Religious

Archive for Religious

If Bible Stories Are True, Then We’d Expect Other Cultures to Have Stories of Them as Well

As with just about anything humans argue, there are good and bad versions of the claim that Christianity must be false because other cultures have similar traditions/beliefs dating back earlier. (Gene Callahan’s post prompted me to write on this.) For example, by itself I think it’s a decent argument for an agnostic to say, “There […]

God’s Sovereignty and Free Will

One of the most difficult things about the God of the Bible is that He’s sovereign (meaning everything happens according to His will and indeed His design) yet we humans have free will and deserve any punishments meted out to us. During my Bible study session today we covered Genesis 15, and there was a […]

Long Lay the World, In Sin and Error Pining

That is my favorite line of any song. For many people, their revulsion at Christianity has little to do with the miracles, but instead that they’re offended to hear that they need a Savior.

Yet Another Example of Wildly Misleading Title

My friend from college (who is Catholic, incidentally, so I’m not saying he was an atheist with an axe to grind) posted this article on FB. We could see the headline blurb in the FB thumbnail, and it said: “Virginia Schools Shut Down After Islam Is Included in World Religion Lesson.” Now I knew that […]

Tricking People Into Thinking Bible Verses Are From the Koran

I’m sure this will provoke a discussion I end up regretting, but if you go watch the video at this link (I can’t seem to get just the YouTube video) you’ll see two Dutch guys reading verses from the Bible, but telling people they’re from the Koran. The people recoil from the violence and repression […]

The Tension Between Economics and Religion

My Bible study partner sent me a quote from C.S. Lewis, who worried that the ancient Greeks, the Jews in the Old Testament, and the Christians in the Middle Ages all condemned interest (or usury), and yet this practice of charging interest–of trying to earn a rate of return on an investment–was the foundation of […]

Truth, Hope, and Love

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Mt 10:16, ESV) ==> The cynical skeptic holds his fellows in contempt, seeing through their hypocrisy and understanding just how awful they can be. It is a miserable existence, making you end up […]

The Problem of Pain

That of course is the title of a famous CS Lewis book. Here let me make two observations: (1) For believers, suppose that when you die, you realize that all the bad things in your life steered you into the type of person you yourself wanted to become. (2) Given that humans were going to […]