If you've read my book The God Conclusion or some of my articles at Southern Prose, you'll know I'm a rather strong advocate for the concept of free will. While many atheists and secularists would love to assert that intelligence is the defining characteristic of one's decision on whether to believe in a God, that simply isn't true. There are many intelligent people who believe in a supernatural God. Likewise, there are more than a few stupid atheists. Probably the most important factor in religious beliefs is free will. We may choose what evidence we are willing to view and consider and many simply refuse to even look at any evidence that appears to conflict with their existing worldview. Some intelligent people choose to pursue evil goals and may be classified as a criminal mastermind. Others may choose to pursue noble goals and become detectives who solve crimes. Determinism is the idea that our choices are mere illusions. Chemical reactions in our brain and our environment determine our fate. Contrary to the opinion of people like Sam Harris, free will appears to solve so many problems--it potentially answers very difficult questions such as why does evil exist, if God is good? But free will can only effectively solve philosophical problems if it can be demonstrated to exist. If evidence can be identified that contradicts the idea of free will, the existing worldview should be modified or perhaps even discarded. Then the question becomes, could free will only be an illusion? On the other hand, if free will exists, could it exist with rare … [Read more...]
Unkind and unloving Christians
Allegedly, The Ragamuffin Gospel author Brennan Manning once said, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." I'm coming up on the third anniversary of launching The God Conclusion Facebook page to call attention to the fact I wrote a book with the same name. My purpose of my book is to reach out to the people who read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and thought it was a great book. I thought The God Delusion was a very well written book, but practically every word in it was wrong. Thus, my primary targets audience for the book are atheists. However, I thought Christians interested in arguing with atheists about the existential questions might also appreciate the last third of the book, which presents scientific evidence explained in a logical manner and could prove useful in a debate. I'll never give up on looking for new readers. In fact, I will cheerfully give away a free PDF, Kindle, or audio copy to just about anybody who asks (audiobooks are available in the US and UK only.) One person once asked for a copy that he intended to use to wipe his buttocks after eliminating his bowel waste, and I had to point out that the print books are not given away free and what he wanted to do with my book was an not advisable use of an electronic device. Atheists can be quite childish at times, but the attacks from people who claim to be fellow Christians do occasionally bother me. I've … [Read more...]
Wes Huff killed Goliath
If you’ve never heard of Wesley Huff before, don’t feel too bad. I’d never heard of him either, until a few weeks ago. Suddenly, he’s famous because of an impromptu debate he had on a podcast with Billy Carson, founder and CEO of a company called 4BiddenKnowledge and a self-proclaimed expert on “ancient texts and tablets, scriptures, papyrus, and cylinders.” Carson has complained in the past that Christian scholars have refused to debate him but all that changed when his good friend Mark Minard invited young Wesley Huff, a Canadian Bible scholar still working on his PhD on his podcast to debate Billy. Huff accepted the challenge to debate Carson with only 24 hours advance notice to prepare, but he didn’t need more time. Huff didn’t merely defeat Billy Carson in their debate, he embarrassed him. In fairness, Carson later revealed he had not been feeling well and had been recently hospitalized with pneumonia, even coming near death. Perhaps in hindsight it would have been better had the debate been postponed until Billy felt better, although Billy has refused to debate Huff again now that he’s fully recovered. Though the conversation went on for roughly two hours, the debate was probably over in the first ten minutes. Huff began by asking Carson a simple question to clarify their individual positions, asking Billy if he was referring to Codex Sinaiticus when he claimed the Sinai Bible did not contain any references to the crucifixion. Carson said yes, and then Huff promptly pulled his own personal copy of Codex Sinaiticus off his bookshelf. … [Read more...]
Honoring Jimmy Carter
Someone who reads my articles at American Thinker wrote an email asking for my thoughts on the subject of honor. Where should I begin? And what should I say? The dictionary defines honor as having a good reputation, or a showing of (usually) merited respect. Of course, the Bible tells us in the Old Testament that we should honor God and honor our father and mother, but 1 Peter 2:17 goes further and says we should honor everyone. Personally, I'm big on honoring the service of our military, police, firefighters, doctors, hospital workers, hospice workers, waiters and waitresses, and basically anyone else who serves the community--if someone is wearing a uniform, I always say thank you to them. During my youth I was taught to live by the adage if you can't say something nice about somebody, don't say anything at all. This presents a bit of a problem because Jimmy Carter recently died. We're both from Georgia, and I believe we should never speak ill of the dead. If I had to only write about his career as a politician, I wouldn't have anything to write. Jimmy Carter was our 39th President, and I vividly remember his brief tenure in the White House. All I can and will say about his presidency was that it wasn't brief enough. The word "malaise" perfectly describes my life as a teenager during the Carter years in the White House. As I began to research Carter's life, looking for some nice things to say about him, unfortunately I found more people with negative things to say about our late former president, some of which I didn't know or didn't remember, such … [Read more...]
