Can We Be Good Without God?

Can We Be Good Without God?

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By Ryan Leasure

This past weekend, two mass-scaled shootings transpired on American soil. El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio experienced unspeakable carnage. Two men, fueled by hatred for mankind, slaughtered dozens of innocent people in cold blood.

In response, people of all stripes spoke out against these atrocities. Men and women, democrat and republican, Christian and atheist, all condemned these crimes. In other words, the denunciation of these senseless and cowardly acts has been universal.

But doesn’t this universal agreement fly in the face of our relativistic cultural values? “Don’t force your morality on others” suddenly doesn’t sound so appealing in situations like this. Don’t we all want everyone else to adopt our same moral position on murder?

This, of course, raises important questions. Does objective morality exist? That is, were those two men objectively wrong in what they did over the weekend? And if so, where does this agreed-upon morality come from?

Objective Morality?

Relativists argue that there is no such thing as objective morality. Rather, morality is subjective — dependent on individual opinions. So in situations like these mass shootings, the relativist cannot say that the shooters were wrong. If so, that would imply that an objective standard exists that these two individuals missed.

Rather, the relativist can only say they didn’t care for these events. They found them distasteful. “Murder is wrong,” and “rape is evil” are just opinions on par with “pepperoni is better than sausage.”

But isn’t it self-evident that mass murder is in a different category than pizza toppings? The very fact that society has universally condemned these acts ought to tip us off that something more than mere opinion is at work here. When we all cry “foul” in unison, we’re implicitly affirming that “fair” exists.

C. S. Lewis made this argument years ago. He wrote:

[As an atheist] my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe to when I called it unjust?1

What Lewis and so many others have argued is that objective morality exists, and this is most evident when people don’t live up to that moral standard.

If we learn, for example, that a man raped a little girl, brutally murdered her, and dismembered her body, would we say that he committed evil? If yes, then we recognize an objective moral standard exists that was not met. Our senses tell us that acts such as abuse, rape, theft, deceit, murder, etc., all fail to measure up to a standard of some sort.

This moral standard seems so patently obvious; it’s odd when people try to deny it. A quick rule of thumb is that when a certain group can’t condemn the Holocaust as evil, we conclude that their views are absurd. Of course, if those same relativists had been in those concentration camps, they’d drop their relativism and recognize evil for what it is.

Even the most committed relativist will come around if you steal his wallet or spread false rumors about him. Phrases like “that’s not right” or “that’s not fair” will come spewing out faster than you can blink your eye.

Where Does Objective Morality Come from?

The reality of objective morality raises a significant question. Where does it come from? For the naturalists (those that believe only the natural world exists), these objective morals are mere illusory by-products of evolution and social conditioning.

For most naturalists, science is the only begetter of knowledge. But science itself is amoral. Science cannot tell us how things ought to be. It can only tell us how things are. That is, science can tell us how to make chemical weapons, but it cannot tell us whether we should use them.

Objective morals simply cannot derive from something morally neutral like science. And they certainly don’t arise from Darwinian evolution. According to Darwinists, people only do good because it aids in their survival. But if that’s the case, can we really call their actions morally good? Fundamentally, the motivation behind “good” acts is self-serving, and thus not worthy of praise.

Also, doesn’t Darwinism, on the whole, make morality arbitrary? Couldn’t the human race have found rape or killing each other for food acceptable if it would have evolved like other species from the animal kingdom? Sharks do this all the time, but are they immoral?

Darwinists who find this notion uncomfortable typically adopt humanism — the belief that humans are the center of the universe and morality is based on what helps them flourish. But again, isn’t humanism purely arbitrary in a Darwinian world?

Darwin, after all, taught that every living species descended from the same common ancestor in the primordial soup. Thus, humans are simply one small branch on his tree of life. Other branches include crickets, lions, fungus, and every other living species. Why should we think the human branch is the most valuable? Why are we more important than crickets? Doesn’t this make us guilty of speciesism?

Ultimately, atheism’s understanding of morality is purely arbitrary. It simply cannot account for objective morality.

In the end, God is the best explanation for objective morality. God’s very nature grounds morality so that anything done that goes against his character is wrong and/or evil. Furthermore, because God made humans in his image, each person possesses intrinsic value.

Answering the Skeptics’ Objections

Without a doubt, the first objection raised to the claim that objective morality doesn’t exist without God is that atheists do good without believing in God. But this misses the point. Of course, people can still do good things without believing in God. The question is not: do we have to believe in God to do good? Rather, the question is: if God doesn’t exist, is anything objectively good at all? As I’ve argued, moral categories are arbitrary in an atheistic world.

If we acknowledge, however, that the two mass-shooters committed evil, then objective moral categories exist. And if objective moral categories exist, then a transcendental lawgiver is the best explanation.

Which leads to the second objection — the Euthyphro Dilemma. The dilemma goes like this: Is something good because God wills it? Or does God will something because it is good? Skeptics raise this objection to put the theist between a rock and a hard place.

For if we say something is good because God wills it, then good is ultimately arbitrary. But if we say God wills something because it’s good, then the objective standard exists beyond God. But the skeptic presents us with a false dilemma here. A third option exists which states God wills something because he is good. That is to say; he is the standard by which we get all moral categories.

Another frequent objection is that we don’t need the Bible to know that we shouldn’t murder or steal. After all, other religious books tell us the same as do most legal codes. But again, this is not the argument theists make.

Nobody’s arguing you need to read the Bible to know right from wrong. Rather, we’re arguing that objective right and wrong don’t exist in a world without a transcendent moral law. But the very fact that every world religion and legal code agree on basic fundamental morals suggests that a moral law exists that transcends the human race.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 2:14-15. He writes, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”

That is to say; people don’t need the Bible to know right from wrong. God has instilled this moral code in the hearts of all people.

Which raises a final objection. If a moral law exists, why is there so much disagreement on morality? Disagreements certainly exists around issues like abortion and sexuality. But does that imply no right view exists? Of course not. Which is why we strive to make our views the accepted ones. In fact, if culture adopts our views, we’ll say things like our culture is progressing. Progressing toward what? The moral standard we believe to be right.

Be that as it may, the human race generally agrees on several basic points. People have certain rights. We should treat others with respect. Love is better than hate. Honesty is better than deceit. Courage is better than cowardice. And so forth. As C. S. Lewis aptly states:

Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five.2

The universal agreement on the most basic moral categories suggests a transcendent moral law.

The Moral Argument for God

I believe that objective morality is one of the strongest arguments for God’s existence. Perhaps a more helpful way of looking at it would be this syllogism:

  1. If God does not exist, objective morality does not exist.
  2. Objective morality does exist.
  3. Therefore, God exists.

This argument is logically air tight. If premises 1 and 2 are true, then 3 necessarily follows. I’ve made a case for 1 and 2 in this article. It concludes then that God exists.

So can we be good without God? No, because if he doesn’t exist, nothing objectively good exists either.

 

Ryan Leasure Holds a Master of Arts from Furman University and a Masters of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He currently serves as a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC.

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

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Should Christians Abandon Social Media

Should Christians Abandon Social Media?

