Misapplication of Truth

Friday, August 6th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Bible & Scripture | Comments Off

It's not a new thing to point out the flaws of Christians and use that as an argument against the veracity of the Christian faith. Many things have been written on this subject and today I've been thinking about something along these lines that I have not yet read anywhere else. That is, the idea of misapplying objective Truths. While, on the one hand, I could say that non-believers do this, I would be remiss if ...

Abortion – A Religious Issue or a Secular Issue?

Thursday, July 29th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Political Issues | 4 Comments »

Ever since Roe v. Wade abortion has been quite a hot topic in the United States. It seems like every presidential election, Supreme Court Justice nomination, congressional election and senatorial election, this is one of the major topics of discussion. Where does each given candidate or nominee stand on the abortion issue? Personally, I think that many of the pro-lifers out there who's rhetoric I've heard discussed are taking the wrong approach. It would seem pretty ...

Truth and Relativity

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Political Issues | Comments Off

In the ever-present effort to keep religion out of politics (I actually don't think this is even possible, but that's a subject for another time) many Christians are not doing their faith much justice. I'd like to say that I am often surprised at how often people downplay the importance of their faith in their lives, but I can't. While I understand the concept of not having a "state-sponsored" religion, I sometimes think that many Christians ...

Open Minded

Thursday, July 15th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Belief | Comments Off

Have you ever heard someone tell you that you need to be more open minded? The most interesting part about that is that most of those people don't actually realize what they're saying. What does it actually mean to be open minded? In general, to be open minded means that you have a willingness (or openness) to listen to, and perhaps even entertain, thoughts or ideas that may directly conflict with your already established beliefs. But that ...

Teaching the Bible in Public School

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Political Issues | Comments Off

It looks as if Texas is not the only place one can find the Bible being taught as part of the public school curriculum. A school district in California has just unanimously passed a vote to include an elective class that teaches the Bible from the standpoint of its being a work of literature and history. The school district must carefully craft this curriculum so as not to breach any California statutes and it must adhere ...

God of the Gaps

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Apologetics | Comments Off

You've probably heard the term "God of the Gaps" before. If not, another phrase used for this concept is the "argument from ignorance." This is basically an anti-theist argument which tries to make theists look like wishful thinkers. The main premise is that the anti-theist claims that believers will give the credit to God for anything that they can't think of a natural explanation for. Essentially, they like to make it look like we just throw ...

Straw Men

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Bible & Scripture | Comments Off

There are so many interesting (and often humorous) ways non-believers attack Christianity. From moral arguments against Christianity (yeah, right!) to the Problem of Evil to the so-called Euthyphro Dilemma and so on. One of the ones that I find the most hilarious is when they start trying to pick apart the Bible itself and try to point out inconsistencies. For example, I remember once hearing a call-in, public-access TV show asking callers (specifically Christians) to call ...

The Problem of Naturalism

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Evangelism | Comments Off

Lately, I've thought a bit about the idea of what is known as "naturalism."  There have been a lot of different thoughts about why this philosophy does not have the explanatory scope or power necessary to explain much of the universe. However, I've been thinking about a different aspect of naturalism lately. Mostly, I've been thinking about how closed-minded and limited this worldview is. Ironic that I would feel that way, considering most people would argue ...

Wearing the Bulls-Eye

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Christian Living | Comments Off

One thing that one commonly hears about Christianity is that once a person accepts Christ, they begin to experience a lot more trouble. You might think that I'm going to go into people's impression that accepting Christ meant that life would be easy, but that's not where I'm going with this. (Though, that would be good, too!) Instead, I'd like to address something that I've heard from non-believers. Often, I've heard rebuttals to this that basically ...

“Middle” Knowledge

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in God's Character | Comments Off

This week, I thought I'd try getting into some things that are not very well-known. Namely, the concept of "middle" knowledge. You're probably wondering what the heck that is and it's my purpose here to do my best to explain the concept. The concept of middle knowledge has been attributed to the sixteenth-century theologian, Luis de Molina. But before we get too far into what this is, it might bear some explanation of a couple of ...