Runaway Planet

What Now?

It seems like the Onion may be cutting a little close to home with this hilarious video. Trying to find meaning in life through politics can have dangerous side effects:

Why We Love Fantasy Stories

Richard Dawkins has taken a leave from his post at Oxford to study the effects of fantasy stories on children. It seems he is worried that they might be leading our children toward accepting irrational religious claims. Janie B. Cheaney has a good take on this, and Brandon and I discuss it at length on a recent radio show.

Being an Atheist in Spite of the Evidence

British journalist Matthew Parris recently visited his native Malawi to witness some charitable work happening there. His trip produced some interesting results:

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

That belief is that Africa desperately needs God. As he expounds in his essay, Parris is convinced that Christianity produces real spiritual change in people and that this change is essential to African progress. We talked about this story at more length on a recent radio show, but for now I just wanted to point out Parris' self-professed approach to his world view. He is an atheist in spite of the evidence against it. His world view cannot account for the data, but he holds to it anyway. If this is not the blind, irrational "faith" that religious folks are often accused of harboring, I'm not sure what is.

Hitchens Needs to Brush up on His Theology

Christopher Hitchens seems to think that if you believe some people are going to hell you are a bigot, as it shows that you think the unsaved are worth less than the saved. This shows an extreme lack of theological understanding on Hitchens' part. According to Christian theology, all people are worth the same, no matter what their race, sex, lot in life or eternal destination. The salvation of an individual is decidedly not a matter of their intrinsic worth, it is a matter of God's grace and their choice. God extends grace to all and all get to decide what they want to do with it. The one who ends up in hell is as valuable in God's eyes as one who ends up in Heaven - the difference between them is their choices.

Penn Understands Evangelism