Good article from Christianity Today. After decades of communist rule, then struggles for freedom and a move back towards oppressive rule, the people of Ukraine have a chance for freedom - including freedom of Religion.
Our prayers should be that Russia's influence wains and that the free governments of the world, particularly our American President and Congress, have the moral courage to support the people of Ukraine.
Showing posts with label apologetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apologetics. Show all posts
Monday
Friday
Bill Nye the Emotional Guy
In their recent debate, atheist television star Bill Nye and creation science advocate Ken Ham had a decision to make as they planned for their upcoming clash.
The goal of any debate is to win it. And, there are at least two approaches to winning - and Nye and Ham had to decide which approach they would take.
How Debaters win Debates:
1. Make better arguments than your opponents OR
2. Make spectators believe you have better arguments than your opponent.
The former appeals to logic. The latter appeals to emotion. The former is a real win. The latter is a perceived win. Clearly, Bill Nye's approach was the latter.
A thoughtful, intelligent spectator will recognize that a debater who wins using the latter approach really didn't win at all. The truth is not on their side. Unfortunately, many (and maybe even the majority) of people who watch any debate decide who the winner is based upon which debater they like best.
People can be, and often are, deceived simply because they are not discerning about the facts being argued. They are not using logic, but their emotions instead. Put another way, they are open to being manipulated by an emotional appeal.
With that stated, Bill Nye employed several debate tactics that were designed to appeal to the emotions of spectators rather than to their intellect.
Here are a few of the tactics Nye used on the unsuspecting:
1. Pepper your opponent with statements and questions knowing that there is no way he can address them in a five minute or one minute rebuttal. Nye wanted you, the spectator, to assume that his points were all accurate because Ham did not respond to some of them. Nye did not want you to make the connection to the fact that Ham could not respond to them due to lack of time.
This is a tactic that is frequently used in debates. Did you fall for it in this debate? The way to counter this tactic is to research the statements Ham made after the debate is over.
2. Act as though your opponent didn't answer questions you asked him. Nye repeated questions that Ham had already answered by saying "you still haven't told us" or "we're still waiting for you to tell us." One example was that Nye repeatedly and directly challenged Ham to show how the creation model could make predictions. Even after Ham addressed it with a PowerPoint slide, Nye continued on as though Ham had not addressed it.
Nye was hoping that spectators would not realize that Ham had answered the question. His idea was to make it look as though Ham was trying to avoid answering the question. Did you fall for it?
3. Try to make your opponent appear to be intolerant, stupid, backwards, dangerous, radical, isolated and in the minority. Nye did this over and over and over again.
Nye repeatedly said "I am a reasonable man," with the implication that Ham is not reasonable.
Nye repeatedly said "This is unsettling" or "this is dangerous" with the implication that Ham is a dangerous man.
Nye repeatedly made statements like "You expect 'the rest of us'" to believe you and your followers. The idea here is to make it look as though it is Nye and all of "us" against Ham.
Nye repeatedly said "there are billions of people around the world who are religious but don't agree with you." The idea was to make it look like Ham is too radical for even those who embrace religion. Ask yourself this question, how many of the billions of religions people around the world agree with Nye?
Nye referred to himself and those with his worldview as "real scientists," scientists "on the outside." Of course, the implication here is that Ham and all the scientists who believe that God created are not really scientists.
The topic of the debate was "Is Creation a Viable Model in Today's Modern Scientific Era?" Nye, however, repeatedly said the topic was "Is Ken Ham's model...." He said "Ken Ham's model" at least fifteen times in the debate. Why? He wanted the spectator to believe that Creationism is only held by a very few. There is also an implication that Ken Ham came up with the idea and only has a handful of radical followers.
Nye repeatedly made statements like "if we abandon science" and "if we stop being innovative." He appealed to the voters of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the United States while making these statements. Nye wanted the audience to believe that if people believe that God created, then America would stop developing medicines, exploring the universe and inventing new technologies.
Nye is hoping spectators do not realize that, in the history of America, most probably a majority of innovations and technologies were invented by Christians. Our innovation comes because of our belief in a Creator who has ordered His creation in a way that makes things discoverable.
Even today, the vast majority of relief, mission and justice organizations around the world are the work of Christians.
Nye not only sought to put Ham in a poor light, he disparaged Scripture too. He did it by rehashing arguments that almost no serious critics of the Bible use today because they have been soundly refuted by Christian and secular scholars. Nye was not concerned with the facts. He had a goal to manipulate the audience into doubting the accuracy of Scripture.
Did you fall for any of this?
4. Get people to like you better than the other guy. Nye told about his hardworking dad who came from humble beginnings and couldn't even tie his own bow tie. He told about his cousin-once-removed who suffered from cancer. He spoke of the joy that his work gives him. He wanted people to identify with him and believe him.
Did you fall for it?
Now that the debate has ended, one question that must be answered is "did the use of any of these tactics present a single, logical argument supporting Nye's position?"
Be careful what you fall for!
The goal of any debate is to win it. And, there are at least two approaches to winning - and Nye and Ham had to decide which approach they would take.
