Archive - August, 2011

Linkin’ Blogs: August 24th

Why Youth Stay in Church When They Grow Up – This is worth reading. The three main points are these. 1) They are converted. 2) They have been equipped, not entertained. 3) Their parents preached the gospel to them.

What the New Atheists Don’t See – “The British parliament’s first avowedly atheist member, Charles Bradlaugh, would stride into public meetings in the 1880s, take out his pocket watch, and challenge God to strike him dead in 60 seconds. God bided his time, but got Bradlaugh in the end. A slightly later atheist, Bertrand Russell, was once asked what he would do if it proved that he was mistaken and if he met his maker in the hereafter. He would demand to know, Russell replied with all the high-pitched fervor of his pedantry, why God had not made the evidence of his existence plainer and more irrefutable. And Jean-Paul Sartre came up with a memorable line: “God doesn’t exist—the bastard!””

Male sexuality and marriage-onlyism — or, actually… – “Anyone thinking the ‘male sexuality’ battle is over & done, we still have a long way to go. Marriage-onlyism, even when delivered with trendy clothes & a cool haircut, is still merely the oppression of men. My heart aches to see younger men grow up free from this teaching, so they don’t have to doubt their sexual gifting, their equality in the Body of Christ, or their equality within society.” You must read the whole article (it’s not long!) for that to quote to really mean what it ought.

It Only Takes One Generation for a Church to Die – It’s important that we not take our churches for granted. This is why.

The Real Issue

I spend a bit of time on the Christian Apologetics Alliance Facebook page. It’s a place for people to discuss Christianity and apologetics. Overall it’s a good experience. I’m surrounded by a bunch of people sharper than I am (as if that were a high ladder to climb), as well as some thoughtful atheists and skeptics. One of the challenges, though, in posting there is trying to discern if someone asking a question is really asking a question, seeking dialogue, or actually trying to refute some element of Christianity—or, if the poster is merely a troll that thinks Christians are Jerry Springer (does he still have a show) guests that are amusement and fun for the mocking. I’m near convinced that trolls like that make up the majority of posters when it comes to all things religion. Whilst the thoughtful skeptic is a breath of fresh aid, the norm is not such as this. Continue Reading…

Was Adam Saved?

Note: this question is directed at Christians. Anyone is, obviously, welcome to listen in, but I’m going into it supposing that the reader already affirms the teachings in Genesis as something historical.

I saw asked a question I don’t think a lot of people have considered. The question is, “Was Adam saved?” Because it was a private forum and I don’t have permission to post some of the thoughts posted there, let me summarize and say that opinions varied. Greatly. But let me relay my position for your consideration.

Was Adam saved? Yes. And here is why. Continue Reading…

The Logic of Secular Morality

Thankfully not everyone has the consistency of Ted Bundy:

Then I learned that all moral judgments are “value judgments,” that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either “right” or “wrong.” I even read somewhere that the Chief justice of the United States had written that the American Constitution expressed nothing more than collective value judgments. Believe it or not, I figured out for myself what apparently the Chief Justice couldn’t figure out for himself: that if the rationality of one value judgment was zero, multiplying it by millions would not make it one whit more rational. Nor is there any “reason” to obey the law for anyone, like myself, who has the boldness and daring — the strength of character — to throw off its shackles. I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable “value judgment” that I was bound to respect the rights of others. I asked myself, who were these “others”? Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as “moral” or “good” and others a “immoral” or “bad”? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.1


  1. Harry V. Jaffa, Homosexuality and the Natural Law (Claremont, CA: The Claremont Institute of the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, 1990), 3-4. 

Page 1 of 212»