By Luke Nix

Introduction

With all of the recent news of various social media platforms purposefully hiding and censoring Christian and politically conservative content in the name of “diversity” and “tolerance,” many people have abandoned Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other popular social media outlets in protest. While I have been tempted to do the same, because of their relative popularity (compared to more traditional communication media), I do believe that if we abandon these platforms, we will not only limit our audience but encourage the behavior of limiting reasonable content to and stifling intellectual discussion among the users of these platforms. The new generation of consumers prefers social media for their news, media consumption and discussion of various issues, so it cannot be abandoned by those who hold and can defend the truth with gentleness and respect.

The Liberal View of “Tolerance” and “Diversity”

I recently heard Candace Owens interview Lauren Chen about the modern liberal view of “tolerance” and “diversity.” They discuss the deliberate attempt to remove even the slightest (appearance of) disagreement from the public square. This attempted removal is targeting the internet and specifically, social media. If you are considering leaving popular social media platforms (or already have), I encourage you to listen to this discussion in full and consider that removing your voice of reason from today’s public squares may do more harm than good:

Christians Should Master The Media

The new culture primarily consumes image-driven messages, and social media is the primary avenue to get images before this audience. In his book “Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates The Claims of the Gospels,” J. Warner Wallace encourages Christians to not just embrace new media but to master them. Christians must master the content itself, the presentation of the content, and the delivery mechanisms for the content.

Quote from J. Warner Wallace from the book "Cold Case Christianity": "In a culture where image is more important than information, style more important than substance it is not enough to possess the truth. [Christian] case makers must also master the media."
Conclusion

Rather than abandoning popular social media channels, we should embrace them and utilize them to their fullest potential! If a challenge arises that limits our reach, it is not to be met with surrender, but with enthusiasm to reach the goal despite the challenges. I have written several posts and reviewed several books on the importance of discussing political and moral issues in a compassionate yet intellectual manner. I encourage you to read the posts and purchase the recommended books to equip you to “always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have…with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15):

Posts:

Quotes:

Books:

 

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/2GsTqy5

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Ethical Or Expedient? The True Philosophy Behind Abortion

Ethical Or Expedient? The True Philosophy Behind Abortion

By Madelyn Wood

An American outcry has erupted recently in response to newly legislated restrictions on abortion in certain states. Outraged, public figures have gone so far as to boycott Georgia, an entire state, in protest. Why have the American people fought so hard against abortion restrictions and pushed so vehemently for full-term, easily accessible abortions for all?

They claim it is a woman’s right to choose, and granted; no one acquiesces to being stripped of their rights. Their opposition, however, claims that fetuses should be protected under the label of human rights as well. At the end of the day, both sides appeal to the greater authority of Human Rights, but whose rights are right?

Before analyzing the touchy, and often even the personal, subject of abortion, we must cover the common ground between both sides. Abortion is defined as the “deliberate termination of a human pregnancy.” Pregnancy is divided into three trimesters: the first spanning weeks one to twelve, the second, weeks thirteen to twenty-seven, and the third, week twenty-eight to birth. Again, both sides appeal to Human Rights as lending weight to their respective arguments.

Aside from these few facts, however, disagreement, and even name-calling or personal attacks, abound. Though the recent public backlash seems to be in response to legislation, the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate (these are arguably poorly chosen titles, but for the sake of commonly-used terms, they will be used here) represents a deeper philosophical impasse. First of all, each must answer the question, when does life begin?

Three major theories about the beginning of life are in play. The first, commonly held by pro-lifers but widely dismissed, holds that life begins at conception. The next view claims that life begins when a heartbeat is detected, which occurs around eight weeks; additionally, during week eight, “the embryo becomes a fetus, all structures present in rudimentary form.” (Geneticist Ricki Lewis, Ph.D. on DNA Science Blog, When Does a Human Life Begin? 17 Timepoints) Finally, others hold that when a fetus has a chance of survival outside the womb, around 21 weeks, it is living. Notice that all of these definitions of life indicate life begins before the 22-week mark.

So how does abortion work? There are two main types of abortions: medical and surgical. Medical abortion offers a pill, causing the woman to bleed and lose the embryo or fetus, which would otherwise — had it not been intentional — be considered a miscarriage. Surgical abortion removes the fetus by a vacuum or manually. According to an experienced ex-abortionist, Dr. Anthony Levatino, “A second-trimester D&E abortion is a brutal, inhumane procedure… Let’s just say that they call it dismemberment abortion for a reason.” (Fox Host at Point of Tears as Former Abortionist Describes 2nd-Trimester Abortion, CNS News)

abortion-image-2

~D&E Abortion Process~

Purposeful termination of a human life has a name: killing. According to all three of the above definitions of life, termination of a pregnancy in the third trimester is killing an innocent human being. To deny that is to deny that the fully-formed fetus, with a heartbeat and even the ability to feel pain, is a person. Yet somehow, seven states offer third-trimester abortions, and over 25 states offer second-trimester abortions. As Levatino explains so clearly, these babies are being dismembered, and their body parts reassembled on a doctor’s tray; simply because they are surrounded by amniotic fluid and a political dispute, they are not protected by this great authority we call human rights. It’s inhumane. It’s unacceptable.

We live in a society where soldiers who sacrifice their lives for their country and its people are applauded as heroes; those same hands applaud women who sacrifice their children’s lives for personal convenience. How does that happen?  At best, our culture is confused about its values. At worst, it’s decisive about its values and chooses to ignore them.

Modern Western culture values expedience over ethics. Such moral depravity is not limited to an abortion problem. In fact, it affects everyone. When one lies about a colleague to gain a promotion, for instance, expedience is valued over ethics. The fact that it is accepted, even celebrated, to terminate second- and third-trimester pregnancies, and with them, innocent children points to the ethical corrosion of an entire society. It screams through a megaphone, “I’m more important than you! My happiness, convenience, comfort, etc. are more important than the next person’s.” In some cases, even more, important than the next person’s life.

Such a mindset actually implicates all of us. After all, the lying coworker subscribes to the same philosophy as the aborting mother. This truth should change the way we hold pro-life vs. pro-choice conversations. First of all, pro-choice supporters and activists must face the “when does life begin?” question head-on; otherwise, they are blindly endorsing killing, and if they aren’t, they need to prove it. It would also benefit them to appeal to statistics and reason rather than appeals to emotion or petty personal attacks.

Secondly, pro-lifers must be just that: pro-life. The other side has made it explicitly clear that pro-lifers are often hypocrites, supporting fetuses in the womb but neglecting them afterward. Granted, people cannot be perfect, but they can be consistent. They must also support the lives of mothers who feel they want or need an abortion; many of them have suffered domestic or sexual violence, or they are entrapped in poverty, or they feel unsupported and unprepared for a child. Most importantly, if anyone dares advocate for the lives of the unborn, they must root out the expedience-over-ethics ideology from their own lives– the philosophy that says personal convenience is more important than what is right.

Remember, both sides of this argument feel they are standing up for human rights: pro-choice, for a woman’s right to choose abortion, and pro-life, for a baby’s right to live. Because these sides are opposed to one another, they often fall prey to the either-or myth. Human rights is a wide umbrella, wide enough for both sides to take shelter from the rain of injustice. In other words, a child’s right to live and a woman’s right to health care can coexist– so long as the woman does not encroach upon, or end, the life of another.

