By Steven Barto, B.S. Psy., M.T.S. MANY FACTORS TODAY IMPACT how we feel about ourselves and life. We wonder why bad things happen to good people. We question the existence of an all-powerful, benevolent God in the face of seemingly insurmountable evil and social unrest. America is embroiled in doubt and fear, depression and anxiety, …
Did God Use the Big Bang to Create the Universe?
Most science textbooks on cosmology credit Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson with the discovery that the universe began with a hot big bang creation event. While Penzias and Wilson were the first (1965) to detect the radiation left over from the creation event, they were not the first scientists to recognize that the universe is …
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The Angry Atheists
When Jerry Falwell died on May 15, 2007, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper asked the caustic atheist Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) for his reaction. Cooper said, "I'm not sure if you believe in heaven, but, if you do, do you think Jerry Falwell is in it?" Hitchens held nothing back. He took a deep breath, smirked, and …
God, Science or Both?
WHEN YOU PONDER THE vastness of the universe, the wonder of the natural world, or the mysteries of the human mind, what do you think? Some of us see nothing but a material world, machinations of which we believe are best explained by the logical reasoning of science. One of the world's most famous and …
Following Christ in an Anti-Christian Age
Unfortunately, contemporary American culture is increasingly anti-Christian. How should Christians respond to a rapidly changing American culture? Do we resign ourselves to pessimism, convinced that many of the moral foundations upon which our society once stood have collapsed and are now irrevocable? Or do we reassure ourselves with optimism, confident that we can still win …
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Challenges From Atheism
Atheism remains an important challenge to faith throughout the Western world, especially in the United States. Many of its critics believe that the movement has lost its way and that its intellectual credentials and cultural appeal have dwindled in recent years. I completely disagree. Atheism is, of course, a "godless" worldview under which nearly every …
Are Science and Christianity at Odds?
This question has been the fuel for countless discussions, arguments, and debates for centuries. I spend several hours a week viewing YouTube documentaries on apologetics, postmodernism, Israeli-Palestinian relations, Islam, creationism, evolution, and atheism. Having undertaken a systematic study of worldviews, I'm reminded that nearly no one simply creates his or her own worldview. We inherit …
Is Faith Irrational?
The truth about God is too important not to be seriously investigated and honestly and fairly discussed. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long for friendly conversations about religion to escalate into shouting matches—and this helps no one. Belief and unbelief are two sides to the same coin. The debate over faith and spirituality is here to …
A Light in Darkness: A Christian Response to Moral Relativism
AMERICA IS IN A DARK season. The news is chock full of stories about murders, mass shootings, racial unrest, sexual immorality, genocide, terrorist threats, rampant drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide. This is the backdrop against which biblical principles are being challenged and pushed aside in a modern culture of pluralism and so-called open-mindedness. Atheists …
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Atheism: The End of Reason
There's a new atheism taking root in America, a movement more powerful and subversive than the atheism of Madalyn Murray O'Hare in the 1950s and 1960s. This militant atheism is led by individuals such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. Harris' bestselling Letter to a Christian Nation absolutely and unflinchingly attacks all religions—but …