Lowder’s Comments to My Assessment of His Debate with Turek

Lowder’s Comments to My Assessment of His Debate with Turek

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By Jacobus Erasmus

In 2016, Jeffery Jay Lowder[1] debated Frank Turek on the topic Naturalism vs theism. See here:

In early 2017, I wrote two articles in which I assess Lowder’s opening statement (see here and here). It was brought to my attention that Lowder recently made some comments to my assessment (see the comment section here).

Lowder’s Comments to My Assessment of His Debate with Turek

I do not usually respond to comments on blogs because (1) it takes too much of my time and (2) I think that my responses will not change many minds. Nevertheless, occasionally it seems worthwhile to make such a response. I wish to take the opportunity in this post to make some remarks about Lowder’s comments in order to remind us how to engage with those that disagree with us. Let me begin by making some general remarks about how (I think) we should engage with an opponent.[2]

First, we should occasionally remind our opponent that we are not criticizing them but a specific view or argument. This implies that we should not attack our opponent personally, that is to say, we should not criticize their personal attributes, such as character, appearance, intelligence, or moral standards. Of course, nor should we physically attack our opponent, nor throw stuff at them, nor give them a wedgie[3] (you get the point). However, it is important to (now and then) make it clear to our opponent that we are not criticizing them even if they attack us personally.

Second, we should occasionally remind our opponent that we value them. As Christians, we believe that every person is created in God’s image and, thus, has tremendous value and worth (Genesis 1:26). This implies that we should treat our opponent with respect and in such a way that they can see we value them. We should not, of course, treat our opponent as if they are less valuable than us; for example, do not talk to your opponent as if they were an earthworm, or blob, or ogre. Furthermore, we should occasionally tell our opponent that we value them as this act shows that we value them. Doing so would also give our opponent an ‘awww-how-nice-of-you’ feeling. I, for one, would feel very warm in my heart if my opponent told me that they value me (I might even give them a hug, but a man hugs, of course).[4]

Moreover, if we truly value our opponent, then we will defend them when relevant. For example, if somebody attacks Lowder personally, and if I am aware of it or in the vicinity, I will defend Lowder. I will be very angry with Lowder’s attacker and I might even give them a wedgie. So, Lowder, if you are reading this, please know that I value you!

Finally, we should occasionally ask our opponent to be patient with us. We all make mistakes and no one is perfect. Thus, it will be beneficial if we remind ourselves that we are not an inerrant, unique snowflake that the world revolves around. And then, once we are humbled, we should ask our opponent to please be patient with us as we interact with them because we might make a blunder here and there. If we do this, then perhaps our opponent will have more respect towards us.

Now, with those general remarks out of the way, let us look at Lowder’s comments. On Sunday, December 30, 2018, 11:04 PM,[5] a person with the username (or real name?) Bogdan Taranu[6] made the following comment to Lowder’s post:

I don’t know if you’re aware of this but Jacobus Erasmus over at Free Thinking Ministries critiqued the case for Naturalism you made during your debate with Turek in a two-part analysis. This was back in 2017. The relevant links are at the end of this comment.

The part I found most interesting is about your claim that Naturalism is intrinsically more probable than Theism. Basically, there are two types of modesty: linguistic and ontological. The former is about the number of claims a hypothesis asserts, while the latter is about the number of entities a hypothesis asserts (a hypothesis is more modest than another if the former asserts the existence of fewer entities – objects, events, properties – than the latter). Linguistic modesty seems to allow one to rig the process of inference to the best explanation.” More to the point linguistic modesty allows us to „define our hypotheses such that they make as many assertions as we want, and then we can choose as the most modest the hypothesis that makes the least number of claims”. This means the theist can say that Theism asserts only that “God exists” while holding that Naturalism asserts several things – thus making Theism more modest than Naturalism.

I would like to know what you think about the above criticism…

Lowder then posted several comments in response to Bogdan. Let us look at them piece by piece. Lowder says,

I’m flattered he found the opening statement worthy of a detailed reply.

Here is a good lesson for all of us: If someone writes a detailed response to your argument, that does not necessarily mean that your argument is, or that they think it is, worthy of a detailed response. In many cases, it is not the argument per se but, rather, the splash or effect generated by the argument that justifies one writing a response to the argument. Consider, for example, some of Richard Dawkins’ objections to theism. His objections are so bad that I (as well as several other scholars) feel embarrassed for Dawkins.[7] His objections are not worthy of a detailed reply. Nevertheless, the influence of his arguments does seem to justify the responses that scholars have offered since many laypersons get moved by the emotional tone of Dawkins and fail to see his reasoning errors.

However, Lowder’s opening statement is worthy of a detailed reply. Lowder is no Dawkins. Indeed, I wish that Lowder had Dawkins’ prominence as Lowder is far more reasonable than Dawkins.

Lowder continues,

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I disagree with him on virtually every point, but more important is the fact that I don’t consider his point about “linguistic modesty” to be an accurate or even charitable representation of my argument.

When we say that someone does not offer a charitable interpretation of an argument, we usually (and should) mean that they have not offered a lenient or tolerant interpretation of the argument. For example, suppose that some sentence is ambiguous and could be read in either a strong, reasonable sense or in a weak, unreasonable sense. A charitable interpretation would be to understand the sentence in the strong, reasonable sense. Lowder, then, is accusing me of not being charitable or accurate in representing his argument. Fair enough. But why, exactly, am I being uncharitable? Lowder continues,

In fact, my points about coherence and modesty show that naturalism (as I have defined it) and supernaturalism (as I have defined it), are equally ontologically modest, whereas theism (as I have defined it) is ontologically less modest than naturalism.

This does not explain how, exactly, I am being uncharitable. We are not talking about how Lowder defines naturalism, supernaturalism, and theism but, rather, with his definition of ‘intrinsic probability’ and ‘modesty’ as these are the definitions he relies on to argue that naturalism is more intrinsically probable than theism. Now, in his opening statement, Lowder explains that the ‘intrinsic probability of a hypothesis is determined entirely by its modesty and coherence’. And what does he mean by ‘modesty’?

Intrinsic probability is determined by modesty, coherence, and nothing else. By “modesty,” I mean a measure of how much the hypothesis asserts. The more a hypothesis claims, the more ways there are for it to be false and so, before we start looking at the evidence, the less likely it is to be true.

Now, I interpret the above quote as talking about linguistic modest, which refers to the number of claims (or propositions) a hypothesis asserts. Am I being uncharitable here? I do not think so. I cannot see how else to interpret the quote.

Lowder continues in his recent comments,

I think he’s barking up the wrong tree.

Is this not a cute saying? Barking up the wrong tree! Nice. Let us see if I can use this saying somewhere later in this post. He continues,

If I were trying to defend theism (or Christian theism) against my opening statement, I would concede the first contention (from my opening statement), but try to minimize the impact of the point about intrinsic probability by arguing that theism is not significantly less intrinsically probable than supernaturalism and/or argue that the evidence favoring theism over naturalism “swamps” its intrinsic improbability.

I sure hope that Lowder would one day be defending Christian theism. We could surely use someone as articulate as him on our side! Lowder, please, please, come over to our side. Lowder continues,

I stand by what I wrote: I don’t think Erasmus has accurately or even charitably represented my view. Here is one of many examples. He writes: “Since naturalism is the view that physical reality is all that exists…” Except that is precisely NOT how I defined naturalism in my opening statement. I understand that many naturalists do define naturalism in that way, which is why I spent precious speaking time in my opening statement to offer nuanced definitions of my terms. And in every speech after my opening statement, I made it very clear that I was NOT defending the view that physical reality is all that exists.

