A brief Introduction:While studying to be a pastor in college I abandoned my faith. In fact, I abandoned everything I thought I believed and rebuilt.
To my own surprise at the time, I found that Christianity was much stronger than I had thought. As I rebuilt my belief system, I realized that there needed to be people out there responding to the questions people have. I had them myself. So, while not continuing on to be a pastor, I have focused on educating people about what Christianity is all about and responding to the various charges and accusations made against it.
There are some obvious challenges to being successful in that capacity, but a big part of it consists not in arguing with atheists and skeptics, but rather in providing Christians with accurate information in the first place to prevent them from leaving the faith in the first place.
Questioning is a very normal and natural part of growing up, and I am convinced that it is not wrong to ask questions of God at any age. God doesn't strike people down. On the other hand, if people are going to reject Christianity, it is my aim to at least make sure they reject the real Christianity and not a false view of it. Also, much heartache can be avoided by educating Christians properly to begin with. My experience has helped me... but it was unnecessary.
Paul said that some plant, some water, and others reap the increase. My job is to go out into the land and move rocks- or break them if necessary- till the land, and struggle through knee deep fertilizer... all in the effort to allow those who come later to plant, water, and reap the harvest. I look forward to the prospects of either serving you as someone who needs to haul rocks out of the field, or as someone who can look at the field, detect problems, and help farmers more effectively plant, water, and reap.
There is just something about this Tebow Superbowl ad that seems to have really gotten under the skins of the pro-abortionist groups like Planned Parenthood and others. I think its because they perceive that their whole agenda has been called out and they were left rocking backwards on their heels. A lot of the pro-choice groups are crying foul that we have to be ‘exposed’ to something as damnable as a story about a mother who was advised to have an abortion… but chose not to… in “contravention doctors’ orders” (ala Rachel Maddow).
Apparently, such divisive matters should not be presented to us during the Superbowl… far better to focus on what unites us: clever beer commercials and scantily clad women and the occasional wardrobe malfunction.
I think I know what is really going on, why they are so hostile. I think it is because they understand that their agenda can only be furthered when it happens under the radar. The worst thing in the world, from their perspective, is that the topic be out in the open. Like the cockroach and termite, their only hope is that no one notices while they do their nasty work, for if someone did, out would come the spray. And light is the medium by which they are spotted.
I was recently invited to be a columnist on a Christian news site called the CypressTimes. One of my first articles was on this very topic. Here is a snippet: Read the rest of the entry… »
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. Read the rest of the entry… »
There are plenty of folks about insisting that there is a universal right to health care. Obviously, health care is a hot topic right now, but the question of ‘rights’ permeates many other areas of our existence, so I thought I would address it. I doubt I break any new ground, but it’s on my chest and I want it off.
We have no rights. At least, not strictly speaking. If there is a God, he has as much ‘right’ to destroy us as to sustain us. If there isn’t a God, we have no more rights than an antelope being chased by a lion. Whether there is a God, or isn’t, we have no rights.
However, if there is a God, we can have rights relative to each other, if also God has bestowed them. In this case, for all practical purposes, we do have rights, and no one of us can change that, though we can refuse to acknowledge it. The rights are not intrinsic to ourselves but are imparted from a higher authority and no lower authority can abolish them. If there is a God, we might plausibly talk about something like health care being a ‘universal right.’
Many of the people insisting that health care is a universal right don’t believe in God. Read the rest of the entry… »
So they finally discovered the ‘missing link.’ Huh, I was under the impression that missing links posed no problems. I guess after you think you’ve resolved the problem you can admit you had one. I’ll leave it to others to decide if they really have resolved it.
The discovery of this ‘missing link’ comes as I’ve been ruminating on the role of secularism in our society, science, and education. Secularists insist that those who want to involve themselves in goverment have to frame their desired policies, legislation, etc, in secular terms, or else be ‘unconstitutional.’ Secularists really believe that this approach constitutes being ‘neutral.’ And of course, secularists get to decide what secularism entails.
It is nonsense to believe that secularism is ‘neutral.’ For the purposes of this post, though, what I want to contend is that there isn’t such a thing as ‘neutrality.’ In today’s post-modern world, I wouldn’t think that is controversial. What we find, however, is that there are huge areas of our experience that we are told really are neutral. Here again, the ‘neutralists’ are the ones who decide what fits into this category. The rest of us don’t get to have a say.
