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The worst mistake you can make when defending the Christian worldview

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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.

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Another perfect pick by Trump for civil rights division of DOJ

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One of the biggest problems I had with the Biden-Harris administration was the weaponization of government against Christians and conservatives. A good example of this weaponization was the abuse of power by Kristen Clarke, who is Assistant Attorney General and leads the Civil Rights Division. She used her position to persecute peaceful Christian pro-lifers.

First, let’s look at this article from Daily Signal:

The Department of Justice has multiple divisions, with assistant attorneys general at their helms. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke leads up the Civil Rights Division under Biden, and she has weaponized the division to target pro-lifers.

In one case, the Civil Rights Division sent a SWAT team to the home of a Catholic father with seven children at 7 a.m. on charges that he had assaulted an abortion center worker. Not only had local authorities declined to charge Mark Houck for the brief altercation, but a federal jury ultimately acquitted him. He’s now suing for malicious prosecution.

I would argue that the Obama and Biden rhetoric about abortion has inflamed secular leftists, inciting them to commit crimes like attacking pro-life pregnancy centers and burning down churches and shooting up Sunday services. These activities are ongoing. But the Biden-Harris focus isn’t on actual crimes. They want to focus on punishing Christians for their Christian faith, and punishing conservatives for disagreeing with their policies.

And it’s not just on issues like abortion.

The Civil Rights Division has also taken up the cause of transgender orthodoxy.

[…]“As a result, in addition to our Title VII [employment law] cases involving sexual assault and misconduct, we are pursuing cases based on gender identity and sexual orientation across all of our statutes that prohibit sex discrimination,” the department noted.

The department highlighted “developments” that it claimed “reflect the increased visibility and urgency of issues related to gender-based violence and discrimination.” In that list, it claimed that “nearly 240 anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed in state legislatures in 2022 alone, most of them targeting people for their gender identity.”

That suggests that the Civil Rights Division was gearing up to file lawsuits against states that pass laws aimed at protecting kids from experimental transgender medical interventions or preventing biological males from accessing women’s private spaces.

Now, you might think that the Federal Department of Justice would be concerned with the epidemic of sex-trafficking of children that’s been caused by the Biden-Harris open borders policies. But their focus is investigating conservatives who disagree with their transgender agenda. Remember how they labeled parents who disagreed with boys in girl’s bathrooms as “domestic terrorists”? They’re not worried about violent crimes committed by transgender people, which are frequent. No, they are concerned about prosecuting “domestic terrorists” – parents who disagree with their transgender activism.

Kristen Clarke looks like an unqualified DEI clown. She has a messed-up marriage, and lied about her past arrest during her confirmation hearings.

Clarke served as president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a left-wing activist group. She also worked for five years at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a leftist group that links abortion to “racial justice.” Both groups have frequently accessed the Biden White House and received large cash infusions from the Left’s dark money network… She cited the far-left smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center in condemning Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit pro-life and religious freedom law firm, as a “hate group.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center was linked to a REAL instance of domestic terrorism, when a gay-rights activist attempted a mass shooting at the conservative Family Research Council headquarters. So, this Kristen Clarke is a woman who goes after peaceful pro-lifers, but thinks that the SPLC – a real hate group – is just wonderful.

Did you disagree with Fauci about the lab-leak theory of COVID or cloth mask mandates? Well, Clarke thought you should be killed for that:

She said that those protesting Dr. Anthony Fauci, the controversial COVID-19 czar and now-retired head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, should be “publicly identified and named, barred from treatment at any public hospital if/when they fall ill and denied coverage under their insurance.”

She lied about her arrest for her domestic violence in order to be confirmed:

As my former colleague Mary Margaret Olohan exclusively reported for The Daily Signal, Clarke had been arrested for attacking her then-husband, Reginald Avery, with a knife, deeply slicing one of his fingers to the bone in 2006. The pair finalized their divorce in 2009. Clarke had the arrest expunged from her record, and during her Senate confirmation, she denied ever having been arrested or having been accused of committing a violent crime. Clarke admitted to her failure to disclose that arrest, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, called for her to resign.

OK, so who does Trump want to replace this affirmative-action psychopath?

Dhillon, by contrast, has been a fearless advocate, not just for pro-lifers, but for the civil liberties of many who stand against the woke orthodoxies of the day.

[…]Dhillon has represented pro-life journalist David Daleiden, who exposed Planned Parenthood staff who sold aborted-baby body parts. Then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris launched an investigation into Daleiden that later led to criminal charges from her successor, Xavier Becerra (who now serves as Biden’s secretary of health and human services). Planned Parenthood also sued him, and Daleiden responded with lawsuits of his own.

Dhillon also represented former Google senior software engineer James Damore, who sued Google after it terminated him following his exposure of the Big Tech company’s anti-conservative bias. She sued Rose City Antifa on behalf of journalist Andy Ngo, after Ngo suffered injuries in an assault in Portland, Oregon.

Dhillon also represented Americans who lost their freedoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. She filed more than a dozen lawsuits against pandemic orders in California, representing pastors, businesses, and citizens.

[…]Dhillon has also championed the cause of detransitioners—men and women who identified as transgender, underwent medical experiments to alter their bodies, and then rejected their transgender identities, lamenting the damage done to their bodies. Detransitioners are often left out in the cold, as transgender people receive praise and recognition in public and LGBTQ activist groups often demonize or ignore those who are victimized by gender ideology.

