APOLOGETICS | Evidence Needed!

One of the powerful indicators of the bankruptcy of Atheistic modern thought,  with its conviction that life is getting better and that God is a superfluous requirement, is the moral decline witnessed in Western  society. This is perhaps  no better  exemplified than in an excerpt from a book by David Myers entitled "The American Paradox" its subtitle being "Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty". Published in the year 2000 by Yale University Press, he sets before us statistics that are far from being  comfortable. He notes:

We are better fed,
Better paid.Better housed
Better educated
Healthier than ever  before
ith more human rights
Faster communication 

And more convenient transportation than we have ever known.

Alongside all of this largesse however are the signs of life in pain and travail.

Since 1960 the divorce rate has doubled,
Teen suicide has tripled,
Violent crime quadrupled,
The number in prison has quintupled,
illegitimate children six times,
And the number of those cohabiting,  seven-fold. 

While this list is both terrifying and clever in the way it has been framed,  it is by no means exhaustive. Since the recently overturned Roe v Wade case in the USA some sixty million babies have  been aborted, a number  that is comparable to the population of the UK. Modern secular society cries, from its self exhorted position, to the Christian Church, evidence, evidence and yet more evidence. Its insatiable clamour for something that it is loathed to contemplate almost drowns out the very real and convincing case the Church can and does make. Perhaps what needs to happen is for the Church to make just as strident a demand for evidence that society's Godlessness has succeeded in making this World a better place.

Whenever there is a demand for evidence it is totally justified that the giver of that evidence makes a similar demand on the original questioner for information that substantiates their point of view. David Myers' well crafted observation above is difficult to refute and goes a long way to prove that the Atheistic worldview is not all conquering and it does not increase in value by its proponents shouting ever louder about it. Christianity has a positive and encouraging message  that is substantiated by evidence and that brings good news to those in desperate need. In this World, where people are conditioned to accept unquestioningly bad and negative news Christianity has the tools to back up the questioned good news with evidence-based argument and to display, in all sorts of ways, Ultimate Hope. 

APOLOGETICS | Moral Law

 Which Way?

It is interesting to listen to Atheist scientists trying to substantiate the claim that moral rectitude can be derived from what has evolved to be the human brain. Their statement is that it can all be determined from what is in that organ and that God is not required. 

The eminent Oxford professor. John Lenox makes short work of this assertion by asking scientists what they do their science with. After they eventually admit to the fact that it is their brain he asks what the brain is and where it came from. Inevitably the evolutionary, reductive answer always refers to its origin being a  "senseless, unguided process". He then relates this process to the development of the computer sitting on their desk and asks that if it were made using the same evolutionary pathway would they have any reason to trust It? He always  presses them for an answer. After the inevitable response of "No" it precipitates, from Lenox the observation "Well I think you have a problem"

The problem with reductionism, in this case, is that, by its own admission, the course of evolution is driven by the notion of the survival of the fittest. There is no place for a moral code that advocates sanctity of life, the care of the disabled, the protection of babies and children and the safeguarding of the elderly, to mention just a few important points. Sadly Scientists cannot claim any high ground here for, within their fraternity,  there are people that have gone way beyond any boundaries of common decency. The Auschwitz doctors and many others who are making vast sums of money from body parts derived from the abortion of almost 60 million babies in the United States alone. (Suggested Prayer)

The Christian standpoint is that mankind is made in the image of God and, with that comes a recognition of a moral law that we can live by or break depending on our motivation (free will). As moral law cannot be derived from a "mindless, unguided process" dedicated to survival, it can only come  from outside of ourselves, from the heart of a loving God who says such things as, you must not murder or you must not lie etc. Of itself the bearing of the responsibility of formulating and, ultimately upholding such a law can only be carried by a being who is the embodiment of it.

Roger Manchester UK

GOOD NEWS | Tom Holland

 A new book, set to overturn the notion of the importance of today's battle between Christians and Atheists, has hit the book shelves of book stores up and down the country. In Tom Holland's book "Dominion - The making of the Western mind" he, as an Atheist, seeks to advocate that the last two millennia in the West have been fashioned almost entirely by Christianity. He has faced a degree of criticism from prominent Atheists but he has successfully rebutted their argument. Indeed, in an interview with self avowed Atheist, Dan Snow, he dismantled any claim by Snow that there were other major Influencers in antiquity. Holland is at pains to set the apostle Paul's letters together with the four Gospels in the position of being the most important narrative to come out of the ancient world. He attributes the basis of Western  civilisation, with its emphasis on equal justice  for all and compassion for the weak and marginalised, almost entirely on the influence of the Christian Gospel. 

There does seem to be a move in the Atheist camp to recognise the fact that, while the God question still remains a step too far, the absolute need for fundamental Christian ethics is something they may have to live with.  The question that now, perhaps bubbles to the surface is - Can society that is secular by persuasion, successfully accept the gifts Christianity has to offer while, at the same time, ignoring the giver of those gifts?

Roger Manchester UK