Jul 10, 2019 | Apologetics, Explanatory Power
Too many Christians allow low-simmering doubt into their minds because the dominant Western secular cultural narrative assumes materialism at every point, that is that the material, matter, is all that exists. And, if materialism is true, Christianity is not. In the secular West, we are programmed to be materialists. From our earliest memories media, entertainment, and education are indoctrinating us into a materialist view of reality, as if it were the true nature of reality. It is not, and scientific knowledge is making it more untenable every day. Unfortunately the average Christian in the pew every Sunday doesn’t know this, and doubt easily creeps in: maybe, they think, this Christianity thing is a bunch of hooey. It also is not.
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Jun 29, 2019 | Explanatory Power
If you’re young, say south of 40, stop now; you’ll think these the irrelevant musings of an old man (middle aged nowadays, but whose counting). If you’re in your 40s you’re starting to relate to what I’ll have to say (whatever I end up saying), and if you’re in your 50s and beyond, fuggedaboutit. We’ll be winking at each other the whole time. I am almost always tripping out (yes, I’m a child of the 60s and 70s) on this vicious predator called time, and on a recent trip the image of the before personal computers video game Pac Man came to mind. I used to love that stupid little game. In one of my first jobs out of college in the early 80s every lunch I’d head up to the lunch room and battle that exhaustless Pac Man eater, not realizing it was such a good metaphor.
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Jun 26, 2019 | Apologetics, Explanatory Power
Being a person of extreme apologetic bent, I’m always looking to validate Christian truth claims. Apologetics is critical in a Western culture drenched in secularism, where most people fit into one of the Triple A categories: Atheist, Agnostic, or Apathetic. For them this life is all that matters, even as short as it is, and they have no curiosity to see if there is any meaning beyond sheer material existence. As Christians we must be endlessly curious, asking the big questions all the time. So I have one to share with those who are more like me: In the history of the world where did the idea of a personal, Creator God come from? This is no trivial question. (more…)
May 2, 2019 | Explanatory Power
I often visit the Evolution News website because as a Christian the most obvious thing in the world to me is that the universe and everything in it had a Creator and cannot be a product of random chance. (The site is a great repository of information from the Intelligent Design movement.) In fact, whenever I wonder if this whole Christian thing I and my family have staked our lives on could actually be true, and that we will live forever in paradise with this Creator, I simply look outside, or at my hand, or our cats, and think, “There is absolutely no way this is all a product of random chance!” Because, my friend, if the materialists (the material is all that there is) have it right, that is exactly what it would have to be. I know that if Christianity isn’t true, then something else has to be, and in the 21st century secular West, the only alternative is materialist atheism (the only other alternative other than materialism is pantheism, and that is even less plausible than atheism if that were even possible).
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Apr 13, 2019 | Explanatory Power
On April 8, 2010 prior to heading to bed I went to check e-mail. It was around 11:00 p.m., and I saw a message from my uncle that I had trouble processing: my cousin, Anthony, whom I affectionately called Ants, had died in a motorcycle accident that day, all of 45 years of age. That’s not possible, is it? How could Ants be gone, just like that, forever? I cried. And beat myself up because I’d meant to call him for several months, but hadn’t. Now, I would never ever be able to talk to him again, on this earth, although I know by our very well established faith I shall talk to Anthony again.
Every year on the anniversary of Anthony’s death I text or call my cousin Greg, his brother, to remember Anthony and affirm the value he had in our lives. It’s still hard to believe he’s gone. When I said to Greg how fast the nine years has gone since Anthony left us, he replied, “If this is all there is, why bother?” Exactly! The swift passage of time is of course a cliche, but primarily among those of us who’ve lived four decades or more. For those younger, the words “swift passage” are an abstraction with little or no meaning. For me, it wasn’t until I got north of 40 that this time thing started to get out of hand. I came up with an analogy to convey the creeping, unsettling experience of time’s acceleration.
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Mar 23, 2019 | Explanatory Power
If you’ve ever heard the term “pretzel logic” (not the Steely Dan album), you’ll get the oxymoronic logic: logic shouldn’t look like a pretzel! Those who believe in a God-less universe increasingly have to turn themselves into pretzels to try to explain a universe that sure seems to point to something beyond matter to explain its existence. Thus the multiverse. I thought of the title of the Steely Dan album when I saw this piece in Forbes insisting that the “multiverse” must exist. What exactly is this multiverse, and why must it exist? Well, you can read Mr. Siegel’s argument and see if you agree, but I couldn’t understand about, oh, 90 percent of it. No doubt, that’s a great way to persuade people! I think it’s a lot easier, and more plausible, to say God created the universe, and if there are others, he created those too! (more…)
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