Tag Archives: Evidence

Commentary

Andrea Mrozek responds to the Ontario prostitution ruling

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This article from the Toronto Sun was written by Andrea Mrozek of the Institute for Marriage and Family Canada.

Excerpt:

Following the path of Sweden by criminalizing Johns is one possible solution, with considerable support among women’s groups and anti-human trafficking activists across the globe.

The Swedish model prosecutes the buyer.

“A person who obtains casual sexual relations in exchange for payment shall be sentenced,” reads the law, “…to a fine or imprisonment for at most six months.”

The government there simultaneously helps women out of the industry, with shelter, counselling and job training — and a hand out is what prostitutes need. After all, 90% of prostitutes say that’s what they want.

A Swedish independent inquiry published in July 2010 says the results have been a success. Prostitution, organized crime and human trafficking have decreased.

This is in stark contrast to other countries, like neighbouring Finland, where purchasing sex is allowed. In Sweden, about 400 to 600 women are trafficked into the country annually. In Finland, 10,000 to 15,000 are.

I think this is a good, evidence-based, case against legalizing prostitution. Notice how she cites actual outcomes in other countries to show the impact of changes in law on society.The IMFC is basically a family and marriage policy think tank. They have conferences, they publish research papers, and they engage the culture. They are affiliated with Focus on the Family Canada. What I find exciting about the IMFC is that get their positions on social issues published in mainstream news publications. Can you imagine? And the reason why they can do that is because they are good at research. And good research influences policy makers and public opinion.

But sometimes people make statements that just express their feelings and opinions – not what is really true. And they don’t supply evidence for their views from neutral sources, either. I was arguing with a guy on Facebook recently about gun control. I offered two pieces of evidence to him: 1) the 1997 gun ban in the UK that doubled violent crime rates in four years, and 2) legalizing concealed-carry in certain US states drastically reduced violent crime rates. For the life of me, I could not get him to talk about whether firearm laws (liberal or conservative) affect crime rates. I think we need to take a lesson fro Andrea Mrozek and talk about policy issues using evidence. No one cares about feelings, opinions, sob-stories, whining, blaming, complaining and name-calling. Just. Use. Evidence.

Commentary

Science writer John Horgan comments on Hawking’s ideas

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This is from Scientific American. (H/T Reformed Seth)

Keep in mind that the author is a naturalist and an atheist, and he thinks Glenn Beck is a “right-wing nut” – i.e. – I infer that the author is a left-wing nut. But his criticisms of Hawking’s untestable theory are accurate.

Excerpt:

The “sound scientific explanation” is M-theory, which Hawking calls (in a blurb for Amazon) “the only viable candidate for a complete ‘theory of everything’.”

Actually M-theory is just the latest iteration of string theory, with membranes (hence the M) substituted for strings. For more than two decades string theory has been the most popular candidate for the unified theory that Hawking envisioned 30 years ago. Yet this popularity stems not from the theory’s actual merits but rather from the lack of decent alternatives and the stubborn refusal of enthusiasts to abandon their faith.

M-theory suffers from the same flaws that string theories did. First is the problem of empirical accessibility. Membranes, like strings, are supposedly very, very tiny—as small compared with a proton as a proton is compared with the solar system. This is the so-called Planck scale, 10^–33 centimeters. Gaining the kind of experimental confirmation of membranes or strings that we have for, say, quarks would require a particle accelerator 1,000 light-years around, scaling up from our current technology. Our entire solar system is only one light-day around, and the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful accelerator, is 27 kilometers in circumference.

This sounds like bad news for atheism and their beloved deity, but it is a strength of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (peas be upon him) to be untestable, unobservable and speculative! It’s a feature, not a bug.

UPDATE: Cool video of Roger Penrose and Alister McGrath debunking Hawking’s theory:

Atheist Roger Penrose calls it “not even a theory”. Wow. This is from Justin Brierley’s “Unbelievable” show, that I feature once in a while.

Polemics

Does the Bible teach that faith is opposed to logic and evidence?

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Probably the biggest misconception that I encounter when defending the faith is the mistaken notion of what faith is. Today we are going to get to the bottom of what the Bible says faith is, once and for all. This post will be useful to Christians and atheists, alike.

What is faith according to the Bible?

I am going to reference this article from apologist Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason in my explanation.

Koukl cites three Biblical examples to support the idea that faith is not blind leap-of-faith wishing, but is based on evidence.

  1. Moses went out into the wilderness and he had that first encounter with the burning bush, and God gave him the directive to go back to Egypt and let his people go. Moses said, Yeah, right. What’s going to happen when they say, why should we believe you, Moses?God said, See that staff? Throw it down.Moses threw it down and it turned into a serpent.God said, See that serpent? Pick it up.And he picked it up and it turned back into a staff.God said, Now you take that and do that before the Jewish people and you do that before Pharaoh. And you do this number with the hail, and the frogs, and turning the Nile River into blood. You put the sun out. You do a bunch of other tricks to get their attention.

