Author Archives: Tom Gilson

“Science Says The Universe Has No Purpose” — Lawrence Krauss

Lawrence Krauss’s book A Universe From Nothing was panned about as effectively as any publication I’ve seen, when David Albert published his review in the NY Times Sunday Book Review. That was on March 22. A Google search on “Krauss nothing” returns dozens of other negative reviews. Just to show that even great criticism has …

May 7, 2012 – 1:14 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in New Atheism, Origins and Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (208)

Why Did They Invite Dan Savage To Speak?

Why was Dan Savage invited to speak to high school journalists? We know he was offensive. We know he bombed. What I’ve been looking for on the web, and haven’t found, is why he was invited in the first place. A statement from the organizers tells us, At one of the plenary keynote sessions of …

May 5, 2012 – 11:34 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Deep Social Change, Life and Choices | Tagged , , , | Comments (96)

Further on Dan Savage and SSM “Tolerance”

With respect to this ignorant outburst, James Agresti writes, First and most succinctly, Savage’s historical revisionism is at odds with primary sources that enlighten the events of the past, such as these words penned by former slave Booker T. Washington in his celebrated book, Up From Slavery: If no other consideration had convinced me of …

May 2, 2012 – 7:33 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Deep Social Change, Life and Choices, Religious Freedom | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (47)

What “Not Bullying” Looks Like?

Dan Savage, founder of the “It Gets Better” anti-bullying and self-respect campaign, was speaking to a conference of high school journalists recently. This has been circulating a couple weeks already, but I want to comment on it anyway. Prepare for outrage. We can learn to ignore the b***s*** in the Bible about gay people… we …

April 30, 2012 – 9:18 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Life and Choices | Tagged , , , , | Comments (22)

SSM, Reason, and the Religious Divide: More Non-Religious Reasons to Oppose SSM

This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series SSM, Reason, and Religion

I am continuing my extended answer to the charge, “there are no non-religious reasons to oppose same-sex marriage.” The following comes from a two-part tour de force by Anthony Esolen in Touchstone Magazine in 2010. I wish I could direct all of you to the original articles, but they are available only to subscribers. It’s …

April 29, 2012 – 11:45 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Life and Choices | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (55)

Ten Turning Points: The Certain Return of Christ

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a matter of knowledge. The return of Christ is a matter of faith. The difference is in how we take each of them to be true. The resurrection is attested to by multiple evidences, which Christians (who have studied it) generally consider be sufficient to allow us to say, …

April 28, 2012 – 4:18 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Bible, Knowing God, The Faith, Worldviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (7)

AnswerCast: Praying by Email, and an Avatar Jesus?

I received these two questions by email a while ago: A) How would writing prayers to God via email change praying compared to silent or audible prayers? B) Suppose for Jesus ministry he remained in heaven but controlled a human body via an avatar. How would this change the gospel? Continuing the series I started a while …

April 28, 2012 – 6:00 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in The Faith | Comments (0)

SSM, Reason, and the Religious Divide: Non-Religious Reasons to Oppose SSM

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series SSM, Reason, and Religion

Same-sex “marriage” (SSM) proponents like to posture their opposition as motivated only by religion. They have good strategic reasons to do that. If the reasons to oppose to SSM are purely religious, then as the First Amendment is currently being interpreted, lawmakers and judges ought not take them into account. Undoubtedly there is a deep …

April 27, 2012 – 1:29 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Life and Choices | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (7)

Ten Turning Points: Discord In Heaven? You Bet!

One of the great puzzles about our future state in heaven is, won’t we be bored? I know there will be lots and lots of joy and love and worship. I’m not worried about heaven being bland and stale; surely God loves us more than to let that happen! It’s just that I can’t imagine …

April 25, 2012 – 9:04 am | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Arts and Culture, The Faith, Thinking Christianly | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (16)

More New Blogs (Christian Blogs in 2011)

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series New Blogs in 2011

At the end of last year (that was a long time ago!) I put out a call for information on new blogs in 2011. I’m on the verge of not keeping my word to feature some of them (though I’ve at least mentioned them). It has been a very busy year so far, and I …

April 24, 2012 – 12:56 pm | By Tom Gilson | Posted in Bible, Evidences, Thinking Christianly, Worth Reading | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (3)