There's something wrong with the world, therefore God does / doesn't exist?

Everyone can see it, there is something wrong with the world - the wickedness, the sorrow, the disasters etc. etc. Things should not be this way. This leads many people to conclude that God doesn't exist, but is that the sensible conclusion?

Wind down

Those of you who are regulars on this site will have noticed there hasn't been a lot of activity on it recently. I apologise for this, but things have been very busy, and I simply don't have time to keep adding material to this site. I will post here as time allows and subjects come up that I want to write about, but it won't be very often. However, if there are questions you have you can click the subject labels to see if there is something that helps, or you can email and ask.

Don't speak too soon!

I'm reading through Daniel these mornings and have been quite taken with the structure of the book, (any atheists / unbelievers reading - please stick with this article, it's for you!)

Living in cloud cuckoo land

The cuckoo apparently doesn't build its own nest, but waits for another bird to build one then hijacks it for itself. That's what came to mind when I heard about 'God' being dropped from the Girl Guides' promise recently.

This change was the subject of Nicky Campbell's phone-in show yesterday (19/6/13) on Radio 5 Live. The final call of the show was horrendous, but not as bad as Nicky's response!

I will paste my email I sent to the BBC today. In it you will get the gist of what the caller and Nicky said.

Going to extremes

I was chatting to a man recently who told me he had recently become an atheist. We had a great chat together, but he told me at one stage in the conversation that he thought that God was going to extremes to hide Himself.

Further correspondence with the atheist

In my last post I showed you a letter I wrote to an atheist I had a conversation with a few weeks ago. He responded by totally ignoring what I said, and instead he sent me a list of "atrocities" and "contradictions" in the Bible. I will go through all that he sent in a subsequent post, but I'm going to let you see what I sent to him in response.

A letter to an atheist

I got into a conversation with a convinced atheist a couple of weeks ago. He brought up a few "atrocities" in the Bible, and God allowing evil in the world. When I tried to challenge him about what basis he, as an atheist, had for condemning any behaviour he ignored me and changed the subject. Thinking he might interact more coherently in print, I wrote him a letter which I have copied below. I will put my further correspondence to him in another post.

The atheist and the shopping trolley

I just received some mail from a very courageous atheist who unfortunately forgot to give his name or address. He (we shall assume my correspondent was male) didn't have anything particularly meaningful to say, but he did include the following joke:

No substitute for penal substitution

The doctrine of penal substitution states that the Lord Jesus Christ bore the judgment of God in the place of sinners so that they can go free. It means that the Christian Gospel is the only message in the world that maintains that God is a righteous God and a Saviour (see for example Isaiah 45 v 21).

Convincing conversion!

I want to pass on a story that I think pretty convincingly shows the reality of God and the Gospel.

Good enough?

I had a pretty unpleasant conversation with a man this week. Alex was a very bitter and aggressive man who seemed to think that he was the only one in the whole world who was right in the area of scriptural doctrine and practice, (he doesn't meet at any church, and he will not be taught by anybody).

Apostles or apostates

I had a chat with a man a couple of weeks ago on the subject of the resurrection of Christ. It was one of those conversations that left me frustrated at people's lack of willingness to go where the evidence points, but so encouraged by seeing how weak their arguments are against the evidence.

Give me two minutes

I've got a lot of books about the Bible, and the study of God's Word is something that will keep the believer well occupied forever. But while the Bible is inexhaustible and the Gospel message is profound, I have been impressed recently at how succinctly the Christian can make his case and present the message of salvation.

It's all there

I was thinking recently about the purpose John tells us he had in writing his Gospel

Sickening irony

This is very powerful and clever piece by a pro-life group taking President Obama's comments following the Sandy Hook massacre and showing how they are so condemning of his abortion policy. See it here.

It's a strange thing that secularists point an accusing finger at Christians during Nazi Germany and condemn them for their silence, then they tell Christians today to stop pushing their morality on others when it comes to abortion.

Happy New Life

OK, it's not totally new, but new enough for me to still wish you a happy new year. But I have a couple of simple things to say that I hope will be useful to you and will make this a really happy new year.