Archives for December 2014

Lacking the courage of one’s convictions

Obviously, Professor A. C. Grayling must be a very busy man. I don't doubt that teaching, writing, and interviews keeps him quite busy. However, I confess that I am finding it very difficult to believe that his schedule has been completely booked for the rest of his life. I simply can't understand why he can't carve out a few hours of spare time to burst my bubble of egotistical pride, by demonstrating the intellectual superiority of his atheistic humanism once and for all. After reading his book and blogging about it twice because I appreciated the skill of its authorship, I grew bold and wrote the good professor to propose a written debate that would pit his GOD Argument versus my Counterargument for God. You see, I paid attention when I read his book. I believe that already know much of what the professor might say, and it gave me the confidence to approach him. I am quite convinced that my counterargument can defeat his argument, even though my book was originally intended to rebut The God Delusion of Richard Dawkins. So when Grayling's first assistant asked me to define the parameters for the debate I proposed admittedly, my hopes rose. My reply suggested that Professor Grayling could set the debate parameters for debate himself. My offer said that we could schedule our discussion for any future exchange at his convenience. So you might imagine my surprise when his second assistant replied and said that it would never be convenient. Not even sometime in late 2016? I asked. Nope. Never, as in never, ever. Please forgive me for stating … [Read more...]

Heaven Is for Real

Some atheists seem to think that if they relentlessly attack theists and blame God for all the evil in the world, they will eventually succeed and completely eradicate all religious beliefs. Frankly, that will never happen. The goal is simply unattainable. As long as people inhabit the earth, at least some of them will believe in a supernatural God. Nevertheless, a rather persistent atheist acquaintance recently posted links to several news stories on Facebook about mothers who had allegedly murdered their own kids because they wanted the children to go to heaven. His argument apparently was that religious beliefs, not mental illness, motivated these women to commit such heinous crimes. Now were the situation reversed -- for example, if I insinuated that people who believe Darwinian theory explains their existence were all prone to become serial-killing atheist cannibals and used Jeffrey Dahmer as an example, I would be committing the same flawed, illogical "guilt by association" argument my acquaintance had attempted. And that would be just as juvenile, and wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right. Nor do two left turns, but three do. This acquaintance went so far to direct a question specifically to me, asking, "how many more have to die before someone says 'Stop!' This heaven stuff isn't real?" My reply was to say that I believe heaven is for real. However, I also know that I can't prove it any more than an evolutionary biologist can prove that I share a common ancestor with an oak tree. I won't claim to know heaven exists beyond all doubt, because … [Read more...]

The Christmas Truce

Evangelists of atheism have often suggested that religion has been responsible for much of the pain and suffering we observe in this world. That belief is badly mistaken -- it is actually the polar opposite of the truth. There is evidence that suggests if Christian spirit were allowed to rule the world, there might truly be peace on earth. The true story of the 1914 Christmas Truce reminds us that peace IS possible, but only for men of good will. Peace doesn't come from wishful thinking. A century ago, all was quiet on the Western front. The first war that involved the whole world had almost ended as quickly as it began. And Christian spirit was largely responsible. The night was Christmas Eve, 1914.  Only five months after World War I began, British and German soldiers were dug into trenches formed along the Western front, where they watched each other from a relatively safe distance. Bodies littered the barren turf of no-man's land separating the two armies. Naturally, the British troops were quite surprised when they heard the Germans begin to sing in the quiet night. They knew the tune, but the words were in a foreign language. Private Frank Sumter was one of the first to recognize the Christmas carol. Years later, he recalled the occasion, saying, "...and then we heard the Germans singing Silent Night, Holy Night. I said, "C'mon, boys. Let's join in with the song." Soon soldiers from both sides were joyfully singing the same hymn together, but in different languages. Then on Christmas morning, a German soldier tentatively emerged from the … [Read more...]

A. C. Grayling and The GOD Argument

I've enjoyed reading The GOD Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism, in spite of the fact I disagreed with much of what author A. C. Grayling wrote. As I asserted in my earlier blog about the Scopes Monkey Trial, Professor Grayling is an excellent writer. At times, his book forced me to exercise the little grey cells in my head quite vigorously. For example, at first I couldn't figure out why Professor Grayling described the problem as 'logically impossible' when he wrote: Consider the sentence, 'I can trisect a Euclidean angle using only ruler and compass.' This is a grammatical and even in one sense an intelligible sentence, but it claims something that is logically impossible to do -- and therefore to think. I must confess that relatively simple sentence initially befuddled me. After all, I could envision drawing a two-dimensional right angle with a horizontal line  intersecting a vertical line at 90 degrees, and then trisecting it at 30 and 60 degrees rather easily with a compass. However, I sensed that I was missing something that must be obvious and could not be understanding the problem correctly, if what Professor Grayling wrote was true. And my instincts were correct. It turned out the operative word in that deceptively simple sentence was 'Euclidean' -- apparently referring to a three-dimensional angle, like what you would find in the corner of a room formed where two walls meet. Then I realized what Grayling must have meant, and he's right: the task is impossible to perform using only a ruler, pencil and compass. On the other hand, … [Read more...]

Coaching change

So, you're a Georgia fan who's tired of the underachieving football program, huh? After all, the Georgia coach has been on the job for THIRTEEN whole years and still hasn't won a national championship, has he? Enough of this mediocrity! This is big boy, SEC football. In this conference, it's always, what have you done for us lately? Don't believe me? Just ask Gene Chizik... So what if our coach has won a couple of measly SEC championships for Georgia up to this point in his coaching career? That simply isn't good enough. Look at the bigger picture -- we've been in a championship drought for the last few years now. Our coach has, gasp! a losing bowl record. Can't win the big game anymore. And we're talking about big-time college football at a prestigious university. We deserve a championship team. This sort of incompetence simply cannot be tolerated. We have every right to expect to expect our football team to win at all costs. No matter what. It shouldn't matter that we demand more discipline of our players than our competitors. As alumni, we want to be proud and brag our players are smarter, better people...as long as they win, too. Surely you will concede that our program seems to be headed in the wrong direction. The SEC competition is only getting stronger, while our team seems to be regressing...so enough already! Just get rid of the guy, okay? Congratulations! You just fired Vince Dooley, the greatest coach in Georgia's history, three years before he led Georgia to the 1980 national championship. This is exactly why you should … [Read more...]