News

The worst mistake you can make when defending the Christian worldview

5 Comments

So, this is just an advice post for doing apologetics.

Here are three situations I’ve run into while doing apologetics in the last month.

First situation. I was talking with a lady who is an atheist. I had a copy of “God’s Crime Scene” in my hand, and she asked me about it. I told her that it was a book written by the guy who solved the homicide case that I asked her to watch on Dateline. She remembered – it was the two-hour special on the woman who was killed with a garrotte. She pointed at the book and said “what’s in it?” I said, it has 8 pieces of evidence that fit better with a theistic worldview than with an atheistic one, and some of them scientific. Her reply to me was – literally – “which denomination do you want me to join?”

Second situation. I was talking with a friend of mine who teaches in a Catholic school. She was telling that she got the opportunity to talk to her students about God, and found out that some of them were not even theists, and many of them had questions. So she asked them for questions and got a list. The list included many hard cases, like “what about the Bible and slavery” and “why do Christians oppose gay marriage?” and so on.

Third situation. Talking to a grad student about God’s existence. I’m laying out my scientific arguments for her, holding up the peer-reviewed papers for each discovery. I get to the Doug Axe paper on protein folding probabilities, and she holds up her hand. One question: “Am I going to Hell?”

So think about those three situations. In each case, the opponent is trying to reject Christianity by jumping way, way ahead to the very end of the process. When you do Christian apologetics, you do not take the bait and jump to the end of the process dealing with nitty gritty details until you have made your case for the core of the Christian worldview using your strongest evidence. Let me explain.

So, your strongest evidence as a Christian are the scientific arguments, along with the moral argument. Those would include (for starters) the following:

  1. kalam cosmological argument
  2. cosmic fine-tuning
  3. galactic and stellar habitability
  4. origin of life / DNA
  5. molecular machines / irreducible complexity
  6. the moral argument

The problem I am seeing today is that atheists are rejecting discussions about evidence because they think that all we are interested in is getting them to become Christians. Well, yes. I want you to become a Christian. But I know perfectly well what that entails – it entails a change of life priorities. Both of the women I spoke to are living with their boyfriends, and the kids in the Catholic school just want to have fun. None of them wants to believe in a God who will require self-denial, self-control, and self-sacrifice. Nobody wants God to be in that leader position in their lives. Christianity is 100% reversed from today’s me-first, fun-seeking, thrill-seeking, fear-of-missing-out travel spirit of the age.

So, how to answer all these late-game questions? The answer is simple. You don’t answer any late-game questions until the person you are talking with accounts for the widely-accepted data in your list. These are things that have got to be accepted before any discussion about minor issues like one angel vs two angels at the empty tomb can occur. When we discuss all the basic issues where the evidence is the strongest, then we can go on to discuss issues where the evidence is debatable, then finally, in the last bits before the end, we can discuss these other kinds of questions.

How to explain why this process must be followed to the person who asks specific questions about minor issues? Simple. You explain that your goal is not to get them to become a Christian right now. That you want to let them believe anything thing they want. That’s right. They can believe anything they want to believe. As long as what they believe is consistent with the evidence. And what I am going to do is give them the evidence, and then they can believe whatever they want – so long as it’s consistent with the evidence.

So, for example, I’m going to tell them 3 pieces of evidence for a cosmic beginning of the universe: the expanding universe (redshift), the cosmic microwave background radiation, and the light element abundances. That’s mainstream science that shows that the universe came into being out of nothing, a finite time in the past. And I will charge them not to believe in any religion that assumes that the universe has always been here. For example, Mormonism is ruled out, they believe in eternally existing matter. See how that works? Hey, Ms. Atheist. You can believe anything you want. As long as what you believe is consistent with the evidence. 

I think this approach of not letting them rush you to the end at the beginning is important for two reasons. First, we can get our foot in the door to talk about things that are interesting to everyone, in a non-stressed environment. Everyone can talk about evidence comfortably. Second, we show that we hold our beliefs because we are simply letting evidence set boundaries for us on what we are allowed to believe. We can’t believe not-Christianity, because not-Christianity is not consistent with the evidence. And you start with the most well-supported evidence, and eliminate worldviews that are falsified by the most well-supported evidence. Atheism actually gets falsified pretty quickly, because of the scientific evidence.

So, that’s my advice. Had a friend of mine named William try this out about a week ago. It went down like this:

William to me:

This guy I know messaged me and bragged for a while about how easy he can dismantle Christianity. He said: “present the gospel to me as you understand it. I’ll simply ask questions to demonstrate it is not worth your belief.”

WK to William:

First of all, he isn’t allowed to just sit there and poke holes in your case, he has to present a positive case for atheism. Second, don’t discuss Christianity with him at all until you first discuss the evidence for theism – start with the good scientific evidence.

