Category Archives: News

News

Equip yourself for conversations with Muslims with a new #apologetics course

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My family is half Muslim. I’ve often noticed that Christians who attend church don’t really learn a lot about how to talk to Muslims. They’re sort of in their own silo, and not interested in having these conversations with outsiders. Although you might get lucky and find a Muslim who wants to hear about Christianity, a much better approach would be to ask a Muslim questions that show that you know something about what they believe.

When I was working for a Fortune 100 company, a Muslim co-worker asked me if I had looked at any of the other religions. He was an Indian-born Muslim who had married a Hindu wife, then gone atheist in response to their families rejecting them. I mentioned that my mother’s side was all Muslim, and my father’s side was all Hindu. He asked me whether I knew what the difference was between Sunni and Shia Muslims. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but my answer was close enough to correct that he was delighted. We had a good conversation after that.

With that in mind, I wanted to recommend to you a resource from a staff apologist who works for Women in Apologetics. You might remember her from my previous posts linking to her work. She is the one who dumped sharing her testimony in favor of making an evidential case for her worldview, and the one who also likes to have conversations with people about spiritual things. And it turns out that she knows quite a lot about Islam, from her experiences as well as from her studies.

Here is part of her biography:

I have been privileged to serve in member care, discipleship, counseling, missions, college ministry, women’s ministry, and music ministry. I’ve traveled to nearly thirty countries, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Burundi, Peru, Uganda, India, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, Italy, the Philippines, and throughout Central America. My relationships with people of other cultures have solidified my faith, broadened my perspective, and enriched my life immensely.

What I like about this is that she chose Islam for her area of interest based on her compassion for Muslims living in these countries. But it’s a controversial topic, not one that is designed to attract popularity. Clearly, her ambition is to make a difference for God and for Muslims who need God, not to make a name for herself by appealing to people looking for entertainment. I get so discouraged by the top books that Christian women are reading. I would like to see the careful use of reason and evidence a normal part of the Christian woman’s life.

She has a new 20-part course starting June 7th that will equip you to have conversations with Muslims. Registration is open now.

Here’s the description:

Led by WIA’s Islam Ministry Specialist, Laura Powell, Islam Foundations is a 10-week course that will equip Christians to have productive conversations with Muslims by preparing them to understand the similarities and differences between the two worldviews, respond to the most common objections to Christianity made by Muslims, and raise thoughtful objections to Islam, out of love and compassion for God’s image-bearers.

Each week features two lessons. Here are the weekly topics:

  • Week 1: Introduction & Barriers to Understanding
  • Week 2: The Islamic Dilemma & Building Bridges
  • Week 3: The Deity of Jesus & The Death of Jesus
  • Week 4: The Resurrection of Jesus & Muhammad’s Life and Teachings
  • Week 5: Violence According to the Prophet of Islam & Slavery, Supremacy, and Spiritual Slipups
  • Week 6: The Death of Muhammad & The Miraculous Qu’ran – Perfect Preservation
  • Week 7: The Miraculous Qu’ran – Four More Evidences & The Three Stages of Jihad
  • Week 8: Violence in the Old Testament & Violence in Church History
  • Week 9: Trinity or Tawhid & Was Muhammad Prophesied in the Bible
  • Week 10: Women in Islam & A Christian Response

She’s also bringing in other experts and interviewing them about their experiences discussing worldviews with Muslims.

Here’s the trailer for the course:

And the speaker will be answering questions about Islam this evening live on Youtube at 4 PM Pacific, 7 PM Eastern.

If you know any women who are interested in learning apologetics, this would be a good thing to show them.

I’ve had a good impression of her organization “Women in Apologetics”. They seem to favor an evidence-based approach that strikes me as very good for men like me who like engineering and evidence and problem-solving. What I want is to be equipped for adventures. Give me some good material that will wow my Muslim or atheist co-workers. Apologetics conversations make my pulse race. It’s fun to be called by God and to be a good ambassador.

News

Canadian police can stop people and fine them for being outside of their homes

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I know in America we have a lot of people who were concerned about the loss of Constitutional liberties during the Wuh4n virus crisis. But I’ve noticed that in Canada, people don’t stand up for their rights against government as much. They think that big government should take care of them (with their tax money) because big government knows best.

Here’s the latest from one of Canada’s two national newspapers about the province of Ontario:

Citing rising COVID-19 case numbers, on Friday the Province of Ontario enacted one of the strictest lockdowns yet seen in the Western world, including empowering police to stop and question any person seen outside their home.

“Moving forward, police will have the authority to require any individual who is not in a place of residence to, first, provide their purpose for not being at home, and provide their home address,” said Ontario Solicitor General Sylvia Jones in a livestreamed Friday news conference. She added, “police will also have the authority to stop a vehicle to inquire about an individual’s reason for leaving their residence.”

[…]The new orders effectively confine Ontario’s 14 million people to their home, save for a handful of permitted activities. “It is imperative that everyone limit their trips outside of the home to permitted purposes only, such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy, medical appointments, outdoor exercise, or for work that cannot be done remotely,” said Jones.

[…]Accompanying the expansion of law enforcement powers was what Ontario Premier Doug Ford called the “strictest measures in all of North America.” This included a full shutdown of outdoor amenities, including golf courses, basketball courts and playgrounds. Under the prior provisions of the Reopening Ontario Act, anyone caught on a jungle gym until the lifting of the measure can face fines of $750, to an individual maximum of $100,000 and up to a year in jail.

