What Defies All Logic...

I borrowed this from a friend's blog.
I thought it was truly beautiful.

Once upon a time, twin boys were conceived in the same womb. Weeks passed and the twins developed. As their awareness grew, they laughed for joy,
“Isn’t it great that we were conceived?
Isn’t it great to be alive?”

Together the twins explored their world. When they found their mother’s cord that gave them life, they sang for joy, “how great is our Mother’s love, that she shares her own life with us!”

As weeks stretched into months, the twins noticed how much each was changing. “what does it mean?” asked the one. “It means that our stay in this world is drawing to an end, said the other.
“But I don’t want to go”, said the other,
“but maybe there is life after birth.”

But how can there be?” responded the other one. “We will shed our life cord, and how is life possible without it? Besides, we have seen evidence that
others were here before us
and none of them have returned to tell us that there is life after birth.
No, this is the end.”

And so the one fell into deep despair, saying,
“If conception ends in birth, what is the purpose of life in the womb?
It is meaningless!
Maybe there is no mother after all?”

“But there has to be,” protested the other. “How else did we get here? How do we remain alive?”
Have you ever seen our mother?” said one. “Maybe she lives only in our minds.
Maybe we made her up because the idea made us feel good?”

And so the last days in the womb were filled with deep questioning and fear.
Finally, the moment of birth arrived.
When the twins had passed from their world, they opened their eyes and cried for joy.
For what they saw exceeded their fondest dreams.

Author Unknown

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools..."
-- Romans 1:22 KJV

You Can't Argue With An Atheist

So don't bother.

I could elaborate here on how I don't even believe in atheism, but that's worthy of a whole blog entry of its own, so I'll restrain myself.
For now, let's just humor them and call them atheists:

When an atheist poses the question:
"Why do you believe what you believe and how do you know it's true?"
a Christian should immediately be on guard.
Do NOT make the common mistake of thinking that they are actually seeking TRUTH in their query, for I assure you, they are not. Make no mistake; this is not some soul-searching, lost individual who is quietly examining their belief system and looking for answers to the puzzling questions of life.
Nope.

The atheist is not looking for an answer -- not really.
He is looking for an argument and will assuredly pull you down with him in your attempts to prove a point.
Last week I engaged such a person on another blog (no, I will not link to it here).
In my naïveté or misguided, but sincere hope, I believed that this blogger was actually ASKING THE QUESTION.
My mistake.

Unfortunately, I made 2 very grave errors in my response to him:
1) Responding to him at all
and
2) Responding with any passion whatsoever.

You see, he was not interested in my point of view or rationale behind my faith. He wasn't even interested in how I came to my conclusions.
He focused solely on the semantical -- and immediately took (overzealous and over-dramatic, I might add) offense to minor infractions in my "attack."
He never addressed the actual points I made and he never acknowledged the logical arguments I presented. He also completely ignored the references I made to better sources of information and defense of faith (see list below).

He claimed that he stopped reading my replies because he was "so incensed" by my "fallacious attacks on his character," but his level of anger leads me to believe that he just didn't like what I had to say.
I don't claim to be an expert at defending my faith. In fact, I think (and fully admit) I am far too antagonistic when discussing something I am so passionate about. That's why I referenced the other resources.
But I do know WHAT I believe and WHY I believe it,
and some people just can't handle that.

For HONEST seekers of Truth, I recommend the following resources:
If There’s a God, Why Are There Atheists?, by R.C. Sproul;
Creation or Chaos: Modern Science and The Existence of God, by R. C. Sproul;
I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist, by Norman L. Geisler;
The Archaeological Study Bible (excellent source of archaeological and historical evidence and background);
The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell
The Case For Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence, by Lee Strobel
The Case For Faith, by Lee Strobel
and (a bit lighter fare, but still excellent): The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible, by Robert J. Hutchinson.

For now, I'm left retrieving my pearls from the mud in which I cast them...
Matthew 7:6

Believe What You Want...

But you better be able to back it up.

Someone asked me recently to define "apologetics."

The dictionary states: the branch of theology concerned with the defense or proof of Christianity.

But I think it's better summed up this way:

Know WHAT you believe and WHY you believe it.

Nothing frustrates me more than talking to a Christian who doesn't really know what they believe.
This is not the same thing as not knowing theological facts or memorizing Biblical history.
This is a thoughtful, inward examination of what you REALLY believe to be true and right.

I first became interested in apologetics my senior year in college. I was only a few hours from graduating when my advisor discovered that I was missing my Philosophy credit. So, I enrolled in a Freshman-level philosophy class on "Argument & Debate."
The professor was a brilliant man -- witty and animated -- and also a die-hard atheist.
Fully 95% of the class were wide-eyed, innocent, just-out-of-high-school and first-time-away-from-home freshmen. Being smack-dab in the center of the "Bible Belt," (Conway, Ark), most of these students had been raised in church. But when that seasoned, atheist professor got hold of them, he (philosophically speaking) ripped them to shreds.

In their innocence and naivete, they could only defend their faith with emotional rants and tear-streaked pleas. Nothing made this professor happier than to reduce his audience to a quivering mass of dejected, raw DOUBT.

There were two of us in the class who were not the norm and with whom he found greater resistance. We were both considerably older (wiser?) than the rest of our class and didn't feel the need to thrust ourselves on our daggers to defend our religious beliefs.
In the end, I told the professor that he was privy to the same information I was and that if he was dead-set against considering the fallibility and falsifiability of his OWN stance, then I would no longer "cast my pearls before swine."

I got an A in that class.

For a time, I even considered getting a PhD in Philosophy because I loved the spirit of argument and debate, but then I realized that I would definitely be the minority in a field of god-hating agnostics. And that's what they really are; there's no such thing as a true atheist.
But that's a whole 'nother blog entry...

I came away from that class adamant that my children would not grow up blindly believing what I believe simply because "that's the way we believe." I want them to question and study and really THINK about what it is they believe and WHY they believe it.
My children will not be reduced to tears by some faith-bashing, so-called atheist who thinks it's "fun" to prey upon the fragile beliefs of young Christians. At least, I hope not.

You see, it's not just our job (as parents) to take our kids to church and read the Bible with them and listen to their evening prayers... It's our job to empower them with the education and the tools with which they will need to forge through this world that is so unkind to anyone of faith.
It's all fine and good to have the love and emotions, but you better have some theology to back that up.