Worldviews Course coming to Palmerston North

I would heavily urge people in Palmerston North to consider attending a coming 8-week worldviews course (details below).

This is, in my opinion, one of the most important areas to come to grips with if you want to be an effective ambassador for Jesus Christ in the contemporary world.

The course will be taken by Andrew Lim from Christ Sanctuary. I confess, I am biased — Andrew is my Pastor — and the best Bible expositor and preacher I have come across in NZ in 20 years! As I said, I am biased but quite honestly, I expect this course to be par excellence.

Here are the details:

Venue: Palmerston North Christian Fellowship Church (opposite The Warehouse on Church Street — rotate the map below so see this Kiwi icon )

Dates: Tuesday 28th July to Tuesday 15th September

Times: 7:30 to 9:30pm including lecture, supper and tutorial

Costs: $80/term (incl GST) for an Emmaus credit (includes assignments).

Contact: Sylvia Marshall at (06) 357 4377 (Tues/Wed) or email nigel@cccpn.org.nz

More details are at www.emmaus.net.nz.

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John Cleese – The Scientists – 2008

Helping students think about apologetics

This is on www.BeThinking.org in the UK…

http://www.bethinking.org/what-is-apologetics/helping-students-think-about-apologetics.htm

It begins:

“Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.” – Euripides

I’ve no idea what Euripides really meant by that, but I know we all do have questions. University in particular is a time to ask questions and to find answers, and that goes for our personal and religious beliefs as well as our academic subject. Christian apologetics provides reasons for our beliefs – but how can we get that into the hands, eyes or ears of our student friends?

The State of Religion in NZ

Monday, 25 May 2009, 10:46 am
Article: Salient

A snippet from the full article:

The historical discipline of Apologism is built around the concept of truth and how it relates to religious belief. Trevor Mandar, described as one of New Zealand’s foremost Christian Apologists, runs seminars to help Christians give a clear reason for their faith. He says an understanding of truth is an essential foundation of belief.

“There are a variety of ways for people to think about truth, but only one is undeniable. Truth is what the facts are, truth corresponds to reality. No matter what you believe, this is something people from all religions can agree with… People tend to define truth by their experience and beliefs. Once you recognise that this is not an objective definition of truth, it’s a good place to start for inter-faith discussion.”

Mandar says self-professed atheists fail to acknowledge their own set of subjective beliefs. “Atheists deny an ultimate standard of right and wrong, yet an individual may still follow the belief of their community or peers even if there is no logic in it.”

New “Google Killer”?

Probably not, but who knows. From the article:

The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet’s Holy Grail – a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does.

Although the system is still new, it has already produced massive interest and excitement among technology pundits and internet watchers.

Computer experts believe the new search engine will be an evolutionary leap in the development of the internet. Nova Spivack, an internet and computer expert, said that Wolfram Alpha could prove just as important as Google.

…

Dr Wolfram, 49, who was educated at Eton and had completed his PhD in particle physics by the time he was 20, added that the launch of Wolfram Alpha later this month would be just the beginning of the project.

…

The engine, which will be free to use, works by drawing on the knowledge on the internet, as well as private databases. Dr Wolfram said he expected that about 1,000 people would be needed to keep its databases updated with the latest discoveries and information.

…

Wolfram Alpha has been designed with professionals and academics in mind, so its grasp of popular culture is, at the moment, comparatively poor. The term “50 Cent” caused “absolute horror” in tests, for example, because it confused a discussion on currency with the American rap artist.

I use Wolfram’s website now and again and it is pretty good.

Random feeds from Thinking Matters New Zealand

• “Christian Fundamentalist Terrorism” and the Logic of Murder
• Wilberforce Forum – Intelligent Design and Darwinism
• Building Theological Castles
• Abiogenesis — Where is the Evidence?
• The Second Law of Thermodynamics
• Where Did St. Francis Say That?
• Tauranga Event: 12th May – Dr Graeme Finlay: Evolution and Faith
• The Illiberality of Abortion
• Tauranga Event: 26 May – Dr Jeff Tallon: Astronomy and the Bible
• Disappointed Again !!

Random feeds from Apologetics 315

• Apologetics Interview with Norman Geisler MP3 Audio
• All About Atheism: An Extensive Guide
• Sunday Quote: John Polkinghorne on Fine-Tuning
• SBTS Conference Audio Resources
• Sunday Quote: Blaise Pascal on Truth
• Logical Fallacies Podcast - 2nd Edition
• 100 Christian Apologists
• John Lennox Apologetics Audio MP3s
• Terminology Tuesday: Theodicy
• Sunday Quote: Ravi Zacharias on the Problem of Evil

Palmy North Preaching Course with Paul Windsor

The course details are here (there are other courses in addition to the preaching course).

Details…

Read more

William Lane Craig talks about Hitchens Debate

Coming soon

• Expelled the Movie
• Informal discussion on Hinduism; what it is and isn’t; the basic ideas; Q and A.

Time Traveling The Multiverse

Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum is coming to town…

He will be at “Church in Vogel”, 127 Vogel Street, Palmerston North on Tuesday 31st March thru Thursday 2nd April. Each evening’s session will start at 7pm and topic will be ……… “In The Beginning – GOD”, a study on the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

More info can be found at www.ariel.org.nz or by contacting info@ariel.org.nz.

Or you can call Llew King on 06 357 0092.

Offerings will be taken.

The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

By Dr. Peter Gentry, Professor of Old Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Grab the MP3 lecture here.

Critical Thinking Audio Course

Check it out here.

Here are the details:

Here are 15 short sessions on critical thinking by Randall Ridenour from Oklahoma Baptist University. This is available as an iTunes podcast, but is not working right now. All the files can be found here however. These are m4b files, which, when played through Quicktime, have slides that go along with the lesson. It is recommended that you view and listen through your Quicktime player.

01 – Arguments
02 – Conditionals
03 – Perception
04 – Memory
05 – Sources
06 – Emotions
07 – Relevance
08 – Fallacies
09 – Probabilities
10 – Conditional Probabilities
11 – Samples
12 – Applications
13 – Heuristics
14 – Biases
15 – Dissonance

Enjoy

Theology Program on iTunes

The entire curriculum of The Theology Program is now for free on iTunes as well as all the electives. Here is some of the material: Introduction to Apologetics & Apologetic Methods with Robert Bowman; Christian Philosophy with Paul Copan. All on MP3 via iTunes!

ExPELLED is coming soon

We hope to have a copy of the DVD in early 2009. We may play it in the city at the St. Albans venue, or perhaps screen it at Massey University or at a private residence.

Does Islam or Christianity oppress women? Jay Smith & Mohamed Ali

From http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable, here is the MP3:

http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/6e95c37b-33f7-4fdf-adb2-b628ab78914b.mp3