Category Archives: Theology
YouTube Skeptics: 6 Questions for All Christians, part II
In my last post, I answered three of the six questions posed by Carlos, a YouTube skeptic who goes by the alias “otherwisesaid.” We saw that the questions were nothing but rhetoric, designed to throw Christians off their game. And, sadly, it probably has worked in the past.
Now, I will answer the remaining three questions.
Are you in sync with Mark 16: 17-18? I’m not. Mark 16:9-18 isn’t found in the earliest MSS, which means that these verses are not inerrant because they are not meant to be in the Bible in the first place. Therefore, if you handle a poisonous snake, you’ll get bit and die. No surprise there.
Why are you Christian, and not Muslim? Do you think you’d be a Muslim instead of a Christian if you were born in Pakistan? The Bible actually predicts this sort of thing. Proverbs 22:6 reads “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The reason that few people “jump ship” into another religion or even atheism is because they have been taught to believe these things from a young age, and that means that they will not let it go easily.
Combine that with the fact that Islam is a theocracy that forbids evangelizing its adherents (and punishes infractions with death), and you have a near-impossible task in trying to convert the average Muslim to Christianity. The Great Commission commands us, however, to bring the gospel message to all nations, and the sad truth is we’re just not fulfilling Christ’s command very well in this case.
I am a Christian because I’ve studied the issues and have concluded that Christianity is truth. Objections to it melt when the Bible is properly understood. Most people are in the religion that they’re in because they’ve been taught not to look at it, to give it a pass on critical analysis (YES, I just agreed with the skeptics here). I believe if they critically analyzed their religion, comparing it to Christianity, there would be more Christians.
Can things be added or removed from the Bible? Considering how the Bible was compiled, Revelations 22:18 becomes irrelevant to this question. First off, dude, the book of the Bible is Revelation, not “Revelations.” That is one of my biggest pet peeves coming from critics of the Bible. Get the stinkin’ name of the book right, or you shoot your credibility with heavier firepower than favoriting the Mr. Deity videos!
Second, I agree with the interpretation that Revelation 22:18 is meant only to apply to the book of Revelation. Trying to apply it to the entire Bible is a real stretch.
That said, the canon of Scripture would be a fallible collection of infallible works. The canon was decided upon by the bishops of the universal church in council, and these men are fallible. I do believe that they have correctly recognized God speaking through the words of the New Testament writers. I don’t think there is reason to suppose that anything in the Bible is wrongly placed there. But, some of the other works not in the Bible, such as the Shepherd of Hermas or Paul’s letter to the Laodicians, may be inspired and should have been included.
I don’t see a reason why the church would need to add to Scripture. Scripture contains the teachings of Jesus and his apostles, the full and final revelation of God to mankind.
Rhetorical questions designed to challenge one’s faith. Typical skeptic. Surely he hasn’t sorted through the issues himself. He probably got inspired by Why Won’t God Heal Amputees and decided to make his own video. Nothing here is earth-shattering to a believer with a firm foundation of faith.
YouTube Skeptics: 6 Questions for All Christians
YouTube appears to be an untapped resource of materials that I can blog about. The whole site seems to be filled with critics of Christianity, and they aren’t shy about keeping vlogs about their doubts. I should have looked more seriously at YouTube months ago, when Caleb started deconverting due to materials that he saw via YouTube.
So I searched a bit and found some interesting materials. I thought that I’d answer a video every now and then. I’m going to try for ones that really make a person think, but I might take on a capitally stupid one just for amusement purposes every now and again.
This video caught my eye first, because I like to think deeply about my faith. Videos that ask questions, though usually rhetorical, make me think more deeply and I believe actually strengthen my faith in God, though they’re intended to do the opposite. Read the rest of this entry
Things God Can’t or Won’t Do?
The more I read Proud Atheists, the more I get the impression that its writer, Mark, is a spoiled child. Somewhere, in the all the confusion and doubt that often inspires people to walk away from their faith in Christianity, we get the idea that God owes us something. God owes us nothing.
Modern Christianity seems to give us the impression that God owes us something. Chris Rosebrough, who studies and critiques the purpose-driven church movement, thinks that a follower of modern Christianity is defined thusly:
Someone who has made the decision to be an emotionally well adjusted self-actualized risk taking leader who knows his purpose, lives a ‘no regrets’ life of significance, has overcome his fears, enjoys a healthy marriage with better than average sex, is an attentive parent, is celebrating recovery from all his hurts, habits and hang ups, practices Biblical stress relief techniques, is financially free from consumer debt, fosters emotionally healthy relationships with his peers, attends a weekly life group, volunteers regularly at church, tithes off the gross and has taken at least one humanitarian aid trip to a third world nation.
