"Your Values Are Right For You But Not Me"

In today’s culture many believe that morality is subjective, depending on each person, better yet said, morality is relative. We find that this view point is not only illogical but can not be sustained by any human. It is impossible for us as humans to live with out the
belief or assumption that moral standards do exist. For example rape victims, abused children, or any other victims of torture intuitively know that an injustice has been done to them but, how if there is no objective ground for morality. For a person who claim that values are right for some people but, not others and that morality is relative would have no way to protest if injustice was been done to them. For example a relativist being arbitrarily imprisoned and beaten without cause would have no grounds to protest, because there would be no way to tell that it is an act of injustice against them if morality is just relative. Therefore in conclusion we see that moral relativism is not only illogical, but unsustainable.

Evidences for the Genesis Flood

Genesis 7 talks about how God caused a massive flood that engulfed the whole earth and killed every last man except the eight people that were on the ark. Many non-Christians and some Christians believe that the flood never happened and that the first couple chapters of Genesis are wrong. I would like to respond to the question about the global flood in Genesis 7, which I believe did happen. Now granted I am not an expert in this topic but I love the story of the flood. There are three reasons why the idea of a global flood is not impossible.
Many people have claimed that with the geography of the present world a global flood could not happen. I would agree with this statement that global flood in today’s world would be impossible; however, at the time of the global flood in the bible the earth was one supercontinent. This continent is known as Pangaea. Pangaea made it possible for a global flood because the mountains would have been smaller and the continents were not as spread out. After the flood the planet was unstable and the continent divided into the present geography today. For those who are interested in reading about whether or not Pangaea existed and if there is evidence for it I would recommend Peleg: Early Earths Movements by David P. Nelson.
Many people wonder and argue that it is impossible to rain constantly for a period of forty days and nights. I would like to offer this evidence. During the flood the bible mentions the breaking of the fountains of the deep. The fountains of the deep could mean volcanoes and massive tectonic activity. This activity would vaporize some of the water in the ocean and put it into the atmosphere where it condenses and falls back as rain.
The final evidence that I believe is the most convicing proof, which is that every ancient civilization has a flood story that involved a worldwide flood. It is pretty hard to refute this evidence because it is true. One example of this evidence is the Babylonian story the Gilgamesh flood. This story talks about the planet being flooded and only eight people would survive. This is very similar to the Genesis Flood in the bible were the flood covered the entire earth and only eight people survived. This evident also makes sense because everybody would have the same ancestors that survived the flood and story would be passed down from generations.
I encourage the reader to look up and into the different flood theories and decide for themselves if it happened or not. I hope that some of these evidences got you interested in flood and the possibility that the bible is true. Here are some books that I would recommend reading if you are interested in the flood. One book is The Young Earth by John Morris and Footprints in the Ash by John D. Morris and Steven A. Austin.

Jesus' Resurrection:

When Truth Confronts Our Worst Suffering by Gary R. Habermas

"How can there be a God when the world is full of pain and suffering?" This question has plagued believers and nonbelievers alike since the beginning of time. There are many different apologetic arguments for this question, and Gary Habermas speaks from his own personal experience.

He begins his article by saying that applying good theology and strong reason in the face of our worst suffering is one of the hardest things we could ever do. He then appeals to our emotions by telling us of how his wife died of stomach cancer. They were married twenty-three years and had four children together. "This was the worst pain I could experience," he told his children. He then puts forth the evidence that kept his faith in Christ strong throughout this inconceivable pain and heartache. It was no coincidence that Jesus suffered arguable the most painful death imaginable. No matter how intense our internal or physical pain, the son of God probably hurt worse. Habermas then questions himself, "Why should I expect less suffering?...the fact of Jesus' resurrection trumps even our greatest suffering."

Truly, no matter what the circumstance, our Savior understands our pain. He weeps when we weep, and we know that through all things Christ will be near and give us strength to carry on.

"The Lord is close to the broken hearted; he rescues those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

Is God responsible for Evil?

