A verse from today’s Gospel, Luke 17:6, “So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

A mustard seed is symbolic of the type of faith we need because although it begins very small it is also very tenacious and can grow in very difficult circumstances. Blessed Augustine writes, “A mustard seed looks small. Nothing is less noteworthy to the sight, but nothing is stronger to the taste. What does that signify but the very great fervor and… Continue reading →

Read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay on self-reliance and this quote from Zoroaster jumped out at me. A variation of the “God helps those who help themselves” theme: “To the persevering mortal, the blessed Immortals are swift.”

Which in turn reminded me of a Hindu story Joseph Campbell told in Myths to Live By,

“There is a fable told in India of the god Vishnu, supporter of the universe, who one day abruptly summoned Garuda, his air-vehicle, the golden-feathered sunbird; and when his wife, the goddess Lakshmi, asked why, he replied that he had just noticed that one of his worshipers was in trouble. However, hardly… Continue reading →

 “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16, RSV)

“Without a doubt, great is the mystery of godliness: God was revealed in the flesh, vindicated in [the] spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, and received up in glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16, Eastern Orthodox Bible)

This verse comes up quite often in discussions with King James Only advocates as a… Continue reading →

For those Christians posting articles and videos about “what the Bible really says” about homosexuality and saying traditional Christians are misled by “poor translations”:

How is it that for three thousand years these interpretations were never taught by the Jews or the Greek Church fathers for whom the Biblical languages were their native tongues and for whom the Biblical cultures were their native cultures only to be discovered by progressive professors in the modern post-Enlightenment, post-Christian West during the sexual revolution of the 1960s?

Do you honestly believe that for three thousand years, no rabbi, no Jewish theological school, no saint, no Fathers, no Doctors… Continue reading →

I came across this objection to the type of God atheists think God is from their reading of the Bible recently: “I think trying to define Yahweh as good is like trying to define Aphrodite as Maximally Beautiful and then discovering that all the descriptions are of a woman who is universally unattractive.”

This reminded me of something Richard Dawkins is famous for writing in The God Delusion, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal,… Continue reading →

Skeptic’s Objection: “Why would God allow two bears to kill 42 children simply for saying Elisha was bald? You mean if a bunch of kids make fun of my bald head, I get to take them to the zoo and throw them in the bear cage to be ripped apart? ”

I agree that this is an unusual story and at first blush it seems morally objectionable. However, I find most such stories from the Bible make more sense when read in their cultural, literary, and linguistic context.  Indeed, this is something we must do if we are serious about understanding something that was… Continue reading →

Lately it seems that I have been running into the argument that the universe is just too darned big for God to have created it or for us to consider ourselves special in the grand scheme of things. Many atheists feel as if our relative size compared to the universe makes the idea that it was created with us in mind as being ludicrously anthropocentric.

I would argue that the discoveries of the last few centuries can be looked at through a variety of philosophical metrics. Certainly, size-wise we are more insignificant but in terms of life we are incredibly unique. Cosmologically we may be… Continue reading →

I received quite the broadside from a Biblical fundamentalist this morning. He had asked whether I thought the Bible had copied from pagan myths regarding the Flood and Creation. Then he was obviously displeased with my answer that I did not believe the early chapters of Genesis were directly copied from Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths but they certainly shared certain common elements based on a common Ancient Near Eastern culture. His reply was scathing and typical:

“Do you really believe that the God of the bible lies to men, tells them fairytales as if they were fact, when they actually aren´t, borrows myths from pagans… Continue reading →

Debating the Resurrection of Christ with an intelligent friend who equates the first-century eyewitness testimony of the Risen Jesus with Elvis sightings today. My response:

I am reminded of the tragedy which befell a travelling circus when its Human Cannonball was killed while practicing his act of being shot out of a cannon. When interviewed, the circus manager tearfully said, “We will never find a man of his caliber again.”

In order for sightings of Elvis to be of the same caliber as the Risen Jesus eyewitnesses you would need to produce:

1. A dozen of Elvis’ closest confidantes would have to experience seeing… Continue reading →

I was recently discussing whether the universe was created by God or Nature with an atheist friend and he seemed surprised when I said I believed that God was a simpler explanation for the existence of the universe than Nature itself. He then said that even if I could prove the existence of God there would be no reason to suppose He was personal. Here is the question as I was asked:

“Why would it have personality, something only observed in highly complex evolved biological creatures?” To which I replied…

The Uncaused Cause, simply because it is the origin of time, space, energy and matter… Continue reading →

In response to the assertion that since all religions contradict one another, all are necessarily false and solely the result of natural evolutionary processes such as our need to deal with fear of the unknown and the human tendency to seek patterns and meaning in everything, I wrote this to an atheist friend…….

In your comments you have mentioned fear of the unknown and our human tendency of categorizing/ recognizing patterns to explain why religion exists. I have agreed and added love and wonder and conscience to that. We are both in perfect agreement that these are reasons the vast majority of humans are religious… Continue reading →

Debating whether there is design in nature with a non-theist who says we only think so because of faith and that the natural assumption is that there is no design ergo no Designer. My reply:

“I believe that design is apparent in the beauty, complexity, and functionality of nature. I also believe that there is a good deal of randomness and even sub-optimal design worked into the system as well.

This is because God’s normal mode of activity in a cosmological context is providential rather than interventionist. By providential I mean He normally operates through the ordained and sustained natural processes by which He chose… Continue reading →

I was pressed recently to give as succinct an explanation as I could of the accommodationist view of Scripture and whether I thought certain passages had been written as literally true or not. Our discussion centered around the opening chapters of Genesis and some passages in Joshua. The conversation came to a head when my friend quoted the account of Joshua’s long day in chapter 10 of that book:

“So the sun stood still, And the moon stopped, Till the people had revenge Upon their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven,… Continue reading →