The Day After the Elections of 2008

Does Islam or Christianity oppress women? Jay Smith and 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

Tas Walker in Palmy North 26 Sept

Tas Walker from Creation Ministries international is in Palmy North on Friday night.

Details: Friday 26 September, 7.30pm, public meeting, Central Baptist Church, 190 Church Street, Palmerston North.

More here.

Darwin and Evolution

Two lectures at Te Manawa. Details here.

See also the calendar on Thinking Matters.

Racism and Christianity

I have a friend who describes herself as a “disinterested agnostic”. For several years I have tried to understand where she is coming in terms of her worldview. She is quite reluctant to talk to me about these things, which is perhaps understandable. She has been known to make some rather strong assertions regarding morality — for example, female circumcision, treatment of women in Afghanistan, and “white-flight” from schools that apparently have too many Muslims and indigenous attendees.

Recently she wrote about the latter on her blog, to which I responded:

I don’t personally like racism, and certainly feel emotionally for those who suffer at the hands of others, simply because their appearance is different due to minute differences in genetic coding.

However, at an intellectual level, I find it much more difficult to reject racism as evil. Indeed, to believe racism is actually evil, I would have to believe first that evil actually exists.

But how do I get to this realization?

If you are thinking: “what a moron — of course evil exists”, then convince me as to how you arrived that that conclusion.

Stating “this is evil” or “that is evil” is only making assertions, and even racists are good at making assertions. For an assertion to carry any weight, it requires a foundation, lest it just be merely an empty assertion.

So what do you think? Does she have a case, or is she being inconsistent with her worldview? Is she making baseless assertions? Or am i just being too hard on her?

Does Intelligent Design Have Merit?

This is looking like a nice (and useful) interchange by the ID experts and those opposing them:

http://www.opposingviews.com/questions/does-intelligent-design-have-merit

Frank Turek comments on the Hitchens-Turek Debate

On Tuesday night, I debated atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything, at Virginia Commonwealth University. The topic was, “Does God Exist?” 

Thanks be to God (and to you for your prayers) because I don’t think the debate could have gone much better. There were several atheists who approached me afterwards to say that I had won. 

One young lady actually apologized for being an atheist!  Her position was not well represented, and she said that the arguments for God were. 

Hitchens was his usual charming and witty self (I really like him and said as much), but he did not answer any of the eight arguments that I presented for the existence of God.  And as many in the audience acknowledged, he dodged nearly all of my questions.  

Here is the introduction of a long e-mail sent to me two hours after the debate by a VCU Philosophy professor who attended (this professor told me that he is completely “non-religious”):

Dear Dr. Turek, I wanted to say once again that I greatly enjoyed your talk and that, in my judgment, you clearly and unequivocally prevailed against Hitchens. Your two mind-body arguments were, I thought, very good, as were your modernizations of the cosmological argument and the teleological argument. I was also moved by your argument that, given how vanishingly close to zero are the chances of there being any sort of life, let alone intelligent life, it is more reasonable to infer that there is a God than it is to infer that there isn’t — the first an inference, but not the latter, being an ‘inference to the best explanation’, as philosophers of science would say.

Read the rest here.

North Island ‘Evidence For Design’ Tour with Dr Tas Walker

Friday 26 September, 7.30pm, public meeting, Central Baptist Church, 190 Church Street, Palmerston North.

Dr Tas Walker has been working for CMI–Australia since 1999 and is one of the conrtributing editors for the world-renowned Creation magazine which has subscribers in over 140 countries.

Tas is an engaging speaker, answering many questions such as, ‘Is the creation/evolution debate just a side issue?’ or ‘Doesn’t evolution remove the need for a designer?’ In his easy-to-understand illustrated presentations, Tas will show how you can be confident in the Bible, strengthen the faith of your family, and witness with enthusiasm to your neighbours and friends.

This is your chance to hear a scientist talk about:

• evidence for the accuracy of the Bible

• evidence for creation and against evolution

• evidence that geologic observations confirm the event of Noah’s Flood

A Hitch in Hitchens: Observations From the Turek-Hitchens Debate

Here are some observations from a Hitchens fan who was at the debate. Sounds like Turek won the debate, but Hitchens was not in great form (unwell perhaps?). Enjoy.

http://rudyhenkel.livejournal.com/2726.html

Anyone know where the MP3s are?

