The problem of evil in the philosophy of religion can be stated briefly: “[T]here are undesirable states of affairs that provide the basis for an argument that makes it unreasonable for anyone to believe in the existence of God.”[i] The problem of evil is significant because it is, as Thomas B. Warren has noted, “the basic tool of the atheist” in arguing that the biblical doctrine of God involves a logical contradiction.[ii] (For the purposes of this article, “God” refers to the Judeo-Christian God.) “Theodicy” refers to “a defense of the justice or goodness of God in the face of doubts or objections arising from the phenomena of evil in the world.”[iii] Thus, a theodicy is an apologetical attempt to resolve the problem of evil.
Read MoreRecently I saw a cartoon of a preacher. He had an extremely apologetic look as he remarked to each person leaving the church building, “Now I hope that you do not feel that there was anything personal in what I had to say this morning.” I hope to communicate just the opposite reaction with you in this article.
Read MorePeter Boghossian has written A Manual For Creating Atheists, a book published in 2013. On the back cover a note from Richard Dawkins says, “PETER BOGHOSSIAN’S TECHNIQUES OF FRIENDLY PERSUASION ARE NOT MINE, AND MAYBE I’D BE MORE EFFECTIVE IF THEY WERE. THEY ARE UNDOUBTEDLY VERY PERSUASIVE—AND VERY MUCH NEEDED.” And on the same back cover as well as on the final page of the book we are informed that “Dr. Peter Boghossian is a full-time faculty member in Portland State University’s philosophy department. He was thrown out of the doctoral program in the University of New Mexico’s philosophy department.” The publisher and Boghossian evidently do not mind the readers knowing about his dismissal and, in fact, it looks like that they actually want the news circulated to the credit of Boghossian and to the discredit of the University of New Mexico. Given the title of the book, I would think that Boghossian and those who endorse his book actually fail to see where credit and discredit may belong.
Read MoreThe Bible plainly teaches that the evidence for the existence of God is so plain and available that a man is a fool who reaches the conclusion that God does not exist (Psalm 19:1-4; Acts 14:17; Psalm 14:1; 53:1). Whether or not this man ever expresses his conviction to anyone else is irrelevant to his own miserable condition. If he says to himself that God does not exist, then the God who wrote the Bible declares this man a fool.
Read MoreThe doctrine of evolution is regarded today as an established fact of science. In 1938 H. G. Wells wrote “no rational mind can question the invincible nature of the evolutionary case.” About the same time others wrote “. . . at the present time, no unprejudiced student can possibly reject what the authors of THE SCIENCE OF LIFE have termed ‘the incontrovertible fact of evolution,’ and no responsible scientist does reject it.” For at least four decades evolution has been widely regarded as a fact of science. At least many so regard it.
Read MoreDr. Herberg is graduate Professor of Philosophy and Culture at Drew University. In answer to the question: “What keeps modern man from religion?” he replied. First, although not indicting technology, he replied that the triumph of the technological spirit in less than two centuries “has engendered in modern Western man a monstrous sense of technological arrogance. Man, collective man, has come to see himself replacing God as ‘Maker and Master of all’; and, most ironically, he has come to see himself not only as Creator and Maker, but also as his own destroyer! The same technological spirit has promoted in Western culture a pervasive technological climate with a mechanistic bias toward depersonalization and ‘thingification.’ Everything about man—body, mind, and spirit—tends to be mechanized.”
Read MoreThe news has come from Great Britain that the Girl Guides and Brownies organizations, forerunners to Girl Scouts of America, are making what has been called one of the biggest changes in their 103 years of history. The change involves removing all references to God in the traditional Girl Guides pledge and replacing it with “a more individualistic pledge to ‘be true to myself.’” Stephen Evans, campaign’s manager of the National Secular Society of Great Britain said: “By omitting any explicit mention of God or religion the Guide Association has grasped the opportunity to make itself truly inclusive and relevant to the reality of 21st century Britain” (qtd. in Bingham, Guides)
Read MoreNovember 22, 2013, marks the 50th anniversary of the death of one of America’s most popular presidents. On this day in 1963, young and dynamic President John F. Kennedy, was in a motorcade in downtown Dallas, TX. Three shots rang out, and young Jack Kennedy was dead. It was 11:30 a.m. in Dallas.
Read MoreTwo Books
Etched in stone in one of the most visible places on the campus of Yale University is the slogan—“For God, For Country, and for Yale.” Students walk past these words every day. In a different sense, Yale’s progressive faculty and administrators began to “walk past” the deep meaning of these words many years ago. One wonders if they have now gone so far that they are at the point of no return.
Read MoreWARREN/FLEW DEBATE ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
PART #3 - CONCLUSION
RADIO SCRIPT #260
The Warren/Flew Debate on the Existence of God
Part #2 – An Interview with Dr. Warren
Radio Script #259
June 17, 1963 – It was the day when what has been called “the most tragic decision in the history of the United States” was announced by the highest Court of the land (Moore, One Nation Under God 362). The response of U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia was: “Somebody is tampering with America’s soul. . . .” By an overwhelming eight-to-one ruling, the Supreme Court drove a final stake into the heart of Bible reading and prayer in America’s public schools. Our nation’s public educational system has never recovered from the decision announced 50 years ago.
Read MoreThe Warren/Flew Debate on the Existence of God
Part #1 – An Interview with Dr. Flew
Radio Script #258 (1976)
The words “God is” occur 157 times in both the Old and New Testaments. It is a tremendous affirmation. So much is held dear in the words “God is.” We do not have to look too far to see just how important are the words “God is.” Negatively, if “God is not,” then there would be no Creation. If “God is not,” then we would have no Word of God. If “God is not,” then we would have no Son of God and Savior. If “God is not,” then the church has no reason to exist. If “God is not,” then we would be lost forever.
Read MoreThere can be little doubt that the truly "big" issue which faces the church now and for many years to come is that of skepticism. By "skepticism" I mean to include such diverse viewpoints as atheism, agnosticism, positivism, and all sorts of religions which reject the existence of the true God and the inspiration of the Bible. However, in this article emphasis will be on atheism in particular. I plan to divide this article into three main parts: (1) Part I — The Growth and Power of Atheism, (2) Part II — What Must We Do About It? and (3) A Conclusion.
Read MoreM. Louise Haskins (1908) captured the uncertainty of a new year in words that were quoted to the British Empire in the 1939 Christmas radio broadcast of King George VI. Haskins wrote:
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, “Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown,” and he replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way” (Bartlett 881).
When World War Two came to an end in Germany in the spring of 1945, a roundup of Nazi and German war criminals was begun. Finally, in the summer of 1946, many of these war criminals were put on trial at Nuremberg, Germany to account for their horrible crimes against humanity.
Read MoreATHEISM: THE TRUTH
THE TRUTH: An atheist cannot claim any objective standard of good and evil. To him, evil is anything he feels particularly sensitive about. He enjoys the power of moral judgment, and fancies himself the authority.
Read MoreIn her New York Times bestseller, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, conservative columnist, Ann Coulter, begins by citing the apostle Paul who wrote, “They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator . . .” (1). In a later chapter on the fruits of evolution Coulter again references the first chapter of Romans and says:
Read MoreA mosaic is an artwork made by inlaying small pieces of glass, stone, or tiles in such a way that an image is formed. An examination of any single piece of the mosaic may reveal that it is quite ordinary in appearance or that it is a very beautiful piece in its own right. But in either case, common or beautiful, the single piece does not compare with the beauty of the full image once all the pieces are in place. God comes to man something like a set of mosaic pieces, leaving it to man to fit them together to form the image.
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