Many people say that they can’t believe in a God because of the evil in the world. They say that if God is all powerful and could stop the evil, he is responsible for the evil that people experience and that makes him not a merciful or good God which contradicts the Bible. This is simply a case of not looking at the situation in the right perspective. Here is one way to look at it. Consider yourself as a father. If your son beats someone up would you want him to be caught? And better yet how would you feel if you were held responsible for his actions? First off you would not want to be held responsible because he is his own being that can make decisions for himself. And second you would want him to get caught so that he would learn his lesson sooner despite that It would be painful for him. This is the same with God and us. We are his children who are capable of making choices and are responsible for our own evil. And God allows this evil so that we may grow and learn from our mistakes. This is why God is not responsible for the evil in our lives. -Brian E

God is Not Responsible

In our world today, we hear about crimes being committed in the name of the Christian God. These crimes push people away from potentially learning about Christianity. However, suspicions arise as we look at these situations and the people who committed the crimes. As we examine the people behind these crimes, one may observe that they do not follow the rules and teachings of Christianity. True Christians seeking the will of God in their lives follow, or do their best to follow, the laws, commandments, and teachings of the Bible (New International Version). These crimes that people commit in the name of God of Abraham are actually condemned by the Bible. In contrast, Islam actually has doctrines that encourage destruction, killing, holy wars, and spreading the religion by force. Christianity condemns these actions. Therefore, if one was following the rules of Christianity, the crimes would not have been committed in the first place. Furthermore, these people who do commit these crimes neither are actual Christians or are they following the commandments and rules of Christianity. How can God be responsible for something he has no association with?
An example that Gregory Koukl gives in his article “God is Not Responsible” is an effective way in understanding this concept. Koukl explains, “If you were a builder and you regularly sent out crews with detailed plans for building houses, and then another group went out and destroyed buildings and said they were working for you, would you be responsible? Would you be responsible for the destroyed buildings?” Of course not! Just because the group claimed that they were working for you doesn’t mean they actually were. A proof of this would be that they don’t even have the plans to build. Likewise, God is not responsible for the crimes committed by people who apparently “commit them in His name.” They don’t have the plans. In other words, they aren’t living the life that God calls Christians to live. Therefore, God is responsible for His followers’ actions, not unbelievers who look to place the blame on anything or anyone but themselves.

A Response to Skepticism

A skeptic is someone who doubts man's ability to know things. Skepticism can help one become more discerning and less gullible, so it is healthy in small doses. It becomes dangerous when one begins to say that "you can't know anything for sure." This total skepticism is impossible because it rejects the possibility of knowing anything, including knowing that we can't know anything. If we can't really know things, then we would not be able to reasonably doubt anything, either. A skeptic obviously doubts.
One motivation for skepticism is that people are sometimes wrong or they often make mistakes. Just because it's possible that humans can be wrong about things doesn't automatically make them wrong. Skeptics may observe that humans make a lot of mistakes and try to use that as an argument for their skepticism. But in order for them to know that people make mistakes there must be knowledge.
It would seem, then, that skeptics are unable to present any concrete arguments because they try to assert a view which would require presupposing knowledge. Therefore we may conclude that we can indeed know things.

Moral Relativism- Does it exist?

"You Have the Right to Choose Your Own Values"

In life everyone is faced with different value systems. Some values contradict, some we can agree on, and others seem to contradict our system of moral beliefs. A Moral relativist believes that all people have and exhibit different moral beliefs and practices. . However, just because we see differences in morality doesn’t necessarily mean that morality is objectively real.
First it can be stated that different cultures express the same underlying moral principles but are just interpreted differently. Even if these morals vary slightly there still can be objective morality that is universally accepted. An example of this is that most cultures (not all) feel as though cannibalism is evil. There is no 'ruling' that says this, however most cultures are compliant to this 'understood entity'. Therefore though different moral perspectives exist, this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that everything is relative.
Second, some practices by cultures or individuals are "customary for some people but not for others." (Copan 53) These practices include; child sacrifice, torture, and racism. These beliefs transcend moral choice, and people find these practices to be inferior and or defective beliefs.
In conclusion moral relativism allows people to justify or excuse their actions and beliefs with the “true for me but not for you” mentality. Moral relativism allows people not to “rise above moral mediocrity”( Copan 54), and hence breeds laziness and ultimately “turns out to be nothing more than doing what one wants to do.” (Copan 54).

Is Sincerity Enough for Salvation?