How Debaters win Debates:
1. Make better arguments than your opponents OR
2. Make spectators believe you have better arguments than your opponent.
The former appeals to logic. The latter appeals to emotion. The former is a real win. The latter is a perceived win. Clearly, Bill Nye's approach was the latter.
A thoughtful, intelligent spectator will recognize that a debater who wins using the latter approach really didn't win at all. The truth is not on their side. Unfortunately, many (and maybe even the majority) of people who watch any debate decide who the winner is based upon which debater they like best.
People can be, and often are, deceived simply because they are not discerning about the facts being argued. They are not using logic, but their emotions instead. Put another way, they are open to being manipulated by an emotional appeal.
With that stated, Bill Nye employed several debate tactics that were designed to appeal to the emotions of spectators rather than to their intellect.
Here are a few of the tactics Nye used on the unsuspecting:
1. Pepper your opponent with statements and questions knowing that there is no way he can address them in a five minute or one minute rebuttal. Nye wanted you, the spectator, to assume that his points were all accurate because Ham did not respond to some of them. Nye did not want you to make the connection to the fact that Ham could not respond to them due to lack of time.
This is a tactic that is frequently used in debates. Did you fall for it in this debate? The way to counter this tactic is to research the statements Ham made after the debate is over.
2. Act as though your opponent didn't answer questions you asked him. Nye repeated questions that Ham had already answered by saying "you still haven't told us" or "we're still waiting for you to tell us." One example was that Nye repeatedly and directly challenged Ham to show how the creation model could make predictions. Even after Ham addressed it with a PowerPoint slide, Nye continued on as though Ham had not addressed it.
Nye was hoping that spectators would not realize that Ham had answered the question. His idea was to make it look as though Ham was trying to avoid answering the question. Did you fall for it?
3. Try to make your opponent appear to be intolerant, stupid, backwards, dangerous, radical, isolated and in the minority. Nye did this over and over and over again.
Nye repeatedly said "I am a reasonable man," with the implication that Ham is not reasonable.
Nye repeatedly said "This is unsettling" or "this is dangerous" with the implication that Ham is a dangerous man.
Nye repeatedly made statements like "You expect 'the rest of us'" to believe you and your followers. The idea here is to make it look as though it is Nye and all of "us" against Ham.
Nye repeatedly said "there are billions of people around the world who are religious but don't agree with you." The idea was to make it look like Ham is too radical for even those who embrace religion. Ask yourself this question, how many of the billions of religions people around the world agree with Nye?
Nye referred to himself and those with his worldview as "real scientists," scientists "on the outside." Of course, the implication here is that Ham and all the scientists who believe that God created are not really scientists.
The topic of the debate was "Is Creation a Viable Model in Today's Modern Scientific Era?" Nye, however, repeatedly said the topic was "Is Ken Ham's model...." He said "Ken Ham's model" at least fifteen times in the debate. Why? He wanted the spectator to believe that Creationism is only held by a very few. There is also an implication that Ken Ham came up with the idea and only has a handful of radical followers.
Nye repeatedly made statements like "if we abandon science" and "if we stop being innovative." He appealed to the voters of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the United States while making these statements. Nye wanted the audience to believe that if people believe that God created, then America would stop developing medicines, exploring the universe and inventing new technologies.
Nye is hoping spectators do not realize that, in the history of America, most probably a majority of innovations and technologies were invented by Christians. Our innovation comes because of our belief in a Creator who has ordered His creation in a way that makes things discoverable.
Even today, the vast majority of relief, mission and justice organizations around the world are the work of Christians.
Nye not only sought to put Ham in a poor light, he disparaged Scripture too. He did it by rehashing arguments that almost no serious critics of the Bible use today because they have been soundly refuted by Christian and secular scholars. Nye was not concerned with the facts. He had a goal to manipulate the audience into doubting the accuracy of Scripture.
Did you fall for any of this?
4. Get people to like you better than the other guy. Nye told about his hardworking dad who came from humble beginnings and couldn't even tie his own bow tie. He told about his cousin-once-removed who suffered from cancer. He spoke of the joy that his work gives him. He wanted people to identify with him and believe him.
Did you fall for it?
Now that the debate has ended, one question that must be answered is "did the use of any of these tactics present a single, logical argument supporting Nye's position?"
Be careful what you fall for!
Wednesday
Thursday
Monday
C. S. Lewis: Why He Matters Today
Saturday
Monday
Wednesday
John MacArthur Exposes Post Modern Psychiatry
Following is from a message by MacArthur on "Spiritual Stability" based in Phil 4.
....
....
we are considering the theme of spiritual stability and we are looking at the text of Philippians chapter 4 where the Apostle Paul gives us the principles that create or generate a spiritually stable life.
You know, this entire society in which we live struggles with the matter of stability. It ought to be obvious to all of us that we live in a very unstable world. And we are in the midst of very unstable people. Our world is filled with anxiety. It is filled with an inability of folks to cope with circumstances in life. There are a myriad of solutions but not many that work any that work apparently as the society continues to escalate in its instability.
