May 25, 2013

An ex-Jehovah’s Witness, now Catholic, who we at Catholic Answers helped to come to Christ in his Church, gave me some valuable gifts for apologetics by way of old books, many of them first edition, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the publishing arm of the Jehovah’s Witnesses run by the leaders of their sect. Of note among these is a first edition copy of The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, the official Jehovah’s Witness translation of the New Testament, first published by the Watchtower in 1950.

It is not the translation itself that makes it of particular interest, though it certainly is important. The New World Translation is, at times, not so much a translation as it is an attempt to force Jehovah’s...

May 24, 2013

My son Joshua recently celebrated his first Penance in anticipation of his first Holy Communion. He is the first of our five children to do so. Needless to say, it was a very special day for him and our family. As I mentioned in my last blog post, over the last few years he has expressed a true desire to partake of these sacraments. My wife and I have done our best to help him and his sibling to understand the beauty, meaning, and power of the sacraments, and whenever possible have used everyday examples and metaphors to help illustrate this for him.

Recently, while watching some television, we happened upon the popular television program “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”. It is a show that features a team of homebuilders and designers that respond to requests from...

May 23, 2013

Attempting to win Christians over to their side, same-sex “marriage” proponents often assert that Jesus would approve of their agenda. They claim that Jesus never said anything at all about homosexuality. Not once do the gospels record him condemning homosexual acts as being sinful. Therefore, the activists claim, Jesus would approve of same-sex “marriage” and Christians should be supportive.

Although it is true that the gospels do not record Jesus directly condemning homosexual acts, to conclude on this basis that he in any way approved of them is faulty reasoning. It commits a logical fallacy known as argumentum a silentio (Latin for “argument from silence”). “Jesus is not on record against it so he must be for it.” Such an argument bases its conclusion on a supposed...

Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, "An Affair to Remember"
May 23, 2013

A couple months ago I happened to catch the wonderful 1957 classic movie An Affair to Remember, starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, on television. In a nutshell, the movie is about playboy Nick Ferrante (Cary Grant) and former nightclub singer Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) who meet and fall in love while on a cruise ship sailing from Europe to New York.

When the ship docks somewhere off the coast of the south of France, Nick takes Terry to meet his grandmother who lives in a nearby villa. As they enter the villa’s inner courtyard, the grandmother emerges from her private chapel and greets the couple. Terry comments on how charming the chapel is, prompting the...

May 22, 2013

There once was a minister who noticed that his little boy and the neighbor kids had decided to put together a funeral for a dead bird they had found. Being the Preacher's Kid, the minister's son was deputed to lead the services. Standing before the tiny grave, shoebox casket waiting to be laid into the ground, the minister's son confidently intoned, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and in the hole he goes!"

It's a cute story, but when I first read it, immediately I was struck by the apologetics lesson to be learned. There can be a tendency in apologetics circles to mimic the big-name apologist who is making the biggest splash, with all of that apologist's arguments uncritically repackaged and passed on to one's own circle of listeners. And, like the little boy who...

May 21, 2013

I am convinced that the arguments for Christian theism are far more compelling than those for atheism. Here's a list of 20.

Nevertheless, sometimes, after reflection and study, people feel that they can’t decide between atheism and belief in God. Where they are at that moment, the evidence seems too evenly weighted or too difficult to evaluate.

What then?

If these are the two belief systems that you feel torn between, then there are two choices: You could choose to go ahead and believe in God or you could refrain from doing so.

If it seems impossible to decide between these options based on the evidence, then one can legitimately consider the advantages of choosing one course of action...