Tag Archives: Evidence

Commentary

Which side of the abortion debate is uncomfortable with evidence?

1 Comment

Here’s a short, sweet post by Eric Metaxas sent to me by Mary.

Excerpt:

It’s hard not to blame the influence of technology for the seemingly inexorable spread of the culture of death. Accurate and safe prenatal testing has led to the destruction of an estimated 90 percent of unborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome. Sonograms reveal that the sex of yet-to-be-born children has led to a “small-h” holocaust against girls in places such as China and India, where boys are often preferred.

But technology can also be a huge advantage in the fight to recognize and protect the sanctity of human life—every human life. For example, pro-lifers have worked diligently to place sonogram machines into pregnancy care clinics, and the presence of these high-tech wonders—which clearly show the humanity of the fetus—has no doubt contributed mightily to a substantial drop in the abortion rate, as well as a marked increase in the percentage of Americans who consider themselves to be pro-life.

It seems that our technological prowess doesn’t so much corrupt our hearts as reveal what’s in them.

You can see this principle in action in a recent article in Slate magazine. The writer, Allison Benedikt, recounts “the latest in baby-making fads,” such as midwives and birth photographers. But what really gets her attention: “Pregnant woman are Photoshopping sonograms onto their naked stomach glamour-shots.”

[…]For Benedikt, such uses of technology are troubling—even “bad for women.” She writes, “… the more we treat fetuses like people—including them in our family photo shoots, tagging them on our Facebook walls, giving them their own Twitter accounts—the harder it will be to deny that they are people when the next, say, personhood amendment comes up, with legislators and activists arguing that ‘the unborn child’ inside a pregnant woman’s womb should have the same rights as the living among us.”

In other words, don’t believe what your lying eyes tell you about fetuses, because if we start viewing them as people, those mean ol’ anti-choicers might start demanding that we treat them that way.

This approach to the unborn—“nothing to see here, folks, just move along”—says so much about the pro-choice worldview. But it gets worse.  Writing about the recent congressional debate over sex-selection abortion, instead of bemoaning the elimination of millions of future women, Benedikt urges pro-choicers to embrace sex-selection abortion.

She writes: “No matter how many ultrasound pics get posted to Facebook, these are fetuses with female genitals or male genitals—not little girls and little boys. If pro-choicers object to aborting because of the sex of the fetus, aren’t we then saying that abortion is ‘murdering’ girls?  . . . That is not the case to make if your goal is to protect abortion rights. Gulp for a second if you must, then get over it.” Wow!

What does this tell us about the pro-abortion crowd? Is the pro-abortion view reasonable? Does it fit with what we know about the unborn from science? Which side cares about the truth in this debate?

Polemics

The apologetics of Jesus

5 Comments

From Eric Chabot of Ratio Christi. (H/T The Poached Egg via J Warner Wallace)

He lists eight ways that Jesus makes his case.

Here’s one of the ways:

2. Jesus Appealed to Evidence

Jesus knew He could not show up on the scene and not offer any evidence for His Messiahship. In his book On Jesus, Douglas Groothuis notes that Jesus appealed to evidence to confirm His claims. John the Baptist, who was languishing in prison after challenging Herod, sent messengers to ask Jesus the question: “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matt. 11:3). This may seem an odd question from a man the Gospels present as the prophetic forerunner of Jesus and as the one who had proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah. Jesus, however, did not rebuke John’s question. He did not say, “You must have faith; suppress your doubts.” Instead, Jesus recounted the distinctive features of His ministry:

“Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.” (Matt. 11:4-6; see also Luke 7:22).

Even in the Messiah Apocalypse, which is dated between 100 and 80 B.C.E mentions a similar theme as seen in Matt.11: 4-6: “He [God] frees the captives, makes the blind see, and makes the bent over stand straight…for he will heal the sick, revive the dead, and give good news to the humble and the poor he will satisfy, the abandoned he will lead, and the hungry he will make rich.”

Jesus’ works of healing and teaching are meant to serve as positive evidence of His messianic identity, because they fulfill the messianic predictions of the Hebrew Scriptures. What Jesus claimed is this:

1. If one does certain kinds of actions (the acts cited above), then one is the Messiah.
2. I am doing those kinds of actions.
3. Therefore, I am the Messiah.

And:

5. The Miracles of Jesus

In the Bible, miracles have a distinctive purpose: they are used for three reasons:
1. To glorify the nature of God (John 2:11; 11:40)
2. To accredit certain persons as the spokesmen for God (Acts 2:22; Heb. 2:3–4)
3. To provide evidence for belief in God (John 6:2, 14; 20:30–31). (3)

Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin, told Jesus, “‘Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him’ ” (Jn. 3:1–2). In Acts, Peter told the crowd that Jesus had been “accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him” (Acts 2:22).

