Recalling Francis Collins’s The Language of God

Bill Clinton, Center for Science & Culture, China, COVID-19, Darwinian evolution, David French, ENCODE, Evolution, Faith & Science, Francis Collins, John West, Junk DNA, National Institutes of Health, proteins, Religion News Service, The Language of God, The Origin of Species, theology, vaccinations, Wuhan
President Bill Clinton announced, in a speech Collins helped to write, “we are learning the language in which God created life.” Source
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Extrabiblical Evidence for the Veracity of the Gospel History

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Bible, Christian Apologetics, Christianity, Extrabiblical Evidence for the Gospel, Gospel, Historical documents, history, Jonathan McLatchie, New Testament, Skeptics, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
In a previous article, I reviewed several arguments that are typically raised in support of the historicity of Jesus but, upon closer inspection, turn out to be of extremely limited evidential value. In this article, I will discuss an approach to arguing from extrabiblical sources that I consider to be much more robust. Whereas in the previous article, I critiqued appeals to direct testimony to the historicity of Jesus (which, at best, only attest to the broad outlines of the gospel story), in this article I will consider incidental allusions in the gospels that are indirectly and undesignedly confirmed by extrabiblical secular sources. The data surveyed in the ensuing discussion are of varying evidential weights, though all are (in my assessment) significantly more probable on the hypothesis of historical reportage than on its falsehood. The case for…
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Confronting Homosexuality in a Culture of Identity (Part 2)

Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Christians, Culture, Culture CrossExamined, FreeThinking Ministries, God, Homosexuality, Jesus, Josh Klein, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, morality, theology
By Josh Klein    Previously, we looked at the dichotomy between what it means to declare homosexual activity a sin and how those who believe in Christian orthodoxy deal with it.  We addressed the current cultural movement’s roots and introduced the idea of identity into the argument. It was necessary to do this so that we can have a strong foundation from which to build the following arguments.  We must first know why the liberal theologians seek to glorify homosexuality as an identity to understand why the interpretation of scripture has shifted from condemning obvious sinful behavior to condoning that very same behavior. If you have not read part one you can do so by clicking here. The goal of the believer should not be to convince the unbeliever of individual sins, such…
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Confronting Homosexuality in a Culture of Identity (Part 1)

Apologetics, Bible, Christianity, Christians, Culture, FreeThinking Ministries, Homosexuality, Homosexuals, Josh Klein, lil nas x, The homosexuality in the Bible, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Josh Klein Lil Nas X Do you know the name?  I do not know why you would, but Lil Nas X has become a bit of a cultural icon in recent years.  He wrote a hit country/hip-hop song in 2019 called “Old Town Road” with country star Billy Ray Cyrus.  The success of the hit propelled Lil Nas X into the modern spotlight.  The song, and its remix, won him fourteen awards spanning from the Grammys to Kids’ Choice Awards[1]. As a result, Lil Nas X toured the country singing for elementary-age kids and was even quoted as saying young kids were his “core audience”[2] in early 2021. Why am I writing about Lil Nas X on a Christian website? Well, this man that vies for the eyes and…
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Serpents, Dragons, and the Bible

Apologetics, Bible, Dragons, gospels, Questions about the Bible, Ryan Leasure, Satan, Skeptics, The Serpent, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Ryan Leasure If you’re from an Appalachian snake-handling church, I’m sorry to disappoint. This is not THAT kind of post. Instead, it’s a post about how the Bible portrays snakes, serpents, and dragons. More than that, it’s about how a mighty warrior defeats the serpent to rescue his precious bride. If that story sounds familiar to you, it’s because so many great children’s tales of the past echo this same story. You see, the Bible presents three main characters:[1] 1) The Serpent (the villain—Satan), 2) The Damsel in Distress (the people of God), and 3) The Serpent Slayer (the hero—Jesus). It’s worth noting that “Serpent” is a biblical catch-all term that includes both snakes and dragons.[2] In other words, serpent is an umbrella category while snakes and dragons are more specific. Also worth…
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How Science and Faith Relate — Three Options

Alister McGrath, BioLogos, Bruce Gordon, Casey Luskin, Center for Science & Culture, dialogue, faith, Faith & Science, Francis Collins, Michael Ruse, monologue, religion, scientists, theistic evolution, theology, Three Views on Christianity and Science, Tom Gilson
"Dialogue," in practice, can quickly devolve into a monologue where religion is supposed to sit down and shut up the moment there is a point of difference. Source
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Charles Darwin in Light of Black History Month

African Americans, Alfred Russel Wallace, Black History Month, Charles Darwin, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, Darwinists, eugenics, Europeans, Evolution, Francis Galton, ID The Future, indigenous races, Intelligent Design, Jay Richards, Martin Luther King Jr., materialism, scientific racism, sterilization, theology, Victorian England
Was Darwin’s racism purely a function of his time and place, Victorian England? Historian Michael Flannery says no. Source
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When Scientists Make Truth Claims Outside Science

Alexander Oparin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Baden Powell, Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin, clockmaker, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, creator, David Hume, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, evolutionists, Francisco Ayala, Gottfried Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Isaac Newton, John Ray, Joseph Le Conte, Kenneth Miller, mosquitos, religion, Robert Chambers, scientists, Stephen Jay Gould, theology, Thomas Burnet, universe
Here is a small, representative sampling of such claims over the past three centuries. These claims are not from science, but they drive science. Source
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