“It doesn’t matter what you believe, just as long as you are sincere.” Many people today believe a person will go to Heaven as long as they are a sincere and good person. Often Christians are questioned on how they can believe that they are the only people who will go to Heaven when people of other religions are just as sincere, and all too often Christians do not have an answer. There are two main reasons why Christians believe they are the only ones who will go to Heaven. First, being a sincere and good person is an integral part of being a Christian, but is not sufficient enough for salvation. It is possible that someone can be sincere about the wrong thing. Even Saul was sincere about his persecution of Christians before his conversion. Second, we cannot merit our salvation. Saying that we can earn our salvation takes away from the gift of God’s grace. It is by grace Christians believe they are saved, and not by anything that they have done. Even if Christians did have to earn their way to Heaven they could not do it. Anytime we call someone a “good person” it is a human type of goodness. No one could ever achieve God’s goodness, which is absolute.

Miracles in the Bible

The Bible predicts many prophecies that come true. Fulfilled predictions are a type of miracle that can be tested centuries after the event took place. Some ways to help prove the miracles are as follows: You need good evidence 1) that the text clearly envisions the sort of event alleged to be the fulfillment, 2) that the prophecy was made well in advance of the event predicted, 3) that the prediction actually came true and 4) that the event predicted could not have been staged by anyone but God. The strength of this evidence is greatly enhanced if 5) the event itself is so unusual that the apparent fulfillment cannot be plausibly explained as a good guess.

With those five reasons listed, a good example of this is with Christ being killed and then raised from the dead. In the Old Testament there are many times where it says that God will send his only son down to earth as a man, to die on the cross to forgive every sin. In Isaiah 53 it says "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows" (v. 4). "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (v.5). " He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth" (v.9). Then in the New Testament there are several accounts of Christ raising from the dead after he was crucified. That is what Christianity is based on, Christ raising from the dead. That is just an example of a miracle.

The problem with relativism

Relativism has one central and major flaw. This flaw being that they cannot accuse people of doing something wrong. They cannot say that someone has done something wrong if their basic belief is that morality is based on a persons personal definition. I say that this flaw is central because based off of this you can discount other things. Because of this relativists cannot blame anyone for anything they did or said because based on that persons definition of morality it was okay to do or say what they did. Also, relativists cannot say that they were treated unfairly or that something was fair or unfair. They have put themselves in a very small box by saying that morality is based on a persons own definition. Because of their belief they cannot have a meaningful conversation about morality. Relativism is not a belief thta you can hold on to or be consistent with. You cannot go through life not thinking that something is unfair or that someone did something wrong.

Problem of Pain

One of the arguments against the God of Christianity is this: God created everything; evil is a thing; Therefore, God created evil. The problem with the argument is that, as Augustine realized, evil is not a thing. It’s like dark. Dark is not a thing; it’s the absence of light. In the same way evil is not a thing in and of itself but simply the absence of good. It’s like a hole in the ground. No one invented the lack of dirt; it just came with the “invention” or rather creation of dirt.

As Gregory Kokul realized, in this way Adam and Eve introduced evil to the human race when they “dug a hole in their goodness”. They did not “get” Satan’s. Just like the absence of light can’t be passed from room to room without the individual action of flipping a switch or blowing out a candle evil is not a thing that can be given from one being to another.
God allowed the possibility of evil when he allowed for free will which we need. If humans did not have free will or the ability to make choices then we would be entirely different creatures, but that’s another issue.

Believe it or not evil does bring about good. For example forgiveness. If people didn’t quarrel and fight there would be no renewal of relationship brought about by forgiveness, and this isn’t the only example of good brought about by evil.

Not only that, but who are we to judge whether or not evil is worth while. We don’t even know the whole picture. How can we justly judge the situation? If we truly believe that God is all-powerful then we must believe that God thinks it’s worth it because evil is still around.
Besides, the purpose of our life is not to be happy but to become people who can spend eternity with God. That process is like refining gold in a fire-it needs heat, or pain.

It’s plain to see that the problem of evil can be easily explained, but it’s still a problem. We don’t wan to accept the answer because the problem is too personal. We’ve attaches baggage to the issue so muich that palin logic can’t convince us any more because logic may cast out logical fallacies but leaves the pain. So, if this article is hard to read I would encourage you to deal with the baggage, seek help in heling the wounds, then read this again with open heart and mind.

If Christ is the only way, what happens to those who don't hear about him before they die?

If JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY, WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO NEVER HEAR OF HIM?

