July 27, 2021
Euphemisms can be helpful. They allow us to talk about difficult topics in a sensitive way. They lessen the emotional impact. That’s why we have euphemisms for sex, excretions, and death.
However, sometimes, euphemisms are created to deceive. They are meant to make something that is evil sound good. They are distortions of language. The Nazis were masters at this. “Special treatment” meant execution. The “final solution” meant killing all Jewish people.
March 16, 2021
When in a discussion, I tend to be quick to note my disagreement when someone says something I disagree with. I am prone to immediately launch into all the reasons I think they are wrong, followed by presenting and arguing for my own point of view. Unfortunately, this is not the best approach to resolving disagreement.
The mantra I am trying to live by is “make them justify before you falsify.” What does this mean? Before you ever attempt to falsify someone’s belief or statement, ask them why they think it is true. Why do they believe what they believe? What reasons do they have? The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim. It’s not our job to show why they are wrong, but their job to demonstrate that they are right.
If you pause a moment to make them justify their claim, you’ll often find that they have little-to-no justification, or that their reasons are quite bad. Once they realize that they have no (or poor) justification, they will likely be more open to your critique of their view as well as your own view. So the next time you are tempted to voice your disagreement, make them justify before you falsify.
November 25, 2020
You can always tell when someone believes something based on their emotions/will rather than their reason: They resort to name-calling, yelling, violence, shame, intimidation. They want to silence the opposition rather than respond to them. I heard it said that you know someone doesn’t have a good argument when they resort to hitting people with blunt objects to make their case.
Many Christians would disavow such things, but they have another way of responding to challenges to their ill-founded beliefs. When they don’t have good reasons to support their claims or to challenge your arguments, they trump you with spirituality. They will say the Holy Spirit told them that X is true, or that the only reason you believe X is because you are not spiritual. Don’t fall for the bait by shifting the focus to your own spirituality. Shift the focus back to the argument by responding, “Ok, so I’m carnal. Can you tell this carnal brother of yours why I should believe you are right (or conversely, why I should believe I am wrong)?”
October 29, 2020
People’s perception of Christianity is often shaped more by their church experience than by Scripture. If your experience of Christianity was in a Catholic church, you may think of Christianity as solemn and reverent, but ritualistic and largely irrelevant to daily life. If your experience of Christianity was in a Baptist church, you may think of Christianity in terms of moral behavior and Bible study. If your experience of Christianity was in a Pentecostal church, you may think of Christianity as wild and crazy, where emotions and the supernatural are top priority. Whatever your experience may have been, that is what you associate with “Christianity.” For you, that IS Christianity.
So when you invite a former Christian to rekindle their former Christian faith, they will naturally think you are trying to convert them back to the same church experience they had in the past. And for many people, it was their church experience that caused them to leave the faith. Why on earth would they ever want to go back?!
That’s why it’s a good idea to ask them about their church experience. What was their church community like? What did they believe? What were their negative experiences? It’s also good to ask them what they think Christianity is all about. In my experience, most people’s understanding of Christianity is very thin, if not warped. Once you know more about their view and experience of Christianity, the better you will be able to share with them the true gospel. Once they see the difference between what they came from and what you are inviting them to, they might be willing to give Christianity – the real Christianity – another shot.
October 23, 2020
When it comes to contentious issues, we rarely have genuine conversations regarding them. Most “conversations” are just opportunities for each person to express their own point of view. Neither person does much listening to the other, and neither expects to learn anything from the exchange. Their only goal is to declare their point of view, and perhaps convince the other person in the process.
This is not a good approach. We should come to every conversion believing that the other person has something to offer. We should be listening, not just making points. After all, we could be wrong in what we believe, wrong about particular facts, etc. Our “opponent” may actually have insights that we could benefit from, so we should be open and ready to be corrected if necessary.
September 7, 2020
We’re living in a time when people tend to isolate themselves intellectually. Not only do they not take it upon themselves to search out viewpoints that differ from their own, but they actually shun people who do not agree with them. We see this all the time on social media. You post something that person X does not agree with. Rather than reading what you have to say and starting a dialogue regarding your differences in hopes of helping each other discover the truth, person X ignores the post, or worse yet, unfriends you.
