Tag Archives: Defense

Polemics

How can you prefer a moral standard from one religion vs another?

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Here’s a reply to my extremely mean recent post about atheism’s difficulties making moral behavior rational.

Llama wrote:

Why is Christian morality correct? Why not Islamic morality?

And I replied like this:

Great question. You can’t settle it by comparing moral specifics. You have to appeal to some sort of testable claim.

For example, you mentioned Islam. Islam thinks that Jesus never actually died on a cross (Surah 4:157). Are the Muslims correct in saying this? It’s a historical claim, so to history we must go.

There is no credentialed historian of any stripe (atheist, agnostic, Jewish, etc.) who doubts the crucifixion. In fact, prominent atheist scholar E. P. Sanders of Duke University puts it on his list of almost indisputable facts about the historical Jesus.

E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). Sanders lists eight “almost indisputable facts” which he takes as his starting point (p. 11):

1. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.

2. Jesus was a Galilean who preached and healed.

3. Jesus called disciples and spoke of there being twelve.

4. Jesus confined his activity to Israel.

5. Jesus engaged in a controversy about the temple.

6. Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem by the Roman authorities.

7. After his death Jesus’ followers continued as an identifiable movement.

8. At least some Jews persecuted at least parts of the new movement . . . .

See now also E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993).

And prominent Jewish Professor of Religion Paula Fredriksen of Boston University says in this paper that “The single most solid fact we have about Jesus’ life is his death. Jesus was crucified. Thus Paul, the gospels, Josephus, Tacitus: the evidence does not get any better than this.”

Sanders and Fredriksen are probably two of the best scholars on the historical Jesus in the world, and they are NOT Christians – they have no axe to grind. So Islam is false as false can be. The Koran cannot contain any errors – Muslims claim it is inerrant and its moral authority is lost if any error is found. But we’ve found a BIG ONE.

Regarding Christianity, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then Christian morality should not be taken seriously either. Even Paul says that if the resurrection did not happen then Christianity, and Christian morality, is WORTHLESS. See 1 Corinthians 15:17-19. 1 Corinthians is one of the most early and reliable books in the New Testament. It is authored by Paul in 55 AD – and no scholars denies that. It’s genuine Paul. The creed in 1 Cor 15:3-7 is dated within 1 to 5 years of the Cross. By ATHEIST scholars like James Crossley.

My advice is to watch some DEBATES between Christian and non-Christian scholars on the topic of the resurrection. You’ll find some linked in this post.

Or just look here:

Debates are a fun way to learn

Three debates where you can see this play out:

Or you can listen to my favorite debate on the resurrection.

Not that I don’t think you have to be an inerrantist in order to be a Christian, so long as your claims of error are on solid historical ground. (I am an inerrantist – you don’t have to be to be a Christian – you just have to accept the classical creeds of Christendom)

Hope this helps. Come on – I typed all this in. At least listen to the William Lane Craig versus James Crossley debate. Please?

Every religion makes truth claims about the word, and you can choose a religion by testing those claims. Wouldn’t it be neat if Christians learned to argue for their worldview using facts supplied by non-Christian experts? That’s how I try to argue.

Events

Ruth Institute to host conference on the defense of marriage

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Cloning her would solve the marriage problem
She can teach you to defend marriage

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is the foundress of the Ruth Institute, and she is planning a conference to train the next generation to be marriage champions.

Link to the conference details is here.

Some details:

Where: Murrieta Hot Springs, CA
When: August 12th – 15th, 2010
Who: You, if you apply – application deadline is May 21st!
Cost: Free, if your application is accepted

If you guys like William Lane Craig debates, Dr. Morse is the William Lane Craig of the marriage debate.

Some recent podcasts featuring Dr. J

1) Interview with Marvin O’Lasky at the King’s College in New York.

The MP3 file is here.

Details:

Marvin Olasky, provost of New York City’s The King’s College and editor-in-chief of WORLD Christian Magazine, interviews Dr J on a wide range of topics relating to marriage and family.  Afterward, she takes student questions.

