Astrophysicist Alex Filippenko of the Universityof California, Berkeley took part in a panel discussion on June 23, 2012 at the SETICon 2 conference on the topic “Did the Big Bang Require a Divine Spark?” Taking a page out of the playbooks of Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss, Filippenko claimed that “the Big Bang could’ve occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being there. With the laws of physics, you can get universes.”[1] If the laws of physics are responsible for churning out universes, then the ultimate question is not the origin of the universe, but the origin of the laws of physics. Where did they come from? Filippenko recognizes this problem, saying “The question, then, is, ‘Why are there laws of physics?’ And you could say, ‘Well, that required a divine creator, who created these laws of physics and the spark that led from the laws of physics to these universes, maybe more than one.’”[2]
July 10, 2012
Another Scientist Claiming that the Laws of Physics + Time = Protons and Plato
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Cosmological Argument, Naturalism, Science, Theistic Arguments[10] Comments
July 6, 2012
Is Religious Faith Due to a Fear of Death and Desire for Immortality?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Eschatology, Odds & Ends, Religions, Theology[16] Comments
I’ve heard a lot of atheists hypothesize that one of the reasons religion was invented was because people had to manage their fear of death. If people believe that they will continue to live on in some fashion after death, it mitigates their fear of death. Can the fear of death explain the origin of religion, or the origin of religious faith in people today? Perhaps, but three points should be made.
First, not all religions include conscious existence beyond the grave. For example, in many Eastern religions absorption into the One (personal extinction) is the end of all things. Clearly immortality is not the motivation for those religions and religious practitioners.
July 5, 2012
Studies purporting to show that children raised by same-sex parents fare just as well as children raised by opposite-sex couples are flawed, and new evidence that they fare worse
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Homosexuality, Same-sex parenting[19] Comments
Opponents of same-sex marriage often argue that such relationships are detrimental to children. Advocates of same-sex marriage point to a litany of studies showing that children raised by same-sex couples fare just as well, if not better, as other children. The American Psychological Association referred to 59 such studies when they announced in 2005 that children raised by same-sex couples fare just as well as children raised by opposite-sex couples.
Recently, Dr. Loren Marks from Louisiana State University examined those 59 studies (ranging from 1980 to 2005) the APA cited in support of their conclusion. He concluded that they were all fraught with methodological problems that undermined their results. According to the Science Daily report “more than three-quarters were based on small, non-representative, non-random samples that did not include any minority individuals or families; nearly half lacked a heterosexual comparison group; and few examined outcomes that extend beyond childhood such as intergenerational poverty, educational attainment, and criminality, which are a key focus of studies on children of divorce, remarriage, and cohabitation.”[1] Dr. Marks is careful to point out that this does not mean children raised by same-sex couples do, in fact, fare worse than other children: “The jury is still out on whether being raised by same-sex parents disadvantages children, however, the available data on which the APA draws its conclusions, derived primarily from small convenience samples, are insufficient to support a strong generalized claim either way.”[2]
July 3, 2012
What Should Christians Make of the “Forgiving God” Meme?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Ethics, Holiness, Nature of God, Theology[20] Comments
Sam Storms has written an insightful analysis of the idea that we can or should “forgive God.” While a few snippets cannot do it justice, the heart of his argument is as follows:
First of all, let me say that I understand where this sort of question comes from. I understand how people quite often are confused by what God does or doesn’t do. … But my struggle is with the language of “forgiving God.” For one thing, I don’t find it ever used in Scripture. That alone ought to give us pause before we incorporate such language into our Christian vocabulary or allow it to shape our theology or our understanding of spiritual formation.
July 3, 2012
Is Science Superior to Religion Because Science Can Be Mistaken?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Logic, Science[32] Comments
Recently I listened to the debate between Peter Atkins and Callum Miller. As usual, Atkins was short on arguments and long on ad hominems, although I must admit that he was more civil in this debate than usual. One of the things Atkins said, however, caught my attention. He said that one of the advantages of science over religion is that in science, one can be wrong, whereas in religion one is never allowed to be wrong. I’ve heard other atheists make the same claim. I find it interesting because whether it’s true or false, it’s irrelevant.
July 2, 2012
What’s the difference between fruit and humans?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Atheism, Human Exceptionalism, Philosophy, Relativism, Tactics[33] Comments
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?
