Apologetics and Evidence

Many words have been spoken over whether or not Charlie Kirk is a Christian martyr. It has seemed to me from the beginning that Kirk was a Christian martyr, and I knew that people would be divided on the subject. So, after several of my own discussions, nine days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, I crafted a philosophical argument. The Truth of the Matter, Philosophically Speaking   1. If Charlie Kirk’s values were built on the foundation of Christ (P), then the truths that he taught from these values were the reason he was murdered (Q). 2. If the truths he taught from these values were the reason he was murdered (Q), then Charlie kirk is a martyr (R). 3. Charlie Kirk’s values were built on the foundation of Christ (P). 4. If Charlie Kirk’s values were built on the foundation of Christ (P), then Charlie Kirk is a martyr (R). 5. Charlie Kirk is a Christian Martyr (R).   (Hypothetical syllogism 1,2) (Modus ponens 3,4)   For a frame of reference, see these two passages bel...

The Book of Mormon is written in a style of language that was not used by anyone at the time that it was written and published. This style of English is called   Early Modern English . This fact is an anachronism that I find to be severely overlooked by those who seek the truth about the Book of Mormon. Many Mormons will instantly write this objection off concerning the veracity of the Book of Mormon, even to the point of saying that such an objection is lazy and pitiful, while not giving any rebuttals worth their weight.   I recently insinuated the absurdity of the Book of Mormon by asking the question, “Why was the Book of Mormon translated into Early Modern English?” I’m saying that it is absurd that the BoM uses an out-of-date language. A Mormon replied to me that the Bible has equal absurdities. He said, “Why is [The BoM translation into Early Modern English] absurd? Is it absurd that God uses a donkey to speak to Balaam in Numbers 22?”  First, this is a  tu quo...

While taking a cultural apologetics class in my doctorate, I rambled along in a 30-page paper and in it, I wrote that, “I define religion as an anthropological system consisting of worship which is often filled with specific sacred rituals that seeks to appease or eradicate guilt.” My professor red-penned this and said that I am not yet in an authoritative position to make such definitions. But I was never asked how I came up with such a partial definition. The thing is, working on my second post-graduate degree in apologetics, studying many other religions on a deeper level was inevitable, and  by this, I noticed a pattern in all of them which was the fact that they all seek to appease or eradicate guilt, including   Buddhism , even though   many adherents of Buddhism claim that it is not a religion . The point is that all religions seek to eradicate guilt on some level, because   guilt crosses all cultures and times, to all people .   Guilt transcends all peop...

A category is simply a distinct class to which something belongs… A set of objects that can be treated as equal in some way. A Macintosh apple belongs to the category, apple, and not what we categorize as an orange. Similarly, colors are in a different category than taste.   When we say, “apples and oranges” what we mean is that there has been a confusion of categories. Sure, they are both fruit, but when you examine both, there is an obvious difference. An apple is not an orange, and an orange is not an apple. Macintosh, Granny Smith, and red delicious are all apples. Navel, blood, and Valencia are all oranges. To mix the two, for instance, to call a navel orange an apple, would be a categorical error, sometimes referred to as a category mistake.      How Identifying Categorical Errors can Help with Apologetics It seems that simply learning about or being reminded of categorical errors can help us be more aware of them. We have all heard or thought of ourselves, the...

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...