The only way to remedy the injustice of abortion is to protect life at all stages and to fight against a mentality which prefers oneself over others. As George Orwell put it when describing injustice in his allegorical satire, Animal Farm,

“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

In this clear, satirical wording, it is easy to agree that inequality is wrong. But can we adopt this mentality when it applies to the abortion debate?

All lives are equally valuable: no, a woman does not have the right to kill her child at any stage of its life. Likewise, all lives are equally valuable: no, it is not acceptable to dismiss or attack someone because their opinions differ from your own. All lives are equally valuable. A philosophical reform which values the sanctity of all human lives and respects human rights is the only hope to protect the unborn and overcome our selfishness-saturated society.

 

Madelyn Wood loves Jesus and gets excited about sharing the reality of Him with other people. Because she grew up in split families with opposing worldviews, she became a skeptic from a young age. When one of those worldviews taught her that Jesus was a made-up, mythical character, she decided to investigate for herself. After spending about one and a half years researching the person of Jesus, God revealed the real Jesus to her via apologetics and the Holy Spirit. Madelyn is so thankful that God is allowing her to use her passion for writing to impact other seekers through apologetics.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2XMeF8L

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When C.S. Lewis Warned Us About Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard

When C.S. Lewis Warned Us About Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard

By Bob Perry

Unfortunately, everybody has heard about Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans. They were both born with eerily similar and rare genetic disorders. They both died before they reached age two. Sadly, those kinds of things happen too often. But neither of them are the reason you’ve heard of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans. You’ve heard of them because they became icons for the inherent dangers of a state-controlled health care system. C. S. Lewis warned us about this more than 70 years ago.

Charlie Gard

Charlie Gard was born in England on August 4, 2016, with an exceptionally rare genetic disorder. His prognosis was not good, but his parents found a hospital in the U.S. that agreed to offer an experimental treatment for the disease. They even raised the 1.3 million Pounds (about $1.74 million) required for the treatment. But the hospital where Charlie was born, and the grossly misnamed European High Court of “Human Rights” (ECHR), would not allow him to go receive the treatment. They didn’t want his case to set a precedent. Charlie Gard died on July 26, 2017.

Alfie Evans

In a more recent but similar story, Alfie Evans was born in England on May 9, 2016. Shortly thereafter, Alfie was diagnosed with another rare degenerative genetic disease. Once again, the prognosis was dire, but Alfie’s parents arranged for their son to be treated at a hospital in Italy. Again, the British hospital refused to allow him to go. The case was appealed to the same ECHR (Family Division) and got the same response. Alfie died on April 28, 2018.

Remember, the families of both of these children were not allowed to seek treatments outside the state-controlled health care system, Britain’s National Health Service. The power of a state bureaucracy trumped the wishes of the family, even when the family had raised the money for treatments on their own.

The Prescience of C. S. Lewis

Many people are unaware that C. S. Lewis wrote a three-book science fiction series called The Space Trilogy. The third installment of that series was titled, That Hideous Strength. In that book, the main character (Mark Studdock) was seduced to corruption by the promise of joining the inner ring of a powerful English society. It was an organization of men who used questionable tactics to establish an “efficient” state bureaucracy run by controllers who saw themselves as being a cut above the rest of the world. The name of the society Mark yearned to join was the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments — N.I.C.E. Lewis described N.I.C.E. as:

the first fruits of that constructive fusion between state and laboratory on which so many thoughtful people base their hopes for a better world. It was to be free from almost all the tiresome restraints… which have hitherto hampered research in this country. It was also largely free from the restraints of economy…

This was a fictional foreshadowing of what Lewis feared would become a socio-political reality. Some of his reviewers begged to differ. At the time, the New York Times described That Hideous Strength as “superlatively nonsensical excitement, challenging implications,” while Time magazine called it a “well-written, fast-paced satirical fantasy.” That was in 1946.

Fast forward to 2009. Writing in National Review on September 21, 2009, John C. Goodman reported on the contemporary Britain’s National Health Commission:

“which currently recommends against any treatment that costs more than $45,000 to save a year of life. Because of [the commission], British cancer patients are denied access to drugs that are routinely available in the U.S. and on the European continent, and thousands die prematurely.”

The name of the commission he is talking about is the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. The British people refer to it by the more commonly recognized acronym: N.I.C.E.

I wish I could make this stuff up. In fact, when I read this story, I assumed that Mr. Goodman had made it up. He hadn’t. But the creepy stuff doesn’t stop there.

N.I.C.E. Roots of a State-Controlled Health Care System

Mr. Goodman’s story was about the fact that some American politicians thought N.I.C.E. was a great model to use in America. Then Senator Tom Daschle said so in his book, Critical: What We Can Do About The Health-Care Crisis.

Ten years later, the relentless pursuit of state-controlled health care systems continues. And make no mistake. Even though the issue is currently on the back burner of American politics, it won’t stay there for long. Politicians of both parties will revivify it. They will tout a better system. There will be promises of no “death panels.” They will sell it as a more economically efficient system.

Your Children Are Not Your Own

I am reminded of the late Senator Phil Gramm. During hearings about education reform in the 1990s, he was bantering with a bureaucrat who was defending government control. Gramm stated that his policies were based on the fact that “I care more about my children than you do.”

The bureaucrat responded, “No, you don’t.”

To which Gramm replied, “Okay, What are their names?”

The State Has No Moral Conscience

Senator Gramm’s pithy response illuminates the obvious. No government bureaucrat cares more about your family than you do. And the implications of that are inevitable. Behind all the N.I.C.E. talk you hear there will be budget constraints and bureaucrats tasked with keeping them. There will be medical review boards and “human rights” courts happy to enforce them. The state will decide which persons are worthy of living. And the state will replace your family and doctor as the moral authority for the decision.

But the state has no moral accountability or conscience. The state seeks only to be efficient. And when the time comes, you will have no say in the matter. Some bureaucrat will be responsible for deciding who gets what treatment.

Someone like Mark Studdock.

That is a hideous strength for anyone to wield. Just ask the parents of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans.

 

Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at: truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal, and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and a M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source:http://bit.ly/2JSWlm2

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The Kalam Cosmological Argument NOT Debunked

The Kalam Cosmological Argument NOT Debunked

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By Evan Minton

I discovered a YouTuber called “Rationality Rules” very recently. One of his many videos is “The Kalam Cosmological Argument Debunked – (First Cause Argument Refuted)” which you can watch here. One of my patrons brought this video to my attention and requested that I respond to it, so here we go.

For the uninitiated, The Kalam Cosmological Argument is formulated as follows:

1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

2: The universe began to exist.

3: Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Let’s look at each of Rationality Rules’ rebuttals.

Objection 1: The Argument Doesn’t Support Theism 

Rationality Rules (RR) says “Even if the Cosmological Argument were accepted in its entirely, all it would prove is that there was a cause of the universe, and that’s it. It doesn’t even suggest, let alone prove that this cause was a being, and it certainly doesn’t suggest that that cause was a being that is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, personal and moral. That is one hell of a leap. Hence, even if accepted, the argument doesn’t even remotely support theism.” 