June 29, 2012
What I’ve Been Reading: Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence
Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible, Book Reviews, Textual Criticism, Theology[10] Comments
Daniel Wallace is a prominent evangelical NT textual critic. He has written about the field in various places, but never in much detail, and never in a book dedicated to the topic. So I was very excited when I heard he was editing a collection of essays on the topic.
Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament is not a general book on the topic of NT textual criticism, but a collection of essays criticizing the analysis and methodology of Bart Ehrman. Indeed, if you have heard any of Wallace and Ehrman’s three debates, you will already be familiar with much of the material Wallace presents in his chapter. But it is nice to have that wealth of information put to print and to have access to all of the details Wallace provides in the footnotes. Here are a few facts about the NT manuscripts that are of note: (more…)
June 28, 2012
Should government get out of the marriage business?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Politics, Same-sex Marriage[14] Comments
That is what some Christians and secularists suggest. They think marriage should be a private institution handled by churches and others, while the government sits by as a neutral observer. That may salve over the current political and cultural debate over the definition of marriage, but is this a good idea? Jennifer Roback Morse thinks not, and wrote a three-part series explaining why (1, 2, 3). She argues that privatizing marriage is not only impossible in practice, but that it would result in more state power and would unnecessarily hurt children.
June 28, 2012
My faith that we are still a republic ruled by a Constitution and still have a federal form of government is hanging by a thread
Posted by Jason Dulle under Politics[5] Comments
I woke up this morning hotly anticipating the SCOTUS decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare, fully expecting it to be ruled unconstitutional. To my dismay, it was upheld (and Roberts, rather than Kennedy, was the deciding vote). I was happy to see that SCOTUS rejected the government’s claim that Obamacare was a valid expression of Congress’ ability to regulate interstate commerce (although Ginsberg, unsurprisingly, thinks it is), but I was blown away that they considered it a tax. Seriously? Talk about legal and semantical obfuscation! As Wesley J. Smith wrote, “It appears that the Supremes have rewritten the law in order to uphold it.” With this approach to law and constitutionality, anything can be made legal…the constitution be damned.
Apparently now the federal government can require us to buy whatever they want so long as they call it a “tax” (something Obama and the Dems specifically said it was not). Calling something a tax doesn’t make it one. Perhaps we’ll all be required to buy, I mean pay a tax for tofu next year.
When Congress can pass such a law, and SCOTUS can uphold it as being constitutional, I fear that we are no longer being ruled by a Constitution but by the whims of those who hold office. Federalism is dying. Power is shifting away from the states and to the federal government. Who needs state governments when the federal government can regulate all of American life? I fear we are no longer the United States of America. We are simply America.
June 27, 2012
The Qeiyafa Ostracon may not be the oldest Hebrew inscription after all
Posted by Jason Dulle under Archaeology1 Comment
In an earlier post I discussed the Qeiyafa Ostracon, identifying it as the earliest extant example of Hebrew writing. That was what was being reported at the time, but the truth appears to lie elsewhere. The May/June 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review discussed this inscription, noting the many problems associated with the identification.
June 26, 2012
Inclusivism is Incompatible with Biblical Teaching
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Pluralism, Soteriology, TheologyLeave a Comment
Inclusivism is the doctrine that while no one can be saved apart from Christ, one need not have conscious faith in Christ to be saved. So, for example, while a good Buddhist may not trust in Christ for his salvation, since he is a good Buddhist Christ applies the merits of His substitutionary atonement to him.
The NT is opposed to inclusivism. It is quite clear that one must exercise conscious faith in Christ to experience salvation:
John 3:14-18 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, [15] that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. [16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. [18] Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
June 25, 2012
Quote of the Day: C.S. Lewis on the limits and findings of science
Posted by Jason Dulle under Quote of the Day, ScienceLeave a Comment
“[C.S.] Lewis insists that, because science confines its examination to the universe, it’s natural that science discovers nothing beyond it.” — David Bagget and Jerry Walls in their book, Good God.
June 25, 2012
More on Stephen Law’s Evil God Challenge
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Atheism, Moral Argument, Problem of Evil, Theism[13] Comments
While I have already written an assessment of Stephen Law’s evil god challenge, after listening to Law engage in an informal debate on the topic with Glenn Peoples on Unbelievable, I have a few more observations to make.
Law seems to take as his starting point the idea that people reject the existence of an evil God based on the empirical evidence: there is simply too much good in the world for an evil god to exist. Then he reasons that if the presence of good in the world makes the existence of an evil God absurd, people should also recognize that the presence of evil in the world makes the existence of a good God equally absurd. The success of his argument depends on three assumptions:
June 22, 2012
“Scripturally speaking, the problem is not that good people do not go to heaven; the problem is there are no good people.” — Trevin Wax, “Inclusivism and Its Effects” in Credo magazine, Issue 2, January 2012, 10.
