TruthMatters_SJ
Religious skeptics often point to the results from the Templeton prayer study (Dusek et al., 2002; Benson et al., 2004), which is the largest study of intercessory prayer to be conducted to date, to claim prayer doesn’t work. In fact, they point to the results, which suggest prayers made things worse for those to whom …
A pastor on a plane initially led me to “CS Lewis’ adult books,” such as Mere Christianity and the Great Divorce. CS Lewis fueled a desire within me to learn more about Christianity and Jesus. His brilliance, prescience, and insights opened my eyes to many truths, many of which I’ll share in this article. Over …
Continue reading "CS Lewis’ Responses to 10 Challenging Atheist Assertions"
The intention of this article is to identify the ways in which Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundation Theory is flawed. Prior to doing so, I will offer the premises and conclusion that I will build upon to identify the correct source of our objective moral grounding: God. If humanity has universal, objective moral values and obligations …
Biblical skeptics like to make the argument that “Daniel got the history wrong,” which STRONGLY implies that Daniel tried to dupe us when they assert later dating of his Biblical book. I will present examples from this argument along with refutations. Who is Belshazzar's father? Daniel referred to Belshazzar’s father as Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 5:13) and …
According to some, the “scholarly consensus” on the dating of Daniel is that the book of Daniel was written in the 2nd century B.C. Such a consensus makes me wonder about whether scholarship is controlled by people who are skeptical of the supernatural inferences in Daniel’s prophecies. Accordingly, I will address the literature on this …
Do we have universal and objective moral values and duties to do what's right? If we do, what grounds them? Atheists and agnostics frequently suggest our social development, the heritability of social traits, or utilitarianism offer an explanation of grounding, yet these explanations fail for several reasons. Below I have identified the reasons. Do we …
Our founding father Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, which is a Declaration that could easily apply globally. In it, he states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the …
Continue reading "Thomas Jefferson, Our Conscience, and God"
Over the past couple of years, I have followed the rise and fall of the Non-Sequitur show. The YouTube show, which was created by Kyle Curtis and Steve McRae, often featured interesting guests, such as Hugh Ross, Inspiring Philosophy, Shannon Q, Sy Garte, Matt Dillahunty, Paulogia, Lawrence Krauss, and more. I have also appeared several …
Continue reading "Lessons Learned from the Non Sequitur Debacle"
In his “rebuttal” to Christian apologist Frank Turek’s refutation of Douglas Adams' silly puddle analogy, the Genetically Modified Skeptic said that Frank Turek “can’t contend” with the puddle analogy. He acknowledged that the puddle analogy indicates the universe appears to be designed. Yet to him that means “nothing until we can demonstrate that there is …
According to the 2017 Pew Research Center poll of 4,700 American adults, 80 percent indicated they believe in God, while 56 percent of those believe in the God of the Christian Bible. 19 percent indicated they didn’t believe in God, yet 9 percent of those do believe in some higher power or a spiritual force. …
Continue reading "Are We Hard-Wired to Believe in God? Yes!"