I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Has RR even paid the slightest bit attention to apologists’ defenses of The Cosmological Argument? This is patently false. Given that everything that has a beginning has something that caused it to come into being, and since Big Bang cosmology, the second law of thermodynamics, and the two arguments against actual infinites establish that the universe came into being out of nothing a finite time ago, it follows that a cause transcendent to matter, energy, space, and time must have caused matter, energy, space, and time (i.e the universe) to come into existence. Now, granted, the syllogism doesn’t define this cause as “God”. It only asserts “Therefore, the universe has a cause”. However, in every defense of The Kalam Cosmological Argument I’ve ever heard given, this is not where the argument stops. Once it is established that the universe a transcendent cause, the apologist (William Lane Craig, Frank Turek, Lee Strobel, Myself) do a conceptual analysis of what it means to be a cause of the universe. The conceptual analysis part of the argument is being totally ignored by RR.

When you do a conceptual analysis of what attributes or properties the universe’s cause must have, you do indeed end up with a being heavily resembling God.

The cause must be

Spaceless – Because space came into being and did not exist until this cause brought it into existence, the cause cannot be a spatial being. It must be spaceless or non-spatial. You cannot be inside of something if you are that something’s cause. You cannot be inside of something if that something did not exist until you brought it into existence.

Timeless – Since time did not exist until The Big Bang, the cause cannot be inside of time. It must be a timeless being.

Immaterial – The cause’s non-spatiality entails immateriality. How so? Because material objects cannot exist unless space exists. Material objects have mass and ergo occupy spatial dimensions. If there is no space, matter cannot exist. This means that because the cause is non-spatial, it is therefore non-material.

Unimaginably Powerful (if not omnipotent) – Anything able to create all matter, energy, space, and time out of absolutely nothing must be extremely powerful, if not omnipotent.

Supernatural – “Nature” and “The universe” are synonyms. Nature did not begin to exist until The Big Bang. Therefore, a natural cause (a cause coming, by definition, from nature) cannot be responsible for the origin of nature. To say otherwise would be to spout incoherence. You’d basically be saying “Nature caused nature to come into being.”

Uncaused – Given that the cause of the universe is timeless, the cause cannot itself have a beginning. To have a beginning to one’s existence entails a before and after relationship. There’s a time before one existed and a time after one came into existence. But a before and after of anything is impossible without time. Since the cause existed sans time, the cause, therefore, cannot have a beginning. It’s beginningless.

Personal – This is an entailment of the cause’s immateriality. There are two types of things recognized by philosophers that are immaterial: abstract objects (such as numbers, sets, or other mathematical entities) or unembodied minds. Philosophers realize that abstract objects if they exist, they exist as non-physical entities. However, abstract objects cannot produce any effects. That’s part of what it means to be abstract. The number 3 isn’t going to be producing any effects anytime soon. Given that abstract objects are causally impotent, it, therefore, follows that an unembodied mind is the cause of the universe’ beginning. Two other arguments for the personhood of the universe’s cause can be given, and I’ve unpacked these in my book The Case For The One True God: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Historical Case For The God Of Christianity available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle.

Whatever begins to exist has a cause, given that the universe began to exist, if follows that the universe has a cause of its existence. The cause of the universe must be a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, supernatural, uncaused, personal Creator.

This being that is demonstrated to exist by this argument is consistent with The Christian God. The Bible describes God as spaceless (see 1 Kings 8:27, 2 Chronicles 2:6), timeless (1 Corinthians 2:7, 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2), immaterial (John 4:24, 1 Timothy 1:17, 1 Timothy 6:16), powerful (Psalm 62:11-12, Job 9:14, Matthew 19:26), uncaused (Psalm 90:2, Isaiah 57:15, 1 Timothy 1:17, Revelation 1:8), supernatural, and is a personal being (John 1:12, James 4:8). Moreover, The Bible credits Him with being the Creator of all physical reality (John 1:1-3).

Additionally, as I point out in my book The Case For The One True God: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Historical Case For The God Of Christianity a study of comparative religions demonstrates that only 4 religions are consistent with the Cosmological argument’s conclusion: Judaism, Christianity, Islam (that’s why Ghazali defended it), and Deism. All other religions involve either an eternal cosmos that have God or gods bringing order out of the eternally existing matter, energy, space and time, or else their god is the universe itself (pantheism). Therefore, if you’re picking a view about God based on the cosmological argument alone, your list of options consistent with the evidence is limited to just 4 options, Christianity being among them. Only the Abrahamic religions (and Deism) teach that a God like the one described above brought all physical reality into existence from nothing.

Rationality Rules complains that the argument doesn’t demonstrate the omniscience, omnipresence, or the moral character of the universe’s cause, but the argument was never designed to get those qualities. Richard Dawkins made this same complaint about the argument. Dawkins said it like this “Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts.”[1] and Dr. William Lane Craig responded to it thusly:

“Apart from the opening slur, this is an amazingly concessionary statement! Dawkins doesn’t dispute that the argument successfully proves the existence of an uncaused, beginningless, changeless, timeless, spaceless, and unimaginably powerful personal Creator of the universe. He merely complains that this cause hasn’t also been shown to be omnipotent, omniscient, good, creative of design, listening to prayers, forgiving sins, and reading innermost thoughts. So what? The argument isn’t intended to prove those things. It would be a bizarre form of atheism, indeed an atheism not worth the name, which admitted that there exists an uncaused, beginningless, changeless, timeless, immaterial, spaceless, unimaginably powerful, personal Creator of the universe who may (for all we know) also possess the properties listed by Dawkins. So we needn’t call the personal Creator of the universe “God” if Dawkins finds this unhelpful or misleading. But the point remains that such a being as described by this argument must exist”[2]

This is just a pitiful objection to The Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Objection 2: It Doesn’t Prove The Universe’s Cause Was The First Cause. 

I facepalmed even harder at this objection than I did the previous one. Rationality Rules said “A second problem that even we accepted the argument. It wouldn’t prove that the universe itself was without a cause. Or in another words, it wouldn’t prove that first cause existed, which for a first cause argument is pretty damn ridiculous. To be fair, the proponents of this argument do indeed offer additional arguments in an attempt to assert that the cause of the universe must be without a cause. But the point that I’m trying to make here and now is that The Kalam Cosmological Argument, by itself, is pretty damn trivial. And hence, the proponents of this argument almost always employ additional arguments to reach their conclusions including the likes of Craig” 

There are good reasons given as to why the cause of the universe must be uncaused. I’ve given one of them above. I wrote “Given that the cause of the universe is timeless, the cause cannot itself have a beginning. To have a beginning to one’s existence entails a before and after relationship. There’s a time before one existed and a time after one came into existence. But a before and after of anything is impossible without time. Since the cause existed sans time, the cause, therefore, cannot have a beginning. It’s beginningless.” Another reason is that if you do not allow for an uncreated Creator, if you insist that God must have a Creator, you get thrown into an infinite regression. For God to come into being, His creator must have come into being, and before that creator could come into being, the creator before him had to come into being, and before that creator could come into being, the creator before him had to come into being, and so on back into infinity. No creator could ever come into being because there would always have to be a creator before him to bring him into being. In fact, no creator in the entire infinite past series of creators could ever come into being because each would have to be preceded by a previously created creator. And since no creator could ever come into being, the specific creator that brought our universe into existence couldn’t have come into being. But obviously, here we are. This suggests that there wasn’t an infinite regression of creators begetting creators. But if there was no infinite regression of creators begetting creators, then that logically brings us to an uncreated Creator, a Creator without beginning.

