Happy Birthday Blog!
Today is the one year birthday of this blog being started. On November 19, 2004 I started this blog only to write an article about why I don’t use the Crusade four spiritual laws, and it was only meant to be sent to one person (a Crusade staff member). Well, I started to get intrigued by the blog, and I proceeded to waste inordinate amounts of time on it (I call this the “Facebook Syndrome”). It’s time to reflect over what I have gone through in the last year.
After the initial post, I wrote about my experience at the Sharing the Hope Seminar for The Crescent Project. It was there that I met Fouad, and I contracted his incredible passion for Muslim ministry. I, of course, had to do a post with all the soteriology proof texts I knew at the time. I wrote, in a surprisingly mature fashion, over my sentiments on Christian marriage. I struggled with compatibilism, debated with Open Theists, came clean with my views on Christmas, wrote my testimony, started my inquiry into the KJV only debate, and I even challenged Gregory Boyd (can laugh about my naivety) and this was all in less than two months of blogging!
I’ve written about the atonement, missions, the problem of evil, theology proper, and on and on. I went on an Urban Immersion and summer project. I also had a failed relationship. I made huge theological advances; the largest of which was converting to a covenant view of the people of God, and I started writing expositionally (also gave sermons).
I could go on and on, but today is just a good day of reflection into the growth I’ve undergone. I’ve written over 147 posts, in 12 categories, and received over 471 comments! That’s pretty good output for a year! I’m excited to keep growing, and I really appreciate all the people that have come here to argue with me, agree with me, challenge me, and encourage me.
You can visit my archives to see all the posts I’ve written.
Hello Chris, Iâ??m a Non-Christian who goes to Wright State.
I was introduced to your site by a friend. Iâ??ve continued to read your posts because of the amount of thought you put into them. Up until now Iâ??ve taken everything with a grain of salt, and perhaps even learned a little bit about your particular brand of Christianity.
It has been my personal preference not to post anything because I come from a different school of thought. If one was to label it, I suppose I would fall under the category of humanist/naturalist/atheist/intellectual/whatever. Also, Iâ??ve refrained from posting simply because this is a Christian blog meant to be shared with other Christians and I didnâ??t want to offend those who might not like what I have to say.
My hope is that you will read the following comment and express your views on the matter openly with your audience instead of removing it. I understand that sometimes we wish not to be challenged, or that we would rather not associate with the â??oppositionâ? — but I think we can both learn a great deal from our differencesâ?¦
â??In fact, not being a Christian is, I believe, irrational.â?
Can you please expand upon this bold statement. Since youâ??ve stated that this is a fact, Iâ??d like for you to explain to me how my lack of Christianity (be it willed or apart of my modus operandi) is the product of irrationality.
Moreover, I would like for you to explain why Christianity is a product of rationality. Iâ??m limiting this response to your brand of Christianity since I think youâ??ll agree with me when I say that not all Christians are rational people.
Finally, I would like for you to comment on whether or not you feel it is possible for a person to be rational and belong to another faith system at all. Be you Atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Janist, Shintoist, or whatever. And when I say rational I mean it in the same sense that you mean â??rationalâ? — as a well reasoned and deep connection to whatever they consider to be Truth.
I hope you take this comment seriously as an intent to learn and not a personal attack. If you like, Iâ??d be more than willing to share my own impressions if you find that sort of thing agreeable.
Iâ??ve supplied my email address in the event that you need to contact me privately.
Regards,
Patrick Beatty
â??The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the supression of ideas.â?
Carl Sagan
happy birthday blog
Patrick,
Thank you for coming and posting your thoughts. Your thoughts are welcomed here. The Christian lifestyle is, in the purest essence, aimed at those who do not know Christ so your questions and concerns would take precedence over a believer. The redeemed are here to serve those who do not know. In fact, I even removed your comment from my previous post to this one so that others may hear your questions. So I am certainly not trying to hide your concerns!
As for your question, yes my statement does slightly beg the question, but it was taken out of context. From where you took it from, I was answering a question about whether being a Christian, can in fact, be rational. I was asked about this, and I responded that Christianity is all about rationality; because it is where the very fact comes from. I was using the Transcendental Argument for the existence of God.
The argument states (in summary) that objective, absolute reality can only come from outside human experience. In other words for two people to say “murder is wrong,” that truth cannot be based on those two people, because if all truth was left up to humans than there really could be no such thing as absolute truth. I read from your post that you come off as very postmodern and a moral relativist. So, we must deal first with that.