Uhh, so there is a section in my post in which I use the term ‘naturalism’ slightly different to how Lowder defined the term. Why did I do this? I am not sure. After re-reading my post, I think I just made a mistake. The important point, however, is that the meaning of my paragraph does not change when I use Lowder’s definition. My paragraph would then read as follows:

“Since naturalism is the view that the physical exists and, if the mental exists, the physical explains why the mental exists, most versions of naturalism affirm that physical reality is eternal in that either (i) there exists one universe that has existed for an infinite number of events, or (ii) there exists a multiverse that comprises an infinite number of universes.”

Indeed, we can even leave that part of the sentence out, as it does not seem to be relevant to my argument:

“Most versions of naturalism affirm that physical reality is eternal in that either (i) there exists one universe that has existed for an infinite number of events, or (ii) there exists a multiverse that comprises an infinite number of universes.”

I think Lowder is barking up the wrong tree (huh, I used the saying. Lowder, you have to give me credit for this at least). He is focusing on my definition of naturalism when he should be focusing on the central point or argument that I am making. Lowder continues,

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine why Erasmus has failed to show that theism is more modest than naturalism.

But I am the reader, and I cannot see where I went wrong here? He continues,

Here’s another example of where I think Erasmus is being quite uncharitable. He writes: “Indeed, it seems to me that theism wins here. Since naturalism is the view that physical reality is all that exists, most versions of naturalism affirm that physical reality is eternal in that either (i) there exists one universe that has existed for an infinite number of events, or (ii) there exists a multiverse that comprises an infinite number of universes. Either way, this version of naturalism asserts the existence of an infinite number of events or universes.” This is doubly uncharitable. First, he’s attempting to measure the intrinsic probability of one hypothesis, naturalism, by measuring the intrinsic probability of that hypothesis conjoined with an auxiliary hypothesis–his (i) or (ii). But that’s an apples to apples-plus-oranges comparison.

Lowder sure likes to use the word ‘uncharitable’. However, once again, I cannot see how I am being uncharitable. I think it is clear in my paragraph that I am talking about some versions of naturalism, not conjoined hypotheses. I have spoken to naturalists who claim that physical reality is all that exists, and when asked what they mean by ‘physical reality’, they refer to an infinite (or at least very large) multiverse. Others define physical reality as an infinitely old universe. These are single hypotheses or versions of naturalism. Moreover, as Lowder acknowledges, a hypothesis can have multiple claims. Thus, I am referring to versions of naturalism that make these claims; they are not hypotheses conjoined with auxiliary hypotheses.

He continues,

Naturalism, as I’ve defined it, isn’t committed to either (i) or (ii). If a naturalist subscribes to either (i) or (ii), then that would be the result of some factor which is extrinsic to the content of naturalism. For example, a scientist, who could be a theist or a naturalist, might posit a multiverse in order to explain such puzzling phenomena as the so-called “cold spot” … But, if they do, they’re appealing to a posteriori information which is by definition irrelevant to intrinsic probability.

Lowder’s bare-bones-super-skinny-desperate-for-flesh definition of naturalism, of course, might not be committed to either (i) or (ii) depending on what he means by ‘physical reality’. However, I was discussing more substantial and (as I see it) common versions of naturalism. As I see it, as soon as a naturalist posits a multiverse or an infinitely old universe, that forms part of their naturalism because it alters their understanding of ‘physical reality’. So, for example, if Lowder believes in a multiverse, then he will understand ‘physical reality’ to include a multiverse and his view of naturalism will affirm a multiverse. Well, this is how I see things anyway. You are free to see things differently.

I will end here. Lowder does make a few more remarks (I believe that what I have already said applies to most of his other remarks) and he might make further comments after this writing (I wrote this early on the 03 January 2018). This was enjoyable and pleasant. I enjoy reading about Lowder’s ideas, and I hope he will be more active on his blog in the future.

Notes

[1] Don’t you just like the name ‘Lowder’? I would not mind having that name. It rolls nicely off the tongue. But I can think of some awkward situations that the name can get you into. For example, since it sounds like ‘louder’, can you imagine someone who is struggling to hear you ask, ‘Please talk louder’?

[2] I readily admit that I have not always followed the advice I present here. I have made mistakes. But I am trying. Moreover, please feel free to disagree with some (or all!) of my remarks. I am simply explaining how I see things.

[3] Definition of wedgie: ‘The condition of having one’s clothing stuck between the buttocks, often from having had one’s pants or underwear pulled up as a prank’ (https://www.wordnik.com/words/wedgie).

[4] What is a ‘man hug’? It is a type of hug that has several characteristics that distinguish it from a normal hug: (1) The hug is performed by a man. (2) While performing the hug, the man tenses or flexes his arm, shoulder, and chest muscles as to not come across as squishy. (3) The hug is performed for a very short duration, usually under one second.

[5] Yes, you should be impressed by my precision.

[6] Let us just agree that the name ‘Bogdan Taranu’ is unusual for us Westerners.

[7] When I say that I feel ‘embarrassed for Dawkins’ I do not mean this in a derogatory or demeaning or belittling sense. Rather, I mean that I truly feel embarrassed or sympathy for him. Let me try to clarify this somewhat. When I watch a Mr. Bean or Johnny English movie, I feel embarrassed for the main character because they do things in the story that I would be too embarrassed to do, and part of me wishes that the character would not have behaved in such a silly manner. It is this same feeling I have towards Dawkins. When I see Dawkins I see Mr. Bean. In fact, I have a suspicion that Dawkins is Mr. Bean undercover.

 

Jacobus Erasmus (Kobus) Dr. Jacobus Erasmus is the author of the book “The Kalām Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment”. He is currently a researcher at North-West University, South Africa and a computer programmer. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from North-West University and was awarded the Merit Prize in 2015 by the university’s School of Philosophy for superior performance for his doctoral dissertation. Dr. Erasmus also holds an Honours Degree in IT. His main research interests include Natural Theology, Philosophy of Religion, and Metaphysics. www.JacobusErasmus.com

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2FqYof7

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How Not Letting Your Children Ask a Question Leads Them to Atheism

How Not Letting Your Children Ask a Question Leads Them to Atheism

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By Michael Sherrard

Time and time again, I hear the story of one who has left their belief in God in the bin of their childhood memories alongside Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. And more often than not, I’m given one reason that is quite strange. Well, it’s not strange to me anymore because of how often I’m given this answer. Too often, I have people tell me that the reason they do not believe in God anymore is because no one ever let them ask a question.

How Not Letting Your Children Ask a Question Leads Them to Atheism

Just recently a friend of mine had an old college friend who is an atheist find him on Facebook. The old college buddy sent my friend a nice message that said, “I know we had our differences, but I’ve always admired you and appreciated the respectful conversations we had.”

“It was strange to the get the note,” my friend told me. “Too random to not consider that maybe the Lord was orchestrating something here.”

So my friend kept the conversation going, and at one point he asked him, “What is your biggest objection to the existence of God today?”

His friend’s answer is a sad indictment on the state of many churches. He said, “No one would let me ask a question.”

The friend went on to explain how in High School he started to have some questions, and so he brought them to his pastor and other church leaders. And rather than acceptance and a healthy conversation he was practically shown the door. He was told on more than one occasion that believers don’t ask these questions. They just trust God and have faith. He concluded that his questions didn’t have answers and that Christianity is a fable.

This is not a unique story. I hear this all the time.

How many of you have heard or even said yourself, “If we had answers then we wouldn’t need to have faith.” But Jesus welcomed skeptics and questioners and gave them answers and so should we. If we do not, we will affirm the doubts that cause questions and send our children to atheism.