The government is one such instance. Science and education are two others.
To make my point plain before I begin: I believe that the ideal government won’t insist on ‘neutrality’ (which is impossible) but rather allow everyone to come to the table on fair terms.
Secular education, we are informed, is devoid of ‘religious’ content. This is why they feel like they can distribute condoms and have Planned Parenthood come in and offer ’services.’ You see how it works: if you are against abortion, that’s religious. If you are for it, that’s secular. If you are for the sexual morality theoretically embodied in traditional marriage, you’re religious. If you could care less, that’s secular. You have two sides of the same coin, and instead of acknowledging that the whole coin is ‘religious’ the secularists have decided that only one side is- the side they disagree with- and oh, by the way, don’t you remember that only secularists perspectives are allowed in the public schools?
Likewise, science we are informed is ‘neutral.’ One must keep religious content out of science at all costs! To do otherwise is to establish religion! The interesting thing about what passes as science today is that you can break it up into two basic parts. One part, the part really supported by the scientific method, really is neutral in the sense that they represent brute facts. The temperature at which water boils has no moral implications. The other part, the part with a more modern approach to science where observation and direct experimentation is not critical, very often does have moral implications.
It seems that the less empirically demonstrable the claim, the more moral are the implications.
Take for example the question of when human life begins and is entitled to the rights of human beings. It is easy to find secularists contending that their views are scientific whereas those religious nutjob pro-lifers have a religious view. On the secularist’s own terms, though, when you choose (as a society) to grant human rights is basically just societal convention. How interesting that they wish to decide what the societal convention really says? The fact that half of America’s population is pro-life is irrelevant. Why? Because their perspective is religious, that’s why. But ask them to scientifically demonstrate when a human life begins and when it deserves the rights we accord to humans and you are not going to get anything empircally demonstrable.
The number one example of a so called scientific theory that is loaded with moral and religious implications is of course evolution itself. There was a time when people were more willing to admit this.
The famous Scopes Monkey trial resolves around the state of Tennessee saying that evolution could not be taught in science classrooms. The horror! But we forget what evolutionism entailed at the time. For example, the textbook that was at the center of the Monkey Trial presents some interesting things as ’science.’
Eugenics. When people marry there are certain things that the individual as well as the race should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring. Tuberculosis, syphilis, that dread disease which cripples and kills hundreds of thousands of innocent children, epilepsy, and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science of being well born is called eugenics.
or,
If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried success fully in Europe and are now meeting with success in this country.
There are days when I wish I didn’t keep abreast of the news. I learned today that Nancy Pelosi and the Dems are trying to pass funding for contraception in the stimulus bill that they are trying to get through Congress. Now, in theory this money would only go towards ‘family planning,’ ie, contraceptions, not abortions. However, we have to remember that for many people, abortion is a contraception. The clearest example of this is the belief that just because you wipe out a human embryo in the first couple of days after conception, you haven’t actually aborted the child.
That the Dems are looking to fund Planned Parenthood is no surprise to me. It shouldn’t surprise anyone. Actual funding for abortions is obviously imminent. After all, Obama moved quickly to fund them overseas.
This connection between the economy and children is one that is not often aired in public, however. The reasoning follows inevitably from the view that humans decide when life begins and when life is valued and when ‘quality of life’ is believed to be one of the chief criteria in the equation. And when you don’t believe in God and believe that the only important things in life are those already alive, as best managed by the omnipotent and omnipresent and omnibenevolent State, the primary ‘life’ you are worried about is our own. In other words, having too many people around diminishes your own quality of life. So if you can get rid of them, you should. Why not? You only answer to yourself. And if the others can’t defend themselves? All the better.
Today it is uncouth to point out how this reasoning has historically been extended. The idea that economic well being and family size is connected goes back a long time, well beyond even Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood (under a different name). Back in the 1920s and 1930s, they were pushing eugenic programs and sterilization programs, and things of that sort, all with the goal of improving the quality of life for everyone else. This fell out of vogue because of that embarrasing application of the logic in the concentration camps and gulags but the reasoning still holds- and there are still people who believe it today.
