Christianity is for Dummies
1
If you are reading this and you are a Christian, please know that I'm not ACTUALLY suggesting that Christianity is for dummies. If you are not a Christian and you are reading this, please know that this is in NO WAY sarcastic in any sense and is not a slam against the "non-believer" (as we refer to you in the Christian worldview). This note is very serious and is mostly written to encourage you to think about life, God, the Bible, and the Christian Worldview vs. other worldviews.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many mistakenly believe that Christian belief, because it involves faith, is unsupported by reason and evidence and that becoming a Christian requires checking your intellect at the door and accepting Christian truth claims unquestioningly. But anyone who has truly studied Christian theology and apologetics understands that Christianity rests on a powerful body of evidence and that reason and intellect are its allies, not its enemies.
Before you cavalierly assume that there are unanswerable contradictions or unfathomable paradoxes, before you reject Christian theology out of hand because you witness Christian hypocrisy, before you dismiss the Bible as merely a wonderful piece of literature with some instructive moral stories, do yourself the favor of reading it for yourself. And read what other believing, conservative scholars and theologians have written on the subject.
You will come away enriched beyond your greatest expectations and no longer able to say that Christianity is for dummies -- or ducks the tough questions. Debunking the stereotype of the Christian as a nonthinker and that Christianity discourages intellectual examination, Ravi says, "We are fashioned by God to be thinking and emotional creatures. The emotions should follow reason, and not the other way around."
-- David Limbaugh, Townhall.com Columnist
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's easy for us to become overwhelmed by the great number of "truths" in our world. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Darwinism, Catholicism, and more. The easy solution would be to look at all these and say, "They can't all be right, so they must all be wrong!" Why is that the easy solution? Because it requires a lot less effort and thinking.
Remember when you were in school and you had the multiple choice questions and occasionally you got the "D. None of the above." option? You probably feel like circling that in the test of life, don't you?
I'm going to ask you some questions and I want you to REALLY think about them:
Do you REALLY think that life is a random accident?
Think about your own body, your own emotions, and the world around you... did this all REALLY come from nothing? Even scientists will support the notion that the earth, and life itself for that matter, is not eternal. Science says that the earth does indeed have an "age" though they're not certain how old it actually is. Nobody in the scientific world is saying "The earth has ALWAYS been, there is no beginning." If that were the case, maybe we would have less to be concerned about.
So, we (mankind) had a beginning... almost everyone can agree on that (except the extra stubborn). Do you care? Does that matter? Why should it matter? Does "not caring" make it any less important?
...
Ravi Zacharias argues that a coherent worldview must be able to satisfactorily answer four questions: that of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. He claims that while every major religion makes exclusive claims about truth, the Christian faith is unique in its ability to answer all four of these questions. He routinely speaks on the coherency of the Christian worldview, claiming that Christianity is capable of withstanding the toughest philosophical attacks. Why do I bring him up? Simple, he's a thinker. Ravi Zacharias is no "sheeple". And he's not the only one... there are many Christians out there who have weighed Christianity against the other religions/philosophies of this world and walked away believing in the God of the Bible. That's powerful stuff and not something to be taken lightly.
So what's the point? What am I trying to say?
There is something very powerful about Christianity that has withstood history. I am challenging you ask yourself a very simple yet complex question - Why?
I would also challenge you by suggesting that your strongest resistance to the faith may be it's moral implications. With that said, I would like you to think about a few things that are related to this topic of morality and that happen to be two very popular and accepted things here in the United States:
The Bible says: “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.”
You may have a problem with that because you “like” to get drunk, but let me ask you this: Why do you drink? When you drink, do you feel full of life, or do you feel empty inside? Does the alcohol make your problems go away, or are they just temporarily removed from your mind?
The Bible is against pre-marital sex, and all sex outside of the bond of marriage, between one man and one woman.
You may have a problem with that, but let me ask you this: Why is it that people who have sexual relations with multiple partners and/or same sex partners are much more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease? Why do they only have medications that treat the symptoms of these diseases, but there is no actual "cure" for most of them? Why does “free sex”, as the hippies called it, lead to so many health problems? Do you agree with the Trojan Condom company that we just need to “evolve” and use “protection” and ignore that this type of lifestyle is literally bad for our bodies otherwise? Do you REALLY agree with that? Does that REALLY seem "logical"?
...
Would it really be ALL THAT BAD to give up these things that are really quite harmful (or at least not helpful) anyways?
One last time (in this note) I will quote Ravi:
“A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.”
Let me suggest that there just might be more to the Christian life than you currently understand and/or more than you'd care to try and comprehend. And I'd also suggest that it's something worth examining further.
