CADRE Comments

Every few years, a new discovery supposedly makes us reconsider the historical Jesus. When the Gospel of Thomas was discovered in Nag Hammadi in 1947, it was one of those discoveries. While most scholars recognize it for a mid-second century Gnostic work, there are scholars like those nutty guys at the Jesus Seminar who think it is at least as important as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (and probably more important). This "Gospel" of Thomas has kept them in the limelight for many years hawking their books and congratulating each other for their brilliance in not being taken in by the orthodox understanding of scripture. Well, next month, the scholars at the Jesus Seminar get a new "Gospel" to fawn over -- the Gospel of Judas. The ancient manuscript of this "Gospel" has apparently been floating around the Egyptian market for years, but someone has finally decided to translate the work. Time magazine runs a tantallizing lead on the manuscript in...

This week's Newsweek Magazine has an article called Reality Check for 'Roe' which discusses the recent acknowledgement by some pro-abortionists that many in the United States, including women who are procuring abortions, are experiencing moral qualms about the procedure. Moreover, they are coming to understand that as the argument has increasingly become one of morality, they have been losing ground politically. Quoting Frances Kissling, head of Catholics for a Free Choice: "There is a deep-seated fear that if you address the moral issues (of abortion), you're going to lose," says Kissling. "But we're losing anyway. It's only by addressing the moral issues that we'll get some relief on the political questions." The article does offer some "hope" for defenders of abortion in the fact there is probably still a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court to defend Roe v. Wade. But this political and legal math misses the underlying poin...

Sales of The Da Vinci Code have hit an astonishing 36 million copies worldwide. Sony Pictures is set to release a Ron Howard film starring Tom Hanks as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon this May. Some Christians dismiss the book as a work of fiction and not worthy of a serious response. I think that is a mistake. Stories are influential and so are movies. A Barna study revealed that nearly one-third of adults (29%) contend that movies have had a substantial impact on the development of their personal morals, values and religious beliefs. Don't under estimate the power of narrative, fictional or not. Here is a better idea. Look for ways to take advantage of this publicity. The Christian faith is a faith rooted in historical truth. History is not something Christians need to shy away from. Quite the opposite. We should want to talk about it. The Da Vinci Code phenomenon, it seems to me, is a gift wrapped opportunity to do that. In the words of George Barna, "Perhaps a more tho...

Sony Pictures is set to release its cinematic adaptation of The DaVinci Code. The book is complete fiction, but has managed to be taken as true, or true enough, by many whose opinions of Christianity have been adversely affected by it. Errors in the book have been discussed on this site here and here . It is hard to imagine how the movie could be any less anti-Catholic and anti-Christian than the book. In what may be an attempt to insulate itself from a reaction to the anti-Christian elements of the movie, Sony Pictures has sponsored a website -- The DaVinci Dialogue -- where religious scholars can comment on the story and the history of Christianity and Catholicism. Some well-known scholars are participating, including Darrell L. Bock, Tony Campolo, Chuck Colson, Hugh Hewitt, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, and Ben Witherington. So far the scholars seem unimpressed. For example, Catholic scholar Thomas P. Rausch states: Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code is clearly anti-Catholic...

paul del signore at Sketches in Sacred Vapor had a very intriguing post entitled "Biology in the Information Age" published on February 26, 2006 (no direct link available). In the post, he sets forth an argument by Perry Marshall where he asserts that he can prove that God exists. The argument is as follows: Perry Marshall has done some good work in this area discussing this important question. His central thesis is as follows: 1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism. 2) All codes are created by a conscious mind; there is no natural process known to science that creates coded information. 3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind. Now, I am not a fan of saying that someone can prove anything because proof is a function of the willingness of the listener to accept the evidence. However, I am very happy to examine an argument to see if it is sound and persuasive to the hypothetical objective observer. What ...

In a series of posts, I have began questioning Mr. Carrier's argument that Paul believed in a two-body resurrection doctrine that left the original dead body rotting in the grave. This conveniently plays into Mr. Carrier's avowed hostility to Christianity, but it has had no scholarly support. Scholars recognize that resurrection means the raising of the dead body back to life (albiet transformed and improved). So, Mr. Carrier himself has tried to make the case, though within the first four pages of his article he distorts the views of various Jewish sects ( Herodians , Scribes , Qumran & Essenes , and Sadducees ) and the The Assumption of Moses to make his case. As I turned my attention to Mr. Carrier's discussion of the views of Philo, who Mr. Carrier claims held "just such a view" as his proposed two-body resurrection doctrine, I was not surprised to see the flawed analysis continue. I will turn to the core of his argument in another post, but for now I...

The Best of the Web from the Wall Street Journal noted a very interesting bit of wording relating to how WebMD treats pre-natal infants. According to the Best of the Web from February 15, WebMD.com has . . . A page called "Your Pregnancy Week by Week: Weeks 9-12" [which] is chock full of antichoice propaganda. "By the end of the third month," it outrageously claims, "your baby is fully formed. Your baby has arms, hands, fingers, feet and toes and can open and close its fists and mouth." They mean the third month of pregnancy, not the third month after the kid is born. That's right, what they're talking about isn't a baby at all but a fetus. In case the antichoice fanatics have you flummoxed, the following definitions are helpful: fetus: a clump of tissue. baby: one of those little--sorry, vertically challenged--persons that the village raises while his or her mother pursues a fulfilling career. But the WebMD folks are either hopelessly confuse...

I appeared again on Just A Woman Radio over the weekend to discuss upcoming Supreme Court cases and religious liberty. The audio is available at Justawoman.com . This morning, one of my predictions was proven correct. I predicted that the Supreme Court would soon hear a case regarding the constitutionality of the federal ban on partial-birth abortions (honest, check the tape!). That prediction was proven correct this morning as the Supreme Court announced it would indeed hear a case in which a federal appellate court struck down the ban as unconstitutional. Okay, it was not that much of a stretch, but I am new to this. Argument will likely occur in October.

In my recent blog about faith , I took a position that a person need not be able to answer every objection to Christianity in order to be rational in believing in God. I went so far as to say that a person is justified in believing in God without having answers to tough objections he himself had in mind that he felt were unanswerable prior to accepting God. In doing so, and in thinking about a long comment made by one reader, I came to a realization about how some people perceive the relationship between rationality and truth that I wanted to share. It appears that some people equate rationality with truth. In other words, they hold the position that if their position is rational then it must be true. This conflates rationality to truth -- a equation that isn't appropriate. Rationality has many meanings, but the one that is most often associated with rationality in the context of religious discussion is "logical". In other words, each side is vying for the high-ground of ...

CADRE Comments has been honored to volunteer to host the very first Vox Weekly set up by Razorskiss at Vox Apologia . Here's what Razorskiss has to say about the event: Vox Apologia, Edition I, will be posted March 6th, hosted by CADRE Comments. The topic is Why is Jesus' Death a Sacrifice? submitted by DarkSyde, who blogs on science and politics at Daily Kos and at the atheist and skeptic blog Unscrewing the Inscrutable. As I understand it, this is a chance for apologists to answer questions submitted by skeptics and link them all to a single place. What you do is write your answer to the question and then submit a link to your site and the URL of your blog through voxapologia by March 5, 2006 at Midnight MST. I will do my best to get the material posted March 6 (don't expect much before 3:00 MST). Submissions should be made through the link for submissions on the left sidebar at Vox Apologia . I encourage all of you Internet apologetics bloggers to take a crack at this q...