Posted by Anthony on March 5, 2010
I am proud to announce that Athanatos Christian Ministries will be hosting its first annual online apologetics conference this May.
http://onlineapologeticsconference.com/
The theme for the conference is ‘literary apologetics.’ Potentially, future conferences will tackle some other brand of communicating or defending the Gospel through the arts. ‘Literary apologetics’ is, obviously, using the written word to carry out that endeavor. Notable examples are C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and Dorothy Sayers, to name a few.
The purpose of the conference is to issue a call to Christians in the arts to express their faith through them and issue a call to the Christian Church to help them in a more deliberate fashion.
The conference is taking registrations now. The cost is $35 for the two day event, but discounts are available for students and there is an early bird special in place before March 15th.
Speakers:
Keynote:
Plenary: WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on March 3, 2010
The headline I read today was “New charge on dinner tab is in bad taste.” The opening paragraphs seemed to set the stage for the article:
Nothing succeeds in the travel industry like a bad idea. The latest hidden mandatory add-on is a “health” charge added to restaurant bills. As far as I know, this scam cropped up first in San Francisco, but you can count on it to spread.
The rationale for this one is to cover the employers’ mandatory contribution to the City’s “Healthy San Francisco” health-coverage system. The charge actually is levied on employers, but at least some restaurants are adding a few dollars or percentage points to each customer’s bill to cover this charge.
Reading this, I assumed that the ’scam’ was going to be the new charge levied on employers to cover their ‘mandatory contribution’ to a city’s health-coverage system. Boy was I wrong!
Ed Perkins protests, “Employees’ health insurance is no less of a cost of doing business than rent, property taxes, food costs, security services and all the other inputs businesses require to operate. To single out health care for a separate surcharge is unwarranted.” WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on February 15, 2010
A recent series of comments on an article of mine characterizing Obama’s desire to have the KSM trial in NYC as a ’show trial‘ prompted me to ponder one of the claims made in those comments. I noted what appears to be a parallel between “Mark’s” argument and atheistic objections to God along the lines of free will and the problem of evil. In saying this, I don’t mean to imply that Mark is actually an atheist. I have no idea if he is. Nor do I mean to unduly pick on him, because in my view youngsters are to be commended for venturing their opinions.
He insisted the KSM trial won’t be a ’show trial’ because the outcome isn’t rigged. I retorted that there was no doubt in my mind that if KSM was declared innocent, whether on the merits of the case or because of a technicality, there was no way that KSM wouldn’t end up in custody again, which is in effect an unfair trial under the constitution, for if a person is declared innocent under the constitution, he is free to go. Mark replied that what happens after the trial is irrelevant to the fairness of the trial.
I will leave aside other aspects of the conversation which you can read for yourself.
I find this to be an interesting argument that seems to be the same argument that many atheists appear to be running with when they decide that it is likely that God doesn’t exist because a loving, omnipotent and omniscient God wouldn’t allow such horrible evils to occur. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on February 5, 2010
Demian Farnworth over at Fallen and Flawed has posted an interview with me regarding some of my apologetics activities. Check it out.
Posted by Anthony on February 2, 2010
I am deeply disturbed by the Obama administration’s decision to try the 9-11 terrorists in civilian courts, whether in New York City or anywhere else.
My jaw dropped when Holder and Obama began offering their justifications. They clearly thought that they were being reassuring but they made it much worse. For example, in response to the argument that going through the civilian courts… you know, giving the terrorists status under the Constitution of the United States… meant leaving open such possibilities that these terrorists could get parole or even declared innocent, it was replied, essentially, “Not to worry, there is no chance that a guilty verdict won’t be returned.”
Oh? Then why have the trial at all? If you can assure us of a guilty verdict before the trial itself how is this not actually a show trial?
There are any number of tweaks to the system that will have to be made in order to have a fair trial under the Constitution. For example, how are we to provide the accused a fair jury of their peers? Do we need to import people from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to find men like the accused? Also, wouldn’t a change of venue be in order? If I was the defense attorney I’d ask for one, and since I wouldn’t expect anyone in America (excepting those who write for the Huffington Post, but again, they aren’t rabid Islamicists, so not exactly peers) to feel less than outrage over the attacks, I would ask for the trial to be moved to Europe, or Pakistan or failing this, back to Gitmo.
Now we note, in passing, that these men haven’t had their Miranda rights read to them. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on January 23, 2010
One of the enduring criticisms against Christianity is that it is anti-knowledge, education, and learning. This blog has taken aim at this criticism before, most notably taking Richard Dawkins to task for his misuse of an Augustine quote ostensibly about ‘curiosity.’ I currently have an open challenge to Dawkins to repudiate his use of that quote.
In point of fact, these anti-knowledge criticisms really only began with the rise of the Fundamentalists and this in turn was spurred on by the rise of Darwinism. Even the shallowest of research will reveal that Christians have been at the forefront of investigation, scholarship, and yes, even science. (Dawkins answer to this: “But if they had lived in our day, these Christians would have been atheists.” What a chump)
The criticism has another angle, though, and it has to do with the relentless attack on the Bible as the ‘ancient writings of nomadic goat herders.’ Dan Barker would be a good example of an atheist presenting this attitude. The basic idea here is that if the Bible was really written by God, then it should be amazing in its clarity and its insight would be, divinely, penetrating, and certainly it should at all points validate whatever science has claimed to have discovered, since God, being God, would of course know these things. They would say, in short, that for a book supposedly inerrant and divinely inspired, it is a very human book.
Here is the brutal reality: the Bible’s ‘human’ nature is precisely an argument in its favor. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Anthony on January 22, 2010
I suppose many readers have heard the outcry against Planned Parenthood soliciting donations to restore ‘family planning’ services in Haiti. I’ll leave others to reflect on the weirdness of this. I’d like to focus briefly on the hypocrisy of it, for, after all, given Planned Parenthood’s real goals, their only complaint about what happened in Haiti can only be that more people didn’t die.
I have discussed the malthusian nature of abortion proponents at length on this blog so I won’t rehash it. Essentially the point is this: if you really believe that over population is the worst crisis facing the planet, then the mass destruction of tens of thousands of people must be, ultimately, something to celebrate.
For the person bobbing along in the waves of life, such an assessment will be seen as outrageous and insensitive. Still, the assessment is true. In the article I linked to begin with, there is this little quote:
“There are reports of women giving birth on the side of the road as hospitals and houses have been demolished,” said Ms. Stacey, noting also that Planned Parenthood is encouraging donations to Americans for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, which is also bringing assistance to pregnant women in Haiti.
“The donations (Planned Parenthood is promoting) will help UNFPA provide emergency reproductive health kits,” said Ms. Stacey. “These kits could essentially function as OB wards as they contain essential drugs, equipment and supplies to provide lifesaving services to pregnant women.”
Now, an ‘emergency reproductive health kit’ is obviously a euphemism for an on-the-run abortion kit, right? Whether or not they really have the capability to ‘provide lifesaving services’ or only have that capability ‘when the life of the mother’ is at risk, I don’t know. What I’d really like to point out that PP is getting these kits from UNFPA- the United Nations Population Fund. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
