Free Republic

Refining the Origin of Life ArgumentBy Philip Cottraux One of the most popular arguments for the existence of God involves the complexities of life itself, implying something so intricate could never be the product of natural causes. A supernatural intelligence would be required to form together even the basic living cell, with its membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus, and billions of lines of coding. Requiring over ten thousand chemical reactions each second just to stay alive, the cell is truly a remarkable feat of engineering. And to be fair, to date scientists really don’t know how it originated, though there are plenty...

The Darkness and Light are both Alike to Thee By Philip Cottraux Psalm 139:1: O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. You can’t hide anything from God. This can be both terrifying and comforting. For the last blog, I examined the 34th Psalm, which David wrote while on the run for his life from Saul. He and his men lived as fugitives in the wilderness every day for ten years. Think of how many nights he cried out to God for it to end, to no response. Yet he still had the faith to say they that seek...

Many are the Afflictions of the Righteous By Philip Cottraux After being anointed king, David would spend the next ten years on the run from Saul. He and his band of loyal soldiers lived in the wilderness like fugitives, sleeping in caves, never knowing where their next meal was coming from, and on constant watch for Saul’s pursuing army. In a previous blog I wrote about David arriving at the tabernacle hungry and asking the high priest, Ahimelech, for food. A table with bread was located in front of the veil that concealed the holiest of holies. But this show...

Atheism’s Burden of Proof Problem By Philip Cottraux An effort to redefine what “atheism” actually means started a few decades ago but is popping up everywhere in the online community. I’ve seen plenty of debates never get anywhere because people get sucked into a vortex of trying to establish what an atheist actually is. While the traditional definition of atheism is the belief that God doesn’t exist, the new subversion is that it’s a “lack of belief” in God. The amount of energy devoted to this controversy is both fascinating and instructive. The first time I encountered the vehement denial...

Getting the Spiritual Gifts Back By Philip Cottraux Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against which there is no law. Every Christian should produce these nine spiritual fruits in their lives, making us the most effective witnesses we can be. But there’s a distinct difference between these and the spiritual gifts, which not everyone will have, as they are divided up among the body of Christ. But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will (1 Corinthians 12:11). During...

Sin Lieth at the Door By Philip Cottraux Eden was paradise on Earth, a place where the Lord came down to personally walk and talk with man. How much closer to God can you be this side of heaven? Yet because of sin, only one generation later, Adam and Eve’s children were killing one another. What a fall from grace! You could be a great witness for God your whole life, preaching the gospel, laying hands on the sick, and seeing miracles and healings. It could take decades of fasting and praying to reach such a high spiritual level. But...

Manifold Grace By Philip Cottraux Webster’s dictionary defines manifold as “marked by diversity or variety: many: comprehending or uniting various features.” In 65 AD, the Great Fire of Rome destroyed much of the city. Many blamed Nero in the aftermath, but the truth is that it was more than likely an accident waiting to happen. The city had been a tinderbox; years of poor construction, overcrowding, and garbage-filled streets made for a ticking time bomb. Nevertheless, the emperor needed someone to blame fast. Christianity, a new, fast-growing religion that people viewed suspiciously due to its refusal to bow to the...

No, Dinosaurs Aren’t in the Bible: Part 3 How Young Earth Creationists Get Dinosaurs Wrong By Philip Cottraux For part 3 of this series, I want to critique Young Earth Creationism from a viewpoint that doesn’t get much attention; its scientifically incorrect portrayal of dinosaurs and the clumsy way it tries to factor them into the creation account. Let me disclaim once again; this has nothing to do with the age of the earth and although I’m personally an Old Earth Creationist, I’m not at all trying to prove that the planet is older than 6,000 years. One of the...

No, Dinosaurs Aren’t in the Bible: Part 2 Leviathan By Philip Cottraux Last week I wrote about how the infamous passage in Job 40 about the Behemoth is often misconstrued as a dinosaur. In the very next chapter, God describes a monstrous fire-breathing sea dragon, the Leviathan, which Young Earth Creationists speculate was a real-life marine reptile, even citing this passage as evidence that dragons from ancient lore must have been based on an actual animal. I pointed out that dual references of a cow-like fertility deity and a fire-breathing dragon of chaos often appear in ancient literature in conjunction,...

By Philip Cottraux It’s been a long time since I’ve weighed in on the creation controversy, mostly because I hate how divisive it is. But I want to start a series critiquing Young Earth Creationism on a particular aspect that doesn’t get a lot of attention: the clumsy and unscientific way it tries to factor dinosaurs into the creation account. Smart aleck atheists sometimes demand explanations why the Bible doesn’t mention dinosaurs, implying Genesis is an ancient fairy-tale that gets Earth’s origins wrong. This isn’t a problem for old-earth interpretations, but the Young Earth Creationist claims that adding up the...