This sort of behavior is consistent with our cancel culture, but frankly, it is childish and foolish. I use these words advisedly, not as a smear. This is childish because only children plug their ears when they don’t want to hear what you have to say, not sensible adults, and thus when adults engage in this kind of behavior they are literally acting childish. This is foolish because this sort of behavior makes it impossible for one to grow intellectually. Everyone has false beliefs. The only way to discover which of our beliefs are false and correct those beliefs is to be open to listening to alternative viewpoints. If we ignore alternative viewpoints and shun those who hold to them, we stunt this process, guaranteeing that we will not grow in our knowledge of truth and wisdom.
November 30, 2017
Have you ever tried striking up a conversation with someone about the existence of God only to find that they have no interest in the question? Trying to continue the conversation is like trying to talk to a two year old about quantum mechanics. Strategically, you must find a way to get the unbeliever to see that the question of God’s existence is relevant to his/her life. I think the most effective approach is to appeal to common existential questions that every human wonders about. This could include:
June 6, 2017
When someone supports abortion on the basis that “nobody knows when life begins,” my immediate reaction is to immediately correct their misinformation with the facts of biology. Doing so, however, does not always end up with them becoming pro-life. People will often move the goalpost, offering another justification for abortion.
To prevent this, you could ask: “Does this mean that if we knew when life began – and we found that it began at conception – that you join me in opposing abortions?” If they say yes, then they commit themselves to becoming pro-life once you have provided them with the biological evidence. Of course, they could always say no, in which case you might ask them, “If it’s not our ignorance of when life begins that justifies abortion, then what does?” While this may prevent you from being able to provide them with the biological evidence to demonstrate their error, at least it will refocus the conversation to the reason(s) they think justifies abortion – which allows you to be more pointed in your apologetic, and provides a better chance of them changing their mind.
April 12, 2015
Christian apologist, Tyler Vela, has observed that atheists like to define “atheism” and “belief” in very nontraditional ways, and these definitions lead to an absurdity. Consider the following: “Atheist” is redefined as someone who merely lacks the belief that God exists (rather than someone who believes God does not exist), and “belief” is redefined as holding something to be true without evidence (rather than a mental disposition concerning the truth of some proposition). Given these definitions, if God did something by which all people had direct and incontrovertible evidence that He existed, then no one could believe in God (since His existence is no longer an opinion without evidence). If no one believes in God because they know God exists, then they are atheists (because atheists lack a belief in God’s existence). Ironically, then, everyone would be an atheist precisely because they know God exists.
January 12, 2015
January 16, 2014
He who makes a claim bears a burden to demonstrate the truth of his claim. Theists have a burden to demonstrate their claim that God exists, and atheists have a burden to demonstrate their claim that God does not exist. Nowadays, however, it’s common for atheists to claim that the theist alone bears a burden of justification. They try to escape their own burden of justification by redefining atheism from a “belief that God does not exist” to “the absence of belief in God.” Since only positive beliefs can be defended, they are off the hook. All the pressure lies with the theist.
While I think their attempt to redefine atheism is intellectually dishonest, let’s grant the validity of their redefinition for a moment. Greg Koukl observed that while it’s certainly true atheists lack a belief in God, they don’t lack beliefs about God. When it comes to the truth of any given proposition, one only has three logical options: affirm it, deny it, withhold judgment (due to ignorance or the inability to weigh competing evidences). As applied to the proposition “God exists,” those who affirm the truth of this proposition are called theists, those who deny it are called atheists, and those who withhold judgment are called agnostics. Only agnostics, who have not formed a belief, lack a burden to demonstrate the truth of their position.
October 17, 2013
Nobody likes the idea of hell – even believers – but many unbelievers simply loathe the concept. They think punishing sinners in hell is not befitting of a supposedly loving God, and appeal to the doctrine as evidence against the truth of Christianity. Is hell truly a stain on God’s character? I don’t think so, and when the skeptic examines his own beliefs about justice a bit more carefully, I think he’ll come to agree that hell is not the egregious concept he claims it is. Here’s a tactical way to get your skeptical friend to see this point.
