Apologetics and Evidence

Travis Dickinson, Ph. D., is a professor of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University, and recently put a YouTube video out titled, “ Why the Christian/Muslim/same God question is a BAD Question .” In one theological sense, we Christians do not worship the same God, because of the difference between a unitarian view (Muslim) and a Trinitarian view (Christian). But in another sense, as far as philosophical reference is concerned, we are discussing the same necessary being to some degree. The idea is that the being we call “God” can be described in several different ways, and though some of those ways can be false, we are still philosophically pointing to the same “thing.”   Dickinson briefly mentions that sometimes Jews are included in the first part of his discussion, and I think this is actually a steelman argument for this first part, simply based on the fact that it is likely that more people will say that Jews and Christians worship the same God (see below for more), as opposed t...

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...