Search results

Hello Catholic brethren. I hope it's not out of order to pose a question to Catholics in this forum. If this isn't the right place then please move it. Roman Catholics regard baptisms that take place outside of the Catholic church to be legitimate. If I am baptized in a protestant tradition and...

Here's a few separate but related questions for discussion. For the purposes of this discussion I'm thinking of "rights" in terms of basic human rights and not strictly constitutional rights. Someone may have a constitutional right that is not basically human and someone may have a human right...

Teaching a class on Critical Race Theory. CRT theorizes that racism is a systemic problem and that systems and structures of racial oppression exist at every level of society. I don't think that this idea is inherently implausible. In fact quite the opposite. This sounds exactly like something...

Hopefully this thread will put this tired old dilemma to bed once and for all. Somehow I doubt it will :wink:. The Euthyphro Dilemma (ED hereon) seeks to show that there is an absurdity or paradox in the idea of God and his relation to the good. It poses a question, assuming that there are only...

Canada just sentenced a pastor to prison for breaking Rona rules after he was "tried in secret." He must promise not to preach as a condition of his release! Nothing to see here.

Cash, Breakfasts and Firings: An All-Out Push to Vaccinate Wary Medical Workers The time period for medical workers to receive priority attention to receive the COVID vaccine is almost at an end (it might already have ended). On our church session (board of elders) we have three medical...

I'm working my way through DiAngelo's "White Fragility" for the second time and trying to understand what she is saying. I'm also interested in critically analyzing her book from a Christian worldview and teaching a class on it. So far I've managed to gather this: All people are prejudice and...

CDC EXCESS DEATHS 2017-2021 BY WEEK The CDC measures something called "excess deaths" on a week-by-week basis. This is a look at the total amount of people who die of any cause in a given week. We have so much data on this that we are able to plot a trend line to predict how many people should...

You can’t have a three-sided war. Even when multiple parties are in conflict, like in WW1 and WW2, coalitions are formed and two sides to the conflict develop. In European governments where there are more than two political parties, they must form coalitions and there are still only two basic...

I've just finished Plantinga's book again - "Where the Conflict Really Lies". This is supposed to be his final form of the EAAN. As I've tried to synthesize it to be able to teach it, I continue to be persuaded that it's a strong argument. The argument seeks to show that you cannot rationally...

We are at the point in our apologetics course where we are examining the claim that science and Scripture are in conflict. The most famous example of this is Darwinism and evolution. Can you think of other instances wherein science and Scripture are in an apparent conflict?

Jupiter and Saturn will form rare "Christmas Star" on winter solstice On December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer in Earth’s night sky than they have since 1226 A.D. According to Matthew's account, wise men came from the east seeking the King of the Jews. This was based upon at least...

Bill in New York State Assembly seeks to empower health department to mandate COVID-19 vaccine Wherever there have been mask mandates there will be vaccine mandates. This isn't surprising. Many vaccines have been mandated for a long time. My family and I don't vaccinate at all so we will not be...

We are entering into a new section on the Problem of Evil. I really don't think that the Problem of Evil poses a serious challenge to Christian faith but I'd love to discuss it here. If you think that the Problem of Evil is somehow a serious challenge to Christianity, how would you state the...

We are entering the section of our apologetics course where we are talking about miracles - God acting specially in the world. Are miracles inherently implausible? Is there some problem with the idea of miracles? What's the problem with miracles?

Mainstream media always criticizes America for having one of the worst COVID responses in the world. Personally, I'm very pleased with how the Trump administration responded to COVID and I have grave concerns for how the future Biden administration will shut down our country and attempt to rob...

I'm in the stage of my class where we're talking about criticisms of the Bible and trying to defend against them. Two major ones that come to my mind are these: 1. The Bible is morally problematic. Objections here would deal with slavery, warfare, ethnic cleansing, gender roles, and...

It's a difficult argument to make, but I feel fairly pleased with how I argued for this. If you're interested, you can watch a video of me making this argument during our most recent Sunday School class:

If you voted third party in this election, you blew it. If all the people who voted for Jo Jorgensen (Libertarian candidate) in places like GA and NV voted for Trump, then Trump would win this election. Here's an argument against voting third party: 1. Donald Trump or Joe Biden will win the...

Suppose that a personal God exists. Suppose that this God does communicate with humanity. I think it's safe to assume that if God exists then we should expect that he would communicate with us, but that's an argument for another thread. Let's just suppose that here. The question now would be...