Even Rationality Rules admits that Kalam proponents back up the assertion that the cause is uncaused by arguments, as you can see in the quotation above. However, he doesn’t dispute the arguments. He doesn’t even say what the arguments are. He seems to think that merely having to bolster the conclusion “the universe had a cause” with additional arguments is an invalid move. But why think a thing like that? Yes, the syllogism by itself only gets you to “The universe had a cause”, but why take Christian Apologists to task for unpacking the implications of that conclusion with additional arguments?

The question RR should be asking is not whether additional arguments are needed, but whether the additional arguments given are good. RR’s objection is pretty damn trivial.

Objection 3: It Commits The Fallacy Of Equivocation

Rationality Rules indicts The Kalam Cosmological Argument for committing the fallacy of equivocation. What is the fallacy of equivocation? The fallacy of equivocation is when an argument uses the exact same word, but employs two different definitions of the word. It would be like if someone argued “God made everything. Everything is made in China. Therefore, God is Chinese”. The word being equivocated on here is the word “everything”. In the first premise, it means literally everything that exists, whereas, in premise 2, it only refers to everything that American consumers purchase.

Rationality Rules says that in the second premise, what we mean by the term “Universe” is the scientific definition of universe (i.e all matter, energy, space, and time), whereas in the conclusion, we employ the colloquial usage of the term “Universe”, meaning literally everything that ever was, is, and ever will be. Thus, RR says that steps 2 and 3 of the argument employ the same words with different meanings.

This objection is just as underwhelming as the previous two. For one thing, why isn’t “all matter, energy, space, and time) not synonymous with “everything that ever was, is, or will be”? Perhaps RR is assuming The Mother Universe theory whereby The Big Bang was not the absolute origin of all material objects, but only the birth of one of many “baby” universes” that come into being inside of a much wider Mother Universe. In that case, the origin of our universe would indeed not be “everything that ever was, is, or will be”.

But as I argue in my blog posts “Does The Multi-Verse Explain Away The Need For A Creator?” and “Is The Universe A Computer Simulation?” not to mention chapter 1 of The Case For The One True God, this Mother Multiverse scenario cannot be extended into past eternity. The Borde-Guth-Velinken Theorem, as well as the impossibility of traversing actual infinites, bring us to an absolute beginning of literally everything at some point, whether that be the beginning of our universe, The Mother Universe, The Grandmother Universe, or whatever.

This leads to my next point; we do mean literally everything in both steps 2 and 3. We mean all matter, energy, space, and time that ever was, is or will be in both steps 2 and 3. Now, RR can dispute whether premise 2 is true, but if I, William Lane Craig, Lee Strobel, Frank Turek, Hugh Ross, etc. mean literally everything in both steps, then a charge of the fallacy of equivocation cannot stand. We mean the same thing by “universe” in both steps 2 and 3.

Objection 4: Nothing Has Ever Been Demonstrated To Come Into Being From Nothing 

RR says “And this brings us comfortably to another critical flaw with the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It asserts that something can indeed come from nothing – a concept in philosophy known as Creatio Ex Nihilo (creation out of nothing), when this has never been demonstrated to occur. In fact, to the contrary, everything we know about cause and effect overwhelmingly and unanimously tells us that when a new thing is created it is due to the rearrangement of energy and matter that already existed… that is, everything is the result of Creatio Ex Materia (creation out of material).”

Another underwhelming objection. Before I give my response, let me inform my readers that I distinguish causes via Aristotelian Causation. The ancient philosopher Aristotle recognized that there are different types of causes. A “material cause” is the stuff out of which something is made. For example, a chair’s material cause is the wood gathered from chopped down trees. An efficient cause of the chair would be the carpenter who fashioned the chair from the wood. Another type of cause Aristotle identified was Final Causality. This is the teleology, the purpose or end goal of bringing something into being. In the example of the chair, the final cause would be the purpose of sitting. But for this discussion, only efficient and material causes need to be distinguished.

The objection here is that the inductive evidence is overwhelmingly against the idea that things can come into being without a material cause. The conclusion of The Kalam Cosmological Argument is that the universe came into being via an efficient cause (God), but with no material cause. God didn’t use previously existing material to manufacture the universe.

Now, I would agree that our experience shows us that whenever something comes into being, it had a material cause as well as an efficient cause, thus rendering us with as much inductive evidence for material causation, but this inductive evidence can be overridden if we have powerful evidence that all physical reality came into being out of nothing a finite time ago. The Big Bang demonstrates just that. To look at the evidence, see my blog posts “The Kalam Cosmological Argument” and “Is The Big Bang The Origin Of The Universe?”

As I explain in the above blog posts, we do in fact have powerful scientific evidence as well as philosophical arguments which show us that the whole of physical reality (space, time, matter, and energy) had an absolute beginning.

Objection 5: Special Pleading Fallacy 

RR says that Kalam proponents commit the special pleading fallacy. What is that? The Special Pleading Fallacy occurs whenever you make an exception to an established rule without justification. RR says “they [Kalam proponents] assert that the cause of the universe didn’t begin to exist and therefore it didn’t have a cause, without adequately justifying why this cause is an exception.”

My face is hurting from all the facepalming I’ve been doing throughout watching this dude’s videos. First of all, there’s no exception to even be made! The argument is that “Whatever begins to exist has a cause.” The Kalam proponent would only be special pleading if he or she said that God began to exist, but made him the exception by saying he came into being uncaused. However, all proponents of The Kalam Cosmological Argument hold that (A) God is uncaused, uncreated. And (B) we give arguments for that. I’ve given arguments for that above.

Objection 6: Argument From Ignorance

Of course. The overused “God Of The Gaps” objection. This is not based on what we don’t know. It’s based on what we do know. As I explained in subheader 1, the cause of the universe must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, uncaused, and personal. And I didn’t just arbitrarily assign these attribute’s to the universe’s cause, I gave positive arguments for why the universe’s cause must have these attributes. I, nor has any proponent of this argument ever said, “Scientists can’t explain how the universe came into being, so it must be God” or anything of that sort. One must suppose that atheists continue to illegitimately accuse the Kalam of committing this fallacy because they just don’t pay attention when it is explained to them. If you keep falling asleep in class, it’s no surprise that you don’t know what you’re talking about when it’s time to do your essay.

As for being the specific God I believe in, I’d recommend a look at The Case For The One True God. I admit that The Kalam doesn’t get you to the uniquely Christian conception of God, but it does get you to a conception of God that doesn’t match the majority of the ones most religions out there. Abrahamic religions and Deism are consistent with this argument, but polytheistic, animistic, and pantheistic religions are not. And atheism certainly is not consistent with the argument’s conclusion.

Conclusion 

When my patron Kevin Walker, asked me to make a response to this video, I was actually bracing myself for some pretty hard-hitting rebuttals, if not refutations. I was like “Boy, I hope I can handle these responses.” I never expected the pitiful, flimsy objections RR put forth.

Notes 

[1] Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion” p. 158.

[2] William Lane Craig, “Deconstructing New Atheist Objections To The Arguments For God,” https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/short-videos/deconstructing-new-atheist-objections-to-the-arguments-for-god/

 

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/2VrWpAg

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Desire and God Should I Always Do What I Feel

Desire and God: Should I Always Do What I Feel?