We are first left to figure out if such a thing as absolute truth can indeed exist. If you were to say, “no, there is no such thing as absolute truth” you have just committed the logical fallacy of non-contradiction. You are saying (1) there is no absolute truth and (2) there is absolute truth because you say there is an absolute that no absolutes exist. Ok, let’s move on. We are then left to say, if the relativistic worldview is builty on faulty philosophical presuppositions then we must go and find (capital “T”) Truth somewhere else. Since this moral relativist worldview is built on Atheism, we must then go to the opposite which is theism (because agnosticism is just an atheist who can’t make up his mind. there is really no one who is an agnostic, but that’s a whole other rabbit trail).
When left with theism, we must then build a foundation similar to that of Rene’ Descartes. After he looked down into the bottom of his being and discovered that the only thing that he could prove with absolute certainty was his own existence (“I think, therefore I am.”). Now, what was the very next thing he wrote about in his famous meditation after that famous ontological discovery? God. He thereby concluded that there was a real essence into which all men from the beggining of time have dealt with the doctrine of God. Some come out believing and some not believing, but the point was that all did indeed dwell upon the thought of God. This was where Rene’ concluded that it was God’s “imprint” upon His creation. This is called in Christian philosophical circles the “Sensus Divinitatis” or “sense of the divine” (I’ve written about this previously in length).
Where are we going from here? We have established that moral relativism built upon atheism is irrational. Remember irrationality is the fact that an argument does not follow a valid line of logical deduction. We must then go back to our search for capital “T” Truth. So, if theism is in fact true what about all the religions?
Voltaire stated what you did which is the argument from inconsitent revelation. Basically, it is said that if God is God, and if He wants His name to be known why would He allow other religions? He would smarter to leave only one. So, do we throw up our hands and say “pick a religion?” No, because they are not rational. Let me show you just a few of the religions and there essence.
A religion such as Buddhism (to which I practiced) and Taoism (to which I also practiced) is built upon pantheism. Pantheism does not subscribe self-sufficieny to a creator, becase they state that there really is no creator only god (lowercase “g”) inside of creation. This makes God thereby reliant upon creation not in charge of it. How can something that is reliant upon creation enact absolute Truth? We are stuck back in your atheism/moral relativism dilemma. You’ll find most pantheistic thought passive to absolute truth, because they are humanistic in nature.
What about polytheism? Hinduism has more gods than citizens of the U.S., but does it give us the ability to overcome the moral relativism dilemma? Well, the creator god in Hinduism is Brahma. While Brahma is thought of the creator, he is not the giver and upholder of everything–Vishnu another major god in Hinduism is. Are we able to overcome an incredible complex moral system from two gods? Well, lets think of the context of Hinduism. The over 330,000,000 gods in Hinduism are idolaters, lovers of greed and power, and some are moral in some sense. Can we build a foundation upon contradicting morality of gods? Of course not.
That leaves monotheism. Judaism is recognized as Christians, but it found fulfillment in the ministry of Christ. Christ came down and said, “look at me, the one who was promised is here” (I’m not sure about the extent of familiarity you have with the Bible so let me know if you questions). The Jews rejected him, and that leads the New Testament writers to see that God’s plan was not only for the Jews but for gentiles (you and I). Judaism is no more, because the ministry of Christ fulfilled it. The gospels are riddled with references to the Jewish Scriptures, because Christians accept them. He was showing that I am the one that was being talked about.
Islam, to which I study and minister to, is filled with inconstencies. They say that God delievered three revelations (the Torah, Pslams, and New Testament) but that man “corrupted” it all. This is interesting, because they pick and choose out of the Bible where they think Mohammed is being prophesied about (in particular Deut 18). I could go on and on about the inconsitencies in Islam. Islam really is nothing more than a cult of Christianity.
We are left, from the major religions, with Christianity. The Bible has over 4,000 manuscripts which reveal God’s plan to 99.9% accuracy (some spelling differences in the Greek). Historically, Jesus is talked about intensely. Josephus, an early Jewish writer, wrote about the fact that Christ did indeed ressurect from the dead. And I could go on and on about this as well. (And I love to, so just ask!)
We are left with the fact that Christianity remains. It allows us to perceive morality and ethics which do not violate laws of logic and thereby rationality. In fact, it explains where we get such immaterial objects as rationality and logic. Why does the atheist use “logic” to “disprove” God, and they don’t even realize that God is the cause of it. Read this about the famous Christian apologist Cornelius Van Til:
So, we have seen that Christianity, and Jesus Christ, are the only ways that we can, in fact, account for rationality itself. Now, don’t get me wrong, truth does exist outside of the Bible. Physics tells me that what goes up does come down, and I know this truth in fact scientific law (reproducable every time without deviation), but absolute truth, the core and essence of being comes only from the God of the Christian Scriptures. So someone in something antithetical to that is not rational.
Good luck on your journey for truth, but I have been around postmodernism and all kinds of religions and ideologies to save other people the time. (Check out this article by John Frame about the Transcendental Argument.)
Thank you for taking the time to respond at length. I will review your response, and then get back to you.
Regards,
Patrick