interview with Mark on republican primary and presidential election

Quote of the week - John Locke on reading

Romney or Gingrich?

Quote of the week - Dinesh D'Souza on conservatism

R.C. Sproul on the Christian mind

For or against Calvinism?

Quote of the week - Adam Smith

Flying spaghetti monster

What would you do if there were no God?

Quote of the week - William Lane Craig

Five books I recommend

Quote of the week - Friedrich Nietzsche on Joy

Is the Bible a love letter?

Quote of the week - Hegel

Why we should all be grateful for the Tea Party

Immanuel Kant - Quote of the week

Philosophy Quote of the week

Theology of Christmas

Should Obama get credit for killing Osama bin Laden?

Sausage Grinder epistemology

Philosophy links

Does Calvinism produce a God who is a moral monster?

Thinking about the resurrection

Trusting in God's sovereignty

Unicorn argument revisited

Looking back on Pascal's wager

The goal of Christian living

What about a talking snake and donkey?

2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument based on the beginning of the universe

5. The ontological argument from the possibility of God’s existence to His actuality

For a more thorough explanation of each argument, I recommend clicking here. Dr. Craig explains each argument, then gives a refutation from Dawkins, and then refutes the objection made by Dawkins.

Arguments for the resurrection of Jesus

-the burial narrative -the empty tomb -the appearances -the early belief in a bodily resurrection.

How do we explain those facts? Wintery Knight gives a rundown of the possible explanations and his critique.

Why Dawkins won't debate Craig

Why suffering?

2 step program to any type of study

problem of pain, suffering, and general evil

Why people are disappointed with marriage

Is woman the dream of man?

Are men used by women for children?

Thoughts on 2012 Election

Mark Driscoll thinks I'm an atheist?

Jesus, the recycled redeemer?

Christians like wearing blindfolds

I don't buy kisses anymore

Taking time off

Google Plus will change the web

Common misunderstandings of cosmological argument

What is hyper-calvinism?

Explaining the Trinity

Nietzsche, "Kant became an idiot."

The conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.

What is a democrat? Updated version

Conservatives perceive the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions

Conservatives uphold voluntary community and oppose involuntary collectivism

Freedom and property are closely linked

Conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability.

-the burial narrative
-the empty tomb
-the appearances
-the early belief in a bodily resurrection.