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"Philosophical" Article Items

Philosophical considerations concerning Christianity. There are arguments for Christianity which have developed over centuries that are often misrepresented or not understood correctly.

Near Death Experience
The intensive care unit is where the sickest people in the hospital are treated.

Posted on May 16, 2021 by

Categories: Philosophical

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Near-Death Experiences Modern medical science has witnessed nearly miraculous advances over the past several decades.  One of the greatest advances has been in Critical Care Medicine – the ability to take care of the sickest people.  These are the ones who might be on life support with artificial ventilators, pacemakers, aortic balloon pumps, and artificial hearts. Many people now survive illnesses that would have taken their lives only a few short decades ago – the amount of time I have been in clinical medicine.  One of the results of these wonderful advances is that some people who were clinically dead… Read More »

Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a very influential French author who converted to Christianity at the end of his life.

Posted on May 13, 2021 by

Categories: Philosophical

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Albert Camus and Religious Belief Albert Camus was a French philosopher who was prominent during the 1950s.  He won the Nobel Price in Literature at the age of 44 in 1957 as one of the youngest ever to achieve this milestone.  Many f these works were required reading in college philosophy courses including The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel. The Stranger was considered by the French newspaper Le Monde as one of the 100 Books of the Century, ranking as number one.  There is a reason why this prestigious paper listed a work from… Read More »

Theism and the Meaning of Life
The Holocaust is in the Bible codes, along with names of many Germans involved in the mass slaughter of Jews.

Posted on May 9, 2021 by

Categories: Philosophical

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The Meaning of Life Determining the meaning of life is the most important challenge for every person alive.  Everybody has a deep sense that their life must have some purpose, meaning, and belonging.  The early Greek philosophers felt people were “telic” creatures.  The word “telic” derives from the Greek word “telos” or purpose.  Everybody has a person in life, no matter whether they are poor or rich, famous or forgotten; everybody has a reason for their existence. Everybody wants to live for something; we all have a yearning for meaningfulness.  People know that when they reach the end of their… Read More »

God and Evil
God Creating the World

Posted on April 22, 2021 by

Categories: Philosophical

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God and Evil Why does God allow such evil to exist in the world?  Since God is all-powerful, why has he designed a world where there is so much pain and suffering? This is a question that has been addressed for centuries by some of the greatest Christian philosophers in an area of Christian apologetics called theodicy.  There are some very clear reasons why God might allow the amount of evil we now experience and we shall examine some of them here. There are two principles that God has put into the world we live in that mandate some degree… Read More »

Age of the Old Testament
Shrine of the Book houses the ancient Isaiah Scroll written about 200 BC including Isaiah 53 which gives a description in great detail about Jesus Christ - the coming Messiah.

Posted on April 16, 2021 by

Categories: Historical Evidence, Philosophical, Textual

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Dating the Age of the Old Testament The age of the Old Testament has been debated for the past two hundred years – it is a very controversial and very important topic.  Traditionalists say the Old Testament was written many hundreds of years before Christ by the authors attributed to each book.  For example, the Torah (first five books in the Bible) was written by Moses, the Psalms mostly written by David, Proverbs written by Solomon, and the major and minor prophetic books written by their respective prophet. Recent handwriting analysis published in peer-reviewed journals lends credence to the traditional… Read More »

Finding the Truth
To know whether something represents truth, it needs to be read and studied.

Posted on April 9, 2021 by

Categories: Philosophical

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Finding the truth is one of the most important tasks people must perform during their lifetime. Frequently, this quest is accomplished early in life, with the rest of life-based upon that discovery.  These are the fortunate few who have seriously investigated the evidence and arrived at a conclusion upon which they can base their actions. Finding the truth implies there are falsehoods.  Believing in falsehoods will more likely get the believer into trouble than finding the truth.  Falsehoods often lead off into tangents, years spent climbing the ladder of success (however it might be defined) only to find at the… Read More »

Willful Blindness
RNA and DNA are very similar in structure although they perform different functions in the cell.

Posted on February 23, 2021 by

Categories: Intelligent Design, Philosophical

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Willful Blindness Preconceived notions can prevent otherwise intelligent and discerning people from observing the obvious. The editor of an obscure journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington decided to publish a paper making the case for intelligent design.  Intelligent design is a controversial theory that suggests that life is too complex to have been self-assembled by accident.  Instead – as with all extremely complex machines that perform a function – it was put together by an intelligent designer. The Smithsonian Institute helps to fund and run this journal, and within hours voiced its intense displeasure that any favor would… Read More »

Prayer in Public Schools
Prayer in public schools is a hot topic outlawed by Supreme Court.

Posted on August 14, 2020 by

Categories: Philosophical

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Teacher-led prayer in public schools has been forbidden by the Supreme Court for many decades.  Many Christians feel that the exclusion of God from public schools along with the promotion of secular ideologies has contributed to the failure of graduates to do better in life.  Certainly, this is a difficult topic in multicultural American schools and uneasy accommodation has been determined through multiple legal challenges in federal courts. To be clear, students and teachers still have the right to “voluntarily pray” in public schools, while “mandatory” teacher-led school-sponsored prayer is very limited.  Any mention of God by teachers or administration… Read More »

The Book of Job
Bad things happen to good people even in God's good world. The Book of Job is wisdom literature that tries to answer why that is so.

Posted on August 9, 2020 by

Categories: Philosophical

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The Book of Job is considered the oldest book in the Bible and helps answer one of the biggest questions confronting modern-day Christians. Modern society tends of think of a cause and effect principle; that is, if you get an infection, you can be treated with antibiotics; if you jump off a cliff, you will likely die; if you do something wrong you will likely be punished.  This cause and effect principle is ingrained in a modern society wishing the world to be orderly, predictable, and government by science. But the world is not that way!  Sometimes good people suffer… Read More »

The French Revolution
The Bastille was a French prison housing political prisoners. These prisoners were released from Bastille by a rioting population starting the French Revolution.

Posted on July 29, 2020 by

Categories: Historical Evidence, Philosophical

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The French Revolution provides an important illustration of a revolution gone wrong.  Its temporal association with the American Revolution invites a comparison between the two.  Both were in civilized countries with advanced concepts of social justice founded in concepts of equality and the rights of the common man. By any objective measure, the French Revolution went terribly wrong.  It led to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent French citizens even though it started attempting to provide a more just society.  The carnage wrought by the Revolution did not stop in France but spread throughout Europe when Napoleon became… Read More »

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