In Defense of the Christian Faith

Reason Rally 2012 -- it's probably something you've heard about if you are into Christian apologetics at all (and even if you happen to be a non-believer, you have probably heard of it). It's a rally that wishes to promote "science, secularism, and reason," and it includes such speakers as Richard Dawkins , PZ Myers, and Lawrence Krauss, to name a few. The rally will be held on March 24, the weekend after St. Patrick's Day. But with this celebration of reason comes a challenge to Christianity: the atheistic appeal to "reason" that purports that Christianity is irrational. But is that really true? And is atheism really a rational point of view? Enter True Reason: Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism , a new ebook which released yesterday. I have the privilege of reviewing this excellent work. The book --- written by thirteen authors, including Dr. William Lane Craig, Sean McDowell and members of the Christian Apologetics Alliance...

In my last post , I mentioned that Dr. William Lane Craig's talk which took place yesterday at Imperial College, London would be streaming live. For those of you who missed the live event, below is a video of the entire talk "Evidence For the Existence of God" as given by Dr. Craig. Enjoy! Additionally, bethinking.org has details on all Reasonable Faith tour London debates that Dr. Craig is participating in should you be interested in attending. Go to this page for more information.

If there is one debate I wish I could travel to see, it would be this one! Several British organizations have been trying to get Professor Richard Dawkins and a few other prominent atheists to debate Dr. Craig... but that has been easier said than done. One atheist, Polly Toynbee who is also the president of the British Humanist Association, was to debate Dr.Craig on October 17th; however, she later declined. Stephen Law will be her replacement. Additionally, it was highly anticipated that atheist professor Richard Dawkins would be debating Dr. Craig on October 25th, but  he refused to debate him . An empty chair will be set up on the Sheldonian Theatre stage should Dawkins change his mind; and Craig will speak on the flaws of Dawkins' book The God Delusion if Dawkins doesn't show up. From what I hear, this should be a very interesting series of debates and it is highly anticipated. In this amusing video, watch as atheists from the British Humanist Association "decline...

OK, so I haven't posted a decent article in a while and the number of apologetics articles and such that I have collected is piling up... so here is a "Friday Apologetics Finds" for you all. This week's picks are as follows: 1) Have you seen the debate between Christian apologist Dr. William Lane Craig and atheist Christopher Hitchens yet? You can watch the full version of the debate below: If you don't have time to watch the full 2+ hours of the debate, you can watch a 17 minute summary of it here ; My personal opinion is that Dr. Craig did excellently (especially see from minutes 8:40 on). 2) Speaking of Dr. Craig, I'm sure you've all heard that Professor Dawkins has refused to debate him. Well, according to one article , apparently, "the head of the British Humanist Association has stepped in to vindicate the honor of atheists everywhere." I hear Craig was expecting Dawkins to show up at the last minute, so he set up an extra chair ju...

Recently,  an article came out stating that Richard Dawkins is a coward for refusing to debate Dr. William Lane Craig. According to the article, Dawkins received four requests from Dr. Craig via " The British Humanist Association, The Cambridge Debating Union, the Oxford Christian Union and Premier Radio," but he refused them all stating " that Prof Craig is not a figure worthy of his attention and has reportedly said that such a contest would 'look good' on his opponent’s CV but not on his own." One of Dawkin's colleagues is taking issue with this saying that  “The absence of a debate with the foremost apologist for Christian theism is a glaring omission on your CV and is of course apt to be interpreted as cowardice on your part. “I notice that, by contrast, you are happy to discuss theological matters with television and radio presenters and other intellectual heavyweights like Pastor Ted Haggard of the National Association of Evangelicals and Pasto...

Here are this week's apologetics finds: 1) Yesterday evening, William Lane Craig debated Sam Harris on the topic "Is Good from God?" Photo courtesy of Apologetics315  Here are two reviews of the debate: Wintery Knight's review of the debate: http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/audio-and-summary-of-the-william-lane-craig-vs-sam-harris-debate/ Randyeverist's (Possible Worlds) review: http://randyeverist.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-of-craig-vs-harris-debate.html?spref=fb Listen to audio of the debate here: http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2011/04/william-lane-craig-vs-sam-harris-debate.html 2) Here is an awesome video that demonstrates the importance of objective truth in a humorous way: That's all for now! Until next time, happy Friday! Disclaimer: Due to the overwhelming amount of apologetics material being put forth almost daily, I cannot guarantee that I will cover everything in a single post. However, it is my objective to pres...

