The Day After the Elections of 2008

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?

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

A Massive compilation of materials

www.apollos.ws

A New Day for Apologetics (from Christianity Today)

People young and old are flocking to hear — and be changed by — winsome arguments for the Christian faith.

Troy Anderson | posted 7/02/2008 08:50AM

Despite all the recent attacks on faith—or, perhaps, because of them—these are definitely the best of times for Christian apologists such as Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig, Ben Witherington III, Darrell Bock, and J. P. Moreland. They are making documentaries, writing books, giving media interviews, attending debates and conferences, and presenting the public with what they say is a growing mountain of scientific and archaeological evidence documenting the truth of Christianity.

“There has been a resurgence in Christian apologetics as a direct result of the challenges Christianity has faced in the form of militant atheism in college classrooms, on the Internet, and in TV documentaries and best-selling books,” says Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and most recently the author of The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ.

Dinesh D’Souza, who wrote What’s So Great About Christianity? (CT, March 2008), says the New Atheists are raising new types of questions requiring “21st-century apologetics.”

“The apologetics of the 1970s and ’80s are useful if you are teaching in a church camp, but it’s not that relevant to the claims the New Atheists are making, which are very different,” D’Souza says. “The New Atheists are really surfing the waves of 9/11, equating Islamic radicalism with Christianity. These are not questions addressed by C. S. Lewis or Josh McDowell.”

This spate of attacks has also kindled an unexpected surge of interest in apologetics among youth.

“It wasn’t too many years ago that scholars were writing off apologetics because we live in a postmodern world where young people are not supposed to be interested in things like the historical Jesus,” Strobel says. “The biggest shock is that among people who communicated to me that they had found faith in Christ through apologetics, the single biggest group was 16- to 24-year-olds.”

Last summer, hundreds had to be turned away from a Focus on the Family- sponsored apologetics conference for teenagers that drew an overflow crowd of 1,500. Meanwhile, the hotbeds of apologetics education—Biola University and its Talbot School of Theology (CT, June 2003), Southern Evangelical Seminary, and Liberty University—are crammed with students pursuing graduate degrees in philosophy and apologetics.

More here.

News from the Apologetics Network in Tauranga

Hi Everyone,

We had a good meeting on Thursday night, with roughly 50 people turning up to view “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” followed up by some interesting discussions afterwards.  For those who asked about getting their own copy of the DVD – you can do so for $25.95 DVD or $14.95 VHS from the Focus on the Family online shop.

Coming events

Thinking Matters Planning and Progress Meeting

To discuss progress after our first events, and table new ideas and suggestions. Anyone interested in being involved in this ministry is welcome.

When:  Tuesday 8^th 7:30-9pm (note later than normal start time)

Where:  Meeting Room, Bethlehem Community Church Centre, 183 Moffat Rd.

More Info: Click here

DVD screening of ‘The Privileged Planet’

A high quality documentary exploring the evidence of a grand designer in the cosmos. 

When: Tuesday 15^th 7-9pm

Where: Bethlehem Community Church Centre, 183 Moffat Rd.

More Info: Click here

Website Recommendation

www.BeThinking.org

The BeThinking website is a fantastic source of hundreds of recorded presentations and written articles from high calibre speakers (including William Lane Craig).  Recordings and articles are classified into Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced and grouped under the following topics:

· What is apologetics?

· Culture & Worldview

· History & Jesus

· Islam

· Other Religions

· Resurrection & Miracles

· Right & Wrong

· Science & Christianity

· Spirituality

· Stories & Illustrations

· Suffering

· Truth & Intolerance

· Who am I?

· Who are you God?

The content on this site is a must for all who are searching for greater understanding and knowledge.  After listening to some of the recordings on the computer, you will be inspired to purchase an I-Pod or MP3 player (if you don’t already have one) so you can listen to these in the car and while walking the dog/husband.

Hope to see you at the coming events!

Bill Craig - Bill Cooke Debate

It happened in Auckland…

http://mandmandmandm.blogspot.com/2008/06/battle-of-bills-review-of-craig-cooke.html

My small idea of getting Dr William Lane Craig to have a debate at Auckland University ended up being an event that far exceeded my expectations. Despite the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH) booking a larger lecture theatre at the last minute we still had to open up three additional lecture theatres with live video feeds and we still had people sitting on the floor! Question time had to be extended because of the interest. The range of people in attendance was excellent; hardened skeptics, evangelical Christians and everyone in between, young and old, high school students through to tertiary faculty.