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By Robby Hall

The debate over homosexual behavior has taken many surprising turns. The national debate has involved a Fast Food franchise and a maker of Duck Calls.  It has involved extremes from Fred Phelps and his clan to groups like GLAAD comparing the whole thing to the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century.

What is missing from all of this is honest discourse. And what is missing from those who tell us that what they are doing is ok is “why it’s ok?”.

We hear arguments like:

  • “I was born this way.”
  • “My Love is real.”
  • “Why would I choose to be gay?”

So, for the Christian who believes that God teaches homosexual behavior is sin and that those who practice this need repentance and forgiveness, the message they give to LGBTQ people is very important.

Ultimately, the discussion boils down to desire.  It’s at this point that the discussion breaks down most often because neither side really understands their desires, their position as a human being in a fallen world, and how God views all of humanity.

So let’s take a look at desire.  Most homosexuals would say that they desire romantic/sexual relationships with those of the same sex and that they did not choose these desires any more than a heterosexual chooses their desires for opposite-sex relationships.  I believe this is true, but not for the reasons most homosexuals or Christians believe. [though, I believe these homosexual desires developed at an early age rather than a person being born with them “out of the box”]

I do not believe God created people with homosexual desires.  Homosexual desires are a result of the fallen, sinful state every person finds themselves in.  It’s no different than my desire to sleep with multiple women or someone’s desire to get as drunk as they can, etc.  Desire is not the benchmark for God’s holiness or His creation.  People desire many things – Money, Sex, Power.  All of our sinful actions can be traced back to a desire.  As a Christian, we must see ourselves before our salvation.  The bible says we were “enemies of God.”  Enemies.  At our hearts, we were evil.  So it should not be surprising that people have sinful desires.

A big question here is “how do I know my desires are sinful?”.  The only real answer to that is to put it up against God’s standards.  We know from Romans 1 that homosexual behavior is sinful.  Now, notice that I said homosexual behavior.  Having a desire and entertaining that desire are two different things.  Simply being attracted to the same sex is not sinful in itself [that is, that the desire exists] unless you were to dwell on such thoughts [as Jesus says, “if a man lusts in his heart…].  This is an important distinction for a Christian to make as he/she approaches those in the LGBTQ community in conversation about this issue.  It is no more sinful than being tempted.  Jesus was tempted in all things but did not sin.

Now, instantly, someone will say “well, Jesus never said homosexual behavior was a sin!”.  Well, what did Jesus say?  In Matthew 19, the Pharisees asked Jesus about the lawfulness of divorce.  His response tells us many things about the Old Testament:

“He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Here, Jesus not only affirms the OT, but He also tells us what God’s design for marriage is.  Held up against this standard, the only holy marital desire is that of a heterosexual nature.  We must ask ourselves if we should give in to any desire we have?  If I have a desire for lying, should I lie and not be held accountable because I was born that way?  What about theft?  We could list many more, but you understand the point.

So, when someone says they can’t help the way they feel, they are correct.  Only the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a result of salvation through faith and repentance can change desires.  But, desire is not an excuse for sin.  And it may be that the desire itself does not change, so the Christian must then choose to remain pure and, perhaps, unmarried.

When we as Christians see our own selfish desires that are to be crucified daily, we can understand a homosexual’s position and can offer understanding. Truth with gentleness and respect.

And for those in the LGBTQ community, understand that God does love you just as you are.  But you are in no different a position than I or anyone else.  Salvation comes by grace through faith in Christ alone.  And repentance leads to faith.

Be prepared to have honest conversations.  Discard bumper sticker slogans.  Let go of the Us vs. Them mentality.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2UUQ8bn

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A Clarifying Journey of Intervention, Detox & Recovery

A Clarifying Journey of Intervention, Detox & Recovery

By Terrell Clemmons

Oh, joy, somebody selling something, I thought when my doorbell rang. It was getting dark, so I switched on the porch light before stepping out to a tall, spunky, clipboard-clutching brunette waiting ever so patiently for the homeowner to come to the door. Katie represented an organization that protected consumers from unreasonable utility charges, and she was collecting signatures on two bills pending in our state Senate. An admitted idealist, she was concerned about the “little old lady” who might lose her home if her power bills went up. She was also upset about corporate greed and believed that there was a need for more regulation. She became an activist because she cared about these matters.

I asked her if she had considered whether rising taxes might pose a threat to that little old lady. She answered honestly that she hadn’t. I wondered aloud about the possibility of regulator–regulatee collusion. She hadn’t thought about that either, but she did like the word “collusion.” We talked for something like 20 minutes.

I didn’t sign her petition or donate to the cause. But I did accept her literature and contact information. A quick visit to her organization’s website the next day turned up a job posting for a “Community Organizer Position” with the job description of educating, organizing, and empowering citizens in an exciting, progressive work environment. Applicants could apply for full-time work at $325+/week or part-time at $8/hour with opportunities for bonuses. Benefits included paid holidays, paid vacations, health insurance, and college credit.

I liked Katie. She was bright, confident, and to all appearances genuinely well-meaning. But I couldn’t help but wonder: Was she really an idealistic servant aiding the oppressed? Or was she the hired tool of a duplicitous political organization? She seemed to believe the former. I suspected the latter.

The Paradox of Progressivism

Katie is emblematic of many in her generation. She believes she’s doing good, but from all I could gather, she’s investing her precious young adult years working on the wrong side of progress. In his excellent primer, The KinderGarden of Eden: How the Modern Liberal Thinks, Evan Sayet analyzes the mentality driving the progressive agenda with surgical precision. There are “two kinds of Modern Liberals,” he writes, “the True Believer and his Mindless Foot Soldier.” There’s a difference between them, but, as he continues, “there is absolutely no difference between the two when it comes to the policies they support.” Sayet predicts that the Modern Liberal will at every turn side with the evil over the good, the wrong over the right, the lesser over, the better, the ugly over the beautiful, the vulgar over the refined, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success. A quick visit to Katie’s Facebook page showed her to be an avid supporter of Planned Parenthood, along with Occupy Wall Street and a few other groups that fit this prediction to a tee, including one devoted solely to mocking Evangelical Christians.

I didn’t like applying Sayet’s terminology to Katie. To all appearances, she’s anything but mindless. But sadly, she fits the characteristics of the Mindless Foot Soldier. Even more sad, she’s like a lot of people I know, young and old, blithely carrying out, according to Sayet’s model, “the progressive agenda of destroying all that is good, right, and successful [about] Western Civilization.” And all in the name of good intentions. If it seems convoluted, that’s because it is. But what can be done?

Coming Alongside

Dr. Mike Adams, of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, has produced an excellent example of how to go about engaging someone like Katie. Though more often known for biting sarcasm and barbed wit, with Letters to a Young Progressive: How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don’t Understand, the professor provocateur takes on a markedly softer tone. At the center of the tale is Zach, a composite of countless bright students he’s known who enroll in universities but while there “become increasingly enraged at the world and disgusted with other people. This is unfortunate,” he observes, “because they are getting angry over things that aren’t even true.”