February 26, 2013
In philosophy, a burden of proof refers to one’s epistemic duty to provide reasons in support his assertion/claim/position. While listening to a debate recently, I noticed that one of the participants spoke of a “burden of justification” rather than “burden of proof.” I thought this terminological shift was helpful since when most people hear the word “proof” they think “certainty.” Clearly, no one has the burden to demonstrate their position with apodictic certainty. “Justification,” on the other hand, makes it clear that one only has a burden to back up their claims with good reasons. I am going to be intentional about adopting this terminology in the future.
December 4, 2012
In two separate posts I have addressed a common piece of atheist rhetoric that I like to call the “one less God zinger.” It goes roughly as follows: “We’re all atheists. Christians are atheists with respect to all gods but their own, while I am an atheist with respect to all gods, including your own. When you understand why you reject all other gods, you’ll understand why I reject all gods.”
While this is rhetorically effective, it does not stand up to scrutiny. While much could be said of this zinger, I only want to focus on the first two sentences. Is it true that we are all atheists? Can Christians be properly described as atheists because we deny the existence of all gods other than YHWH? Not at all.
August 6, 2012
Scott McKnight alerted me to a couple of posts by philosopher Jeff Cook on the topic of desire and reason in evangelism (1,2). Cook contends that “the debate about God today is not about what’s reasonable—it is almost entirely about preferences and desire.” That doesn’t mean he is opposed to using reason or providing evidence for Christianity in our evangelism of the lost. He simply believes that this alone will not persuade most people because it is not rationality alone that causes them to reject Christianity.
Cook proposes that if people are going to be persuaded by our reasons for Christianity, they must first want there to be a God. In his words, “Wanting God to exist is more important than believing in God. By ‘more important,’ I mean desire is more crucial to the transformation of a person’s heart, more helpful in moving them toward faith in Christ, and more instrumental in one’s ‘salvation’ than right thinking. … It seems then that enticing the passions and wills of those who do not follow Christ is far more important than targeting their intellect with arguments for God’s existence. Showing that God is desirable will be the primary target of the successful 21st century apologist, for wanting God to exist opens highways for subpar apologetics; yet a closed heart will not here [sic] the voice of wisdom.”
July 2, 2012
I have a question for my non-theist readers: Why is it that I can chop up a tomato and eat it, but I cannot do the same to a human being?
May 15, 2012
The next time you hear someone say they are not a Christian because there are too many hypocrites in the church, here are a handful of tactful ways to respond:
Do you have any more to add to the mix?
December 8, 2011
When someone says to you, “You shouldn’t impose your morality on other people,” proceed as follows:
YOU: “So you think it is wrong to impose one’s moral point of view on other people?”
THEM: “Yes.”
YOU: “Then why are you imposing your moral point of view on me?
THEM: “What?”
YOU: “To say it is wrong to impose one’s moral point of view on other people is itself a moral point of view, and you are imposing that moral point of view one me by morally condemning me for morally condemning the actions of other people. You are guilty of doing the very thing you say should not be done.”
The fact of the matter is that we all have a moral point of view, and all of us apply that moral standard to others and judge them accordingly. The question is not whether we have moral standards, or whether we will apply them to other people, but rather whether or not our moral standards are true.
November 30, 2011
Frank Beckwith has made the observation that when people cannot refute your argument, they often trump it with spirituality. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. You state your reasons for believing P rather than Q, and your Christian brother responds by saying, “I know that’s not true because God told me Q is true.” Or your Christian sister responds, “You only believe that because you are carnal.” Don’t fall for this cheap tactic.
You could respond by saying to your brother, “Actually, God told me P is true, so I know you didn’t hear from God.” And to your sister you can respond, “Ok, I’m carnal. So can you tell this carnal brother of yours why my argument is wrong, and why I should believe your position/interpretation?”
April 26, 2011
Back in September 2010 I addressed a clever rhetorical gem that has become quite popular among atheists. It’s what I’ve come to call the “one less God zinger.” It appears in several different forms, but could be summed up by the following representation: “We’re all atheists. Christians are atheists with respect to all gods but their own, while I am an atheist with respect to all gods, including your own. When you understand why you reject all other gods, you’ll understand why I reject all gods.”
I invited your criticisms of this zinger, and offered a couple of my own. Since then I have stumbled on other apologists’ response to it, allowing me to further develop my own. What follows is an updated evaluation and counter-responses.
Theosophical Ruminations