    And then comes this phrase: “So that they might know that there is a God in Israel.”

  2. [I]n Mark 2 you see Jesus preaching in a house, and you know the story where they take the roof off and let the paralytic down through the roof. Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven.” And people get bugged because how can anyone forgive sins but God alone?Jesus understood what they were thinking and He said this: What’s harder to say, your sins are forgiven, or to rise, take up your pallet and go home?Now, I’ll tell you what would be harder for me to say : Arise, take up your pallet and go home. I can walk into any Bible study and say your sins are forgiven and nobody is going to know if I know what I am talking about or not. But if I lay hands on somebody in a wheelchair and I say, Take up your wheelchair and go home, and they sit there, I look pretty dumb because everyone knows nothing happened.

    But Jesus adds this. He says, “In order that you may know that the Son of Man has the power and authority to forgive sins, I say to you, arise, take up your pallet and go home.” And he got up and he got out. Notice the phrase “In order that you may know”.  Same message, right?

  3. Move over to the Book of Acts. First sermon after Pentecost. Peter was up in front of this massive crowd. He was talking about the resurrection to which he was an eyewitness. He talked about fulfilled prophecy. He talked about the miraculous tongues and the miraculous manifestation of being able to speak in a language you don’t know. Do you think this is physical evidence to those people? I think so. Pretty powerful.Peter tells them, These men are not drunk as it seems, but rather this is a fulfillment of prophecy. David spoke of this. Jesus got out of the grave, and we saw him, and we proclaim this to you.Do you know how he ends his sermon? It’s really great. Acts 2:36. I’ve been a Christian 20 years and I didn’t see this until about a year ago. This is for all of those who think that if you can know it for sure, you can’t exercise faith in it. Here is what Peter said. Acts 2:36, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” There it is again. “Know for certain.”

What is faith according to Bible-based theologians?

I am going to reference this article from theologian C. Michael Patton of Parchment and Pen in my explanation.

Patton explains that according to Reformation (conservative, Bible-based) theologians, faith has 3 parts:

  1. notitia – This is the basic informational foundation of our faith. It is best expressed by the word content. Faith, according to the Reformers must have content. You cannot have faith in nothing. There must be some referential propositional truth to which the faith points. The proposition “Christ rose from the grave,” for example, is a necessary information base that Christians must have.
  2. assensus – This is the assent or confidence that we have that the notitia is correct… This involves evidence which leads to the conviction of the truthfulness of the proposition… This involves intellectual assent and persuasion based upon critical thought… assensus… says, “I am persuaded to believe that Christ rose from the grave.”
  3. fiducia – This is the “resting” in the information based upon a conviction of its truthfulness. Fiducia is best expressed by the English word “trust.”… Fiducia is the personal subjective act of the will to take the final step. It is important to note that while fiducia goes beyond or transcends the intellect, it is built upon its foundation.

So, Biblical faith is really trust. Trust(3) can only occur after intellectual assent(2), based on evidence and thought. Intellectual assent(2) can only occur after the propositional information(1) is known.

The church today accepts 1 and 3, but denies 2. I call this “fideism” or “blind faith”. Ironically, activist atheists, (the New Atheists), also believe that faith is blind. The postmodern “emergent church” denies 1 and 2. A person could accept 1 and 2 but deny 3 by not re-prioritizing their life based on what they know to be true.

How do beliefs form, according to Christian philosophers?

I am going to reference a portion of chapter 3 of J.P. Moreland’s “Love Your God With All Your Mind” (i.e. – LYGWYM).

J.P. Moreland explains how beliefs form and how you can change them.

  1. Today, people are inclined to think that the sincerity and fervency of one’s beliefs are more important than the content… Nothing could be further from the truth… As far as reality is concerned, what matters is not whether I like a belief or how sincere I am in believing it but whether or not the belief is true. I am responsible for what I believe and, I might add, for what I refuse to believe because the content of what I do or do not believe makes a tremendous difference to what I become and how I act.
  2. A belief’s strength is the degree to which you are convinced the belief is true. As you gain ,evidence and support for a belief, its strength grows for you… The more certain you are of a belief… the more you rely on it as a basis for action.

But the most important point of the article is that your beliefs are not under the control of your will.

…Scripture holds us responsible for our beliefs since it commands us to embrace certain beliefs and warns us of the consequences of accepting other beliefs. On the other hand, experience teaches us that we cannot choose or change our beliefs by direct effort.

For example, if someone offered you $10,000 to believe right now that a pink elephant was sitting next to you, you could not really choose to believe this… If I want to change my beliefs about something, I can embark on a course of study in which I choose to think regularly about certain things, read certain pieces of evidence and argument, and try to find problems with evidence raised against the belief in question.

…by choosing to undertake a course of study… I can put myself in a position to undergo a change in… my beliefs… And… my character and behavior… will be transformed by these belief changes.

The article goes on to make some very informative comments on the relationship between apologetics and belief.