Yesterday, Christian philosopher and theologian Dr. William Lane Craig and eminent atheist physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss debated on the topic "Is There Evidence for God?" Unfortunately, I only caught the last 30 mintues of the Q and A. But there is good news: if you happened to miss the event, you can watch the whole debate here , and Apologetics315 has put up an audio of the debate if you prefer to listen while you work on other things. Enjoy!

Happy New Year, everyone! As 2010 comes to a close, I wanted to share some of my favorite posts with you all. I could list many more besides these, so I suggest you browse through the archives for more interesting posts that will build your faith and challenge you spiritually. (I do have plans to make this easier for my readers in the future.) So here they are in no particular order...   1) Discussion With An Atheist On God's Existence  2) Inspiring Story: Finding God 3) Sound Doctrine 4) Once Save Always Saved? 5) Inspiring Story: Move Your Train 6)  God's Pearls 7) Heaven or Hell? Part 2 8) Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? 9) Theistic Evolution and Its Problems 10) An Atheists Denial of the Resurrection vs. A Christian's Rebuttal BONUS: Celebrating TWO Years of Blogging! - In August, I celebrated two years of blogging. I am including this post here, because it includes many of my favorite posts, some of which were not included in the above...

This is one of my favorite scenes from the "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" movie. In this clip, Ben Stein interviews Richard Dawkins... Despite Dawkin's anti-God view, the interview is quite thought-provoking... Speaking of the movie "Expelled," for those of you who liked the film (and haven't heard this yet), the creators of the film are coming out with another film which is set for production in 2011! This film is entitled, " Dr. Dino: "Where Creation and Evolution Collide." The site states,  “Dr. Dino”, Resurrection Pictures’ original film project, is a biopic that dramatizes the life of Kent “Dr. Dino” Hovind, tracing his rise to prominence as one of America’s best known creation evangelists, and his eventual fall from grace due to his conflict with the IRS. The film is written by Kevin Miller, the writer of “EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed.” It is scheduled for production in 2011. Disturbed by the devastating effect Darw...

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Recently, I encountered an atheist (whom I shall call "A") who stated the following in response to the question, "Why do you think God does/doesn't exist?" :  "() <--- See? Nothing... just like God." Recognizing this as a "straw-man" analogy (setting up a straw man in order to tear it down), I responded, "You use the parenthesis to say that there is no God, but you deliberately CHOSE to not include Him inside the parenthesis. (GOD). See? God exists, you just have to look for Him." This started a discussion on God's existence. We didn't get very far before the atheist chose to no longer respond (I'm afraid I may have tired him out!); but I think the conversation is worth mentioning here, since there are some great things to be learned. ...

I found a rather interesting conversation on CARM's website. The author, Matt, describes it as follows: This discussion began after I entered an atheist vs. Christian debate room. I asked what kind of atheist one person was and stated that it takes faith to be an atheist. Of course, I said this to see what kind of a reaction I would get. The following conversation followed... Read the full article.

The following is my rebuttal to an atheist's claims, which you can find here . His quotes are not responses to me; this is part of a LONG debate which took place in the comments on the site linked to above. I felt it was worthwhile to share my thoughts with you all, and I wanted to reply specifically to the topic of the Resurrection and Christianity. My hope in posting this is to show that Christianity is a "sound doctrine" as the Bible says and can't be as easily dismissed as this atheist thinks. I also hope that it will help to strengthen your belief in Christ, and hopefully equip you with some ideas of how to respond to your non-believing friends. Be advised that this is long... Note: This is written in the second person; it is written to DL, the atheist, in dialogue form. Some of my responses may seem harsh, but this atheist was not budging and inch, and I responded how I felt it was best at the time. Since writing this, I have learned so much more, therefore, I ...