But we are on the side of truth and have nothing to fear. We need to encourage questions and welcome the questioner. So what can we do to encourage and allow teenagers to ask questions so that they don’t have to just ask Siri or Google, or worse, decide that there are no answers to their questions and abandon their belief in God?

There are three things we can do to create an environment that allows teenagers to ask questions.

First, we build relationships. Many articles and surveys are showing that the younger generations want community. They want relationships with adults. And it is our responsibility to create them. It is the burden of the older generations to build bridges to the younger ones. We need to de-segregate the generations in the church. Teenagers need to know people that have answers and they need to trust them enough to be able to ask a question.

Second, respond to the questioner, not just the question. Teenagers and all people for that matter use questions for purposes other than getting an answer. Sometimes they ask a question to rattle you. Sometimes they ask a question to get to know you. Sometimes they ask a question to test the waters so to speak. Your response will often tell them more than your answer. So control your facial expressions, anticipate as many scenarios as you can, and get in the habit of affirming questions by saying things like, “That’s a great question,” “I’ve wondered that myself” or “That is the right question to be asking.”

Third, ask questions yourself. Get teenagers thinking about important things while they are in a safe environment. Don’t let the first time they hear a question regarding the reliability of scripture be in the classroom of a professor who wants to convert your child to naturalism. My goal is to ask my children the questions I know they will have before they have them. And I make it a point to tell my children to never stop asking questions. “The important thing is to never stop questioning” is probably what my kids are going put on my grave marker.

I had such a proud moment the other day. My six-year-old daughter was jumping on the trampoline, and we were talking about taking care of other people. Something happened at school that day, and it was a natural opportunity to talk about protecting the weak and how we always need to be nice and invite other kids to play.

At one point I said, “Sherrard’s always…” and I waited for her to finish. I was expecting her to say, “take care of those weaker than us.” But she blurted out, “Ask Questions!” I smiled very big and slept very good that night.

There does not exist a question for which there is not a good answer. So welcome the questioner and find an answer to their question. Do not be afraid of not knowing everything and being asked a question that you can’t answer. There are countless books and resources. And there are organizations like Ratio Christi that can help train you and point you to the resources that can help you along the way. And there is always me. Always feel free to reach out for guidance or support. I like to do more than write.

 

Michael C. Sherrard is a pastor, a writer, and a speaker. Booking info and such can be found at michaelcsherrard.com.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2VGJ2Zw

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How Should Christians Relate to Gay Friends, Neighbors, and Family

How Should Christians Relate to Gay Friends, Neighbors, and Family?

By Mikel Del Rosario

Understanding Acceptance, Approval, and Convicted Civility

When I speak at student events, Christian kids ask me, “How should I relate to my gay friends?” Many believers struggle to relate to their LGBT neighbors, friends, and family because they worry about being misunderstood. How do we stick to biblical convictions while loving our neighbors as ourselves? I’ve learned a lot about this area of engagement through my work with Darrell Bock at the Hendricks Center. Along the way, I’ve discovered three key questions many Christians have:

How Should Christians Relate to Gay Friends, Neighbors, and Family

  1. Why does the church seem hesitant to engage?
  2. Is there a difference between acceptance and approval?
  3. How can we challenge people well as ambassadors of Jesus?

Why does the church seem hesitant to engage?

I know it’s tough to stand up for a biblical view of sexuality. But some Christians say relating to their gay neighbors can seem even tougher. Maybe it’s because many of our brothers and sisters grew up with an unhealthy way of separating “church people” from “non-church people.” In fact, I think many people who come from Christian homes may have been raised with a “culture-war mentality” that makes winsome engagement difficult for them today.

But think about this: We all have the same core needs before God. It might be in different areas of our lives, but we all need his grace and forgiveness. This realization should make us question any kind of “us vs. them” mentality we may still have in the back of our minds. After all, everyone’s born with desires and tendencies we never asked for. One way to balance loving our neighbors with holding Christian convictions is to know the difference between acceptance and approval. Because it’s important to make a distinction between the two.

Is there a difference between acceptance and approval?

Just like the kids who approached me at a church event, Christian adults also wonder, “How should I relate to my gay friends or co-workers?” “What about gay family members or their friends?” Parents have asked me, “Will I compromise my stance on biblical sexuality by being kind to my gay child’s partner?” I like Pastor Caleb Kaltenbach’s approach. He grew up in the LGBT community and he talks about the difference between accepting people and approving of what they do:

We’re called to accept everybody as an individual. That doesn’t mean we approve of every life choice somebody makes… Parents of [gay] teenagers who “come out” to them sometimes think, “If I accept my child, that means that I’m approving of a same-sex relationship.”

My point is, no. Anybody should be able to walk through the doors of my church when I preach…I shake hands every Sunday with people that made life choices that I wouldn’t approve of. But that doesn’t mean that I accept them any less…

[At] our church…you can belong before you believe…not saying that we integrate people into the body of Christ without salvation. But we give people a chance to be a part of our community. That’s where we live out that acceptance versus approval.

…We have to own the fact that it isn’t our job to change somebody’s sexual orientation. It is our job to speak the truth into people’s lives.

We need to understand people from their perspective…a lot of Christians are not willing to do that when it comes to certain people, including the LGBT community… [1]

So acceptance means respecting people made in God’s image. Approval is like signing-off in agreement on what someone believes. These are two different things.

Still, everyone’s obligated to obey God’s commands. This brings a moral challenge to the area of sexuality—a space where we all need to be sensitive to objective moral values and duties. Darrell Bock explains the importance of LGBT engagement:

There’s a moral challenge for the way God calls people to live in the standards that he reflects which is a way of saying, “The most efficient, effective, authentic way to live is to live this way.” But you’ve got people who live differently. The very people who you want to challenge with those standards are the very people you want to invite into a new experience with God, who is the solution. If you wall them off from going there, you’ve actually cut [them] off from the solution.[2]

While the church can’t approve of a lifestyle that’s insensitive to God, accepting all people and loving them well mirrors Jesus’ example—challenging people with truth and compassionately serving others. I love how my local church uses the slogan, “Radical inclusivity and profound transformation.” The church should be inclusive, while recognizing that a real relationship with God includes life transformation. This is a great starting point for answering the question, “How should I relate to my gay friends?”

How can we challenge people well as ambassadors of Jesus?

Mark Yarhouse introduced me to something called “convicted civility” which focuses on the relational part of engagement. Our team at the Hendricks Center invited him to share with the students at a DTS cultural engagement chapel. I like how he said:

“We have far too many Christians who are strong on convictions, but you wouldn’t want them to represent you in any public way because… they do it [in a way that is] not very civil in its engagement and loving and caring. Then you have Christians who are so civil, so loving, so caring, that you have no idea what they stand for. There’s this tension that you want to live out.”[3]

So, what’s it look like to balance conviction and civility? Mark told a story about a day he invited a gay activist to his presentation on sexuality. This broke down stereotypes and led to meaningful conversation:

I was making a presentation and a local gay activist contacted our university and said “I’m going [to be there].” Then, he did a YouTube video calling for all of his gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and other friends to come and just sit in the front couple rows and stare me down… so I invited them to come. [I thought], “He’s coming anyway, protesting me!” I invited him to come and meet me and meet my students, and sure enough, they sat down in the front rows and stared at me as I was presenting.