2) Debate at the Commonwealth Club.

The MP3 file is here.

Details:

The Commonwealth Club of California hosts a speaker panel to discuss same-sex marriage, both in the context of the state and federal challenges through the courts and more generally in society and culture.  The four panelists are Molly McKay, media director for Marriage Equality USA; Jennifer Roback Morse, president and founder of the Ruth Institute, Therese Stewart, Chief Deputy City Attorney, San Francisco; and Kevin Snider, attorney for the plaintiffs in the federal court case over Prop 8, and Chief Counsel of the Pacific Justice Institute.  Doug Sovern, broadcast journalist of “Sovern Nation” and 3-time winner of the AP’s “Reporter of the Year” Award for California, moderates.

I listened to both of these and they are AWESOME. You men should listen to the interview, where she has specific things to say about men and marriage. It is a major concern to me that more women do not defend marriage like Dr. Morse. If a woman wants to get married, then she needs to defend marriage like Dr. Morse. And that means understanding what marriage is about!

By the way, Dr. Morse is on Facebook. As am I.

News

Is the Obama administration deliberately weakening our military?

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Who needs air superiority? Not Obama

Consider this article from the Weekly Standard. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went to Chicago last summer to make the case for killing the F-22 — the world’s premier air supremacy fighter and the only “fifth generation fighter” currently in production anywhere — he argued that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would be a more cost-effective alternative. Though the JSF “has had development problems to be sure,” Gates said, “It is a versatile aircraft, less than half the total cost of the F-22, and can be produced in quantity with all the advantages produced by economies of scale – some 500 will be bought over the next five years.”

[…]But the oddest thing about Gates’s speech last summer was his assertion that competitors to the United States, specifically China, would be unable to produce their own fifth-gen fighters any time soon. “Consider that by 2020, the United States is projected to have nearly 2,500 manned combat aircraft of all kinds,” Gates said, while “China, by contrast, is projected to have no fifth generation aircraft by 2020.”

[…]We know now that Gates’s estimate of U.S. procurement last summer was bogus. We will be nowhere near 2,500 fifth-gen aircraft (F-35s and F-22s) by 2020. And now Gates has conceded that China will, in fact, have produced a fifth-generation stealth fighter by 2020. How many will they have produced? How many will we have produced? We can only be sure of two things: Gates doesn’t know, and he killed the F-22 based on a faulty assumption that the number of Chinese stealth fighters in 2020 would be zero.

I am a HUGE fan of the F-22 and I hate the F-35.

China should not be underestimated

And what about this article from Investors Business Daily?

Excerpt:

From the Battle of Midway to President Reagan’s 600-ship fleet that helped win the Cold War, naval supremacy has been critical to the protection and survival of our nation.

Which is why we find the recent remarks of Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the Navy League at the Sea-Air-Space expo so disturbing. He seems to think naval supremacy is a luxury we can’t afford and that, like every other aspect of our military, an already shrunken U.S. Navy needs to downsize.

“As we learned last year, you don’t necessarily need a billion-dollar guided missile destroyer to chase down and deal with a bunch of teenage pirates wielding AK-47s and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades),” Gates quipped.

We are not laughing.

Pubescent pirates aren’t the only threat we face. Last month, a Chinese naval task force from the East Sea Fleet — including the imposing Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyers, frigates and submarines — passed through the Miyako Strait near Okinawa, a move that sent shock waves through Japan.

Sovermenny vessels are DDGs not DDs. That means that they have guided-missile capability via the SS-N-22 surface-to-surface platform. That missile has a range of 160 nautical miles, flies at Mach 3, and is fairly dangerous. Fire enough of them and one is bound to get through. What if these weapons were sold to our enemies and used to menace commercial and civilian shipping? It’s the next level of piracy.

We need more carrier battle groups, not less. Carrier battle groups are the most visible way of projecting American power abroad in theaters where we face dangerous repressive regimes like North Korea and Iran. It’s good that countries like India are stepping up by building two new conventionally-powered aircraft carriers and support vessels, but we have to pull our own weight, too.