Someone put the matter in troubling terms on the news today. They said, “Well, if it succeeds and the measure improves the economy, I guess we’ll know they were right.”
What the bloody H E double hockey sticks does it matter if the economy improves because of this? If the economy improves as measured by Planned Parenthood’s bottom line improving and however many more thousands murdered, who cares if it improves? This is like evaluating Hitler’s programs based on their effectiveness. Effectiveness doesn’t matter a lick to whether or not its right.
I have nothing against contraception if it doesn’t involve the slaughter of innocents. I don’t believe that taxpayers should fund it, period, even if it will ‘reduce the costs to the state.’ If you liberals want to hand out condoms, go ahead and spend your own d*mn money to do so. But we are all plain stupid if we don’t think that this measure will not result in more abortions- albeit indirectly- at taxpayer expense. And maybe the point is moot, for direct tax payer subsidized abortions is imminent, anyway.
This, of course, is what Obama meant when he talked about reducing abortions, you see. Isn’t it great to stand on such common ground?
Over the last week or so I have had several opportunities to tell people about Barack Obama’s opposition to the Born Alive legislation in Illinois which would have required medical assistance to babies that survive the abortion procedure. Without exception, each of these individuals was unaware of the issue.
It would be one thing if people were aware of this but dismissed it or factored it in- or even the unthinkable: they approve of it- but to not even be aware? This I think is the fault of the ‘average American’ and his level of investigation into candidates and claims and the Media’s failure to do its duties impartially and exhaustively.
In the cases I mentioned there was one where they proposed that perhaps it was rare and perhaps Obama was right that existing law covered it so why go the additional step?
I turned up this ’sting’ operation on Planned Parenthood where the nurse admits that survivals continue to happen and whatever ‘existing law’ might ‘cover’ such situations, it isn’t being enforced. Decide for yourself if you want a president who will oppose such legislation with such clear moral weight behind it.
Here was my source article for more background: http://www.lifenews.com/nat4515.html
And here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnlHNbAh6xY
I am gently informed by Mormons that the Mormon-like polygamist community in Texas are not Mormons. Read their arguments and my initial post on this subject here.
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So, a Texas court has ruled that the State acted inappropriately as it extricated more than 400 children from the Texas polygamist compound. Here are two articles that discuss the matter:
That article contains this comment which is consistent with my earlier post, which takes issue with the hypocrisy involved:
“The Department conceded at the hearing that teenage pregnancy, by itself, is not a reason to remove children from their home and parents.”
And according to this article, the 911 phone call which started off the whole thing is now believed to be a hoax.
Now, I want to make it perfectly plain that I have no affection for Mormonism. I found it deeply ironic that a number of Mormons would challenge my description of these Texans as ‘Mormons’ while they, no doubt, feel perfectly entitled to the name ‘Christian.’ My problems with Mormonism run deep.
But here we have a plain example of the need for, and the disintegration of, our first and second amendment rights. We also see exposed the blinders that organizations such as the ACLU are wearing. The trampling of the civil rights of this community in Texas was pretty obvious almost from the beginning. Yet no one came to their defense because… because… they were a religious people whose views were dastardly… they had sex with multiple partners (which secular society frowns upon) some of them, we were told, were underage (which even the porn industry denounces, judging from the spam I get). [that's sarcasm, friend]
The secular response might have been different, I suppose, if the impregnated young women had access to abortion!
This Texas case is an example of a bandwagon run out of control. The ugly truth is that there are many, many people out in our country today who believe that religious parents are inherently dangerous and that they should be more closely watched. (Consider this WND article, for example). The difference is that we saw it writ large in Texas. Christians should take notice. If there is legitimate child abuse involved then that is one thing, yet even then ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is still the guiding principle of our land. We can- and should- at least have expressed our outrage at the trampling of their due process rights.
On that front, I think even the Christian community bears some responsibility for not speaking out. I warn: If the scurrilous religionists in Texas are treated like dirt, what is to say that some day some other religious group is deemed to be scurrilous? Who will come to their defense then?
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I am not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I am not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the incurably sick, and I did not speak out because I am not incurably sick.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I am not a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
Besides a CP blogger, I am also the Executive Director of Athanatos Christian Ministries. I am proud to announce that our ministry will be hosting its first annual online apologetics conference this May, 2010. […]