But I talked with him afterwards. He made a video afterwards and said, “You know, I didn’t agree with everything this guy said, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.” And… he was just eviscerated by people within the gay community who felt like he should’ve been tougher on me…

One of the guys who came to protest me, I went out for coffee with him a few times. He was raised in a Christian home. He talked about his upbringing. He said, “Look, I thought when I met you that you were going to have smoke coming out of your nostrils and horns on your head. That’s the way you were depicted to me, and yet here we are having coffee and talking about this.”[4]

Interestingly, the protestor got more push-back from the gay community than he did from Christians who extended a hand to him. The whole idea of “convicted civility” is relational. But it shows there’s no need to give up our convictions while interacting with those who challenge a biblical sexuality.

Engaging with Courage and Compassion

The next time someone asks you, “How should I relate to my gay friends and co-workers?” Think about Paul’s words: “Receive others as you have been received by Christ” (Romans 15:7). When we were far from God, Jesus took the initiative to engage from a heart of compassion. Relating to people on the basis of love can give people pause—even those who disagree with us on moral issues.

Unfortunately, one of the first things many people think about when they hear the word “Christian” is “intolerant bigot” or something like that. A key way to break down this stereotype is engaging with courage and compassion. So that when someone hears the claim that “Christians are intolerant bigots,” their first thought would be “Are you sure about that? I actually know some Christians and they don’t treat me that way at all.” As my friend Sean McDowell says:

The power of individual lives and Christians reaching out to nonbelievers and people of all different stripes is probably the most important way to overturn this cultural stereotype that is affecting the way that we’re seen and relate to people.[5]

So, how can we relate to our gay friends and neighbors while holding to biblical convictions? By understanding the difference between acceptance and approval. By approaching conversations with convicted civility. And extending a hand that offers something way more than just tolerance—the love of Jesus.

Recommended Links

Notes

[1] Table Podcast, Grace and Truth in LGBT Engagement

[2] Ibid.

[3] DTS Voice, What Does Convicted Civility Look Like?

[4] Ibid.

[5] Table Podcast, Truth, Love, and Defending the Faith

 

Mikel Del Rosario helps Christians explain their faith with courage and compassion. He is a doctoral student in the New Testament department at Dallas Theological Seminary. Mikel teaches Christian Apologetics and World Religion at William Jessup University. He is the author of Accessible Apologetics and has published over 20 journal articles on apologetics and cultural engagement with his mentor, Dr. Darrell Bock. Mikel holds an M.A. in Christian Apologetics with highest honors from Biola University and a Master of Theology (Th.M) from Dallas Theological Seminary where he serves as Cultural Engagement Manager at the Hendricks Center and a host of the Table Podcast. Visit his Web site at ApologeticsGuy.com.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2snkdUX

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Phelim McAleer & Ann McElhinney_ Journalists Worthy of the Name

Phelim McAleer & Ann McElhinney: Journalists Worthy of the Name

By Terrell Clemmons

Phelim McAleer was in Pennsylvania in early 2013 doing a series of screenings of his film FrackNation. As he often did when travelling, he checked the local paper for interesting court cases underway, and a case concerning a doctor in Philadelphia caught his attention. And so it happened that on one of his days off, he walked into the courtroom where abortionist Kermit Gosnell was standing trial for a slew of charges including (but not limited to) murder, infanticide, and multiple violations of state abortion law.

Phelim McAleer & Ann McElhinney_ Journalists Worthy of the Name

Phelim had seen a lot in his twenty-five years in journalism (he started his career in a part of Northern Ireland known as “Bandit Country”), but the evidence he saw that day in Room 304 of the Philadelphia Justice Center surpassed anything he’d previously encountered. The photos displayed up on a big screen—pictures of well-formed babies, some of whose necks had been snipped with scissors after live birth—were more horrific than anything he’d ever seen. All of this was shocking in itself, but what was even more astounding to him as a journalist was that the press gallery behind him was completely empty. There were no national journalists covering this case. Not one. How could this be?

He returned home to Los Angeles and told his journalist partner and wife, Ann McElhinney, that he had found the next project they would work on. At first, Ann wanted nothing to do with it. This subject was foreign territory for them, way outside their wheelhouse. Besides, both she and Phelim had always considered themselves neutral on abortion. Why venture into such a hornet’s nest?

Phelim ordered the court transcripts anyway, and Ann read them. Afterward, she agreed, Yes, they would make this film. It was more than an assent or a shared inclination. It was a conviction. Here was information of significant public interest, and it was shameful that no one was putting it out. A film about this had to be made; therefore, they would make it.

Truth-Telling in the Public Interest

It would be a controversial undertaking, but Phelim and Ann were no strangers to covering controversy. Both natives of Ireland, they had started out as print journalists, but then moved into filmmaking. For one of their early productions, The Search for Tristan’s Mum, Ann went undercover to infiltrate a corrupt baby trafficking ring in Indonesia. As a result of her investigation, Tristan was returned to his natural mother, and the baby sellers were put in prison.

While they were living in Romania in the early 2000s, an uproar arose about a gold mine in Transylvania called the RosË›ia Montana˘ă Project. They watched as Western environmentalists and activist groups like Greenpeace came in with their agendas, talking for the locals as if the locals couldn’t speak for themselves. Worse, the media were not reporting the truth of the matter—that the vast majority of the locals very much wanted the mine.

The RosË›ia Montana˘ăsituation provoked a kind of conversion moment for them on two levels. They saw that (1) capitalism was the economic system best suited to lift people out of poverty, and (2) mainstream journalism was not only doing a shoddy job of reporting the truth, but at some point it was downright corrupt, in that the narrative of the outside environmentalists was being reported rather than the actual truth on the ground. So in 2006, they released Mine Your Own Business, which told the truth about the mining village and also examined other mining projects in the developing world that were under threat of opposition from powerful outside interests.

Continuing with the theme of Big Environmentalism and the effect it can have on impoverished communities, in 2009 they produced Not Evil Just Wrong, which examined and critiqued hysteria about global warming. Then, in 2013, came FrackNation, for which Phelim faced threats, cops, and bogus lawsuits to tell the stories of rural Americans whose livelihoods stood at risk because of misinformation about hydraulic fracking.

And so, while on the surface the trial of an abortion doctor appeared to be a change of direction, at a more basic level, it was a continuation of the journalistic duty to report facts and stories mainstream journalism was misreporting, or in the case of Gosnell, outright ignoring.

Accidental Discovery

Ironically, the abortion “House of Horrors,” as the Philadelphia Women’s Medical Society at 3801 Lancaster Avenue came to be known, was also discovered quite by accident. Kermit Gosnell had been under investigation for running an illegal prescription drug racket in early 2010, when Tosha Lewis, an informant recruited from Gosnell’s clinic staff, casually mentioned an Asian woman who had died at the clinic a few months back. Something about her death, Tosha said, “just wasn’t right.” The narcotics investigator went to look up the police report, but there was none. This puzzle led to more questions, then to search warrants, and then ultimately to a coordinated raid that included narcotics investigators, the Pennsylvania Departments of State and Health, the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, and the FBI—all told, a raid of more than twenty participants.

They walked into a veritable waking nightmare. A cat had the run of the place, and the stench of cat feces, urine, and formaldehyde hung in the air. There was blood on the floor, urine on the stairs, and piles of trash everywhere. The chairs, blankets, and all surfaces were drowning in cat hair, and the medical equipment was unsanitary, outdated, rusty, and lying haphazardly about the place in varying states of disrepair.

The more they looked around, the worse it got. A metal cupboard housed jars of severed baby feet. Refrigerators and freezers scattered throughout the cobbled-together maze of a building held more bloody fetal remains—they were stuffed into used water jugs, milk jugs, cat-food containers, plastic bags, and Minute Maid juice bottles. The basement housed -fetal remains stacked to the ceiling.