Notice that it is all about what God can do for us: giving us purpose, removing fears, granting a healthy marriage with a better sex life, recover from all hurts, habits, hang ups, relive stress, relieve debt, etc. Rosebrough laments this definition, because it applies to a broad category of people who are not necessarily Christians. He says:
Tradgically, the “Jesus” that is presented in the sermons that promote this definition of being a Christ Follower isn’t the savior of the world who died on the cross for the sins of the world and calls all nations to repentance of their sins and the forgiveness of sins won by Christ on the Cross. Instead, the “Jesus” that is presented in these sermons is a “life coach”, a training buddy and the supreme example of an emotionally well adjusted risk taking leader who lived the ultimate life of significance and purpose. This purpose-driven “Jesus” is there to help you achieve what he achieved and invites you to follow his examples and methods so that you can be Christlike too.
Since modern Christianity has failed in teaching its adherents that humility, repentence, and submission to God are all necessary to live a life like Christ, it is no wonder that the critics of Christianity raise the objections that they do. These objections are based primarily on the assumption that God actually owes us something. If you start with the idea that God owes us nothing, then most of these objections disappear. Read the rest of this entry
Why They Left the Faith, part II
John W. Loftus recently made a post detailing why he and the Debunking Christianity staff left the Christian faith. I posted brief answers to the dilemmas that Loftus touched on here. At the end of the post, Loftus invites more deconversion stories in the comments. I thought I’d look at some selected deconversion stories. Starting with Lee, who said:
I left because I could no longer believe the old testament “laws” actually came from God . . . they’re too primitive, too unjust, too much like witch-doctoring. And my realization came when I was doing my regular “read through the Bible” routine. “Wait a minute–I don’t believe this–this can’t be true . . .” and then the whole house of cards came tumbling down.
Starting off with argument from outrage. By what standard are OT laws “too primitive, too unjust, too much like witch-doctoring”? By modern standards. That means the underlying assumption here is that our society is right, and their society is wrong. Reading between the lines, Lee seems to be saying that they would have been better off if they were more modern–like us. This is known as cultural imperialism.
To understand the OT laws fully, we need to understand the context of the society in which they were written. Compared to other ANE cultures, the OT laws were head-and-shoulders above what the rest of Canaan was practicing. If you were a citizen of the Palestinian region in the time of Mosaic law, you wanted to be an Israelite.
Paul Copan has a great article answering this objection here. Read the rest of this entry
Summary View of Why They Left the Faith
John W. Loftus from Debunking Christianity made a post summarizing why he and other members of the DC team left the flock. Most of these are fairly typical objections to Christianity.
- Loftus left because he couldn’t reconcile the Genesis creation account with the scientific knowledge.
- Robert Price left because of New Testament textual criticism.
- Exapologist left because of the failed prediction that Jesus would return to the generation to which he spoke.
- Ken Pulliam left because there is no cogent explanation for the Atonement.
- William Dever left because of biblical archeology.
- Bart Ehrman left because of the problem of evil.
The trick is that none of these alleged problems are irreconcilable. Read the rest of this entry
James Hartline Nails It!
I follow James Hartline on Facebook. I’m not necessarily proud of that fact. I could cite numerous problems that I have with the man just from his status updates. But, every once in a while, he posts something that is dead-on. Here is his most recent status update (posted 3/24/10 at approximately 9:30pm EDT):
Jesus already built the kingdom. What He now requires is obedient servants to live in it. The Father in Heaven did not send His only son to become a bloody offering upon the cross so that human beings could claim heavenly benefits while wallowing in demonic rebellion.
Unfortunately, it is often the practice of the so-called “popular” preachers to claim that God wants to help us live better lives (yes, this is a direct reference to Joel Osteen), or that God wants to make known our purpose within the framework of his plan (yes, that’s a direct reference to Rick Warren). But that isn’t necessarily the case. Read the rest of this entry
Atheists Redefining Morality
I’ve often said that atheists have a penchant for redefining terms. The most frequent use of this tactic is seen by redefining “faith” to mean “belief without supporting evidence.” Faith is trust, no more and no less. It’s repugnant to see former believers continuing that redefinition, even though they know better.
But atheists, by their own reckoning, are also free to not only redefine established terms but also free to redefine morality. This is because they are no longer “shackled to a Bronze Age mythological belief system.” The comments to this post from Daniel Florien serve to show just how far this can be stretched. Read the rest of this entry
Is Masturbation a Sin? A Disagreement with Steve Hays
Steve Hays of Triablogue defends masturbation as a good thing here. Matthew Bellisario responds to that here. I weigh in, siding (for once) with Bellisario here. Hays responds to all three of us in one fell swoop here. I’ll let Dave Armstrong and Matthew Bellisario deal with his retorts to them on their own. I’ll consider Hay’s response to me.
[A] guy named Cory also raised some objections. Unfortunately, he doesn’t offer any arguments to respond to. Just assertions.
So, Hays isn’t going to respond to me at all. Darn.
I already dealt with the “lust” objection, both practically and exegetically. Of course, I could always be wrong, but no counterargument is forthcoming from his end.