Sad to say our particular culture and maybe even sadder to say the church itself continues to direct people in the wrong direction to find the solutions to their anxieties and their instabilities. We have bought into the psychological lies that indicate that man can solve his problems through certain psychological principles, certain introspective self-adjustments. And those have proven not only to be unsuccessful but to be diversionary so that people pursuing the wrong thing and the wrong area come up with the wrong answer and not only that but they then therefore miss the right answer. The legacy of philosophy and psychology to this particular day and age has been to sell a whole generation snake oil...which doesn't do anything that it promises to do.
This was pointed out rather forcefully to me by an interview that I read with Dr. Robert Coles, C-o-l-e-s. Dr. Robert Coles is a social psychiatrist. He is perhaps as esteemed as any man in our country in terms of his area of psychiatry. He is an M.D., he is a research psychiatrist for Harvard University. He is professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard Medical School. He has written 36 books. He has authored 600 journal articles of one kind or another. And in 1973 he received the Pulitzer Prize. He is a very decorated esteemed and respected psychiatrist.
This interview points up the futility of his own area. While understanding superficially some things about Christianity, he will not call himself a Christian, does not believe he is a Christian and makes that clear in another part of the article. But his answers are very interesting. They asked him why he was not a surgeon. His answer, "I'm sloppy, not a great quality for a surgeon." He said, "When you get a combination of a befuddled slob who doesn't have the necessary toughness and is a little mixed up himself, you've got a psychiatrist." A befuddled mixed up slob with no toughness is a psychiatrist. The question is a mixed up psychiatrist? Coles, "Of course." Question: Is it futile then to search for ultimate answers in psychiatry or psychology? Coles, "The futility is in searching for ultimate answers in the entire secular culture. Psychology happens to be a temporary secular religion. How long will it last? Fifty years. Secular religions come and go. Today it's psychology, tomorrow it will be weight reduction or cholesterol or getting to the moon or Mars. Who knows what our culture will be preoccupied with next? But none of this is going to give us answers to the moral, spiritual questions that we ultimately hunger for. Psychology isn't equipped to answer those questions. Psychology gives us some information about the mind but the mind is not the soul." Question: Psychology then can help a person's mental health? Coles, "We shouldn't even use words like mental health. The question is not what is mental health, or do you have mental health. The question is what do you do with your life?"
Question: But even ministers today are becoming psychologists. Coles, "That is paganism." Question: Pastoral counseling is the term for it. Coles, "It's paganism. My mother was dying here in Massachusetts General Hospital. A minister came to see her. He wanted to negotiate her through the stages of dying. She wanted him to pray for her. She knew she was dying. He wanted to talk about anger and denial but she wasn't angry and she wasn't denying, she just wanted him to pray for her." Question: Is this all part of the same syndrome, we all want to worship the expert? Coles, "The secular expert. Who are these secular experts anyway? What do psychologists and psychiatrists know about the Christian life? What can they tell us?"
Quite an interesting response, isn't it? You get the feeling he's been dropping his bucket in a dry well and he's come to that conclusion. Where do you go to find stability in life? Where do you go to learn to cope? Where do you go to learn to deal with anxiety? Where do you go to deal with circumstances that you find debilitating you and pressuring you? Where do you go to get your life really stabilized? You hear people all the time say, "Well, I've just got to get my own life together." We are literally living in a sea of people who are emotionally unstable
Saturday
Religion: Freedom versus Diversity
Evangelicals should be firmly for freedom of religion but should be deeply saddened by religious diversity. The former because belief in Jesus is an individual matter of freedom that cannot be dictated by the state. The latter because vast diversity necessarily means that many people are lost and destined for horrible judgement.
Friday
Saturday
Unreasonable Doubt and the Fatherless
Here's an interesting excerpt from an article in "Christianity Today" on February 10, 2011. The article, Unreasonable Doubt is by Jim Spiegel.
External factors may also hamper the natural awareness of God and contribute to a descent into atheism. In his book Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, New York University psychologist Paul Vitz, a onetime atheist, examines the lives of the major atheists of the modern period, including Hobbes, Hume, Voltaire, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Russell, and Freud. He found they had something in common: a broken relationship with their father. Whether by death, departure, abuse, or some other factor, the father relationships of all these well-known atheists were defective. Vitz also examined the lives of prominent theists during the same period (Pascal, Reid, Burke, Berkeley, Paley, Wilberforce, Kierkegaard, Schleiermacher, Newman, Chesterton, and Bonhoeffer, among others). In every case, he found a good relationship with the father or at least a strong father figure.
External factors may also hamper the natural awareness of God and contribute to a descent into atheism. In his book Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism, New York University psychologist Paul Vitz, a onetime atheist, examines the lives of the major atheists of the modern period, including Hobbes, Hume, Voltaire, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Russell, and Freud. He found they had something in common: a broken relationship with their father. Whether by death, departure, abuse, or some other factor, the father relationships of all these well-known atheists were defective. Vitz also examined the lives of prominent theists during the same period (Pascal, Reid, Burke, Berkeley, Paley, Wilberforce, Kierkegaard, Schleiermacher, Newman, Chesterton, and Bonhoeffer, among others). In every case, he found a good relationship with the father or at least a strong father figure.
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