Lessons from the Woman at the Well By Philip Cottraux By the time Israelites arrived at the Promised Land, Joseph’s descendants had grown to two large tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim would be the largest Israelite tribe in the North. When the kingdoms split, its largest city, Samaria, became the capital while Jerusalem remained capital of Judah. Sometimes in the Old Testament, “Ephraim” is used to describe Israel as a whole. But the Assyrian invasion in 722 BC would bring Israel’s magnificence to a catastrophic end. The northern territories toppled like dominos. II Kings 17:6: In the ninth year of...

Zacharias By Philip Cottraux God hadn’t spoken to the Jews in 400 years. Malachi was the last prophet before the long gap between Old and New Testaments. But there’s a final word that bridges the two together: Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: (Malachi 3:1). Now to be clear, God did move for His people before Christ came. He intervened during the Maccabbean revolt, then miraculously supplied enough oil to consecrate the temple. But as far as actually prophecy, He still remained silent. And now over a century had passed since Judah...

Why People Troll By Philip Cottraux Imagine someone whose life never took off the way they wanted. For whatever reason, they are now stuck in a miserable situation; a dream career never came to be and they still live in mom’s basement. Their life is parasitic and they know it. The only thing that brings them any relief is tearing down others. Those who don’t create can only try to destroy. It’s a sad fact that goes all the way back to Cain and Abel. Abusive childhoods are breeding grounds for adult addictions. Traumatic events that occur while the brain...

Why Democrats are Ramping Up Abortion Efforts By Philip Cottraux In the ancient city of Karnak is the Ashkelon Wall, an Egyptian record of the military victories of Ramses II. The wall is divided into sections but the largest primarily focuses on a treaty with the Hittite empire. On either side are epic depictions of Ramses’ armies victorious in battle; the siege of Ashkelon is most intriguing. As the Egyptians surrounded the city, its citizens committed the ultimate act of desperation, throwing their own children over the defensive wall in a massive act of child-sacrifice. This misguided practice seems to...

The Truth About Galileo By Philip Cottraux Galileo. His name invokes the image of a brave scientist standing up against religious authority. The story goes that he discovered the earth is revolving around the sun, proving we are not the center of the universe. The Catholic church, threatened by this, had him arrested and burned at the stake until he recanted his findings. Galileo is remembered as some sort of atheist folk hero, suffering the consequences for his heroic stance against superstition. This is the version most people learn in school. I remember it from high school world history class....

Is Jesus God? By Philip Cottraux In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not (John 1:1,10). It’s one thing to believe Jesus is the Messiah. Or the Son of God. But God? While firmly settled by Christians long ago, many still grapple with it. Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses are fine with labeling Jesus a prophet, but consider equating Him with the Almighty blasphemy, pointing out that nowhere in the four gospels did He demand...

Jesus Walking on Water and the Problem of Suffering By Philip Cottraux Job lost everything. His livestock was destroyed, his children all died, and he was smitten with painful boils from head to toe. His friends rebuked him and his wife urged him to curse God and die. Job cried out not so much for an end to his suffering, but an explanation. In the last four chapters, God finally appears in a whirlwind, first chastising his friends, then turning to him with an intriguing answer: Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee,...

A God of War By Philip Cottraux When the Israelites were thirsty in the wilderness, Moses was to speak to a rock to draw out water. But he struck it in a fit of anger. As punishment, he was forbidden to enter the Promised Land. Deuteronomy 32:51-52: Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh…yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel. He’d led the Israelites through the wilderness for the last 40 years. Now the time...

The Kalam Cosmological Argument By Philip Cottraux The Big Bang has been greatly mischaracterized as an atheist explanation for how the universe begin. Unfortunately, in most people’s minds, the phrase is synonymous with natural scientific explanations for the origin of the cosmos, disputing the creation account of the Bible. This is based on both a lack of understanding of the theory’s true history as well as years of secularist indoctrination, especially in public schools. The more I research history, the more I find instances where atheists have either lied about it or seized credit for something they were originally opposed...

Can the Word of God Contain Errors? By Philip Cottraux When I read Lee Strobel’s The Case for the Real Jesus, one quote in particular stood out to me. This was during his interview with Daniel Wallace, a professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary: STROBEL: “It was almost as if (Bart) Ehrman were saying ‘Find me one error and I’ll throw out the whole Bible.’ That’s something you hear at some ultraconservative Christian schools.” WALLACE: “Good grief, that’s such a shockingly naïve approach to take! You’ve basically turned the Bible into the fourth person of the Trinity,...