Just achievement piled on top of achievement piled on top of achievement. Elections matter.

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Trump hits home run by replacing corrupt NIH Director with competent reformer

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I know that at least some of my American readers had concerned about the leadership that we got during the Covid pandemic. Different people had concerns about mask mandates, vaccination mandates, pharmaceutical company liability, church closures, loss of employment for dissenters, etc. Let’s take a look at what the House of Representatives found, then see Trump’s nominee for NIH.

First, this article from Christian Post:

Several allegations made during the early stages of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic that were dismissed as conspiracy theories might have been factually accurate, contends a new report from congressional Republicans.

Released by the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives Committee On Oversight and Accountability’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, the “After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward” report covers the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting both successes and failures.

The report presents several findings focusing on the origins of the virus, the management of public health measures and the long-term consequences of the pandemic response.

Here are the 5 points:

  1. NIH funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan
  2. Health officials falsely characterized lab leak theory as a ‘conspiracy theory’
  3. China, US agencies, scientists ‘sought to cover up’ pandemic facts
  4. Pandemic-era school closures had long-term adverse impacts
  5. Lockdowns in US cities were ‘worse than the disease’

I think the ones that are the most important going forward are numbers 4 and 5.

School closure effects:

The subcommittee emphasized that the long-term educational, social, and mental health impacts on students must be considered in any future response to public health crises.

The report is also critical of the American Federation of Teachers’ influence on the Biden administration and transition team in 2021.

“AFT is not a scientific organization — it does not employ epidemiologists or immunologists. Instead, it is a political union — committed to activism on behalf of its 1.7 million members — that donated $2.4 million dollars to Democrat candidates during the 2020 election cycle,” the report reads. “The extent of the AFT’s political influence is reflected in the fact that the Biden administration reached out to AFT for advice on school reopening rather than the AFT reaching out to the Biden administration.”

“While AFT … [has] attempted to rewrite history by arguing that they were always trying to reopen the schools, this simply is not true,” the report concludes. “AFT continually pushed for school closures throughout the pandemic. Restricting in-person schooling was always the default — not the alternative — mitigation measure underlying AFT’s positions.”

Lockdowns in US Cities:

The report contends that the strict “stay-at-home” orders imposed by states and local governments to curb the spread of the virus often did more harm than good and points to the widespread economic, psychological and social consequences of these measures.

The fallout from so-called “stay at home” health mandates in California and other states led to outcomes such as increased unemployment, mental health issues and educational disruption, and was disproportionately high compared to the health benefits, according to the panel.

You might recall that Sweden didn’t look their schools down, and they suffered no learning loss during the pandemic.

OK, so with the election of Trump, we are going to get the best possible pick to lead the National Institutes of Health.

Christian Post had that story, as well:

President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health has drawn strong reactions as he has advocated for overhauling the agency.

Bhattacharya, the director of Stanford University’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, first emerged on the national stage as a prominent critic of lockdowns implemented to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The president-elect expressed confidence in Bhattacharya’s ability to lead the $50 billion agency and “restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research” and “Make America Healthy Again.”

They have 6 points in their article:

  1. Emerged as a prominent critic of Dr. Anthony Fauci
  2. Censored by Twitter
  3. Would ‘restructure’ the NIH
  4. Published by several reputable academic journals
  5. Operates a Substack titled ‘Science From The Fringe’
  6. Founding fellow at Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom

Let’s take a look at #1 and #3.

Criticism of Fauci:

In 2020, Bhattacharya co-authored The Great Barrington Declaration. Signed by hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens, doctors and medical and public health scientists, the document warned that the lockdown policies implemented to stop the spread of the coronavirus were “producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.”

Examples of the negative consequences of the COVID-19 lockdowns listed include “lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health,” predicting “greater excess mortality in years to come” as a result with “the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden.” The document also condemned “keeping students out of school” during the pandemic as a “grave injustice.”

[…]The declaration seemingly drew the ire of then-NIH Director Francis Collins, who privately called the document “fringe” and called for a published “take down.”

[…]Bhattacharya’s positions on lockdowns put him on a collision course with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an agency of NIH, who emerged as the strongest advocate for stringent COVID-19 lockdowns.

In 2023, when Fauci proclaimed that he had such strong “personal ethics” that his Catholic faith was something he did not “really need to do,” Bhattacharya responded by saying, “Hard to say which is worse — his theology or his science.”

He has plans to restructure the corrupt NIH:

Bhattacharya emerged as a top candidate to lead the NIH earlier this month after meeting with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and discussed ideas on how to overhaul the NIH, sources close to the matter told The Washington Post.

The professor has long called for changes at NIH and said in an interview earlier this year he lost “almost all confidence” in the American public health establishment.

[…]”I would restructure the NIH to allow there to be many more centers of power, so that you couldn’t have a small number of scientific bureaucrats, dominating a field for a very long time,” Bhattacharya told The Post in a January 2024 interview.

I say that the NIH is corrupt in part because of their past actions on DEI, which Desert Rose and I talked about in episode #44 of the Knight and Rose Show. And if you don’t recall why the current leader of the NIH is corrupt, you can read my previous post about it.