When Zach made a comment in class comparing TV personality Glenn Beck to serial murderer Charles Manson, Dr. Adams could have set the record straight right there on the spot. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he came alongside his student, so to speak, by means of a personal letter. “I haven’t written to scold you,” he starts off. “I don’t have the moral authority to do so. You see, I used to be like you. Let me explain.” Then, after telling Zach something of his personal backstory as a dysfunctional, angry pseudo-intellectual himself, he gets to the point.

Zach, you are so bright and have so much potential that I think it’s a shame you are so angry at such a young age. I also think it’s a shame because I know that so much of your anger stems from misinformation… If you’re interested, I’d be happy to write to you periodically over the summer to share some of what I learned on my journey from being a progressive atheist to becoming a conservative Christian.

Intellectual Detox

Then, over the course of 34 more letters brimming with factual data, watertight logic, common sense, and a generous sprinkling of stories from his own life, the teacher deconstructs for his protégé a plethora of progressive myths. He shows how the Social Security program disproportionately transfers income from the average black working man to his white counterpart, how race-based affirmative action hinders, rather than boosts, black upward mobility, and how campus speech codes, rather than helping the minorities they were enacted to “protect,” simply reinforce stereotypes of them as hypersensitive and emotionally volatile weaklings.

Although he foregoes the barbs, Adams’s wit is alive and well. In a letter called “Government Subsidies and Spousal Abuse,” he picks up on a common experience with a cell phone company. During his fifth visit to the store after four rate changes and four broken promises,

I lost my temper and let loose with something like the following: “You’re not really an Internet provider… You’re more like an abusive spouse. You treat me disrespectfully until I threaten to leave you, and then you promise to make things better. But they only get better for a while because you don’t change. You just lie to me to get me back because you can’t live without me.”

The story is comical because it’s so relatable, but “there is a serious point to be made here,” he continues.

When the government gets involved in trying to solve a problem, it invariably makes things worse. Your cell phone provider—my previous Internet provider—is subsidized by the federal government. For that one reason, and that one reason alone, you are unlikely to ever get good service from them. Because the federal government has built a safety net beneath it, it is not afraid of failing. That is why its employees behave so carelessly towards you… It’s basic human psychology.

Diagnosis: Statolatry

Much of what he relates to Zach is basic, but sadly, decades of progressive education have produced a preponderance of misguided Zachs and Katies, to whom, because they are unschooled in such basics, the government is, and always will be, all-benevolent. This is consistent with the progressive movement which, from the early years of the 20th century, has advanced on the premise that the government can and should solve every social and economic ill—that whatever the need of the day happens to be, the forces of an all-encompassing government should be retooled to meet it. In 1931 Fascist Italy, Pope Pius XI called this tendency “statolatry,” which literally means “worship of the state.” The idea is to look upon the state, rather than God, as the supreme benefactor.

Adams doesn’t use the same term, but he identifies this same inclination in academia. “In the so-called social sciences,” he tells Zach, “everything is a show. It is always a three-act play directed by progressive thinking. In the first act, man is born innocent. In the second act, man is corrupted by ‘society.’ In the third act, the progressive saves him.”

What has happened, in a century-long sleight of hand lost on most of us, is that the proper functions of politics and religion have been reversed. So today, having marginalized traditional religion, we find ourselves trying to achieve religious ends through political means. Witness Katie, for example, loving her (anonymous little old lady) neighbor via (paid) political activism, as if community organizing at $8/hour really qualifies as loving your neighbor.

But the thirsts of our souls will never be slaked by drinking from the fount of the fed. The state is ill-suited to fill the role of benefactor, and it is wholly incapable of ever being anyone’s savior. It’s no wonder so many activists are angry. They’re serving a false god, and false gods inevitably become cruel masters.

Recovery & Commission

Adams does a masterly job of unraveling the whole progressive ruse for Zach. Certainly, he educates Zach, causing him to reconsider his political views. Along the way, he also supplies him with bulletproof responses to some of the boilerplate invective progressive ideologues are sure to hurl at a defector. But more important, Adams draws the connection between one’s political affiliations and his underlying personal stance toward God, causing Zach to reconsider his commitment to his Maker. And gently, he points Zach back to the teachings of his upbringing.

What you learned in your father’s house might not be as enticing as some of the ideas you encounter in college. Indeed, the truth can sometimes seem like a rigid set of punitive commandments, but in reality, it is nothing less than a gift from God. It is His way of telling you what you really desire so that you can live a life that is worth living.

Helping Zach live a life worth living is the goal. “What I am asking you to do at this point is to take a definite stand on the side of the good, right, and true and against the ugliness that’s so apparent in some of the politics on our campus.” You’re ready for it, Adams seems to say, as Zach prepares to graduate. He has prepared his son in the faith for the fight worth having. I think I sense a gleam in his eye when he tells Zach, “I want you to become a lightning rod for the truth.”

As for me, I’ve learned a thing or two from reading over Dr. Adams’s shoulder. So if you’ll excuse me, I have a letter to write.

 

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/2XJcvlG

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Twitter suspends account of pro-life movie “Unplanned”, deletes 99% of their followers

Twitter suspends account of pro-life movie “Unplanned”, deletes 99% of their followers

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By Wintery Knight

Wow, big social media companies like Facebook, Google, Youtube, and Twitter are really ratcheting up their suppression of any accounts that challenge their allies in the Democrat Party. For example, on the weekend Twitter decided to suspend the account of the new pro-life movie “Unplanned.” And then they deleted 99,000 of their followers.

PJ Media reports:

The pro-life movie Unplanned surprised at the box office its opening weekend, taking 5th place with $6.1 million. That didn’t stop Twitter from attacking the film twice in one weekend, however.

The movie’s Twitter account was briefly suspended on Saturday, mere hours after its release on Friday. On Sunday, the account seems to have mysteriously lost 99,000 of its 100,000 followers.

There was a backlash against the suspension of the account. Twitter didn’t provide any rule that was violated, but they reinstated the account – with zero followers. People trying to re-follow the account were prevented from doing so, including the author of the PJ Media article:

I attempted to follow the page, but the same thing happened to me.

However, the movie performed so well at the box office that they are expanding the number of theaters next week to 1,700:

Despite the Twitter suspension and sudden mysterious loss of followers, Unplanned racked up more than $6.1 million at the box office, despite being predicted to take in only $2-3 million. Even more impressive, the film only played on 1,060 screens, earning an average of $5,770 per screen.

On Sunday, the film announced that its distributor, Pure Flix, will add an additional 600 screens for a count of 1,700 screens next week.

The movie also earned an A+ rating from CinemaScore, and it has a 93 percent positive rating on RottenTomatoes.

I’d make sure that you go see it as soon as possible. Remember what happend to the Gosnell movie, last time? The theaters pulled it very early, even though it was doing very well.

This isn’t the first time that Twitter has censored voices critical of their allies in the Democrat Party. Remember when they refused to allow a pro-life election ad from (now Senator) Marsha Blackburn? Or when they censored pro-life ads from the well-known pro-life Susan B. Anthony List group? Or when they said that death threats against conservative Dana Loesch were permissible? They also allowed threats of violence to be made against the pro-life Covington students. They also blocked pro-life ads from Live Action. Basically, they censor anything that makes their pro-abortion allies in the Democrat Party look bad.

I understand that companies make mistakes, but why are all the mistakes made by these big social media companies in favor of their allies in the Democrat Party? Is it because they don’t want their allies in the Democrat Party to lose elections?

