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Ananias and Sapphira

There is an account in Acts 5 of God striking down two people, Ananias and his wife Sapphira. Acts 5:1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. 3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” 5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. 7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked h...
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John Lennox on the Resurrection (part 2)

Lennox is a professor of mathematics who gets cited a lot by Christians because of his academic credentials. While I assume he is knowledgeable in maths, his apologetics are pretty poor! My last post collected some of his claims from various web sites, but there is one further I want to look at that gets more into the detail. Quotes on that web page are taken from the documentary movie “Against the tide” by Pensmore Films, in which the actor Kevin Sorbo interviews Professor John Lennox. I have not seen the movie. https://georgesjournal.net/2021/07/29/john-lennox-against-the-tide-in-history/ In this first quote, Lennox is discussing the issue of Jesus' existence. The interesting thing is ancient historians, whose job is to investigate the rationality of history, are agreed on it. The apostle Peter is one of the most important eyewitnesses in reporting the facts about Jesus. There is pretty strong evidence that he was the main source of the gospel of Mark. So eyewitness testimony is ...
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John Lennox on the Resurrection (part 1)

Lennox is a professor of mathematics who gets cited a lot by Christians because of his academic credentials. While I assume he is knowledgeable in maths, his apologetics are pretty poor! Here is a page where he discusses evidence for the resurrection (as part of an interview). https://scienceforthechurch.org/2021/03/16/john-lennox-on-the-resurrection/ "You cannot argue against miracles in principle." Lennox spends a lot of time on this, and I accept his point. We cannot just rule out miracles. But that is a long, long way from proving a specific miracle happened. So let us see what he does have: "The existence of the Christian church throughout the world is an indisputable fact. What explanation is adequate to explain the transformation of the early disciples… What could have been powerful enough to set all of this going?" "If we were to ask the early Church, they would answer at once that it was the resurrection of Jesus. Indeed, they maintained that the very ...
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Psalm 22:16 and "Pierce"

Psalm 22 is not Prophecy Christians claim Psalm 22 is a prophecy about Jesus. It starts " My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? "; Jesus' last words on the cross - so the gospels tell us - and goes on to describe the crucifixion. However, an alternative scenario is that when Jesus was crucified, none of the disciples were around to see what happened, so they made it up, based on Psalm 22 (and other sources in the Old Testament). After all, why would Jesus, apart of the trinity, lament being abandoned by said trinity? In this scenario, Psalm 22 is a prayer by King David, worried about the surrounding nations, who were all threatening to overrun his nation. Some verses that Christians are obliged to ignore: Psalm 22:2My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest. Jesus was on the cross just a few hours, not a day and a night.  More likely this is about the nation of Israel, under threat from its neighbours for many days. Psalm 22:6 But I ...
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CS Lewis and The World's Last Night

CS Lewis is popular with Christians, so it is worth looking at what he said. The World's Last Night is an essay he published in 1960. It can be found on-line here . In particular I want to focus on just two paragraphs. Here is the first But there is worse to come. “Say what you like,” we shall be told, “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.” This is a good summary of the problem Lewis is trying to resolve. He goes on:  It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within f...
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WL Craig on why God Torturing Billions is Fine

 To me, the idea of a God who tortures billion of people by casting them into a lake of fire for eternity is horrific. When you couple that to claims the same God is perfectly good and all-loving, you have good grounds for rejecting Christianity as incoherent nonsense. I will note in passing that many Christians reject the idea of hell, but it is well established in the Bible, so in doing so they are rejecting their own holy scripture. This post is about how Christians reconcile God torturing billions with the other claims made about God. More specifically, I am looking at how William L Craig explained it in a debate some years ago. A transcript of the debate is here. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/can-a-loving-god-send-people-to-hell-the-craig-bradley-debate On the one hand, the Bible teaches that God is love, and yet, on the other hand, it warns that those who reject God face everlasting punishment, and it contains frequent warnings about the danger of going to hel...
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Rosalind Picard

Picard is an MIT professor; a scientist who became a Christian. Some quotes from Picard's talk she gave on "Intellectual Assurance Christianity is Sound"... https://web.media.mit.edu/~picard/personal/ccc-talk.php "But the risks I take are insignificant compared to the issue at hand. The issue is twofold: first, what is the truth? And second, what is your response to it? By truth, I mean objective truth. Truth can be known subjectively, but it also exists outside one's subjective experience. Beware of the trendy relativism that pervades much thinking today -- if you (absolutely) believe there's no absolute truth then you need to come to grips with a problem with your thinking first." She is telling us she has objective reasons for thinking Christianity is true. Her reasons are not emotional, not because it gives her a warm, fuzzy feeling, but because there are evidence and reasons that mean we can be sure it is true. That is a high bar she is setting. In ...
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