Oh, whoops! He is responding to me. I’d better start paying attention. Let’s see. He’s already dealt with the lust objection. Unless I’m missing something, he did not deal with the issue at length. This is what he said:
Traditionally, the church has frowned upon masturbation. One reason is the relation between masturbation and lust. This cannot be denied. On the other hand, lust is also aggravated by the absence of a sexual outlet. That is, indeed, in the nature of sexual tension, of a tension between sexual desire and sexual release. Unrelieved sexual tension only builds.
Interesting. So masturbation is fine as an outlet for sexual tensions because otherwise the tensions would simply build and build. This is interesting because the atheist tends to justify things like pre-marital sex, pornography, and other things I would hope that Hays categorizes as sinful by appealing to the same sort of logic. It relies on the false assumption that you can’t deny yourself sexual pleasure. Read the rest of this entry
Atheists: Open or Close-Minded?
Vincent Skolny, guest poster at Unreasonable Faith, has made a rather fascinating post entitled “Christianity is Self-Projection as God.” In it, he rehashes the old argument that Christians pick and choose what they want to believe out of the Bible, and the result is:
. . . a rank and unique pride that claims a divine stamp of approval upon the Christian’s own life, while rejecting both all of the Bible that doesn’t appeal to her or his liking and the gods constructed by other Christians, reflecting other parts of the bible.
It’s an arrogant syncretism of life and religion that we call Self-Projection as God (SPAG).
Of course, no examples are given (though judging by the article, he could have provided numerous examples).
Among biblical Christians, where is there disparity about the nature of God? I don’t see it. Yes, I see disparity in the God of Mormonism, the God of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the God of Fred Phelps, but those people are not biblical Christians. The problem is that atheism makes no distinction between biblical Christians and cults of Christianity. They see biblical Christians and cults of Christianity under the same flag, just different expressions.
True, good men of faith have disagreements about how much God allows and permits versus how much he decrees. Look at the arguments between myself and, for example, the poster going by A Helmet. The entire Protestant Reformation was over the sufficiency of grace and whether meritorious good works were also required (the Sacraments).
But the conception of God as Creator and Sustainer of the Universe has never been in disagreement. The basic attributes of God are common to all biblical Christians.
And just what are those basic attributes that no one disputes? God is a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God created the Universe and sustains its existence. God created mankind in his image (not the other way around). God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and eternal. He is necessary as opposed to contingent. God is sovereign over his creation, and is working a plan in creation for his own glorification, of which everyone plays an integral part. Biblical Christians, if I missed anything, leave it in the comments.
What the post reveals about the poster, however, is scary. It reveals his supreme close-mindedness, which is actually quite common among atheists. Take this, for example:
For a practical demonstration, just pick a pair of contrary or contradictory Bible verses that are on either side of a sensitive issue and ask a Christian what she or he thinks about them. The better you know the Bible and the Christian, the easier it will be to pick the appropriately contrary verses, but the result will always be the same: The Christian will start rationalizing and explaining the contradiction in a way that accommodates them to his or her own life.
Strip away the rhetoric, and what did Skolny say? The Bible has contradictions that can’t really be explained, so if you want to stump a Christian just pick an appropriate contradiction and ask him to explain it. He’ll rationalize it.
What Skolny is doing is assuming as a matter of course that the Bible has contradictions, and then making the further assumption that Christians lack awareness of Bible difficulties. I’ll grant him the latter, most Christians display a shocking lack of knowledge of the Bible. But the former is a little harder to prove, and I’ve seen many sites trying to do it without success.
Further, Skolny is effectively hardening his heart to any explanations that might be given about these alleged “contradictions” by dismissing them as “rationalizations” before he ever even hears them! This is the core of the issue I’ve seen with atheists. They believe that the Bible is bull without investigating the issue (they take the word of other atheists without consulting the other side) and they close their minds to any other explanation that doesn’t fit their worldview.
Isn’t this the same thing that they accuse us of doing?
Does God Hate the Non-Elect?
Over at his blog, Rey has posted that God hates the non-elect. Twice.
Rey thinks this because he denies that the default human condition is sinful and thus opposed to God by its very nature. It is not necessary for God to hate us first so that we may hate him; hating God and denying the Creator is only natural to the creation because of the Fall.
Natural man, in his natural state, is opposed to God. That is why he hates God. It is not the converse of 1 John 4:19.
But, when God enlightens us and makes us a new creation, we are then able to love God because he first loved us.
Rey is attacking the hyper-Calvinistic notion that God hates the non-elect. There is much Scriptural evidence that he does, in fact, love all of his creation (Jn 3:16–“For God so loved the world. . .”). The elect he loves more deeply (Rom 8:29–“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed . . .”). God commands us to love our enemies. Why would he command us to do something that he himself doesn’t already do? Do the wicked not receive blessings from God?
In order to substantiate his position, Rey must show us, either from Scripture or Reformed writings, that God loves only his elect. Scripture shows he takes care of his elect, but both Scripture and natural theology indicate that he loves both the elect and the non-elect.
Why does God elect some and not others? Well, that is a mystery, but it is not random (as Rey repeatedly suggests by comparing election to a lottery).
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