Just something to think about......
Psalm 14:1 (NKJV)
The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many mistakenly believe that Christian belief, because it involves faith, is unsupported by reason and evidence and that becoming a Christian requires checking your intellect at the door and accepting Christian truth claims unquestioningly. But anyone who has truly studied Christian theology and apologetics understands that Christianity rests on a powerful body of evidence and that reason and intellect are its allies, not its enemies.
Before you cavalierly assume that there are unanswerable contradictions or unfathomable paradoxes, before you reject Christian theology out of hand because you witness Christian hypocrisy, before you dismiss the Bible as merely a wonderful piece of literature with some instructive moral stories, do yourself the favor of reading it for yourself. And read what other believing, conservative scholars and theologians have written on the subject.
You will come away enriched beyond your greatest expectations and no longer able to say that Christianity is for dummies -- or ducks the tough questions. Debunking the stereotype of the Christian as a nonthinker and that Christianity discourages intellectual examination, Ravi says, "We are fashioned by God to be thinking and emotional creatures. The emotions should follow reason, and not the other way around."
-- David Limbaugh, Townhall.com Columnist
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's easy for us to become overwhelmed by the great number of "truths" in our world. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Darwinism, Catholicism, and more. The easy solution would be to look at all these and say, "They can't all be right, so they must all be wrong!" Why is that the easy solution? Because it requires a lot less effort and thinking.
Remember when you were in school and you had the multiple choice questions and occasionally you got the "D. None of the above." option? You probably feel like circling that in the test of life, don't you?
I'm going to ask you some questions and I want you to REALLY think about them:
Do you REALLY think that life is a random accident?
Think about your own body, your own emotions, and the world around you... did this all REALLY come from nothing? Even scientists will support the notion that the earth, and life itself for that matter, is not eternal. Science says that the earth does indeed have an "age" though they're not certain how old it actually is. Nobody in the scientific world is saying "The earth has ALWAYS been, there is no beginning." If that were the case, maybe we would have less to be concerned about.
So, we (mankind) had a beginning... almost everyone can agree on that (except the extra stubborn). Do you care? Does that matter? Why should it matter? Does "not caring" make it any less important?
...
Ravi Zacharias argues that a coherent worldview must be able to satisfactorily answer four questions: that of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. He claims that while every major religion makes exclusive claims about truth, the Christian faith is unique in its ability to answer all four of these questions. He routinely speaks on the coherency of the Christian worldview, claiming that Christianity is capable of withstanding the toughest philosophical attacks. Why do I bring him up? Simple, he's a thinker. Ravi Zacharias is no "sheeple". And he's not the only one... there are many Christians out there who have weighed Christianity against the other religions/philosophies of this world and walked away believing in the God of the Bible. That's powerful stuff and not something to be taken lightly.
So what's the point? What am I trying to say?
There is something very powerful about Christianity that has withstood history. I am challenging you ask yourself a very simple yet complex question - Why?
I would also challenge you by suggesting that your strongest resistance to the faith may be it's moral implications. With that said, I would like you to think about a few things that are related to this topic of morality and that happen to be two very popular and accepted things here in the United States:
The Bible says: “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.”
You may have a problem with that because you “like” to get drunk, but let me ask you this: Why do you drink? When you drink, do you feel full of life, or do you feel empty inside? Does the alcohol make your problems go away, or are they just temporarily removed from your mind?
The Bible is against pre-marital sex, and all sex outside of the bond of marriage, between one man and one woman.
You may have a problem with that, but let me ask you this: Why is it that people who have sexual relations with multiple partners and/or same sex partners are much more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease? Why do they only have medications that treat the symptoms of these diseases, but there is no actual "cure" for most of them? Why does “free sex”, as the hippies called it, lead to so many health problems? Do you agree with the Trojan Condom company that we just need to “evolve” and use “protection” and ignore that this type of lifestyle is literally bad for our bodies otherwise? Do you REALLY agree with that? Does that REALLY seem "logical"?
...
Would it really be ALL THAT BAD to give up these things that are really quite harmful (or at least not helpful) anyways?
One last time (in this note) I will quote Ravi:
“A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.”
Let me suggest that there just might be more to the Christian life than you currently understand and/or more than you'd care to try and comprehend. And I'd also suggest that it's something worth examining further.
Just something to think about......
Psalm 14:1 (NKJV)
The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."
About the author
Donec non enim in turpis pulvinar facilisis. Ut felis. Praesent dapibus, neque id cursus faucibus. Aenean fermentum, eget tincidunt.
LOVED IT...
ReplyDelete