This is a very hard question and you can take a couple of different directions with it. The first way would be to say that God as he is defined knows all, and therefore has engineered the world in such a way that no one is left without having a chance to accept the good news of Jesus Christ.

On the other hand some people refuse to believe that there are no circumstances in which a man dies without hearing about Christ. How can a loving God send a seemingly innocent man to Hell? That statement is full of assumptions. First we are not innocent we have all fallen short of the Glory of God. Second, God does not send us to Hell, we send ourselves. Does a judge send a criminal to jail, or does the criminal condemn himself to it? It is obvious through the Bible that you cannot be saved without Christ. So what about those of the old testament? they never heard of Christ, right? Wrong, they were saved by believing in God and trusting in the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus Christ. But we have come after Christ's sacrifice, so we are saved by believing in God and the believing in the death and Resurrection of Christ the LORD.

So what about those unreached? Will God condemn a man because we as Christians did not spread the good news? At first glance it seems we must assume that those unreached will not be saved. However there is an extra variable in this equation of ( no Christ=Condemnation ). This other variable(s) are mercy and grace. However since we are unsure of the way God will use mercy and Grace in judgement, we cannot know for sure how God will deal with those unreached. So it may very well be possible that God will have mercy on the souls of those who never heard of Christ, but since we don't know we as Christians are obligated to spread the good news in order to avoid the worst case scenario that the unreached will go to Hell. We must spread the word to all that we can in order to give all men a chance to chose to accept the Gift of Christ's death that God has given us.

How can we tie Evangelism and Apologetics together?

If we want to be able to share our faith, we need to be able to defend our faith. Even though the Bible does not say anything about apologetics specifically, there are many places where it is talked about. I Peter 3:15 talks about how we must always have an answer for the faith we have. The Bible talks about many topics that are associated with apologetics; persuasion, dialogue, discourse, dispute, argue, presenting evidence, and reason with. To be able to do all of these things effectively, we must know scripture. We must use our minds. If we do this, we are loving God with our mind, which He commands us to do. Many people try to do this, but they take an extreme approach. One approach that people take is a defensive one. Christians are too worried about our defenses and our facts. In II Corinthians 10 Paul talks about how we should not be the ones on the defense, but it is the people who do not believe who should be. We are so hung up on our defense that we do not look at exploiting their lie. Another approach that Christians take is a defeatist approach. This person has just given up on the World. They do not see any hope in other people. The last approach is the devotional approach. This approach relies too heavily on personal stories. They do not focus on the scriptures but on their life. In order to correctly defend our faith, we must know when to defend, question, share, and reason. If we want to correctly tie apologetics and evangelism together, Jimmy Williams suggests in his article "Apologetics and Evangelism," that there are five things we should do. First, we must go to people. We must actually go out with the intention to share His Word. The second thing is communicate with people. We must engage them in the conversation. If they do not understand the Word they will never accept it. But, if they do understand, as it says in II Corinthians 5:11, they will be persuaded and accept God. The third thing that has to be done is that we must relate to people. This is a place that I feel we as Christians fail in. We tend to just tell them about God and then leave it at that. If we want non-Christians to accept Christ, we must be relational. We must keep in contact and show the other person that we care about them as an individual. We must also remove the false seeds that have been planted in them. We also have to explain the Gospel. It is very confusing at times and we can not expect them to understand it right away. A major thing we must do is invite them to receive Christ. We can argue and reason until we are blue in the face, but if we do not invite the person to take the first step of faith, they won't do it. After they take the first step, stay with them. Be an encourager for them. Help them dive into the Word. If we do all these things, we will be able to successfully lead someone to Christ, using apologetics.

Silly David

One reason many people don’t believe in miracles, is because the teachings of David Hume. He said that only things that concur with the past experiences can be accepted. Thus, ruling out any possibility of the miraculous. The problem with this logic is, it is a circular argument. He is really saying you can not believe in anything unless it corresponds with past experience. We can agree with this idea of Hume’s if we have undeniable evidence against miracles, that they have never happened, then they simply just never did happen. But we can only have undeniable evidence against them, only if we know all reports of miracles are false, and we can only know if all reports are false, if miracles have never occurred. This is an argument that just goes in a circle.
There is another silly objection when it comes to believing in miracles. This is also a circular argument. A good example would be this dialogue. -I don’t believe in miracles! -Why not? : Because the crazy people that report them are unreliable. –Why are they unreliable? –Because they believe in miracles of course!

