CADRE Comments

Biblical archaeology has always fascinated me -- especially the way that archaeologists in this area discount the Bible. After all, in virtually any area of archaeology, if archaeologists have a written text that describes people, places or activities then that written text is used to inform the research. Naturally, there is always skepticism due to bias or story-telling that may be involved in ancient writings, but the written source is almost always seen as providing an additional source of information. In the case of the Bible, however, the Biblical account is treated as less than helpful. It appears to be assumed to be wrong or treated as though it has no worth whatsoever. And yet, over and over history keeps coming up with other sources of information that either directly confirms the Biblical accounts or leads the accounts to be more possible. Such is the case with a recent discov...

Over at the thought-provoking Dangerous Idea , Victor Reppert, author of C.S. Lewis' Dangerous Idea , put forth a syllogism relating to atheism and homosexuality that I found interesting. The underlying thought I had heard before, but Dr. Reppert was the first person I had seen put the argument into a syllogism. It goes like this:  Premise 1: If God does not exist, then something like Blind Watchmaker Neo-Darwinian Evolution (hereafter just “evolution”) is a fact.   Premise 2: If evolution is a fact, then, objectively, my only purpose in life is to survive, reproduce, and spread my genes to the maximal extent (this premise is taken, essentially, from the mouth of Richard Dawkins).   Premise 3: Homosexuality makes it impossible to reproduce and pass on our genes.   Premise 4: Therefore homosexuality prevents us from achieving my only purpose in life.   Premise 5: Therefore homosexuality is wrong, and should be discouraged. Of course, this syll...

The Federalist has published a fun little article entitled The Eight Biggest Myths about the Bible . They are, in order: Myth 1: Money is the root of all evil. Myth 2: Thou Shalt Not Kill Myth 3: The Bible Makes Wives Subservient Myth 4: Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged Myth 5: The Bible Condones Slavery Myth 6: The Bible Condones Rape Myth 7: If You Oppose Gay Marriage Yet Eat Shellfish, You are a Hypocrite Myth 8: Isn't the God of the Old Testament an Angry Tribal Deity? I'm not sure that these are the biggest myths, but I do think that these are pretty fundamental myths that people use to try to hammer Christians. The answers given appear to be quite sound. Some are obvious, e.g., the Bible doesn't teach that money is the root of all evil, but rather that the love of money is the root of all evil. Some are a little more subtle, e.g., Judge not lest ye be judged is not a Biblical mandate against judging but against hypocrisy. Some deserve a great deal more detailed argument, ...

"Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover." ~ John 18:28  The Gospel of John reflects that Jesus was taken before Pilate at the Praetorium. Now, Praetorium isn't a word that we use regularly in the 21st Century, so it is a word that needs to be defined. The International Bible Encyclopedia defines Praetorium as follows:  Praetorium: pre-to'-ri-um praitorion, Mt 27:27 (the King James Version "common hall"); Mr 15:16; Joh 18:28,33; 19:9 (in all margins "palace," and in the last three the King James Version "judgment hall"); Ac 23:35, (Herod's) "palace," margin "Praetorium," the King James Version "judgment hall"; Php 1:13, "praetorian guard" (margin "Greek ‘in the whole Pretorium,' " the King James Version "palace," marg...

In a post I authored on Valentine's Day in 2009 entitled " Atheism by the Numbers: Going Nowhere Fast ," I questioned the claim by atheists that their numbers were rising. I pointed out the following: What do the polls tells us? Stark offers the numbers from leading polling organizations since 1944, for those who do not believe in God: 4% -- 1944 (Gallup) 6% -- 1947 (Gallup) 3% -- 1964 (American Piety) 3% -- 1994 (GSS) 4% -- 2005 (Baylor/Gallup) 4% -- 2007 (Baylor/Gallup) The number of atheists in the United States appears to be unchanged for at least 63 years, despite advances in science and secularization.  Since that time in 2012, the Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project published a poll that suggested that the numbers of atheists were actually rising. According to Ecumenical News , In October 2012, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a report finding that the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans under the age of 30 ha...

"I once asked the Lord why so many people are confused, and He said to me, 'Tell them to stop trying to figure everything out and they will stop being confused.' I have found it to be absolutely true, reasoning and confusion go together." ~ Joyce Meyer Last Friday, I came across a YouTube video by someone calling himself the "Quiet Atheist" in which he criticized Joyce Meyer for her statement quoted above (hereinafter, the "Confusion Quote"). In his video entitled "Christian Joyce Meyer: "Reasoning And Confusion Go Together,'" this particular atheist opines that she is telling all Christians to be "dumb." Specifically, he says that Ms. Meyer is telling people: According to her, we should all, as I said, remain dumb. We should stop asking questions. We should stop being curious about everything there is out there on this planet or in the universe. We are just going to be confused. ... Questioning isn't good. ...

Today's USA Today ran an article entitled " Pope says evolution, Big Bang are real " in which he seemed to give a pretty strong statement of support to Theistic Evolution. The Pope reportedly said: "When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so," Francis said. "He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment." I am certain that there are some who will witness this as a caving in of the Vatican to the arms of scientific naturalism. They will note that the Pope, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, acknowledged that the Biblical account of creation found in Genesis 1 and 2 has been proven wrong by science. Of course, that view is short cited. It assumes that there are only two ways of understanding the evidence for the universe...

   I'm going against advice and deal with arguments by carm atheists because I think it's important to remember that certain things have been answered. Dealing with an old article by Richard Carrier that was sighted recently on CARM. Even though it's old these guys are rallying around it like its new and the same bunck is being noised about by atheists all the time. Carrier's article is here: http://infidels.org/library/modern/r...n/lecture.html this is prompted by Fleetmouse's statement that: "You have no answers to Carrier's essay. " He seems the most worked up over the idea that since carrier proves the superstitious nature of the folks of Jesus day, like he never considered that. That's something I knew about as a kid. I used it in highschool to justify my own atheism (1973).  I can't imagine anyone being impressed by it. Be that as it may that's not an argument so examine it.   Carrier My fi...

This week, the United States will celebrate our annual Independence Day (July 4th -- the day in 1776 we declared, a bit preemptorily, our independence from Great Britain). Freedom and independence are words with great political and cultural meaning for us; and not only for us, but for the numerous nations who (more-or-less following our lead) also declared their independence from sovereign rulers whom they believed were oppressing them, both socially and not-infrequently religiously. Sad to say, Christianity was just-as-not-infrequently the religious oppression the people were revolting against. To some extent this is even true of the United States: even though our own national revolution was grounded on a mixture of orthodox Christianity and nominal deism (such as Franklin’s and Jefferson’s), the history of our country’s settlement in the centuries before the revolution was typically based on fleeing religious (as well as financial) oppression in Europe. And it can ha...