Apprentice Owl Apologetics

                What I want to do today is to write a brief summary of each of the arguments for the existence of God that I have come across in my studies; that seem to hold any water (I won’t be calling on the youtube video that argues for design just because a human hand can hold a banana). If I miss any that you believe to be a part of this review, please contact me and I will research the argument and update my post here.                 The Kalam Cosmological Argument https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0 – This argument focuses on the prime mover, or the uncaused first cause. The argument goes as such: everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist; therefore the universe has a cause. Dr. William Lane Craig is the biggest proponent of this argument, and further develops the characteristics of this prime mover and shows that the God...

                What I want to do today is to come back to an older article that I wrote when I was first starting out as an apologist. I was recently discussing various topics with a friend of mine and we got to discussing a rather well written article about Carl Sagan and his quest to encourage science education and the philosophy that science will answer all of the questions that humanity has about the world. What you will find here is that original article that I have augmented with some of my thoughts after spending a few years maturing as an apologist. Before I get started, I guess the definition of miracle could be stated, since the word can be used for many different situations. From the Merriam-Webster website, the three definitions of miracle are as follows: 1) an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs, 2) an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment, and 3) a divinely natural pheno...

                Plenty of people will try to prop themselves up on their own intellect by stating they are smarter than our predecessors. I see this idea pop up in multiple ideas, such as the ancient aliens hypothesis, or the ever-so-famous God of the gaps. I also wonder if people find that our nature, and our base desires ever really change. To the latter, I doubt that humans have changed at their core. To the former, I think that humanity has indeed increased their knowledge of the world, and some cultures did deify natural events, but I don’t think any culture is wiser than the other, and that Christianity does not provide a basis for the God of the gaps hypothesis. What I hope to do today is to untangle this series of questions and show that belief in God, specifically Christianity, does not come from a lack of knowledge or intelligence, but rather a lack of ability to save humanity from its own sinful nature. We all have a natural desire for...

                Quite a few people have been convinced by the mass media that more science and education are the answer to everything, but is it really? Science is quite good at what it does, but it does have limitations and areas that its hands cannot reach.                 Now as I have stated before, I am a scientist, or at least a graduate student of chemistry, whichever title you would like to apply. I have no delusions about the limitations of science and where it cannot possibly reach. There are those who will have their own definitions of science, and honestly it is rather overused in the United States at least. Science is a field where hypotheses can be repeatedly tested to be proven or disproven. There are plenty of fields where science cannot carry out this rigorous testing and retesting, so I would not classify these fields as sciences. Take history for examp...

                Welcome to my suspiciously titled post. It seems that no matter what we do, what stance we take politically, or what have you, the gremlins of social media will never be happy with us because they will always have some questions for us. Why don’t we support such and such cause, why don’t we denounce such and such group? These people will always want us to be taking their side or give them what they want to hear. They want to mold us into their selfish image for multiple reasons, be it needing to be always right, needing an echo chamber, not standing the idea of an opposing viewpoint, etc. Some of you may be expecting me to say that God is the same way and is the reason he pursues us and sends those awful door to door ministers to talk to you about Him, but you would be misguided. It is true that God pursues us, but he does not do it out of a selfish megalomania. God pursues us out of His infinite love and desire for fellowship wit...

                In Colossians 2:8, we are told to not fall for the traps of the philosophy of men. There are those that take this verse, other pieces of scripture, and their own misguided view of faith to try and mean that we should not study philosophy, even as a means of apologetics. I believe that this is an extreme view, just as much as the extreme view of spending all of our time studying about God, but never really pursuing a relationship with God. While I am all for the study of apologetics, Dr. Ravi Zacharias puts it best, that apologetics are the seasoning, and the gospel of Christ is the main course. However, I want to unpack this a little bit more. What I want to do here is explore what it means to me to love God with all of our minds.                 We are told to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Mind is second in this list, but I th...

                Blaise Pascal was a renowned scientist, and a profound Christian writer. He had many contributions to the scientific community, including the first digital calculator, a fundamental gas law, and had his name set to a unit of pressure. However, his contribution to the Christian community, in the form of what we call Pascal’s wager. Pascal’s wager says: If a person does not believe in God and God does not exist, then that person gains nothing. On the other hand, if a person does not believe in God and God actually  does  exist, that person stands to lose everything. The consequence for wagering incorrectly would involve an infinite loss (eternal exclusion from life with God, or hell). In terms of a cost-benefit analysis, the one who wagers against God has nothing to gain and everything to lose. Given these two options, Pascal logically asserts that the prudent person should wager on God. However, should this be a brute for...