It was the stuff of horror movies, but this was no Hollywood set. This was real life. Semiconscious women moaned in the waiting room, while none of the post-op patients were hooked up to any kind of monitoring device. Two were bleeding heavily and in such distress that paramedics were called, only to discover that the emergency exit door had been padlocked shut, and no one could find a key. Meanwhile, Gosnell wanted to do an abortion while the investigators went about their work. When he finished, he sat down at his desk wearing torn, bloody surgical gloves and ate his dinner, gesturing with his chopsticks while answering investigators’ questions.

Clearly the team had stumbled onto a crime scene that went beyond drug running and one suspicious death.

Documenting an American Tragedy

In the end, the wheels of the Pennsylvania justice system consigned Kermit Gosnell to life in prison without parole. The challenge for Phelim and Ann became how to tactfully but truthfully document the manifold unsettling realities of this case.

Thorough professionals, they interviewed officials from the local police, the DEA, the FBI, and state oversight boards, along with clinic staff and former patients. Ultimately, Ann decided to write a book about the case, in addition to making the film. “It’s disturbing that this story isn’t widely known,” she explained. And there were aspects of the case that wouldn’t end up in the movie, but that should be recorded. “People should know these things,” she said, her Irish brogue accentuating the conviction.

The result is Gosnell, The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, a page-turning journalistic account of the case, which has to be read to be believed. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. Along the way, Ann exposes failure after appalling failure, unflinchingly naming names of officials whose responsibility it was to enforce the law or to ensure that medical standards safeguarding women and children were maintained, but who ignored clear warning signs, looked the other way, or blatantly ignored the law. Local and national media did no better.

She candidly admits it was hard:

Reading the testimony and sifting through the evidence in the case in the research for this book and for writing the script of the movie has been brutal. I have wept at my computer. I have said the Our Father sitting at my desk. I am no holy roller—I hadn’t prayed in years—but at times when I was confronted with the worst of this story I didn’t know what else to do.

More Conversion Moments

Until Gosnell, she found prolife activists distasteful—too earnest, too religious, maybe even manipulative. Back off with your scary pictures, she thought, I’m sure they’ve been photo-shopped anyway. After learning of the Gosnell case, though, everything changed. The images shown in the courtroom were not from activists. They were from police detectives, medical examiners, and employees of the Gosnell clinic testifying under oath.

Similarly, the voices in her book and in the film are not pro-life voices. The most powerful testimonies in the trial, Ann said, were those of the abortion doctors themselves when describing what constituted “a good, legal abortion.” Nearly everyone on the jury was pro-choice at the outset, but some let out audible gasps as an expert witness abortionist explained in detail what she did. Nor was it just Phelim, Ann, and jury members who would reexamine their views. “Prosecutors, several journalists, and even Gosnell’s own lawyer ultimately experienced changes of heart and mind,” Ann wrote.

“Basically, once you find out the truth about abortion, you drop the pro-choice easy narrative very quickly,” says Phelim. “Abortion is like an article of faith for some people, you know? They don’t think about it, but they just are pro-abortion. I’ll tell you, their faith was shattered. Everyone’s faith was shattered.”

Changing people’s minds, though, is not what they set out to do. “They used to say in journalism, if you want to send a message, go to Western Union,” Phelim says. “We didn’t go into this to send a message. We went in to tell the truth.” And so, when it comes to Gosnell, “our message to pro-life and pro-choice people is, find out the truth. Make an informed decision. Because when you find out the truth about abortion as a pro-choice person, it will rattle your confidence in your pro-choice position. And that’s exactly what journalism should be about.”

Both Phelim and Ann hope that through their book and film, people will find out the truth, and that something like Gosnell’s clinic will never happen again. “The truth is very, very important,” Phelim says, “and the truth will set you free. That’s what I want.”

 

Terrell Clemmons is a freelance writer and blogger on apologetics and matters of faith.

This article was originally published at salvomag.com: http://bit.ly/2AwiyRL

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Book Review God's Crime Scene for Kids

Book Review: God’s Crime Scene for Kids

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By Luke Nix

Introduction

Several years ago, cold-case homicide detective J. Warner Wallace wrote the book “God’s Crime Scene” where he details his investigation, as an atheist, into the evidence for God’s existence. In the book, he explains that investigating the universe for an outside cause is quite similar to the investigation of a death scene. If the evidence at the scene can be explained by “staying in the room,” then an outside cause (murder) can be reasonably removed. Likewise, if all the evidence within the universe can be explained by “staying in the room” of the universe, then an outside cause (God) is not a reasonable conclusion. In both cases, though, when evidence requires an outside cause, then the conclusion cannot be avoided. You can read my chapter-by-chapter review of “God’s Crime Scene” here.

Book Review God's Crime Scene for Kids

“God’s Crime Scene” is the second book in a trilogy that includes “Cold-Case Christianity” and “Forensic Faith.” Because of the popularity of this series, Wallace and his wife adapted the content of the books to a younger audience: kids! Today’s review is the second in the kids’ series: “God’s Crime Scene for Kids.“

The Story

In this second story, the young cadets find themselves investigating a new mystery: the source and purpose of the contents of an old box found in one of the cadets’ attic. Detective Jeffries takes the cadets through a new series of investigative principles, giving them new tools to apply as they investigate. Detective Jeffries, like he did with the previous mystery of the skateboard, uses the principles to guide the cadets through an investigation of ultimate concern: the purpose and cause of the universe. The cadets use the contents of the box to determine if they must look outside the box for a cause or if the explanation exists in the box; likewise, they use the contents of the universe to determine if they must look outside the universe for its cause or if the universe is sufficient to explain its own contents. As the investigation into the box, its contents, and possible explanations progresses, Detective Jeffries asks the cadets eight specific questions about the universe’s contents and possible explanations:

  1. Was the universe an inside or outside job?
  2. Who or what is responsible for the universe’s being here?
  3. Does information require an author?
  4. Is there evidence of an artist?
  5. Are humans more than just the “stuff” of the universe
  6. Can humans really make choices?
  7. Is “right” and “wrong” more than just a matter of opinion?
  8. Can an all-powerful and all-loving God exist with the evil in this universe?

Just as in the first mystery, the cadets simultaneously build their case for the source and purpose of the contents of the old box and the same for the universe. As each question is asked and possible explanations are considered, the possible explanations are narrowed down until only one for each remains reasonable given the contents of box and the universe.

The Case-Maker’s Academy

The Wallaces designed the book to not just be read but to be interactive. They bring the kids into the story by providing the Case-Maker’s Academy online for the kids to follow along with the story’s cadets as they go through the investigations. Once completed, the kids receive their own certificate they can show to their friends.

Reviewer’s Thoughts

As with the first book in the series (Cold-Case Christianity for Kids), the Wallaces did another masterful job of taking the content of a more advanced book and presenting it in an entertaining and easily understandable way for our children. I can’t wait to get my kids into this book (really, the whole series). No doubt, this book will help spark many conversations about God and the universe, and the Wallaces made it easy to find answers, for even those beginning to become familiar with this material, by having the content follow the order of the original “parent’s” edition (God’s Crime Scene). Just as I highly recommended the first book, I highly recommend this one as well. Now, on to the third in the trilogy- Forensic Faith for Kids, but something tells me there is no need for you to wait for a review… just go get it!

 

Luke Nix holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and works as a Desktop Support Manager for a local precious metal exchange company in Oklahoma.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2rWOUAg

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How To Become a Self-Taught Apologist

How To Become a Self-Taught Apologist

By Evan Minton 

You’ve just been introduced to Christian Apologetics and have discovered that there are many good arguments and evidence that demonstrate that Christianity is true. However, you’re not sure that you’re smart enough, have enough free time, or have the financial means to learn this material yourself so that you can be a better witness for Christ.

