POST PUBLISHED INJune, 2009
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  • OnTaking Atheism Seriously (Part 1)

    June 30th, 200911:51 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Christians think many things of atheism. But from my experience most Christians do not think atheism is intellectually serious. The main reason, it would seem, derives from certain conclusions drawn from scripture, most significantly from Romans 1: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-h...

  • Obama, the Fly, and Animal Rights

    June 29th, 200911:41 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    During the election last fall I had been led to believe that Barack Obama would not even hurt a fly. As a result, it took me some time to overcome the shock of his callous action in bringing to a premature end the life of that poor little insect, merely because it happened to be bothering him. Okay, not really. But apparently there are some who re...

  • The day my friend was healed of cancer

    June 27th, 200910:10 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    "Paula" had been struggling with cancer for several years. Numerous experimental drugs and risky surgeries had all failed to stop the spread of the disease; it seemed like every new week would bring a new email in the inbox with yet another sober announcement from her husband "Aaron": "the cancer has spread." "The tests were disappointing." "Tumor ...

  • Should I help the poor ... or buy a new motorcycle?

    June 25th, 200909:47 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    I am hoping to come into some extra money in the next few months and I am trying to decide how best to use it. I could pay down the mortgage. But to be frank, that is just plain boring. Then my conscience speaks up: "how about helping out the world's poor? Close to a billion people live on less than a dollar a day. That's more than three time...

  • "And if there's life on other planets..." Reflections on God and E.T. (Part 2)

    June 21st, 200908:12 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    So on with the question at hand. If aliens landed on the White House lawn tomorrow, what would be the first questions we would be thinking? Here's one: "Got sin?" That is, is it possible that there could be unfallen aliens? Creatures which are intelligent like human beings, but which do not sin? It would seem that it is possible since angels are s...

  • The Continuing Saga of "The Shack"

    June 20th, 200910:48 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Bestsellers come and go. Like a meteor flashing brilliantly in the night, they rise steeply on the charts and then disappear just as quickly back into the darkness. But not The Shack. Twenty-six months after its release, and a year after it topped out on the New York Times bestseller list, it continues to sell hand over fist. For instance, at most ...

  • How intelligent design is misrepresented by its friends (Part 2)

    June 18th, 200912:06 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In my last intelligent design post I complained that Expelled creates the (erroneous) perception that ID is anti-Darwin, religious, and committed to assuming God is the designer. Now on to provide some examples. Let's begin with the point when Ben Stein considers Francis Crick's attempt to explain the apparent design of DNA. Though an atheist...

  • "And if there's life on other planets..." Reflections on God and E.T.

    June 16th, 200911:37 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Is it possible that there is intelligent life out among the stars? And if there is, what would be the theological implications of this fact? Many Christians have assumed that there could not be intelligent extraterrestrials, and that if some were discovered then this would somehow constitute a challenge to the Christian faith. But that apparently ...

  • The Peril of Praying to the Trinity

    June 14th, 200912:03 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    This Sunday well meaning pastors and congregants across North America will make unintended blunders into heresy by praying things like this: "Heavenly Father, we thank you for dying for us"; "Lord Jesus, we thank you for being such a loving Father." Prayers like this, while no doubt prayed with good intention, evince a deep confusion about the God ...

  • Was Jesus Christ free to sin?

    June 11th, 200909:07 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In one of my recent posts I argued that Jesus could not have sinned. Moreover, I argued that he did not struggle psychologically with sin -- he did not find it enticing. And this, rather than the common view that he was attracted to sin but managed to refrain from it, provides us with a goal for our own sanctification. One of my readers, Bujo, dis...

  • How intelligent design is misrepresented by its friends

    June 10th, 200901:30 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    (This is the second of a three part review of the film Expelled.) If intelligent design were a person, he would surely be a millionaire after suing all the people guilty of making libelous claims against him. So it is that ID is one of the most maligned and misunderstood ideas in academia. And ironically enough, the film Expelled, which presents i...

  • Why Jesus was NOT "tempted" (and why it matters)

    June 08th, 200912:17 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In their trials and temptations many Christians have drawn strength from Hebrews 4:15: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet he did not sin." (TNIV; cf. Heb. 2:18) Unfortunately, the significance of this passage is widely misunderstood,...

  • The God I REALLY Don't Understand

    June 06th, 200912:37 PM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    In his new book The God I Don't Undertand (Zondervan, 2008), the well respected Christian leader Christopher Wright takes on some of the most difficult questions of faith including the problem of evil, the violence of the cross, and the Old Testament violence that is most shockingly on display in the Canaanite genocide. Wright's book is well worth ...

  • Why being prolife ain't easy

    June 03rd, 200911:44 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    On May 31st, 2009 abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down while serving as an usher in his church in Witchita, Kanasa. Tiller had been targeted previously in 1993, and had always remained a target due no doubt to his willingness to perform late-term abortions (after 21 weeks). My guess is that the gunman (allegedly Scott Roeder) would count ...

  • "He said he would prefer to go to Hell..."

    June 01st, 200909:09 AM ET
    By Randal Rauser
    Belief and disbelief are often more complicated than we would like to admit. Consequently, drawing a line between those who are in God's kingdom and those who are outside it is also not as easy as we often assume. I explored this notion in my last post on the "righteous Muslim" in the midst of the Rwandan genocide.I intend to push the discussion fu...
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An exploration of faith, knowledge, reason and doubt (with the occasional trite pop culture reference thrown in for good measure).