Grades Are Posted-Philosophy of Religion

I have posted your grades. If you have any questions let me know soon.
Have a great summer.

Wade Howell

Human Nature

Thomas Nagel-What is it like to be a bat?

Class on April 26

Everyone should have received an email explaining how to get to your grades. If you notice a problem send me an email and I will check into it. I have a number of assignments that I have as "late" and some of the last assignments are not graded, I will get to it soon. I will not take class time to check and see when I received your assignment or if I received it. If you are missing an assignment that you believe you turned in on time send me an email describing what you believe to be the case and attach a copy of the files you sent earlier (PDF or Open Office format only).
If you have not received an email from me with instructions to getting your grade it is because I don't have any of your work, or if I have received some of your work, I received it "late" and have not graded it. If this is you and I don't already know about your situation you should email me immediately.

For class on April 26
Love of Wisdom chapter five questions will be reviewed
No Quiz

The assignments on the syllabus for  4/26 will be moved to 5/3. The assignments for 5/3 will be extra credit.

Why do people leave the church when they are no longer forced to come?

Do we even have to ask that kind of question? If you are forced to do something and then no one can force you, I would quit. I used to push back against begin forced to do anything. I bet that if my mother came to me and said, "you better breathe, or I'll go get your father!" I would have held my breath. I was just rebellious when I got to the point where I finally knew everything.
But you know what is the interesting thing. I still see my mom. I still talk to and do things with my dad. We still have a relationship because WE HAVE A RELATIONSHIP!!!!!! Hello????
I don't go back to my old school building or seek out the princiPAL...I drive by it from time to time but not because I love the place, but because I have memories about friends and teachers (ie. relationships). Ok, I might stick my head in from time to time just to see how the buildings look, but it is because of the relationships that I fondly view my high school.
But in the Church we think it can be all about music and lighting and productions and pizza and trips. WAKE UP, its about the relationships we build. We need to build those relationships cross-generational. The ancient peoples of the Bible mentored the young, they did not separate them from the ones they needed to learn from. Our society is doing things very wrong on many levels. One of which is not connecting the young people to the older people. Age grading ministry and education is a problem.
Ok, Ok, Ok, down from the soapbox.
Check out the link though, the article is thought provoking.

Myths about Emerging Adults
Interesting article about young adults and their political and religious issues. They are not who we thought they were.
Another article about churches and debt management for the congregation.
Changing the Debt Culture

Central Florida Girl Found: Why did God say yes?

It is not all that often that we good news with missing children. One of the most terrifying thoughts as a parent is that your child would go missing. I heard part of an interview with the person who found her and it appears that he is a Christian.
Link to story on local news website

Did God answer his prayers and the prayers of others and allow Nadia to be found alive and safe? Yes, I think so.
But what about all the prayers for the miners and other lost children and other situations that did not result in a safe return. Did God answer those prayers? Yes, I think so. The problem is that in those situations is appears that God answered no.

So why does God sometimes say no? Wouldn't it God to answer yes to every prayer for safety and life preservation? When someone is struggling and their entire life is crumbling around them because someone they care for dearly is in peril and may never return, shouldn't God answer yes to the prayer and return them safe? I want to say that prayers for safety and to ease suffering are "no brainers." Of course God should answer yes. Why not?

Then I think back on a situation I had with my daughter. She had a splinter in her hand--it hurt. She wanted me to make the pain stop and I told her how I could get the splinter out, but it would hurt more for a little while, as I would have to scrape it out. It was best for her to let me get the splinter out. She did not want to experience the additional pain of removing the splinter and was prepared to live with the "lesser" pain of a splinter rather than the "greater" pain of removing the splinter.

I now had a dilemma on my hands. I love my daughter and don't want her to be in pain at all. I also know that  allowing the splinter to remain would likely cause more pain in the long run than the shorter experience of more intense pain of removal. What does a daddy do? I could answer her request and leave it alone. I could giver her cuddles and ice cream to make her not think about the pain. That might make her forget about the pain, but the splinter would remain. Eventually, if my hunch was right, the splinter would get infected and hurt even more.

I did what I thought I must. Although she did not want me to remove the splinter, I comforted her, reassured her, and eventually had to assert my authority and coerce her to allow me to remove the splinter. She was not happy about that. She was mad because daddy "hurt" her by taking the splinter out. She didn't like that I did that. Maybe she didn't trust me as much because I answered her request and need differently than she wanted.

In this case, I knew that it would be better for her in the long run to take the splinter out at that time and not to wait. She didn't know that  and she didn't like it, but it was best. I acted against what she wanted and what she asked for because I judged it better than her requests.

