Are You Good Without God?

ApologeticsGuy, Atheism, atheist, Bible, Christian Apologetics, evil, God, Good, Good person, Good without God, Mikel del Rosario, Stealing from God, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Mikel Del Rosario While I was driving from Sacramento to the Bay Area, I saw a huge billboard that read, “Are you good without God? Millions Are.” I also noticed a theistic tagger added the words, “Also Lost?” at the end of the message. At first, I wondered if the original question could mean something like, “Do you feel comfortable without a belief in God? Millions feel the same way.” Kind of like if you offer someone a drink, and they say, “No, thanks. I’m good.” But I don’t think that’s what the message is all about. Can’t People be Good Without God? So, then it got me thinking, “Can’t people be good without God?” I mean, couldn’t an atheist do some really good things without God? I guess…
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Messianic Convergence in the Gospels: A New Way to Frame the Argument from Old Testament Fulfilment

Apologetics, Christianity, fulfilled prophecy, gospels, Is Jesus God?, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jonathan McLatchie, messianic prophecy, New Testament, Old Testament, Prophecy, prophecy in the New Testament, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
Anyone who has spent considerable time studying the gospels can tell that they are literally saturated with Old Testament fulfilment and allusions. Indeed, the early church used two primary lines of argument to establish the Messianic credentials of Jesus of Nazareth — the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and Messianic prophecy. How useful is fulfilment of the Messianic prophecy in the person of Jesus to the purposes of contemporary, twenty-first-century apologists? In this article, I explore a way to frame the argument in a robust and objective way. First, I will summarise my argument, and then I will dig into the details. A Summary of the Basic Argument When it comes to the origins of the gospel narratives, there are three contending hypotheses for explaining their origin. These are:…
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20 Myths About Old Earth Creationism

Answer In Genesis, Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Christians, Creation, Genesis, God, Jeff Zweerink, Ken Ham, old earth, Old Earth Creationists, Philosophy of Science, reasons to believe, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics, Young Earth Creationists
By Luke Nix Introduction Last month I was alerted to a debate on Justin Brierley’s podcast “Unbelievable.” This debate was a discussion between a young-earth creationist (Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis) and an old-earth creationist (Jeff Zweerink of Reasons to Believe). This, of course, caught my attention because of my focus on science/faith issues. I decided to take a listen but found myself quite frustrated within just minutes of Justin giving his introductions. Here is a link to the episode for those who would like to hear it for themselves: Do we live on a young or old earth? Ken Ham vs. Jeff Zweerink Throughout the discussion, Ken Ham presented many strawmen and misrepresentations of Zweerink’s old-earth creationist view in order to argue against the view. I recognized many of these myths…
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The Cure For Spiritual Disorientation

Apologetics, Bible, Bob Perry, christian, Christianity, God, Spiritual Disorientation, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics, TrueHorizon
By Bob Perry I have made the case that the church is suffering from spiritual disorientation. There are many Christians who are flying through this life in much the same way as a pilot who is spatially disoriented. Like that pilot, they’ve lost all reference to the ground. And that’s a dangerous position to be in. The first thing a pilot must do to correct his situation is to find the true horizon. Grounding our faith is no different. And the horizon line of faith is truth itself. Truth, in all its forms, is the reference for a grounded spirituality. It aligns us with reality. The Greeks believed in an impersonal force that was the source of truth, goodness, and beauty. They called it the logos. But the Bible tells us that…
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White-Knuckling It

Brady Cone, christ, Christianity, FreeThinking Ministries, Holiness, Homosexuality, Purity, Same-Sex Attraction, Sin, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
As a man who loves Jesus, is in a heterosexual marriage and still experiences some same-sex attraction that is lingering from my previous gay life, I spend a lot of time talking to Christian men about what life as a same-sex attracted (SSA) Christian man should look like. Much of the conversation centers on behavior. “How do I go the rest of my life without acting on these desires which seem so innate and natural?” they ask many times. It is an important conversation. Denying oneself for the sake of the Gospel is essential to our Gospel witness, the flourishing of our faith, and the wellbeing of our soul. Denying what our flesh so strongly craves is difficult, painful, and can’t be done without the sustainment of the Holy Spirit…
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Why Most Doubts About God Are Emotional, Not Intellectual (Part II)