Help Us Get Lawmakers Expelled

Dear friends,

We’re excited to be able to tell you that on October 21^st Expelled: No Intelligence Allow, starring Ben Stein, will be released on DVD. In Expelled, Stein brilliantly exposed the widespread persecution of scientists and educators who are pursuing legitimate science that challenges Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Rush Limbaugh called the movie “powerful” and “fabulous” and said Stein’s “interviews with some of the professors who espouse Darwinism are literally shocking.”

Read more

Debate between Frank Turek and Christopher Hitchens at VCU

This should be really exciting for those who like a lively debate!

Frank is from this site: http://www.crossexamined.org/

Check it out. Frank is “in ya face!” and so is Christopher Hitchens — so this should be a fun debate. See a short video of Frank on his website above.

The Darwin Lectures

National Radio are running this series. Check out the MP3s here.

Apologetics Study Bible

Watch the video here.

• General Editor: Ted Cabal
• Associate Editors: Chad Owen Brand, E. Ray Clendenen, Paul Copan, and J. P. Moreland
• Contributors: Charles Colson, John Frame, Norman L. Geisler, Al Mohler, Ravi Zacharias, and dozens more
• Broadman & Holman Publishing Group | 1999, 2007

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

Human beings are the only creatures who ask questions. Major questions.

• Can I know that God exists?
• Am I the product of a blind evolutionary process or was I created by God?
• How strong is the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection?
• Is the Bible reliable and true?
• Do I have a destiny beyond my life on earth?
• Can evil be reconciled with belief in God who is both all-powerful and all-loving?

Read more

Evidence for Correlations Between Nuclear Decay Rates and Earth-Sun Distance

http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283

Unexplained periodic fluctuations in the decay rates of Si-32 and Ra-226 have been reported by groups at Brookhaven National Laboratory (Si-32), and at the Physikalisch-Technische-Bundesandstalt in Germany (Ra-226). We show from an analysis of the raw data in these experiments that the observed fluctuations are strongly correlated in time, not only with each other, but also with the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Some implications of these results are also discussed, including the suggestion that discrepancies in published half-life determinations for these and other nuclides may be attributable in part to differences in solar activity during the course of the various experiments, or to seasonal variations in fundamental constants.

Another debate — Frank Turek versus Christopher Hitchens

http://crossexamined.org/calendar_event.asp?d_ID=121

Debate with Christopher Hitchens: Does God Exist?

Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Virginia Commonwealth University
VCU: Commonwealth Ballroom in the Student Commons
Richmond, VA

Islam Expert Patrick Sookhdeo in Palmerston North

Patrick Sookhdeo from the Barnabas Fund will be in Palmerston North in September.

Venue: Kingston Street Community Church (website), Palmerston North.

Date:  Wednesday, 3 September

Start time:  7 p.m.

Event sponsored by Global Connections in Mission.

ARN - Real Science-4-Kids

What is Kogs-4-Kids?

Kogs-4-Kids is a workbook set that has just been released that supports the Real Science-4-Kids curriculum. This workbook set helps students make cognitive connections between the scientific discipline they are studying (chemistry, biology, physics, and earth and space) and other disciplines such as critical thinking, language, technology, the arts, philosophy, and history. Kogs-4-Kids plus Real Science-4-Kids work together to create not only a foundation for scientific knowledge but also a framework for scientific literacy.

Order the complete Chemistry 1A Bundle today or the individual workbooks of interest (recommended for grades 3-5).  You can also download sample chapters for each topic.  Find out why kids are going krazy for kogs.

Muslim Awareness Week

I decided to go to a “Koran and Bible” talk at Massey University tonight, held as part of Islam Awareness Week. It was mildly interesting, and perhaps would have been more so had the material been easier to follow. Here are a few thoughts about the meeting:

• Most of the people there were Muslim, with a small handful of others I suspect were non-Muslim.
• The speaker made it abundantly clear, several times, that he did not want to offend anyone.
• He also made it abundantly clear that he was not there to convert or try to convert anyone.
• He made an intense effort to show Muhammad within the Bible, in prophecies and other verses.
• I met several people there who I had taught over the last couple of years, and had a quick and pleasant chat to a few of them.

