Bill Pratt | April 30, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt Recently I learned that a local church was hosting “Bible studies” based on Eckhart Tolle’s teachings. So, does Tolle agree with the teachings of Christianity? Is it appropriate to promote his beliefs in a Christian church? First, let me admit that I have not read his books personally, but I have [...]
Bill Pratt | April 29, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt In A.D. 325, an ecumenical council of Christian bishops gathered to discuss a theological issue that was tearing apart the unity of the church. A common misconception about this council was that the argument was over whether Jesus was God or man. In fact, this idea has become so popular that [...]
Bill Pratt | April 19, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt Continuing from part 1, below are 5 more reasons you should doubt a scientific consensus, taken from Jay Richards’ article on the topic. 8. When the subject matter seems, by its nature, to resist consensus. An an engineer, this point has always bothered me about both evolution and climate change. Richards [...]
Bill Pratt | April 18, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt Lately on the blog I’ve had some people question why I side with the majority of experts on some issues and not with others. I had never really thought about this before, but then I ran across an article written by Jay Richards, entitled, “When to Doubt a Scientific ‘Consensus’“. Richards [...]
Bill Pratt | April 14, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt In studying church history, I’ve been looking at the period often called the Enlightenment. During this time, a movement swept through Europe which attempted to throw off the authority of divine revelation and place man on his rightful throne as the center of all knowledge and wisdom. Historian Clyde Manschreck suggested [...]
Bill Pratt | April 8, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt Agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman wrote in his book, Misquoting Jesus, that his Christian beliefs began to fall apart when he realized that there was a mistake, an error, in the Gospel of Mark. Now, I think that the alleged mistake is not a mistake, but let’s assume for a [...]
Bill Pratt | April 5, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt A recent NY Times article linked people who are skeptical about evolution with people who are skeptical about global warming. The author noted that there seems to be a correlation, that if you doubt one, then you likely doubt the other. This really has me thinking about why that is, as [...]
Bill Pratt | April 2, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt This question first came to a dramatic head in the church in the fifth and sixth centuries. There were four main protagonists. Augustine of Hippo argued that salvation is totally and causatively of God’s grace. A contemporary of Augustine, Pelagius, argued that salvation is totally and causatively of man’s free will. [...]