How To Become a Self-Taught Apologist

Can you afford to go to seminary and be trained formally in philosophy and theology? If so, by all means, do that. If you can’t either because you can’t afford it or your current career won’t allow you to go back to school, don’t worry. You don’t have to go to seminary to be a good apologist. Sure, you need letters after your name if you want to read papers at ETS or EPS conferences and if you want your name published in academic journals, but if all your after is the knowledge and the training necessary to win skeptical souls over to Christ, you can do that without ever setting foot on a campus.

I am 100% self-taught in apologetics. Everything you read on my blog, listen to on my podcast, hear in my debates, and see in my social media debates came 100% from reading books, reading blogs, listening to podcasts and lectures, and watching debates. While I would certainly like to have a career in apologetics, as long as I’m winning souls for Christ and equipping my fellow believers, I consider my time as an apologist a success. It may be God’s will for me to just have a blog, write some books, and do a podcast. That’s fine. As long as there will be fewer people in Hell because of the work I’m doing, it is well with my soul. Now, because of my lack of degrees, when I touch upon subjects, I have to heavily cite expert sources and witnesses to back up what I’m saying since I’m not an official authority in these fields. But that’s more of a lesson on how to be, what I call “a credible layman.” I have plans to write an article on that in the future. Right now, I want to give you advice on how to educate yourself so that you can be an effective apologist.

You Are Smart Enough To Learn

First thing’s first. You need to do away with this “I’m not smart enough” mentality that a lot of people have when they encounter apologetics for the first time. I was introduced to apologetics in August of 2010 when I was just 18, but I didn’t put forth the effort to learn the material until the winter of 2011. Why? Because as I watched Lee Strobel’s “The Case for A Creator,” as I listened to William Lane Craig unpack The Kalam Cosmological Argument on YouTube, I thought to myself “This stuff is way too complicated. There’s no way I can remember all of this stuff”. When I would witness to unbelievers and fail to answer their challenges, I would go into my bedroom and pray “God, please send someone like Lee Strobel or William Lane Craig into these peoples’ lives to show them the evidence that you exist, and that Jesus really did die on the cross and rise from the dead.” My game plan was to just preach the gospel, and if anyone brought up hard questions, I’d just pray for God to send a smart person into their path to answer them.

Eventually, God got a hold of me. One day when I was praying for one nasty atheist who badgered me on Twitter when I said: “God, please send them someone to show them the evidence.” I felt God say to me “I want you to show them the evidence.“ Now, this wasn’t an audible voice, and I’m not one of those “I heard a word from God today that said….” kind of guy. But if God does speak to hearts, that moment was definitely one of them. I was confused. I struggled so much to even unpack The Kalam Cosmological Argument in the most basic way, and I could barely regurgitate design arguments. I thought “God. You’ve got the wrong guy. You need to pick someone with a higher IQ.” The very next day as I was scrolling my Facebook timeline, I saw a picture that was captioned “God doesn’t call the qualified. He qualifies the called.” At the moment, I realized that while I wasn’t qualified to share my faith, I could get qualified.

Below is what I did to get to where I am today.

Rule 1: Consume The Same Material Over and Over

It is said that it takes 1,000 hours to master a craft. Don’t get discouraged if you read a book and only get the gist the first time around. The books I bought, I read dozens and dozens of times. I was determined to hammer that content into my head until I could articulate the arguments as well as the authors could. Several of my oldest Christian Apologetics books are falling apart due to overuse. My copy of William Lane Craig’s On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision is one rugged book. My copy of Hugh Ross’ The Creator and The Cosmos has a broken binder, and some of the pages just fell out! My copy of Frank Turek’s and Norman Geisler’s I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist is likewise falling apart. In fact, when I had Norman Geisler autograph this book at the 2017 National Conference On Christian Apologetics, as Dr. Geisler was signing the book, his wife remarked: “You’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that book, haven’t you!” My copy of The Case for The Resurrection of Jesus written by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona is likewise falling apart. Neil Mammen’s Who Is Agent X: Proving Science and Logic Show It Is More Rational to Believe That God Exists and all of Lee Strobel’s books are holding up pretty well, but you can see some wear on them as well.

I read these books over and over and over and over until the material was burned into my mind. I did this not only with the books that I read but with the lectures and podcasts I listened to. I would listen to lectures I downloaded from the Apologetics 315 website and listen to them on my MP3 Player while I did housework and yard work. I would listen to the same MP3 files over and over and over.

Rule 2: Focus On One Topic At A Time

You won’t get very far if you bounce from subject to subject. Fix your eyes on one or two particular subjects and pursue that one (or two) subjects into the ground. Once you feel that you’ve got a good grasp on those topics, you can move onto another subject. When I first started, the subjects I pursued into the ground were Natural Theology (i.e. arguments for God’s existence like the Kalam and Fine-Tuning arguments) and the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. After I felt I could defend those arguments decently, I studied soteriology and debated the Calvinism issue with my fellow Christians. Eventually, I moved onto investigating Theistic Evolution and then (finally!) eschatology.

Nowadays I revisit all of these subjects frequently, but when I was first trying to learn them, I focused exclusively on them.

Rule 3: Don’t Learn, Train. 

In his book, Forensic Faith, J. Warner Wallace writes “Stop teaching your young people. We’ve got lots of great teachers in the church and lots of concerned parents who want to teach their kids. We’ve been teaching young people for generations. But this teaching has obviously become ineffective if the current statistics related to the departure rates of young people in their college years are even remotely accurate. We’ve been teaching, and students have been leaving. It’s time to stop teaching and start training.“[1] (emphasis in original).

Wallace goes on to say not to get him wrong and that The Bible certainly tells us to teach. Wallace cites 2 Timothy 3:16 which says “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction.” and notes that Paul told Timothy he should use the Scripture to teach, reprove, and correct, but he didn’t stop there. Paul identified another important use for
God’s Word:

2 Timothy 3:16–17

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man
of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

Wallace wrote “Paul made a distinction between teaching and training. It’s time for us to make a distinction as well. We’ve got to understand the role of teaching within the broader context of training. Teaching is focused on imparting knowledge. Training is focused on preparing for a challenge (“equipping” ourselves “for every good work”). Boxers and MMA fighters train. First responders train. Military personnel train. Why? Because they’re eventually going to deploy in the ring, in the fighting cage, on the street, or on the battlefield. These people know they’re going to be challenged and tested. Unless they prepare for this inevitable reality, they’re going to get hurt.”[2]

Wallace goes on to note that when boxers know that showdown is imminent.

They’ve marked it on their calendars. They know exactly when the showdown is going to take place, they train and train hard. They train relentlessly until the night they step into the ring. Wallace mentioned how he did this with witnessing encounters. In one part of the book, he talked about how he and a group of students made plans to go to Utah on a specific date to engage Mormons. The students didn’t know anything about Mormonism and didn’t know any of the challenges they might be met with when trying to share the gospel with them. But Wallace said, “On this day, we will witness to Mormons.” So the whole time leading up to the trip, the students studied and researched and prepared themselves for the encounters they knew were going to occur. Wallace said that when the time arrived, the students did splendidly!