And is about to happen in Palmy…

http://christiannews.co.nz/2008/debate-bill-craig-and-bill-cooke/

Dr. Brad Harrub 4-night Bible & Science Seminar

Dr. Brad Harrub will be conducting a 4 night Bible & Science Seminar at the Riverdale School hall starting on Sun. 20 April, Mon. 21, Tue. 22, Wed. 23 at 6pm.

Each night there will be two 25 minute lessons with a 10 minute break in between. The final lesson will be followed by a question and answer session in which Brad will field questions from the floor.

This proved especially popular last year.

Brad is a well qualified, highly entertaining and engaging speaker. He holds a Ph.D in Neurobiology and Anatomy earned from the University of Tennessee and publishes/co-edits his own Christian apologetics magazine "Think."

I would greatly appreciate it if you would promote Brad’s visit at the next apologetics meeting and amongst any other contacts that you feel might be interested. For more information people can contact me at: 355-4580 or e-mail: nathrachp@xnet.co.nz

John Frame: Apologetics, History of Philosophy, Christian Thought courses for MP3 players

Thanks to those who write to us, especially Rob M from Memphis!

Greetings: I wanted to write a short note to thank you for the excellent resources available on your site.  You’ve aggregated some great articles and other materials and have become a really good clearinghouse for students of apologetics.

May I commend to you another resource? I’m about to graduate from Reformed Theological Seminary’s Virtual Campus, and many of their lectures are online and available from Itunes via a link you can reach here:

http://itunes.rts.edu/

Of particular interest for your site will be the complete John Frame apologetics course and also his History of Philosophy and Christian Thought course, also complete and free here.

Please do continue to keep up your web site.  It’s very helpful not only for your fellow Kiwis, but for those of us in other parts of the world as well.

Tim Keller — ‘The Reason for God’ book interviews

Tim Keller Podcasts

MP3: The Reason for God

MP3: MP3 Questions and Answers page

MP3: Parenting

Here is Tim Keller’s Church website

Here is some material from this webpage:

Dr. Tim Keller (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City) The most insightful and intellectually honest Bible teachers I’ve heard, deeply theological without a belittling tone to those with differing convictions. Gifted to speak in a winsome Gospel-centered way to Christians and non-Christians alike. Not afraid to read and use pop culture references. Read 14 reasons why I like Keller.

Featured in Newsweek, “The Smart Shepherd: A New York pastor who says he thinks too much wants to bring his Christian message to the world.” (2/18/08 issue; cf. Keller’s comments on this article and Ed Stetzer’s comments)::

With the publication this week of his first book, “The Reason for God,” Keller, who is 57, is in the midst of a dramatic change in direction. Once highly protective of his community’s grass-roots approach to growth—tell a friend, bring a friend—Keller is now pitching himself as a C. S. Lewis for the 21st century, a high-profile Christian apologist who can make orthodox belief not just palatable but necessary. … To put it bluntly, Keller wants to be the Rick Warren of global cities. “It’s hard to say this without sounding snobby…

Featured in the New York Times, “Clergy Again Shoulders Burdens of Consoling and Explaining” (9/11/06 memorial service; cache, sermon text) + “Preaching the Word and Quoting the Voice” (2/26/06; cached pdf; cf. disclaimer from kellered: “Redeemer does not aspire to fame. In fact, Redeemer did not want the article done but the journalist was going to do it whether or not Redeemer helped him to write it. … Redeemer is happy to fly under the radar…”)

Featured in the New York Magazine’s Influentials 2006 List (5/16/06):

Rev. Timothy Keller
Redeemer Presbyterian
Keller has become the most successful Christian Evangelist in the city by recognizing what marketers have known for decades: that young professionals and artists are “disproportionately influential” in creating the country’s culture and that you have to meet this coveted demographic on its own terms. With intellectual, brimstone-free sermons that manage to cite Woody Allen alongside Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Keller draws some 5,000 young followers every Sunday.

Other Keller web pages:: Monergism.com — list of Tim Keller resources, and even a kitchy caricature + the lengthiest Keller bio to date + and Reformissionary’s Tim Keller Resources (via Steve McCoy). Plus, this Google Notebook has Everything I’ve found about Tim Keller >>

Cool stuff, stolen from here…

Cool stuff, stolen from here: http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/

Does God Exist? Greg Bahnsen vs. Gordon Stein

There are a lot of great theism/atheism debates out there. But this one is surely a classic.

For those not familiar with the transcendental argument for the existence of God or Greg Bahnsen, this should be a good introduction.

Here is the transcript of the debate.

Here is the debate on MP3: part 1, part 2, part 3.

Anthony Flew Says There is a God

World-famous atheist Anthony Flew’s recent book "There is a God" has caused quite a stir in the atheist community.

