Apologetics and Evidence

I am often surprised at the reactions of people when I show and tell them how I read. They are frequently very interested in my methods and practice. It took me a long time to develop my reading method, but early on in my studies I was going through a Navigators course that suggested that you dig into the text when you read. This has resonated well with me since I was an excavator and bulldozer operator by trade for a few decades, which much of this took place while I was enrolled as a college student.   Excavating the Text In this article, I would like to spill the beans on my digging method, and I’ll start by listing the four tools I use to do so. First, the main tool is a highlighter. Below, in the picture is the brand I prefer because I can operate the marker, opening, highlighting, and closing, with one hand (reminds me of cracking a plastic egg open). This allows me to be more efficient in reading, because I can still hold the book with one hand, highlight with the other, and...

Robert Wright,   Why Buddhism is True: the science and philosophy of meditation and enlightenment   (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks). 2017.     Introduction Robert Wright, the author of “ Why Buddhism is True ” has taught in the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania and the religion department at Princeton University. He is currently the visiting Professor of Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. [1]  There are sixteen wordy chapters, an appendix, some explanatory notes and cited sources, a bibliography, and an index. The book is a  New York Times  best seller, with extremely high reviews by sources that are considered to be highly reputable, such as  The Guardian ,  The New Yorker , and  The Washington Post .  In the book, the author tries to argue, as the title suggests, why Buddhism is true, and supports his proposition through several studies in psychology, personal experie...

As I read through Dan Barker’s book, “ godless ,” I became more and more heartbroken as the pages turned. Barker explains that he was, at the early age of fifteen, on fire for God. In chapter one, he recalls that he came from a Pentecostal background and admits that at a revival meeting he attended was “spirit-filled… intense, bursting with rousing music and emotional sermons.” [1]  It seems that right off the bat, that his experience was only based on emotion. This is the opposite of what the Bible teaches. Jesus said,  Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the win...