Tag Archives: Evil

Podcasts

Paul Copan explains the problems of evil and suffering in 17 minutes

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Paul Copan

Paul Copan explains the high points of the problems of evil and suffering in 17 minutes. (H/T Apologetics 315)

The MP3 file is here.

The video is here.

Topics:

  • the question itself reveals that we are moral beings
  • the problem of evil is the great interrupter of human well-being
  • every philosophy of life has to address this question
  • is God required to give us a life that is easy and comfortable?
  • evil is a departure from good, i.e. – the way things ought to be
  • a way things ought to be implies a plan for what ought to be
  • human evil implies a plan for the way we ought to be
  • free creatures have the ability to deviate from the plan
  • where does this plan for the universe and us come from?
  • how can there be a way we ought to be come from?
  • evil is the flip side of good so where does good come from?
  • God’s own moral nature is the standard of good and evil
  • where does evil from natural disasters come from?
  • how dangerous natural phenomena preserve Earth’s habitability
  • there is a benefit from tectonic activity
  • similarly, God lets humans freely choose knowing harm may result
  • people are free to try to find meaning in something other than God
  • God is able to use negative things to bring about positive results
  • e.g. – when good people suffer, they can comfort and care for others
  • can people be good enough on their own without God?

Paul Copan is probably my favorite Christian apologist, along with Doug Geivett. I put Copan and Geivett in a separate category from guys like Meyer and Richards. Copan and Geivett are more specifically defending Christian claims and Christian theology in their work. both get involved with debates and lecturing. They are both very confident in their exclusivism and evangelicalism, addressing tough questions on specific controversial Christian beliefs. I love that. Nothing is off limits for these guys.

If you want to read two good books for beginners on Christian Apologetics that cover a much wider range of issues than Craig’s “On Guard”, then pick up Copan’s “Passion Conviction” and the companion “Contending With Christianity’s Critics”. Awesome, awesome resources.

News

Stephen Harper makes a stand against North Korean aggression

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I spy... with my little eye... someone whose ass I must kick!

Story here from the Edmonton Journal.

Excerpt:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement on Victoria Day that Canada is joining sides with South Korea in countering North Korea’s apparent act of aggression on March 26 that involved the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, killing 46.

“Canada is now committed to a coordinated international response, including through the UN Security Council, as a result of this act,” Harper declared in a written press release. Canada will “move to suspend high-level visits to Canada by North Korean officials,” Harper said in response to statements made Sunday by Republic of Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak.

[..]”The Government of Canada will take steps to impose enhanced restrictions on trade, investment and other bilateral relations with North Korea, including the addition of North Korea to the Area Control List.

“Canada will also continue to consult and co-operate with South Korea, as well as our partners and friends, to ensure that a strong global approach is taken toward the current situation on the Korean Peninsula,” Harper said.

Three experts from the Canadian navy, in concert with representatives from Australia, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S., assisted in the investigation that concluded that North Korea was responsible for the sinking of the South Korean ship, the press release stated.

That’s what Obama should have done, too. We should be parking a carrier battle group right where the ship went down and running ASW patrols around the clock as part of joint exercises with South Korea and Japan. We should be selling more arms (e.g. – SAMs, SSMs, and LAVs with ATGMs), to South Korea and Japan, and building additional ships to deploy in that theater. All vessels entering and leaving North Korea should be boarded and inspected by US naval forces. We should be stepping up espionage efforts to get advanced warning of North Korea’s plans.

There should be a swift response to the sinking of South Korea’s vessel – something visible to them, as well as a change in tone and policy in the CIA and the State Department. Kick the doves and the fifth-columnists out of national security and foreign policy, and get serious about making aggression costly on the aggressor. South Korea should just pass a law saying that for every warship of theirs sunk in mysterious circumstances, THREE warships in North Korea will be sunk in mysterious circumstances.

If only Harper were in control of the US military, then we could really get something done – and not just the economic sanctions that he is going to put into place. But with President Pantywaist in charge, our enemies can do anything they want to our poorly-armed allies like South Korea.

By the way, I found this story while browsing on My Can of Contemplation, which led me to Christian Conservative.

* When I say SSMs in this article, I mean surface-to-surface missiles, not same-sex marriage. We should NOT be selling our allies same-sex marriages, we should be selling them surface-to-surface missiles.

News

Charles Krauthammer and Ralph Peters on Obama’s foreign policy

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What will we do now?

Moderate conservative Charles Krauthammer summarizes Obama’s foreign policy in the Washington Post. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

It is perfectly obvious that Iran’s latest uranium maneuver, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, is a ruse. Iran retains more than enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. And it continues enriching at an accelerated pace and to a greater purity (20 percent).

It will… make meaningful sanctions more difficult.

[…]But the deeper meaning of the uranium-export stunt is the brazenness with which Brazil and Turkey gave cover to the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions and deliberately undermined U.S. efforts to curb Iran’s program.

The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world.

Krauthammer then explains what drove Brazil and Turkey to abandon US interests and side with Iran.

He writes:

They’ve watched America acquiesce to Russia’s re-exerting sway over Eastern Europe, over Ukraine (pressured by Russia last month into extending for 25 years its lease of the Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol) and over Georgia (Russia’s de facto annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is no longer an issue under the Obama “reset” policy).

They’ve watched our appeasement of Syria, Iran’s agent in the Arab Levant — sending our ambassador back to Syria even as it tightens its grip on Lebanon, supplies Hezbollah with Scuds, and intensifies its role as the pivot of the Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance. The price for this ostentatious flouting of the U.S. and its interests? Ever more eager U.S. “engagement.”

They’ve observed the administration’s gratuitous slap at Britain over the Falklands, its contemptuous treatment of Israel, its undercutting of the Czech Republic and Poland, and its indifference to Lebanon and Georgia. And in Latin America, they see not just U.S. passivity as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez organizes his anti-American “Bolivarian” coalition while deepening military and commercial ties with Iran and Russia. They saw active U.S. support in Honduras for a pro-Chavez would-be dictator seeking unconstitutional powers in defiance of the democratic institutions of that country.

Now take a look at the words of moderate Ralph Peters in the NY Post. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

What Brazil and Turkey just did wasn’t intended to impede Tehran, but to make it harder for Western powers to impose sanctions. Both countries want Iran to run interference for them.Once Iran gets the bomb and takes the (slight) heat, Brazil and Turkey both intend to go nuclear.

Brazil wants vanity nukes to cement its position as South America’s hegemon, a regional alternative to the US. Turkey’s slow-roll Islamist government dreams of a new Ottoman age — as it turns from the West to embrace the Muslim states it ruled a century ago. After easing Tehran’s path to the bomb, Ankara will claim that it needs its own nuclear capability to maintain regional stability.

But the coming widespread proliferation of nuclear weapons will be profoundly destabilizing. Each Middle Eastern country, especially, that goes nuclear increases the probability of a nuke exchange exponentially.

As Western states fantasize about a “nuclear-weapons-free world,” their developing-world darlings are scrambling like mad to develop nuclear arsenals. And we don’t get it.