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2IbAy8l

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The Abortion Debate: Dr. Mike Adams vs. Abortion Doctor

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Dr. Mike S. Adams takes on Dr. Willie Parker, an abortion doctor who has performed thousands of abortions. This debate took place on February 21, 2019 at UNC Wilmington. Although Dr. Parker claims to be a Christian, he says in his book that there are no moral absolutes and there is no right interpretation of Christianity. So much for sin then.

While Dr. Parker does claim, oddly, that the parable of the Good Samaritan somehow supports his work as an abortionist, this debate does not hinge on scripture passages, but on the distinction Dr. Parker tries to make between a human being and a person. That false distinction was used to defend chattel slavery when the Dred Scot Supreme Court decision declared that blacks were only three-fifths of a person.

“Human” is discovered by the science of genetics. “Person” is defined by whoever is in power at the time, maybe even just five lawyers on a court. If human beings don’t have a right to life, only what we define as “persons” do, then none of us are safe.

Watch the debate here:

 

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Cashed Out Feminism

Cashed Out: Feminism

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By Terrell Clemmons

The War Against Sexual Order Has Young Men in Full Retreat

Beware of the sperm-jacker, warns Dean Cardell on the men’s website AskMen.com. She’s “all about getting pregnant and not about being into you.” He identifies five types: (1) the Lesbian, who may at least do you the courtesy of asking for your contribution directly (the others go after it by stealth); (2) the Girl Running Out of Time and (3) the Trapster, both of whom are looking for a “just-add-water” family; (4) Miss Lonely, who needs someone to cling to; and (5) the angry Miss Independent, who nevertheless wants a little one to fill a void. All sperm-jackers have one thing in common: they need something they can only get from a man. Most any man will do.

Cardell’s post has all the class of a Bill Maher rerun, but it does expose a very serious threat to men, as psychologist and men’s advocate Helen Smith, Ph.D., documents in Men on Strike. Take the following cases of nonconsensual insemination: Nathaniel from California, age 15, had sex with 34-year-old Ricci, which, due to his age, was legally considered non-consensual. Emile from Louisiana was visiting his parents in the hospital when a nurse offered him oral sex if he wore a condom, which she conveniently offered to dispose of for him afterward. S. F. from Alabama passed out drunk at the home of a female friend and awoke undressed the following morning. In all three cases, including the one involving the minor, a woman got sperm and, nine months later, a child, and the man got ordered by a court of law to pay support for eighteen years.

Less devious, but similarly amiss, are those cases in which a man, having been betrayed by his wife or girlfriend, was nevertheless held financially responsible for a child genetically proven to be another man’s offspring. While not as sensational as sperm-jacking, it is another form of paternity extortion.

The Assault on Men

Paternity fraud is only one aspect of the larger, decades-long, feminist-incited assault on men to which Smith is attempting to draw public attention. While the feminist movement may originally have been about equal respect for both sexes, what it has morphed into, she argues, is a female privilege. From rape laws that empower women but not the men they may falsely accuse, to divorce laws tilted in favor of the wife, to the feminization of the U.S. education system, men have become the sex under the gun, while women enjoy the status of a protected class.

But unlike their mothers or grandmothers, men today are not taking to the streets burning their undergarments and shrieking demands (thank God). They’re doing just the opposite, which is far worse. They’re going on strike. The strike zones are manifold:

Higher Education. In addition to the enrollment imbalance, which is approaching a 60/40 ratio of women to men, college has become, in the words of one professor, “a hostile working environment [in which] males increasingly feel emasculated.” Smith quotes a student named John, who had this to say about his college experience: “I had already been cautious around women, having grown up with Tawana Brawley in my backyard and daily stories of sexual harassment; I played it safe and passive every time. But it doesn’t matter. The only way not to lose is to not play. So I’m out.”

Work, including community involvement. With higher female graduation rates and salaries, men today are falling behind their fathers economically and professionally. Consequently, their efforts to prove themselves worthy mates through hard work and higher earnings don’t win female attention the way they used to. Discouraged, too many retreat to a man cave, and inertia sets in from there.

Marriage. Marriage rates are down, and honest men opting out will tell you why. Smith cites a Rutgers University study of single heterosexual men which turned up the top reasons they hadn’t married. They can get sex and the companionship of cohabitation without marriage more easily than in times past, and they don’t want to open themselves up to the risk of divorce and financial loss. It really isn’t that complicated a decision. In fact, it’s often not an actual decision at all. It just happens.

Reasonable Reactions

But Smith cautions against any superficial conclusions that attribute all this to male immaturity, laziness, or plain sexual economics. While those things may figure in, the man-child label simply doesn’t stick to the men she actually hears from. On the contrary, she says men are “acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives today’s society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands, and providers.” It isn’t an organized, or even a declared strike. It’s more of a reluctant retreat. Why should they do otherwise? Chris, a thirty-something single man, captured it: “There is nothing in it for me, no incentive and no reason.”

Ironically, feminist demands have had the effect of shrinking the pool of appealing marriage prospects. And scheming women have descended to the grossly abusive and socially malignant shenanigans of sperm-jacking and paternity seizure. Clearly, something has gone terribly wrong.

The Real Conflict

Smith offers men and their supporters two strategies for fighting back (her words). One is to “go, Galt,” a metaphor—taken from the 1957 Ayn Rand classic Atlas Shrugged—for withdrawing one’s labor from the marketplace to keep from being exploited. This is what some men are doing, as the trends indicate. The other strategy amounts to a counteroffensive deploying the same power plays the feminists have used: forming alliances and support groups, lobbying for legislative change, and, short of that, mocking or intimidating opponents.

Smith has written a very important book, and certainly, there’s a place for some of her suggestions. But there’s a shortcoming in both of her strategies in that they are founded on the premise that the main “war” is the one between the sexes. Going Galt is effectively capitulating, which is neither noble nor masculine while deploying counterstrikes is fighting women directly, which is worse. But the combatants in this “war” aren’t so much primary warriors as they are casualties. They—and the children caught in the fray—are collateral damage in a larger conflict: the war on basic sexual order.

Consulting the Past

There is a better way to win. In his article about sperm-jackers, Cardell advises, “Be prepared to draw the line regarding your involvement and your connection to her crazy a$$.” He’s warning men of the potential consequences of (pardon me) wanton ejaculation and advising them to set boundaries and take control of themselves for their own benefit. He doesn’t even mention the potential effects for her or for their potential offspring, which are incalculably profound. Before you get involved, he says, draw the lines. Aside from the crass wording, it’s decent advice.

Sometimes, as former police officer and author J. Warner Wallace has noted, the road to the future we want passes through the past we’ve forgotten. Wallace was writing about the importance of fathers with respect to crime prevention, but the same idea applies to the context in which a man becomes a father.

Once upon a time, there was a custom for drawing the lines in this area of life. Often marked by a special ceremony, it involved promises—promises so solemn they were made before God and witnesses. When kept, they assured the woman of a father for her children and gave the man a companion and progeny to work for and invest in. The result created the best guard against exploitation, both for them and for their offspring. They could cooperate rather than compete, exalt rather than exploit. For battle-weary men and women, there’s no better time than the present to consult the wisdom of the past.

 

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/2OgDnpY

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