And William wrote this to his friend:

The way I’m wired is that I process all competing theories and go with the best one. By doing a comparative analysis of worldviews I find that Christian theology easily explains the most about the world I find myself living in.

I’m pretty sure that a God of some sort exists because of the scientific evidence for the origin of the universe and the fine tuning in physics. From there I find it quite intuitive that if a God went through the trouble of creating and tuning a universe for life that this God likely has some sort of interest in it and has revealed Himself to humanity in some way.

From there I can look at the major world religions and compare them to see which one explains the past and the present the best. Christianity easily comes out on top.

And then a few days later, I got this from William:

I finally got the agnostic to tell me what he thinks about origin and fine tuning. When I started pointing out that his views were unscientific, he blew a gasket, called me dishonest and told me he didn’t want to discuss anything further.

And that’s where you want to be. Cut off all discussions where the challenger tries to jump to the end and get you to debate the very last steps of your case. Present the strongest evidence for your core claims, and get him to account for this evidence within his own worldview. Lead the discussion with public, testable evidence. All warfare depends on picking the terrain, weapons and tactics that allow you to match your strength against your opponent’s weakness.

News

Non-profits making billions from Biden’s open border, and you’re paying for it

Leave a comment

I found a very interesting article about how non-profits are making big money off of Biden’s open border. Biden’s bringing in millions of unskilled illegal trespassers. Some of them are dangerous. But that isn’t stopping non-profits from cashing in. How much money are we talking about? Where is it coming from?  Let’s take a look at this article from The Free Press and find out.

It says:

The Free Press examined three of the most prominent NGOs that have benefited: Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors, Inc. These organizations have seen their combined revenue grow from $597 million in 2019 to an astonishing $2 billion by 2022, the last year for which federal disclosure documents are available. And the CEOs of all three nonprofits reap more than $500,000 each in annual compensation, with one of them—the chief executive of Southwest Key—making more than $1 million.

Where is the money coming from? You’re paying them this money through your taxes:

The Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, funds the nonprofits through its Office of Refugee Resettlement, and its budget has swelled over the years—from $1.8 billion in 2018 to $6.3 billion in 2023. The ORR is expected to spend at least $7.3 billion this year—almost all of which will be funneled to NGOs and other contractors.

And it’s not just you. Biden’s socialist regime is spending more and more money, so much that they have to borrow in order to spend. And who is going to pay for all this borrowing? Well, young adults and children, some of who aren’t even born yet. They’re going to be paying for Biden’s “generosity”. And the harder you work to teach your children how to earn money, the more they’re going to pay in taxes.

Well, maybe these non-profits NEED all that money, because the need for their services is so great.

Nope:

But while it’s true the number of migrants has exploded in recent years, critics say these enormous federal grants far exceed the current need. The facilities themselves are generally owned by private companies and are leased to the NGOs, which house the unaccompanied minors and attempt to unite them with family members or, if that’s not possible, people who will take care of them—their so-called sponsors. The ORR does not publicly list the specific number of shelters it funds in its efforts to house migrants, a business The New York Times once described as “lucrative” and “secretive.”

Well, stop worrying. Because the money is being well spent, and the people getting it are transparent and accountable.

Just kidding:

While some NGOs have long had operations at the border, “what is new under Biden is the amount of taxpayer money being awarded, the lack of accountability for performance, and the lack of interest in solving the problem,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that researches the effect of government immigration policies and describes its bias as “low-immigration, pro-immigrant.”

Well, even so. At least this isn’t some kind of Democrat boondoggle where taxpayers are just handing over money to Democrats. Right? Right?

WRONG:

Vignarajah, a former policy director for Michelle Obama when she was first lady, took the top job at Global Refuge in February 2019 after she lost her bid to be elected governor of Maryland. She has since become one of the most prominent advocates for migrants crossing the southern border, appearing frequently on MSNBC and other media as an immigration advocate. Her incoming salary was $244,000, but just three years later, her compensation more than doubled to $520,000.

Well, I’m sure they are doing a good job. At least they’re not sexually abusing all the kids that taxpayers are paying them to provide for. Right? RIGHT?

WRONG:

The man with the $1 million salary is Dr. Anselmo Villarreal, who became CEO of Southwest Key Programs, headquartered in Austin, Texas, in 2021.

[…]Despite a number of scandals in the recent past, including misuse of federal funds and several instances of employees sexually abusing some of the children in its care, Southwest Key continues to operate—and rake in big government checks. In 2020, the year of Covid-19, its government grant was $391 million; by 2022, its contract was nearly $790 million.

And then there’s this guy, who was in the Obama administration:

Endeavors, Inc., based in San Antonio, Texas, is run by Chip Fulghum. Formerly the chief financial officer of the Department of Homeland Security, he signed on as Endeavors’ chief operating officer in 2019 and was promoted to CEO this year.