June 21, 2012
Even if the universe is eternal, it still needs a cause
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Atheism, Cosmological Argument, Naturalism, Theistic Arguments[88] Comments
Given my recent post on falsely assuming that God’s eternality excludes the possibility that He has a cause (and thinking premise 1 of the kalam cosmological argument proves He doesn’t have a cause), I thought it fitting to address atheists who assume that the universe, if it is eternal, is uncaused. Some atheists reason as follows:
(1) If the universe began to exist, then it has a cause
(2) The universe did not begin to exist
(3) Therefore the universe did not have a cause
This commits the fallacy of denying the antecedent. The form of the fallacy is as follows:
June 20, 2012
Oh, how accurate this is!
Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible, Fun, Theology, Translations[2] Comments
June 20, 2012
The English name “Jesus” is an English transliteration of the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name of our savior, Yeshua. Yeshua is an updated form of the old Hebrew name, Yehoshua, transliterated into English as “Joshua.” That’s right, Jesus’ and Joshua had the same name, and thus Jesus’ name could rightly be pronounced “Joshua” in English! This is made clear in the Greek New Testament in which the name of Joshua the son of Nun and the name of Jesus of Nazareth are both “Iesous.”
Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen. 45 Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David (Acts 7:44-45, KJV)
For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. (Heb 4:8, KJV)
Most translations other than the KJV translate Iesous as “Joshua” in these verses since they are clearly referring to Joshua the son of Nun who succeeded Moses and led the children of Israel into the Promised Land. I used to use these verses as examples of poor translation on the part of the KJV translators since it was clearly Joshua and not Jesus who led the children of Israel into the Promised Land, but truth be told the KJV translators were not only accurately translating the Greek, they were doing so in a more consistent manner than most modern translators since they translated every occurrence of Iesous as “Jesus” even when it referred to someone other than our savior.
June 20, 2012
Prophetic Word of the Day: The Price of Music Downloads to Triple in Two Years
Posted by Jason Dulle under Fun, Odds & EndsLeave a Comment
I am feeling prophetic today. Let me make a prediction about the direction of the music industry and music downloading. The price to download a single track will triple from $1 to $3 within two years, but the price to download an entire album will remain at ~$13. Why? Too many people are downloading singles rather than entire albums, and there is not enough revenue coming in for the record companies and recording artists. Having a higher price for singles will not only create more revenue than today, but it will also provide a good incentive to spend a few more dollars and purchase the entire album. Watch and see!
June 19, 2012
Premise 1 of the Kalam Cosmological Argument Does not Prove God Has no Cause
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Cosmological Argument, Theism, Theistic Arguments[46] Comments
The kalam cosmological argument (KCA) for God’s existence goes as follows:
(1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause
(2) The universe began to exist
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause
When we consider what kind of cause would be necessary to bring the universe into being, we arrive at an immaterial, eternal, spaceless, personal, intelligent, and powerful being – an apt description of what theists identify as God. Atheists commonly object and theists often wonder, “Well, then who made God?” Theists rightly point out that the argument does not claim everything has a cause, but only those things that begin to exist. As an eternal being, God never began to exist, and thus does not need a cause. Indeed, the question itself is nonsensical given the kind of being God is.
We apologists must be careful, however, not to think that the 1st premise of the KCA proves God does not have a cause. The premise only pertains to things which begin to exist. We cannot infer anything about the causal requirements or lack thereof for eternal beings from this premise. While the 1st premise of the KCA does not require that God have a cause, to think it proves God does not have a cause is to commit the fallacy of denying the antecedent:
June 11, 2012
Is postulating an eternal God explanatorily equivalent to positing an eternal universe?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Cosmological Argument, Nature of God, Theism, Theistic Arguments, Theology[15] Comments
Many atheists assert that an eternal universe is explanatorily equivalent to an eternal God. For example, Sagan once asked, “If we say that God has always been, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always been?”[1] And just recently, two prominent atheists made the same claim. In his new book, A Universe from Nothing, Lawrence Krauss writes, “[T]he declaration of a First Cause still leaves open the question, ‘Who created the Creator?’ After all, what is the difference between arguing in favor of an eternally existing creator versus an eternally existing universe without one?”[2] Victor Stenger agrees with Krauss:
Thinking to Believe 