In Matthew 12:38-39, Jesus says, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.” In this Scripture, God confirmed the Messianic claim when Jesus said the sign that would confirm his Messiahship was to be the resurrection.

It is important to note that not all witnesses to a miracle believe. Jesus did not do His miracles for entertainment. They were done to evoke a response. So perhaps Paul Moser is right on target in what he calls “kardiatheology” – a theology that is aimed at one’s motivational heart (including one’s will) rather than just at one’s mind or one’s emotions. In other words, God is very interested in moral transformation.

We see Jesus’ frustration when His miracles did not bring the correct response from his audience. “Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him” (John 12:37). Jesus himself said of some, “They will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31). One result, though not the purpose, of miracles is condemnation of the unbeliever (cf. John 12:31, 37). (4)

I am forever pointing this out to people. Jesus didn’t get people to follow him because he was nice. And he didn’t just talk to people who agreed with him. He even promised “a wicked generation” his resurrection – which he called “the sign of Jonah”. This is the way we should be – using whatever evidence we can dig up from science, history, law, and even the social sciences (when arguing moral issues).

Read the rest here. Surprise! Jesus loves to convince people, and not just by quoting the Bible to people who already accept the Bible, either.

Mentoring

How to prevent your children from losing their faith in college

3 Comments

Here’s an interview with Blake Anderson of Ratio Christi.

Excerpt:

(KW): What are some of the specific challenges to Christianity? 
(BA): When someone with a Ph.D. behind their name suddenly confronts a student with supposed evidence that the New Testament books were forgeries and dismisses the historicity of the Christian narrative, if that student has not been well grounded in the evidence for the historical accuracy of the accounts of Jesus’ life the odds are heavily in favor of that student dismissing their parents’ and pastor’s faith as outdated. In philosophy class when the professor appears to eloquently demonstrate how Immanuel Kant showed two hundred years ago how we can’t really know anything unless it is of the physical world, what chance does a young adult have if all they have for equipping is some Sunday School Bible stories? And when the most articulate current defenders of neo-Darwinian evolution essentially mock anybody that doesn’t agree with them it will take much more than a good feeling in your heart to keep you from being demoralized and eventually giving up on a supernatural Creator.

The frustrating thing in all of this is that there are good answers to these assertions. The problem isn’t that there aren’t answers on the same academic level as those that are challenging Christianity; there are. The problem is that so few Christians are aware of where to go to get answers.

And another:

(KW): What can we do to better prepare Christian students for these types of confrontations?
(BA): This may sound harsh, but first, get our heads out of the sand and realize that our methods for the last thirty years have resulted in five to eight out of every ten solid Christian teens abandoning their faith in some way. It’s not pretty. It’s truly a massacre, and until we face into that hard reality our teens will be the unfortunate fodder. This is not a game and no one will be benefited by pretending it isn’t happening.

Second, encourage your children to express their doubts, hard questions, and objections. Don’t suppress these and run from them. You won’t know all the answers, so be prepared to dig in yourself and spend serious time in learning. Your faith will be shaken, but if you truly trust in Christ you won’t use avoidance you will engage. There is nothing to fear. God isn’t afraid of your children’s questions so you should not be either.

Third, remember that teens are influenced by their parents’ beliefs far more than is thought. You and other adults have massive influence in their lives. They need older mature mentors who can show them how to integrate their faith and their interests in life.

Fourth, teach critical thinking skills and logic to your junior high and high schoolers. In this extremely emotive culture, students need to know how to think rather than just what to think. If young people are taught how to think and process information and critically evaluate ideas that they are presented with, they will be able to stand head and shoulders above their peers (and professors for that matter). Then ground them in why Christianity is true and matches objective reality. It’s not enough to know the basic tenants of Christianity. They must know how to defend those beliefs as objectively true in the face of attack. They need to be exposed to anti-Christian ideas in a controlled environment prior to being sent out on their own. Inoculate your children by allowing them to explain and defend their faith against opposing ideas, instead of hiding them from false philosophies until they go off to college.

Read the rest! There are two things that parents need to do. They need to connect Christian teachings and beliefs with objective evidence from hard data, such as from science and history. And they need to provide their children with experiences to acquaint them with the reality of the moral law – specifically, the importance of having moral boundaries in order to avoid hurting yourself and others.