Keith Ward's Blog - Posts Tagged "faith"
Words Last Night / Has Science Buried God?
I did get a chance to write last night -- my stomach was a bit upset, which kept me up. Words: 665 (that makes words for the day, because I wrote in the morning, too, 1,899). Total word count: 19,584. So I'm nearing the 20,000 word mark now. I like those sorts of milestones to gauge progress. 20,000 words is about the equivalent of 80 pages in a standard paperback. At this point, the first major consequence has happened to my protagonist (not hero -- this book doesn't have a hero as such, not like Internet Kill Switch did) as a result of his failings.
I really think this will be the most important thing I've ever written. Can't wait to see where it goes from here.
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One of my great passions, besides writing, is Christian apologetics. Apologetics simply means to offer a defense; you may have heard the term "apologist" used to refer to someone who defends another person ("that guy's a total Obama apologist") or idea. Christian apologetics is the same idea; there are lots of questions about, and attacks on, the faith. So, for instance, how do you respond when someone says "The Bible's a fallible book, written by fallible men, and contains errors everywhere, and isn't trustworthy in any way"? Or when people say Jesus was just a man (if he even lived at all). He was just a good moral teacher, but certainly didn't do miracles, including rising from the dead. I mean, are you serious?
So apologetics deals with those questions (and many more). What is the evidence for creation? Or miracles? Or morality? I've been reading apologetics books for many, many years. My current read is "God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?", by John Lennox, one of my favorite apologists. It discusses a question that's very popular right now, especially with the airing of "Cosmos." There's a strong undercurrent of belief that religion is at war with science; that science is based strictly on evidence, and faith is nothing but blind belief in something for which we have no evidence. More specifically: has science, with its myriad discoveries of how the world works, made God unnecessary or proven that God doesn't exist? That's what Lennox tackles. And, as usual, he does it brilliantly. Worth your time, for sure. Not the easiest reading in the world, but that's pretty typical of apologetics texts. It's not light reading. But I find the payoff well worth it.
I really think this will be the most important thing I've ever written. Can't wait to see where it goes from here.
--
One of my great passions, besides writing, is Christian apologetics. Apologetics simply means to offer a defense; you may have heard the term "apologist" used to refer to someone who defends another person ("that guy's a total Obama apologist") or idea. Christian apologetics is the same idea; there are lots of questions about, and attacks on, the faith. So, for instance, how do you respond when someone says "The Bible's a fallible book, written by fallible men, and contains errors everywhere, and isn't trustworthy in any way"? Or when people say Jesus was just a man (if he even lived at all). He was just a good moral teacher, but certainly didn't do miracles, including rising from the dead. I mean, are you serious?
So apologetics deals with those questions (and many more). What is the evidence for creation? Or miracles? Or morality? I've been reading apologetics books for many, many years. My current read is "God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?", by John Lennox, one of my favorite apologists. It discusses a question that's very popular right now, especially with the airing of "Cosmos." There's a strong undercurrent of belief that religion is at war with science; that science is based strictly on evidence, and faith is nothing but blind belief in something for which we have no evidence. More specifically: has science, with its myriad discoveries of how the world works, made God unnecessary or proven that God doesn't exist? That's what Lennox tackles. And, as usual, he does it brilliantly. Worth your time, for sure. Not the easiest reading in the world, but that's pretty typical of apologetics texts. It's not light reading. But I find the payoff well worth it.