I am simply a man who tires to be a good father. I don't know everything. I can't do everything. But if a father can know what is better for his children than what they ask for, how much more should we be willing to defer to God's judgement over our own. My daughter is much closer to my level of intelligence and knowledge than any human is to God's knowledge and intelligence. Is it unreasonable to believe that I might not understand why God answers a prayer with a no, when I can understand why I might answer a request from my daughter with a no?

By the way, I comforted her after the pain of the "splinter removal" and may have even put ice cream into that equation. God will also comfort us after a painful experience that he chooses to let us go through. But we don't like to be told no.

In the case of Nadia, I am glad that God chose to answer yes. I may not like it, but I hope I can accept when God chooses to answer no.

April 12 class

PDF on miracles

Case Studies 6a

Case Studies 6b

Fighting over Jericho

This article is about some of the issues related with dating the Jericho site with the biblical record. More specifically it shows how some modern scholarship argues that the date is more in line with the biblical record than some of the more secular scholarship. This is a neat article that references other works.

Jericho Dating Article

Change, should we believe in?

This is an interesting article about the projected change in staffing for churches.

Article on new staff positions.

I wonder if we will continue to be "personality driven" in evangelical churches or if we will focus on building relationships within the congregation. I sure hope we get away from the "big production" mentality and try to stop competing with Hollywood. Church should not be about a "big spectacular production with real spitting camels!!!" it should be a place where we worship God and invest in the lives of others. I question how well a Church can do this once the organization functions more like a "concert production company" than a family.

What are your thoughts?

Problem of Evil

Peter Kreeft on the problem of evil
Ravi Zacharias on existential problem of evil

Link to you tube song for Problem of evil discussion

Class on March 29

Here are the questions for chapter seven of Philosophy of Religion.

Chapter 7 Questions POR
Case Studies #5
Case Studies #4
Feinberg has an excellent book on the problem of evil if you are interested in looking into the topic further.

Here is a You Tube audio of William Lane Craig speaking on the problem of evil.

And for fun, a montage of evil, the face of evil.....
and even more evil fun....

I will take assignments in Open office or PDF only, here is an online PDF conversion site

Consumerism in the Church

This is an article from The New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary about consumerism in worship. Check it out.

Article on Consumerism in Worship

Class on March 8

Today we will have a quiz and hopefully catch up to today's date on our syllabus. See you soon.


Case Studies #4

Check out this link about debt and Christian personal finance courses.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/religion/fl-biblical-finance-20100301,0,3243633,full.story

Class on Feb 22

This is a link for the Christianity and Claims of Exclusivity Reading Assignment. You need to read Dr. Hick's article (I do not agree with him and it is likely that you won't either). Look at his argumentation. What is he trying to say? How does he support his points? Are his conclusions warranted? Does what he claim support his conclusions? Make a short response to Hick's argument that you could use as reference if you were to debate Hick (or someone else who uses his argument).

Richard Dawkins Website I could not find his argument against Anselm, but you can pick apart his arguments at will.
Frank Tipler Link
Case studies # 3

Chapter 4 Questions

Here are the questions for chapter 4 of Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 4 questions

I have canceled the religious language reading assignment.
See you in class Monday...........

Feb 8 Class

Remember to send your files to me in either Open Office format or as a PDF.


Case Studies

Finding Books

Amazon has The Love of Wisdom in stock and Christianbook.com has Philosophy of Relgion 2nd edition in stock.
It is vital that everyone get the books needed for class as soon as possible, work on the questions, and complete and understand the reading assigments.

January 25, first class

Here are some of the materials you may need.
Syllabus
Case Studies 1-25-2010

Resources for Worldview

I am posting some resources for my classes. Anyone is welcome to read them.

Chapter Questions for Philosopy of Religion 2nd ed these are the questions for the Evans and Manis textbook, the questions for the Cowan and Spiegel book are in the chapters.

Worldview Reading Assigment

N. T. Wright on the Christian worldview-story

N. T. Wright Video

Open Office Software
I will accept assigments only in open office format or in PDF. Get open office free at this site.

Busy Times

We are starting our new small groups this next week and things are busy. Everything needs to go off without any problems (like that is going to happen) or at least there should be as few problems as possible.

I am amazed at the way people act in the church. I spoke on the phone with someone the other day who has a problem with some of the changes that have been made to our ministry. He proceeded to tell me how bad some things were. The interesting thing is that this person has not even been a part of these new changes. I mean, he is just down on the job the new person is doing and thinks it is all awful, but he has not even once been a part of it. WOW!!! Something even more interesting is that many people are raving about the new changes and love it.

Now...I can understand if you think you do a better job than anyone else...you may be critical of changes. But how can you have an honest appraisal if you have refused to experience the changes. And how can you tear down the hard work of others because it is not yours? How can you claim to follow Jesus and attack others who choose to use different methods (arguably better and more efficient methods) because they don't do it like you used to do it? I really don't understand. But I guess I am not supposed to.