The Hunger Games: Wall or Bridge?

May 15, 2012 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

May 10,2012 marked our kickoff meeting, and it went great!

Following is video from our second section which was a panel discussion about The Hunger Games and other dystopian tales that are popular in young adult literature today. Like it or not, this story is part of the conversation happening in culture today. What are we to do with that? Our panel discusses the good and the bad of the genre, and explores ways in which both may be used to illustrate the truth of Christianity.

(After watching, feel free to weigh in with your thoughts!)

 

 

Download PDF from the meeting.

 

Topical Resources:

  1. Written Reviews
    1. Deeper Hungers and Darker Games by Anthony Weber
    2. The Hunger Games: A Film Review and Reflections by Holly Ordway
    3. The Hunger Games Movie: A Christian Perspective by J.W. Wartick
    4. The Hunger Games: Tribute to Life by Marcia Montenegro
    5. The Hunger Games Revisited by Luke Nix
    6. The Hunger Games, by Christianity Today
  2. Video Review
    1. Identity & Substitution in THE HUNGER GAMES by James Harleman
  3. Other
    1. More depth on the concept of a metanarrative:
      Cutting to the Core: Finding the Metanarrative by James Harleman

Jesus’ Resurrection: Ridiculous or Reasonable?

May 14, 2012 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

May 10,2012 marked our kickoff meeting, and it went great!

Below is video from our first section on presenting a positive case for the hypothesis that God resurrected Jesus from the dead. We also discussed how historical claims are evaluated and examined some alternate theories.

 

 

Download PDF from the meeting.

 

Topical Resources:

 

  1. Books
    1. The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel
    2. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, by Gary Habermas
    3. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach , by Michael Licona
  2. Articles
    1. “Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ”, by William Lane Craig
      http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html
    2. “Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?”, by Edwin M. Yamauchi
      http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html
    3. Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins, by N.T. Wright
      http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jesus_Resurrection.htm
  3. Websites
    1. Gary Habermas:  http://www.garyhabermas.com/
    2. Reasonable Faith:  http://www.reasonablefaith.org/
  4. Debates
    1. Did Jesus Rise From The Dead? – Bart Ehrman Vs William Lane Craig
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhT4IENSwac
  5. Other
    1. LOTS more resources of all kinds here:
      http://www.apologetics315.com/search/label/resurrection

 

“A Brief History of Thought”

May 10, 2012 in Literary Apologetics with 2 Comments

 

Luc Ferry’s a Brief History of Thought recently caught my eye as I wandered through a local bookstore.  Not only did it promise an entire history of the human ability to think, it promised to do it briefly.  How is that not a win/win?  It’s a bold endeavor, claiming to give perspective on the effectiveness and impact of 5 key philosophical eras in human history, beginning with the Greeks.  The strength of the book is Mr. Ferry’s ability to summarize complicated worldviews in a way that is accessible and interesting.  The weakness is perhaps inseparable, as a philosophical overview for a mass audience is a tough venue to accurately capture philosophies that have transformed the world.

I will do my best to summarize both his claims and my reasons why I think that, while insightful, Mr. Ferry’s conclusions fall short of being convincing, particularly when it comes to his view of Christianity.

Lest there be any confusion about what weight philosophy carries in certain circles, Mr. Ferry opens his book with boldness:

“The quest for salvation without God is at the heart of every great philosophical system…Philosophy also claims to save us – if not from death itself, then from the anxiety it causes, and to do so by the exercise of our own resources an our innate faculty of reason.”

 In spite of both aspiring to the same end – salvation – Mr. Ferry firmly believes that faith and reason are incompatible means in their efforts to achieve this goal.

Philosophy starts with the natural sciences – physics, mathematics, biology – then searches for causes and limits. Once philosophers reach the limits of science, they presses on with logic and reason. The conclusions must be anchored in reality, not dependent on wishful thinking about what one hopes to be true or the untestable truths that the Other (God) offers. Religion, says Mr. Ferry, is “too good to be true,” and offers comfort but not lucidity, serenity but not clarity.

From this starting point, Mr. Ferry begins a tour of five pivotal movements in the history of philosophy. Continue Reading…

Kickoff meeting this Thursday!

May 8, 2012 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Help us out by downloading a copy of the poster for this Thursday’s meeting and post it on the wall at your church, school, business, organization…

Tell your friends you’re coming by clicking JOIN at the Facebook event.

Animal Rights and Wrongs

May 4, 2012 in Uncategorized with 5 Comments

 “What is man,” asked the Psalmist, “that Thou [God] are mindful of him?” An excellent question, and one which has aroused considerable controversy within the context of the arguments surrounding animal rights.

What, if anything, separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom, and what are the implications of one’s belief in this area? While these are certainly not new questions, they have become increasingly contentious in a world in which the line separating the human animal from the rest of the animal kingdom has become increasingly elusive.

 Stephen Jay Gould once stated that “biology has shifted our status from a simulacrum of God to a naked, upright ape.” If that is the case, then the movement to elevate the status of non-human animals seems long overdue.  At any rate, the animal rights movement has been remarkably successful in recent years. Switzerland passed a law in 1992 recognizing animals as beings; in 2002, Germany added “and animals” to its constitution, which already obligated the state to protect and respect the dignity of people.  The Great Apes Project, founded by Peter Singer, the father of the modern animal rights movement, is lobbying the United Nations to include a wide range of simians in the “community of equals” with humans, thus extending the right to life, the protection of individual liberty, and the prohibition of torture.

The surge in animal rights is not limited to other countries.  Beginning in 1999, Harvard began offering its first course in animal rights.  During a recent election, the state of Florida made it a constitutional right for gestating sows to have space large enough to turnaround.  And Princeton is home to Peter Singer, a bioethics professor, who believes that “it can no longer be maintained by anyone but a religious fanatic that man is the special darling of the universe, or that animals were created to provide us with food, or that we have divine authority over them, and divine permission to kill them.”

While the animals rights movement is diverse in both its stance and its level of activism, there is plenty of common ground to be found in the defense of animals, both philosophically and pragmatically.  The philosophical core of the argument usually takes one of two approaches:  The Argument from Equality, or the Argument from Pain. Continue Reading…

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