While Ontario had previously allowed outdoor gatherings of up to five people, that has now been limited to “members of one’s own household.”

Did you get that? It says: “anyone caught on a jungle gym until the lifting of the measure can face fines of $750, to an individual maximum of $100,000 and up to a year in jail.”

This part was (to me) amazing:

Jones also announced the partial closure of Ontario’s borders with the rest of Canada. Starting at midnight on Monday, roadblocks at the Manitoba and Quebec borders will now turn away any traveller who can’t prove they are travelling for work, medical care or the exercise of Indigenous treaty rights. “Should an individual not have a valid reason to enter Ontario, they will be turned back,” said Jones.

So, police are now able to arrest you without a warrant for any criminal violation. Just being outside without a good reason is enough for them to fine you, and presumably imprison you for repeated offenses. Seven-hundred and fifty dollars. And you’re paying that AFTER paying the salaries of all the politicians, police, judges, teachers, etc. That’s on top of the 45% that Canadians typically pay in income and sales taxes. Would you live in a place like that? Would you be content to pay the salaries of people with degrees in radio broadcasting (like their attorney general) to rule over you and restrict your basic human rights?

I have to tell you, this time they’ve gone too far, and I think this will be rolled back before too long.

News

How the WMAP satellite confirmed nucleosynthesis predictions and falsified atheism

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Prior to certain scientific discoveries, most people thought that the universe had always been here, and no need to ask who or what may have caused it. But today, that’s all changed. Today, the standard model of the origin of the universe is that all the matter and energy in the universe came into being in an event scientists call “The Big Bang”. At the creation event, space and time themselves began to exist, and there is no material reality that preceded them.

So a couple of quotes to show that.

An initial cosmological singularity… forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity… On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.

Source: P. C. W. Davies, “Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology,” in The Study of Time III, ed. J. T. Fraser (Berlin: Springer Verlag ).

And another quote:

[A]lmost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang.

Source: Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, The Isaac Newton Institute Series of Lectures (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 20.

So, there are several scientific discoveries that led scientists to accept the creation event, and one of the most interesting and famous is the discovery of how elements heavier than hydrogen were formed.

Nucleosynthesis: forming heavier elements by fusion
Nucleosynthesis: forming heavier elements by fusion

Here’s the history of how that discovery happened, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) web site:

The term nucleosynthesis refers to the formation of heavier elements, atomic nuclei with many protons and neutrons, from the fusion of lighter elements. The Big Bang theory predicts that the early universe was a very hot place. One second after the Big Bang, the temperature of the universe was roughly 10 billion degrees and was filled with a sea of neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons (positrons), photons and neutrinos. As the universe cooled, the neutrons either decayed into protons and electrons or combined with protons to make deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen). During the first three minutes of the universe, most of the deuterium combined to make helium. Trace amounts of lithium were also produced at this time. This process of light element formation in the early universe is called “Big Bang nucleosynthesis” (BBN).

The creation hypothesis predicts that there will be specific amounts of these light elements formed as the universe cools down. Do the predictions match with observations?

Yes they do:

The predicted abundance of deuterium, helium and lithium depends on the density of ordinary matter in the early universe, as shown in the figure at left. These results indicate that the yield of helium is relatively insensitive to the abundance of ordinary matter, above a certain threshold. We generically expect about 24% of the ordinary matter in the universe to be helium produced in the Big Bang. This is in very good agreement with observations and is another major triumph for the Big Bang theory.

Moreover, WMAP satellite measurements of mass density agree with our observations of these light element abundances.

Here are the observations from the WMAP satellite:

Scientific observations match predictions
Scientific observations match predictions

And here is how those WMAP measurements confirm the Big Bang creation event:

However, the Big Bang model can be tested further. Given a precise measurement of the abundance of ordinary matter, the predicted abundances of the other light elements becomes highly constrained. The WMAP satellite is able to directly measure the ordinary matter density and finds a value of 4.6% (±0.2%), indicated by the vertical red line in the graph. This leads to predicted abundances shown by the circles in the graph, which are in good agreement with observed abundances. This is an important and detailed test of nucleosynthesis and is further evidence in support of the Big Bang theory. 

“An important and detailed test”.

For completeness, we should learn how elements heavier than these light elements are formed:

Elements heavier than lithium are all synthesized in stars. During the late stages of stellar evolution, massive stars burn helium to carbon, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, and iron. Elements heavier than iron are produced in two ways: in the outer envelopes of super-giant stars and in the explosion of a supernovae. All carbon-based life on Earth is literally composed of stardust.

That’s a wonderful thing to tell a young lady when you are on a date: “your body is made of stardust”. In fact, as I have argued before, this star formation, which creates the elements necessary for intelligent life, can only be built if the fundamental constants and quantities in the universe are finely-tuned.

Now, you would think that atheists would be happy to find observations that confirm the origin of the universe out of nothing, but they are not. Actually, they are in denial.

Here’s a statement from the Secular Humanist Manifesto, which explains what atheists believe about the universe:

Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

For a couple of examples of how atheistic scientists respond to the evidence for a cosmic beginning, you can check out this post, where we get responses from cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, and physical chemist Peter Atkins.

You cannot have the creation of the universe be true AND a self-existing, eternal universe ALSO be true. Someone has to be wrong. Either the science is wrong, or the atheist manifesto is wrong. I know where I stand.

Positive arguments for Christian theism