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John Loftus’s Bad Reasons for Not Going To Church, and a Few Good Ones For Going

John Loftus’s Bad Reasons for Not Going To Church, and a Few Good Ones For Going

John Loftus, the affable hat-wearing atheist who loves to poke quasi-informed fun at Christians, posted this on Facebook yesterday: Except for extremely rare circumstance I don’t go to church. For one thing, I don’t need to be reminded to be good. For another, I find a deity who commands people to worship him egocentric, regardless of whether he deserves it or not. For yet another reason, I can get more things done by actually doing something rather than by praying. Then…

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Legal Rights or Not, There’s Something Wrong When Satanists and Atheists Come to Pray at Governmental Meetings

Legal Rights or Not, There’s Something Wrong When Satanists and Atheists Come to Pray at Governmental Meetings

Yesterday Rachel Alexander, a colleague of mine at The Stream, published an article about Satanists and atheists seeking to pray at governmental meetings: It was a pick-your-poison strategy: Either accept the Satanist prayer or strip regular prayers from the meetings altogether, one of [the Satanists’ spokespersons] explained to The New York Daily News. “We got what we were going for,” she said. Two members applied to deliver the opening invocation and were approved by the left-leaning majority of council members…

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Don’t Pray for Patience

Don’t Pray for Patience

There’s a common saying among Christians: “Don’t pray for God to teach you patience–you won’t like what he’ll put you through to learn it!” I don’t think much of that saying. It makes God look like a nasty schoolmaster, for one thing. It’s also the wrong reason. That is, I agree with the advice, “Don’t pray for patience.” I just think there’s a far better reason for it. Lessons from experience I think I have a bit of background from…

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Monday Student Question: Why Pray?

Monday Student Question: Why Pray?

Tony asked a while back, why pray? There was more to his question, of course. Here’s the meat of it. He sees and knows all, including what is in our hearts. Given this fact that “you can’t fool God”, I wonder why Christians find it necessary to pray in the first place. Does not God already know what you are praying for, as well as your earnest sincerity concerning the matter? If that is true, has he not already decided…

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If You’ve Ever Experienced Pain…

If You’ve Ever Experienced Pain…

Of course you’ve experienced pain. We all have. Today a good friend of mine, Yvonne Ortega, tells Dr. James Dobson her story of trusting the Lord and seeking God’s glory as she journeyed through cancer, and (later on) the death of four close family members in one year. You’ll hear her genuineness as she speaks. I can vouch that she’s for real. She’s been a real encouragement to me as a writer. Please listen. (There’s more to come tomorrow.) Also,…

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Stenger Should Stick To Physics

Stenger Should Stick To Physics

Victor Stenger, atheist physicist, emeritus professor at the University of Hawaii, writes in New Scientist of why scientists ought to stick to their own competencies. Well, no, he doesn’t say that in so many words, in fact he tries to say the opposite, that science can judge against the existence of God. He tries, but he fails so miserably, the real lesson is what I have just said: stick to what you know, please, so you don’t embarrass yourself. The…

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Is It Rational to Believe in Spiritual Battle? (Part 2)

Is It Rational to Believe in Spiritual Battle? (Part 2)

Polls consistently show that most Americans believe in the existence of a devil. (Though I haven’t checked, I expect that number would be lower in other Western countries.) Belief in a devil is less frequent than belief in a God, and less respectable in many quarters. It’s controversial when a politician attributes some good event to God; how much more if he or she blamed Satan for something bad! There are some very good reasons for this, but there is…

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