Apologetics, Christian Apologetics, Christianity, Christians, Doubts, Emotional Doubts, Evidence, Mike Taylor, MikePTaylor.net, Skeptics, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Mike Taylor How to Deal with Emotional Doubt Most of the time in our lives, it’s not the facts of the situations around us that are important; it’s how we process those facts. Similarly, the worst kind of a pain in our lives is not from what happens to us but how we download it or process it. For people dealing with emotional doubt, when something bad happens, they give themselves permission to let those events determine why they have problems. However, beliefs (i.e., the way we download information) are the things that stand between those events that happen to us and the consequences that come from them. Events alone rarely cause all the consequences we experience. Events plus negative or detrimental beliefs about those events often cause excessive…
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Could The Universe Be Eternal?

2. Does God Exist?, Apologetics, beginning of the universe, Creation, creator, Eternal Universe, existence of God, God, JesusIsNotAFakeNews, objections, Ryan Leasure, Skeptics, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics, universe
By Ryan Leasure One of my favorite arguments for God’s existence is the Kalam Cosmological Argument. While this argument has historical roots, contemporary Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has popularized it more recently. The argument goes like this: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. This is a logically airtight argument. That is, if we can demonstrate that both premise (1) and (2) are true, the conclusion (3) necessarily follows as true. Let’s consider the premises in turn. (1) Everything That Begins To Exist Has A Cause. This first premise seems intuitively obvious. To reject it, one would have to posit that something can come from nothing. But that view has to be the height of absurdity. Nothing can’t…
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El Apologista

Apologetics, apologist, Christianity, Costa Rica, Gospel, interview, Jorge Gil, Life history, salvation, SalvoMag.Com, Terrell Clemmons, Testimony, Theology and Christian Apologetics, truth
By Terrell Clemmons Jorge Gil: Next Gen Apologist to the World Jorge Gil was born in 1982 to a single mother in Costa Rica. When he was one year old, she left him in the care of his grandparents and moved to the United States, where she died ten years later. In the wake of her death, with a grandfather who was away most of the time, a grandmother who showed love by giving him whatever he wanted, and adolescence approaching, young Jorge started exploring. With no father figure and no boundaries, he soon discovered he liked liquor and pot, and both became regular pastimes. As in much of Latin America, the culture around him was nominally Catholic, and he could easily party all night and go to Mass the…
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Why Most Doubts About God Are Emotional, Not Intellectual (Part I)

Apologetics, Christian Apologetics, Christianity, Doubts, Doubts about faith, Doubts about God, Emotional Doubts, Evidence, Mike Taylor, reasons to believe, Skeptics, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Mike Taylor If we’re honest, we would all admit that we have doubts about God to some degree or another. I mean, on some level, it almost feels like human nature to resist fully trusting anything. We doubt ourselves, we doubt other people, and more than anything, we doubt God. Doubt is normal. No matter who you are, you’re going to have doubts. Even biblical heroes such as Job, Abraham, David, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Thomas, and Paul had doubts about God. But for some reason, too many of us think that doubts should be avoided. I think we get the idea that doubt is bad from a misapplication of Scripture. In Matthew 21:21, Jesus said we should pray without doubt, and incredible things will happen. So doubt must…
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13 Good Historical Reasons For The Early Dating Of The Gospels

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Authors, Christianity, Dating of the New Testament, Erik Manning, Evidence, gospels, history, Is the New Testament True?, IsJesusAlive, New Testament Gospels, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Erik Manning Skeptics like Bart Ehrman will use Apollonius of Tyana as a challenge to Jesus’ uniqueness. Apollonius lived in the first century. His birth was supernatural. He also performed miracles and appeared to people after his death. Sounds familiar, right? Critics will then conclude that the story of Jesus isn’t special. Apologists will then retort that the Apollonius’ biography was written long after his death. It isn’t until about 100 years later that Philostratus wrote his biography. Therefore, the story we have about his life couldn’t be based on eyewitness testimony. But the Gospels are based on the accounts of witnesses. And this is where critics will say “Oh really? The Gospels came long after Jesus’ death too!” For example, here’s Bart Ehrman: “The very first surviving account of Jesus’ life was…
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