I can speak from personal experience how Calendaring my showdowns helps me become a quick learner. You know those debates you can watch on this site’s “My Debates” page? I trained for each of those debates. I didn’t always have the same amount of prep time, but whatever prep time I had, I put to good use. The one I had the most prep time was my debate with Nathan Reese on “Did Jesus Really Rise from The Dead?” and a debate with a man named Anthony B called “Are There Sound Arguments for God’s Existence” which got canceled. After those two debates, in particular, I found that I could defend the Cosmological and Fine-Tuning Arguments as well as the historicity of the resurrection better than I ever could before that. Calendaring my showdown caused me to train myself to defend these arguments. The pressure leads me to master the subjects faster. Not that I wasn’t good at defending these arguments before (if that were the case, I wouldn’t have agreed to the debates), what I’m saying is that I was twice as skilled after the month of prepping!

In Forensic Faith, J. Warner Wallace gives us a good acronym to go by T.R.A.I.N

T – Test

Challenge each other to expose our weaknesses.

R – Require

Expect more from each other than we sometimes think we can
handle.
A – Arm

Learn the truth and how to articulate it.

I – Involve

Deploy into the battlefield of ideas.

N – Nurture

Tend to our wounds and model the nature of Jesus.

Rule 4: Be Good at Time Management 

You need to learn to use your time wisely. All of us only have 14 hours that we’re awake. Depending on what kind of job you have and what kind of life you lead will depend on how much time you can devote to studying these topics. Now, the one excuse you should not have is “I don’t have time to learn this stuff.” Yes, you do. We all have free time. Maybe some of us have more free time than others, but we all have points in time during the week in which nothing is pressing on us.

The issue is not having enough free time. The issue is what you’re willing to sacrifice in place of what you normally do during your free time. For example, instead of watching 3 hours of television when you get home from work, open up a William Lane Craig or Lee Strobel book (or…an Evan Minton book). Listen to a podcast or watch a debate on YouTube. Instead of spending Sunday afternoon watching football, devote that time to study.

Before I got into studying apologetics, theology, and philosophy, what I did in my free time was watch anime and play video games. That’s how my “Me time” was spent. I have sacrificed those things to a significant degree to become a better ambassador for Christ. Now, I still play video games, and I still watch anime, but I’m not able to do it as much as I would like. Sometimes when I get burned out on studying, I take a little break and do these things in their place. Sometimes I can devote only one hour to a game or a show. This is, in fact, the primary reason why I’m very far behind on many of the shows I like. Instead of spending my evening hours in front of the TV, I spend it in front of an open book. I generally binge my TV shows on the weekends to catch up.

If you’re a trucker and spend most of your time on the road, audiobooks and podcasts are PERFECT for you. You can just plug in your MP3 Player to your truck’s radio and listen and learn while you’re delivering. If your truck is old though, you might need to use a cassette adapter. But, in this case, while you may not have a lot of time for reading, you will have a lot of time for listening. And hopefully, the upcoming Cerebral Faith Podcast will be one of the things you listen to.

I mentioned the trucker vocation because a few of my friends in apologetics do precisely this. If you don’t have time to read, you might have time to listen. And even if you’re not a trucker, you might still be able to listen to podcasts and audiobooks depending on what you do. Janitors are notorious for wearing earphones. If you’re a businessman and do a lot of traveling, your plane flights would be the perfect time for both reading and listening.

If you still have trouble making sufficient time to learn, pray about it. God will help you work out a schedule suited to your lifestyle.

Conclusion 

Hopefully, you find this article helpful. Remember, you won’t learn this stuff overnight. I sure didn’t.

NOTES 

[1] J. Warner Wallace, “Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for A More Reasonable, Evidential Faith” page 87, David C Cook

[2] J. Warner Wallace, “Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for A More Reasonable, Evidential Faith” page 88, David C Cook

 

Evan Minton is a Christian Apologist and blogger at Cerebral Faith (www.cerebralfaith.blogspot.com). He is the author of “Inference to The One True God” and “A Hellacious Doctrine.” He has engaged in several debates which can be viewed on Cerebral Faith’s “My Debates” section. Mr. Minton lives in South Carolina, USA.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2rYatjU

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Does Religion Really Matter in America?

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The latest Gallup poll shows a continuing decline of religious influence in America. A dramatic shift has taken place in America related to the way we view religious beliefs. Hidden in the data from the Gallup research lies a clue to the reason for this change in public opinion. Why do fewer Americans think religion matters? Listen to the podcast to hear the answer to this question. Frank and Detective J. Warner Wallace tackle this issue and others in this episode. Don’t miss it!

Keep Frank busy by sending your questions to Hello@CrossExamined.org and don’t miss this episode!

Subscribe on iTunes: http://bit.ly/CrossExamined_Podcast rate and review! Thanks!!!

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If it Feels Right it must Be Right... Right

If it Feels Right it must Be Right… Right?

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By Jeremy Linn

How could something that feels so right be called immoral?

If it Feels Right it must Be Right... Right

That is basically the question Imagine Dragons singer Dan Reynolds proposed on a recent interview on the Ellen Show. In the interview, Dan talked about his upbringing as a Mormon and his tendency to rebel against the moral cues of his culture. When he attended BYU (the “Mormon college”), he started sleeping with his girlfriend. BYU somehow found out about Dan’s actions, and the school decided to kick him out. That’s when he asked the question – “Why is this thing that feels right also something that gets me kicked out of college and shames me in my community and made me feel all this guilt?”

Imagine Dragons

Now a few warnings before continuing. I am NOT about to advocate for the moral validity of the Mormon faith. I am also not about to tear down Imagine Dragons – I would say they’re in my top 5 favorite bands. Finally, I am not going to analyze BYU’s response to Dan’s actions or the effect that response had in Dan’s life.

But I do want to point out that in his question, Dan implied that he believed what he was doing was okay because it felt right to do. His assessment of his moral actions was not based on an objective moral code laid out by Mormonism, or any other objective moral code for that matter. It was based on a subjective standard – how those actions felt to him.

This notion is common for people in our culture to hold – if something feels right, it must be morally right. But do feelings actually provide us a solid basis to assess the moral quality of our actions? To address complex questions like this one, I like to start with the most obvious points, and then continue from there. So I will do just that with this question.

One obvious point is that using feelings as a basis for moral assessment doesn’t work logically. If we’re going off a purely feelings-based standard, any action could be morally justified with that standard. For example, I would not be surprised if some people who are charged with child pornography felt that accessing that content was an okay thing to do. Yet they are still prosecuted, and many people who base morality off individual feelings would be outraged by their actions.

Another point is feelings are temporary and can change. What feels right one day may feel not-so-right the next. What if Dan suddenly started to feel like sleeping with his girlfriend was a wrong thing to do? It seems that under the feelings-based standard, the action would turn suddenly from morally right to evidently wrong.

Based on these two concepts alone, it’s clear that feelings are not a solid basis for us to assess the moral quality of our actions. Certainly less obvious points could be thrown in as well. There’s the question of how to determine who is right when two people’s feelings conflict. Then there’s the question of how to govern with moral principles when the standard for morality is the feelings of each individual in a society.

So what is a proper standard to assess moral actions? Again, I turn to the obvious points to address this question. First, a proper standard involves something that goes beyond what an individual feels since feelings are a poor basis for making moral judgments. Second, the standard is one that will not change quickly, as moral assessment would be nearly impossible if the standard can change on a dime. Third, the standard must transcend cultural norms in order for us to be able to evaluate the moral actions of people from a different culture.

This criteria for a proper moral standard is in line with theism – the notion that a good and personal God exists. In theism, goodness is inherent in God’s nature, and thus the moral standard comes from reflection about God’s nature. This nature goes beyond individual feelings, never changes, and transcends cultures.

It is possible that a non-theistic standard could meet the same criteria. But whether a moral standard comes from a theistic or non-theistic viewpoint, one thing’s for sure:

If something we do feels right, it does not necessarily follow that we are doing the right thing.