How Can We Know the Bible is Reliable?

Trusting in a document which started over two millennia ago can be a very difficult thing to do. To trust in something we must look at the evidence for and against it, evaluate such evidence, and draw a conclusion from our evaluations. The Christian Bible is one of these documents we must follow this process for. The Bible is broken into two sections; an Old Testament, containing thirty-nine books, and a New Testament, containing twenty-seven books. Each of these testaments can be individually shown to be reliable, more reliable in fact, than almost every trusted document from their respective periods.

The Old Testament was written as an account of the beginnings of time up until Jesus Christ's birth. After the original copies of the books were written, they were copied, by hand, by scribes, all of whom believed they were copying the divine word of God. They demanded perfection from themselves. In the 10th Century AD the Massoretes made copies of the Old Testament. These copies have very little deviation from the earlier copies we have since found. The Dead Sea Scrolls (The oldest Hebrew manuscripts we have found, dating back to 100 BC) are an almost exact match to the 10th Century Massoretic text. The Septugint (The oldest Greek translation of the Old Testament we have to date, dating back to 200 BC) is also an almost exact match to the Hebrew manuscripts we have. From these findings it can be rationalized that our current copies of the Old Testament are in form almost a precise match to the original texts.

The New Testament was written starting in the 1st Century AD. Many of the authors of the New Testament books lived during all of the events they referenced. We have found more than 4,000 different Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, many written of different materials. During the time the New Testament was written, parchment was a material that was very rare, and expensive. Because of its supply and price issues, it was used only for important documents. We have two complete copies of the new testament, scribed on parchment, which date back to the 4th Century AD. Thus, it can be reasoned that these two copies were considered important documents, even in the 4th Century. Along with these copies, there are considerable portions of more than fifteen books , and complete manuscripts of more than ten, that were found on papyrus dating to approximately 200 AD. The earliest manuscript found is one which contains portions of the Gospel According to John, and dates to 130 AD. Along with the more than 4,000 Greek manuscripts, more than 9,000 manuscripts of the New Testament have been found in other languages. Some Latin manuscripts date to 400 AD. The verses in the New Testament aren't only found in Biblical manuscripts; about twenty New Testament verses have been found in writings of clergy dating between 100-450 AD. From the evidence we can rationalize that the documents we have are valid, and correct to the way the course of events played out.

In conclusion, the evidence for the Bible's validity is more than any other document of its time. The span between the events of the Bible and the earliest manuscripts we have for the Gospels and all of Paul's letters is less than 200 years. More than ten other ancient documents trusted without question have a span of 500 or even 1,000 years, and far fewer manuscripts. We have entire manuscripts within 500 years of the time Jesus walked the Earth. Many manuscripts were around when first and second-hand witnesses were still alive, the manuscripts wouldn't have survived to the 21st century if they weren't true accounts. To not believe the Bible is valid, you would have to doubt all of ancient history since the Bible is attested for bibliographically far better than any other ancient document.

Research Sources:

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html

Summary of: Cross Examining the Attorney by Greg Koukl

How should you go about talking to someone who believes in God and has morals, but doesn't believe in Jesus Christ? There are different ways to go about this. A gentle route and a not-so-gentle and blunt route. The gentler route is probably the best one to take when communicating with people!

It might be easy to say to this particular person- no Jesus=Hell and Jesus=Heaven. But they need to understand why they must believe in Christ not merely because if they don't they go to hell. Maybe this next method adapted from Greg Koukl's idea on this scenario will be of help.

Koukl says: why not start out with something that both parties agree on--morals. A person who has morals will most likely believe that if a moral crime has been committed then punishment should follow. "But doesn't everyone commit a moral crime at some point or another, including you?", could be the follow up question. The answer that is sure to follow is "Yes". So what happens now? Jesus is what happened! God sent Jesus to pay for the punishment we all deserve. So if Jesus isn't important and doesn't really need to be a part of what we believe, what else can save us? Nothing.

Hopefully by this point everything has gone smoothly. There is nothing more you can do except pray and try to answer any questions that they have. Though it took longer to get the point across they now understand without someone being to short or blunt!

http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6737