With those comments in mind, here are a few responses:

• First, the Bible tells us the gospel is offensive. That is not to say that we ought to be offensive! 1 Peter 3:15-16 in fact commands the opposite. But we must not let the presentation of the gospel be subdued by the offense it may cause as it is intrinsically offensive.

But set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess.  Yet do it with courtesy and respect, keeping a good conscience, so that those who slander your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame when they accuse you. (1 Peter 3:15-16)

• The Bible claims that there is only one true God and that those who do not follow Christ in this life will be absent from Christ’s kingdom and presence in the next life. It makes many other claims that exclude the possibility of both the Bible and Koran being God’s revelation. So, they cannot both be true. They could both be false, but let’s not fool around by suggesting they could both be true. Simple logic dictates that this is impossible.
  So, if a Muslim stands before people and talks as a Muslim, he is implicitly saying that his beliefs are right, and it logically follows that the beliefs of Christians are wrong. So, the Muslim, believing he is right, must believe that the Christian (me) is wrong. So let’s not beat around the bush — he may not explicitly want to convert me, but it is certainly in the back of his mind, because I am following a religion that is not true, or at least not as true as Islam.
  Personally, I would prefer to be more up front. I would love to have gotten up and shared the gospel with these people, whom I happen to quite like and respect by the way. And I would love to have told them that I DO want to convert them, because I believe they are wrong, their religion is false, and their eternity does not rest in good hands. I would love to have told them they need forgiveness — and that they can have it freely — and that it is by grace and not any works they have to do.
• The thrust of the talk covered a lot of verses in quick succession which would all need to be looked up. There are some great talks and debates on YouTube and www.bethinking.org.uk that cover many of the arguments used.
• Lastly, I hope to have more contact with these people - the men at least. I have found the Muslim women very reluctant not only to talk to me, but even to look at me. I find this sad, but Patrick Sookhdeo from Barnabas Fund (soon in New Zealand) gives this advice in his excellent little book “A Christian’s Pocket Guide to Islam“:

The Christian should only seek to talk to those of the same sex. Any conversation with the opposite sex should be at the Muslim’s initiative. Never touch anyone of the opposite sex, even to shake hands, unless the other person initiates it. Try also to avoid eye contact with the opposite sex, even if a conversation develops.Treat both the Bible and Quran with great respect, not placing them on the floor and not writing in them.

Dr. James White on Apologetic Methodology

You might find this useful. This is James White’s 3 part series on consistent apologetic methodology. He does it in light of specific apologetics debates, which makes it more useful too.

• http://www.aomin.org/podcasts/20080722fta.mp3
• http://www.aomin.org/podcasts/20080724fta.mp3
• http://www.aomin.org/podcasts/20080729fta.mp3

Homepage is www.aomin.org.

The New Atheists: Old Arguments, New Attitude

Support Stand to Reason and buy these MP3s ($3.99 USD)

by Gregory Koukl

2 Audio MP3 Files & Study Notes in PDF

The titles are numerous and daunting: God Is Not Great—How Religion Poisons Everything (Christopher Hitchens), The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins), Breaking the Spell—Religion as Natural Phenomenon (Daniel Dennett), The End of Faith—Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (Sam Harris).  Worse, they’ve also been dominating the bestseller lists recently.

The authors are a new breed of skeptics, atheists with an attitude.  They’re convinced religion is not just false, it’s dangerous.  This puts followers of Christ right in the crosshairs in a new campaign against the Gospel.  With these “new atheists,” though, there’s a lot more bark than bite in their challenge.  Greg will walk you through the issues, answer their charges, and demonstrate that the real culprit is not religion, but false religion, or true religion improperly or inconsistently applied.

This presentation is also available on audio CD.

DVDs

More Great Books

Great Books

Greg Koukl and Stand to Reason have their own video page

And here it is…

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=STRvideos

Lots of great stuff here!

William Lane Craig debates John Shook in Canada, 2008

Full videos of the debate are located here.

Thanks to our friends at Apologetics 315.

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