Hear more about his conversion to belief in God in a short MP3 by Probe Ministries.

This article/MP3 is by Michael Gleghorn. Definitely worth a listen. So much for the "weakness" of the design argument…

Christopher Hitchens vs. Mark D. Roberts Debate MP3

If you haven’t heard this debate, I encourage you to listen. Both sides are very cordial, but the exchange is quite lively.

Christopher Hitchens is author of God is Not Great.

Mark D. Roberts’ most recent book is Can We Trust the Gospels? — which, I might add, is an excellent book.

This debate took place on the Hugh Hewitt show and full transcripts are available.

The audio is compiled into one MP3 here.

Christianity vs. Scientific Naturalism Debate MP3

A debate between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Garrett Hardin.

This was an interesting debate. Hardin’s answer to the question asking for the evidence for scientific naturalism was very telling.

I will leave this one open to your comments. Enjoy the MP3.

Websites and Blogs

• Beretta (NZ)
• Bible Technology (NZ)
• Culture Watch (OZ)
• John Pickering (NZ)
• Matt Flannagan (NZ)
• Stand to Reason (US)
• Scott Mackay (NZ)
• Uncommon Descent (US)

Dr. JP Moreland Books

This is an excellent book :: the title says it all.

JP calls this book the Magnum Opus of his writings.

Lee Strobel Books

Intelligent Design Arts

Links

• Evolutionary Informatics

Check it out at: http://ultimatequestions.org/

William Lane Craig coming to New Zealand

Christian News has news that W.L.C. is coming to NZ in June. Check it out here.

This is huge news for those interested in apologetics as Craig is one of the best.

Apparently Richard Dawkins was asked if he would debate W.L.C. and replied: "It would look good on his C.V., but not on mine."

Probably what Dawkins really means is that: "Um, I know I will not be able to play fast and loose with this guy like I can with most others, so, um, what derogatory comment can I use to diffuse the question?"

It’s a shame that he turned it down. Craig debated Peter Atkins (MP3)from Oxford University a few years ago, and has done numerous other debates and written and co-written several books.

Check www.reasonablefaith.org for more details!

The End of Biblical Studies

Still a Child Evangelist

A Survey of the Temper Tantrums of Hector Avalos

James Patrick Holding

…It will become clear, however, why I have chosen my title as I have. Avalos is, like Price and Ehrman, of the worst sort of “fundy atheist” — an atheist who has not abandoned the black and white mentality of the fundamentalist, and so continually errs in his assessments of evidence and arguments, or else feels that it is perfectly fine to manipulate the truth in service of what he thinks the greater good. I have also chosen the title and front-page illustration for a reason, in this vein. Avalos was once a child evangelist, and he remains one to this day: An evangelist, for atheism, with the same fervor and willingness to manipulate emotions and/or truth; and a child, in that his fundamentalist mindset, still retained, has prevented him from truly growing up, being honest, and thinking critically.

More: http://www.tektonics.org/af/avalos01.html

A New Edition of Apologetica Now Available!

Are Christians delusional?

Read the latest edition of Apologetica for a response to Richard Dawkins attempt to answer intelligent design theorists regarding irreducible complexity.

Is Natural Selection sufficient to produce the obvious elements of design found in the universe? Brian Thomas doesn’t think so! He argues that the concept of irreducible complexity eliminates the possibility of a graduated development of biochemical “machines” that are essential to functioning cells.

To find out more read the new edition of Apologetica.

Sign up to receive Apologetica by email: cca@apologeticscenter.org

J.P. Moreland on "Kingdom Triangle" at NPC 2007

Oxford Scholar John Lennox on Atheism and Richard Dawkins

Well - has science buried God? Of course not. John Lennox answers his own question decisively. No one who understands what science really is and is not could suppose that such interment was ever on the cards. No one who understands what religion really is, beneath its sometimes ugly face, could suppose that it would be good to bury it.

From article:

“He is taken seriously in this not because his arguments are sound but because he is an outstanding rhetorician. It is the art of bamboozlement.”

Source: http://books.guardian.co.uk…

Dinesh D’Souza Debates Daniel Dennett

Thanks to Richard Dawkins dot net for this material!

Description:

Dinesh D’Souza, Christian and best-selling author, faced off against Tufts professor, author, and atheist Daniel Dennett in a debate on the existence of god. The resolution for the debate was as follows: “God is a manmade invention.” Daniel Dennett argued the affirmative, and Dinesh D’Souza the negative.

Full debate - VIDEO QuickTime format (185 MB, 2:15:12)

Full debate - AUDIO only mp3 (60.9 MB, 2:15:12)

Part 1

Read more

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