 

Jeremy is an accountant for a law firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s also going to Bethel Seminary for a graduate degree in a program called Christian Thought (basically Apologetics!). Outside of Apologetics, Jeremy enjoys sports, playing guitar, and making videos.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2BijtEO

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A Quick History Lesson

A Quick History Lesson

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By Nick Peters

Objection:

The Bible is a compendium of fireside tales and fables recounted orally for generations by goat herders and primitive tribes from the stone age until writing was invented, and then again many different sources, transliterations, and versions were written down.

A Quick History Lesson

There were no grand central universities to organize the many various versions of these origin stories. They were for entertainment, and to answer the questions of the many fears and mysteries of our universe since there was no science yet. This is the Old Testament.

The ‘new’ Testes is also hearsay since these letters, ‘gospels’ and stories were written by the loyal faithful, the camp followers, not by objective historians at that particular time, or by any contemporary writers, and these tales were written many years after the supposed events of this mythical Jesus. Thus, there is no verifiable evidence of a Jesus in real history.

Then many of these stories, but not all, were compiled for one self-absorbed converted Roman Emperor for his expressed purpose of conquest and control of the people of Europe for his Holy Roman Empire. He recognized that this was the perfect religion/mythology for domination of the populace. Half the stories were ignored by the Nicean Bishops, and none have been proven to be based on fact.

This ‘Bable’ is backed up by absolutely no facts and evidence.

– Brien

Nick Peters’ Response:

I have been asked by Tim Stratton to write a reply to Brien as he has been making these same objections in various groups on social media — including the FreeThinking Ministries Facebook page. Tim refers to it as a “softball objection.” I really think that’s inappropriate because when you play softball, there’s an actual target to swing at.

Let’s go through and consider Brien’s objections:

“The Bible is a compendium of fireside tales and fables recounted orally for generations by goat herders and primitive tribes from the stone age until writing was invented, and then again many different sources, transliterations, and versions were written down.”

Let’s begin by noting that no evidence is given to support any of these assertions. It’s all a “just so” story. Somehow, Brien knows these stories go back to the Stone Age. How? What evidence has been brought forward? Nothing. There’s also this implication that people who are goat herders specifically — and all primitives — must be therefore stupid. It’s one of my favorite claims to see: “Ancient People Were Stupid!”

Then we are told writing was invented and many different sources, transliterations, and versions were written down. Well, a source is something that’s used when writing, so that part doesn’t make sense. Then transliteration supposedly, but that’s using another alphabet to write a message, so what message was being transliterated if the alphabet hadn’t been written? Then he claims there are many versions, but where are these versions? Can Brien show them? We could recommend that he read a book like this, but that’s likely too much work. (By the way, for those financially challenged libraries offer these books for free.)

“There were no grand central universities to organize the many various versions of these origin stories. They were for entertainment, and to answer the questions of the many fears and mysteries of our universe since there was no science yet.

This is the Old Testament.”

That’s true. There were no grand central universities. After all, there was no Christianity yet, and Christians started the majority of those universities, including the universities that were founded in America. In the medieval period, there were plenty of universities founded by Christians. As for why the stories were written, again, we have a “just so” story. It’s also assumed the accounts are meant to be read as scientific accounts. I disagree. I go with John Walton in saying the accounts are aimed at dealing with God declaring the function of creation in being a cosmos for Him to dwell in. Still, Brien has given zero evidences or sources for any of this.

“The ‘new’ Testes is also hearsay since these letters, ‘gospels’ and stories were written by the loyal faithful, the camp followers, not by objective historians at that particular time, or by any contemporary writers, and these tales were written many years after the supposed events of this mythical Jesus.”

Awwww. “The New Testes.” Isn’t that cute? I bet Brien sure feels like a big boy using terminology like that. Well, give him a cookie. So the first statement we have is that the Gospels are hearsay. On what grounds? First, they were written by the loyal faithful.

I was not aware that being loyal to a cause meant that your account was hearsay or even dare I say it, unreliable. They are also contrasted to objective historians. Keep in mind, Jews today have the best holocaust museums out there, and I’m quite sure they have a bias. As for objective historians, no historian is purely objective. If you write about something, it’s because you care about it.

Besides that, which historians should have written about Jesus? How many of them are going to take seriously the claims of a crucified criminal in the backwaters of Judea being a Messiah figure? No more than most elite will go and track down a Benny Hinn claim.

‘Finally, these were not by contemporary writers and were written many years after the events.’

Well, usually historical accounts are written after the events. That’s the way it works. Next, this is also common in the ancient world. Plutarch would write about events that took place centuries before he lived. The first biographies of Alexander the Great that we have come centuries later.

Next, there is still no evidence given. Perhaps Brien could someday learn to interact with a work like this one. Does Brien have any methodology whereby to date an ancient manuscript? Does he have a methodology to determine authorship?

Finally, this would only apply to the Gospels. Seven of the thirteen epistles attributed to Paul are universally accepted in scholarship, and those seven are all we need to make a case for the resurrection of Jesus.

“Thus, there is no verifiable evidence of a Jesus in real history.”

At this point, we just put our heads back and roar in laughter! Jesus mythicism is to history what Intelligent Design (ID) is said to be to science. (I am not a supporter of ID anyway.) Wait. That’s not accurate. There are far more Ph.D.’s in science that will give some backing to it than there are Ph.D.’s in the New Testament or ancient history that will support mythicism. In other words, if you think ID and/or any denial of evolution is junk science, you have no grounds to be supporting mythicism.

Bart Ehrman and Maurice Casey are both serious NT scholars who have written on this topic. They definitely represent the position of most skeptical scholars on this issue. It’s just not a serious claim. It leaves too many questions to explain and lacks much explanatory power itself.

“Then many of these stories, but not all, were compiled for one self-absorbed converted Roman Emperor for his expressed purpose of conquest and control of the people of Europe for his Holy Roman Empire. He recognized that this was the perfect religion/mythology for domination of the populace. Half the stories were ignored by the Nicean Bishops, and none have been proven to be based on fact.”

Poor Brien doesn’t know his history. The Holy Roman Empire started in 800 with Charlemagne. The Council of Nicea was under Constantine in 325. Constantine didn’t have much to do with it and Athanasius, the grand hero of the event, went into exile numerous times afterward as Arians took power. Brien tells us half the stories were ignored by the bishops. No evidence is given of this, and the Council of Nicea was about the Arian controversy. It was not about the canon of Scripture. The first listing we have that mirrors the Protestant Bible comes from Athanasius in 367.

Brien tells us this was the perfect mythology to control the populace. Why? No reason is given. All we have is assertions of faith.

“This ‘Bable’ is backed up by absolutely no facts and evidence.”

You might think this if you ignore all scholarship and archaeology and everything else. It seems as if Brien has never read any scholarship. In an irony, he is like many pastors in many pulpits that he would decry. Reading Brien’s writing reminds me of the joke about the fundamentalist pastor writing the sermon outline for Sunday and putting on the side, “Weak point. Pound pulpit harder.” It would remind me more if there were any points here at all. Brien is just a “fundamentalist pastor” for the other side giving statements of faith without evidence.

Irony is funny, isn’t it?

 

Nick Peters has a passion for apologetics. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in preaching and Bible from Johnson University and is currently working on a Master’s in the New Testament. He and his wife are both diagnosed with Aspergers and have a cat named Shiro. His other interests include reading, video games, and popular TV shows like The Big Bang Theory and The Flash. Nick says that he is extremely sarcastic, so you’ve been warned! Make sure to check out his Deeper Waters website here at www.deeperwatersapologetics.com

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2UGvMUe

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