Walking through the mall last night, I visited a favorite outdoor supply shop of mine. Which one isn’t important, but they carry lots of great stuff, emphasis on the stuff because not one item in there is really essential for life. Which I find somewhat entertaining as it considers itself a ‘nature store.’

This is the transcript and PowerPoint presentation of a session I gave at the Associated Christian Schools Annual Conference in July 2010.  The files are in pdf format for ease of use. The session was only an hour in length, so my goal was to present a thumbnail sketch of current scholarship surrounding the life, [...]

I have built my house to my specs and now, in order to fit the building code of the Kingdom I attempt a little reform. Knock a wall down here, a wall down there, put in a window, a garage for my SUV that I’m praying expectantly for. This is merely adherence to the law, [...]

(English) Are the existence of God and the presence of evil mutually exclusive? Does the death and suffering we witness in the world around us every day somehow speak against God? In these posts I argue that not only is it possible for God to have a morally sound reason for allowing suffering, but without God evil could not even be said to exist.

Intelligent Design A lot of people allege that the ID movement is nothing more than the old God-of-the-gaps idea, dressed in new clothing.  But is this the case?  I don’t think so, and I’ll tell you why.  IDers aren’t merely waiting for evolutionists to say “We don’t know” so that they can jump in and [...]

I’m currently reading “The Challenge of Jesus” by N T Wright, and he makes an interesting statement on p21. He says, “The Enlightenment notoriously insisted on splitting apart history and faith, facts and values, religion and politics, nature and supernature, in a way whose consequences are written into the history of the last two hundred [...]

I’ve just finished reading the complete Chronicles of Narnia (thanks to Robin!) and finally made it to one of the parts I’ve been looking forward to since I began the seventh book, The Last Battle. This is the section I’m sure you’ve heard about even if you haven’t read the series. It is the bit [...]

First, please excuse the amount of time between posts. It’s been busy around here and I consider that extra cause for thanks. Dave’s last post brings us very nicely into a most important point in our series. Some roads in our apologetic walk should not be trod upon. You will quickly find yourself in a [...]

I was listening to Bill Craig’s address at the Saddleback Apologetics Conference held at Saddleback Church in California yesterday (the whole conference is available here) and he was talking about the Kalam Cosmological Argument. This would have to be one of the first, maybe actually the first, philosophical arguments for God’s existence that I heard [...]

There’s a problem with evolution: it seems impossible, improbable, inexplicable. When one looks at the incredible complexity and diversity of life on this planet (and we can’t look elsewhere – as far as we know we are alone amongst the stars) it seems to be a stretch too far to believe that we all started [...]

In keeping with our theme of going Science Mad, and as a follow up to James’ post on homosexuality, I thought it might be good to examine this idea that homosexuality is a product of nature, a genetically determined behaviour, rather than a choice. But first – why are we doing this? Why the posts [...]

Mad Science and Flawed Logic An astrophysics student studying for his PhD went to his advisor concerning his doctoral thesis. “Ma’am, I have two theories I’d like to explore but I’d like your advice on which to choose.”“Enough research will tend to support your theory,” the Professor said.“But I haven’t told you what they are [...]

Image via Wikipedia This is the title of Richard Lewontin’s review of Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, published in the NY Times in 1997. You can find the whole review here, and I recommend reading it as he says some very interesting things. One comment on the [...]

I was listening to a podcast of last week’s Stand to Reason, which I highly recommend, and Greg was relaying some advice he gave to someone who asked him how to get into the apologetics business as a career. He offered three basic ways in: start your own organisation, join an existing organisation, or become [...]

An article over on Christianity Today has brought me back to task. Thanks Mr. Downing. The article is rather weighty, but one I recommend for those interested. It’s entitled, “C.S. Lewis Among the Postmodernists” and speaks to me of balance and wisdom.On and off for two years I have been working on a book about [...]

Ok, we’ve finally arrived at what will likely be the most contentious issue (outside of the explanation) – the post-mortem appearances of Jesus after He was crucified. We will also examine the radical transformation in the lives of the disciples and others because that lends support to the resurrection hypothesis. Let’s begin with the creed [...]

“I suggest, in fact, that if postmodernism functions as the death of modernist culture, many of us will find ourselves like the disciples on the road to Emmaus. We as Western Christians mostly bought a bit too heavily into modernism, and we are shocked to discover that it has been dying for a while and [...]

Note: If you pick up the post from here, you may be left wondering what we are talking about. I suggest reading previous commentary prior to this (link provided below), otherwise, this post may not be for you. I want to thank both Vinny and DaveE for excellent commentary and keeping this discussion alive. I [...]

Ding!The microwave sounds my dinner. I unfold my little tin Autobots TV dinner tray (second hand store for 3$, a steal!) sit down on the couch and pick up the remote.* My wife is visiting her mother. There isn’t much on here that I care to watch, I’m more of a movie man. Give me [...]

Now that we’ve established that there is no reasonable way that Jesus could have survived the crucifixion, let’s move on to the next two points: His burial by Joseph of Arimathea and the discovery of the empty tomb on Sunday morning. This is relatively uncontroversial and seems accepted by most scholars. However, given that Joseph [...]

While it is true that the crucifixion of Christ is almost uncontested in historical scholarship (those who claim Jesus never even existed are rarely actual historians) what is contested by some is whether He actually died on the cross. It’s possible one of the earliest records of this is in the Koran, Surah 4: 156-157h 4: 156-157English: Contemporary English [...]

Why do all religions claim that they are the only way? How do we know which, if any, is right? This is a very common question, one that is asked all the time. It’s also the one that gets a lot of Christians charged with bigotry and intolerance because we believe that Christ is the [...]

I was watching a panel discussion between William Lane Craig, Jim Dennison, Lee Strobel, another Christian guy I don’t know and Christopher Hitchens (you can see the whole thing here) and something that Hitchens said struck me. Not because it was especially profound (it wasn’t) or deep (it wasn’t) or even insightful (again, it wasn’t). [...]

On Sunday night I went to a mate’s church to hear John Mackay, a creationist speaker who grew up in Brisbane and spends most of his time now around the world debating evolutionists. His website is www.creationresearch.net, and his stuff is pretty good. He always wears a fishing style vest and an Indiana Jones style [...]

This just passed through my head (as a lot does – mostly wind) in regards to Evolutionary Theory. Please let me know if anyone else you know of has thought of it previously or if there are flaws in my logic or if it is unclear, which I am positive it will be – this [...]