In 2022, Fulghum was paid almost $600,000, while the compensation for Endeavors’ then-CEO, Jon Allman, was $700,000. Endeavors’ payroll went from $20 million in 2018 to a whopping $150 million in 2022, with seven other executives earning more than $300,000.

This was a very interesting article and there was more to it than I quoted here. But it really makes you understand what the attitude of these people is towards future Americans – your children. They expect your children to pay for their expensive living today. And Biden is making it happen for them.

News

Corey DeAngelis: Teacher’s unions fanatical hatred for children

3 Comments

One of my favorite people on Twitter is Corey DeAngelis. Every day I see him fighting for the rights of parents to get the education that they want for their kids. And he follows all the legislation that is being pushed in all the states. What I like about him is that like Ron DeSantis, he always seems to be taking ground from the secular left. Well, he has a new article in the The Federalist. Let’s read it.

It says:

Not a single state had universal school choice prior to 2021. In the past three years, eleven states have enacted it. This is a monumental achievement — and more victories for America’s children are imminent. School choice advocates are grateful to the power-hungry teachers unions, which overplayed their hand and sparked a parent revolution.

He says that there 11 states that have it, but there are more that have introduced legislation to get it.

What I like about Corey is that he’s not afraid to have an enemy in life. I was raised on Cyrano de Bergerac, a play about a French musketeer who always speaks his mind, and offends a lot of bad people. For me, it was always a good sign for your honor if you could point to bad people who opposed you. But today, it seems like the default view, especially of feelings-focused people, is to try to be liked by everyone. Well, Corey likes parents, and parents like Corey. But the teachers unions… they’re his enemies.

He writes:

The teachers unions-induced school closures harmed students academically, mentally, and emotionally, with virtually no reduction in overall coronavirus transmission or child mortality. Parents were understandably furious at the public schools that had broken faith with them during their time of need, and they weren’t going to just sit there and take it.

How did the unions respond to efforts to exert more control? By attacking parents, of course. No, it wasn’t the virus that needed to be defeated. It was you, mom and dad.

The unions publicly smeared parents who had the temerity to suggest that schools should do their jobs. In Chicago, home of the nation’s third-largest public school system, the local union took to Twitter to demonize those who favored reopening schools: “The push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny,” tweeted the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) on Dec. 6, 2020.

By the way, I noticed a Daily Wire article last week about how the Chicago Teachers Unions wanted 50 BILLION DOLLARS to fund abortions and migrant services, even as student performance is dropping:

Last year, Chicago Public Schools spent nearly $22,000 per student, much higher than the national average of $14,347.

Meanwhile, in 2022, only 12% of Chicago’s eighth graders were proficient in math, and only 19% were proficient in reading.

But let’s get back to Corey’s article. It’s funny that the teacher unions are claiming that parents who wanted schools to re-open were motivated by “racism”.

Take a look at this:

According to McKinsey, by the end of the 2020–21 academic school year, students “in majority-Black schools ended the school year six months behind in both math and reading, while students in majority-white schools ended up just four months behind in math and three months behind in reading.” If any policy had racist results, it was the union-pushed school closures and remote learning — which really should be called remotely learning — not parent-backed school re-openings.

Wow! So, the teacher unions fighting against re-opening schools actually hurt BLACK students the most. To me, it looks like the teacher unions are the real racists – the ones who deliberately cause harm to visible minorities.

I just want to quickly add that there are plenty of studies showing the harm that school shutdowns did to kids:

But it’s not just name-calling, there’s also spying on parents and persecuting them for wanting the schools open:

The California Teachers Association (CTA) even stooped to spying on parents, conducting what amounts to opposition research, the same as political candidates do on their opponents. A public records request uncovered emails from a union employee asking a public school principal for information about “the ideological leaning of groups that are funding the reopen lawsuits.” She noted that she had heard the principal had “lots of information regarding the Parents Association.”

I’ve read in other places that the secular leftists want to go after parents who oppose them personally – whether that be with doxing, death threats, violence, or other tactics. It’s a labor union, after all.

Elsewhere in the article, Corey notes how the union thugs went after parents who enrolled their kids in small “micro-schools”. These micro-schools would teach kids how to code, using free tools and online teaching videos.

The National Education Association (I think that’s the largest teacher union in America) wrote up opposition research reports to scare parents away from the micro-schools:

The first one warned union members and their allies: “The Opposition Report has documented widespread support for micro-schools.”

The report identified more than 20 additional microschool networks and related organizations, and recommended that their staff and allies familiarize themselves with a list of anti-microschool talking points the NEA had developed, such as that the microschools “do not guarantee students or educators the same civil rights protections that are required in public schools,” their staff are “not required to be credentialed,” and their students “are not held accountable to state standards of learning.”

Well, that’s enough for now. Corey has a new book out about the fight between parents and teacher unions. It’s called “The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools”. Check it out. I have the audio version on my wishlist.