Tag: resurrection, death
-
#15 Loose Threads: Chronological snobbery
Chronological snobbery. Science of their day. Phenomenological science. These related terms came up many times in our previous episodes, and we kept saying “sometime we’ll have to get into that in more detail.” Here we come through on that promise. Clearly, the Biblical authors saw things differently than we do. the earth being unmovable, and…
-
#14 Loose Threads: Evangelicalism (pt III) … four core problems
What is it about Evangelicalism that sets believers up for their faith to fail when confronted simply by scientific facts? We suggest four answers to this question … (1) An inflexible adherence to inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, and putting the Bible on too high a pedestal that borders on turning it into an icon…
-
#13 Loose Threads: Evangelicalism (pt II) … this time it’s personal
Here, we take a close look at a dozen high-profile people who were once fully Evangelical in their outlook, and active in Christian leadership … with far more theological training and ministry experience than the average believer … and who found their Fundamentalist Christian faith increasingly didn’t make sense or was deeply disturbing. Although they…
-
#11 Soul and Afterlife: Resurrection and the afterlife
An Old Testament scholar tells us that the Bible makes it very clear: there has to be a resurrection of the body. Early church fathers were convinced that this body would contain the very same molecules that we “owned” while alive on earth. And many Christians today, without thinking too deeply about the subject, imagine…
-
#10 Soul and Afterlife: Scientific explanation for the soul
Can there be a materialistic explanation for the soul!? Does the soul have to be immaterial? In the previous episode, we found that scholars — scientists and philosophers — have long wrestled with the concept of an immaterial soul (and spirit) and come to a fully reasoned conclusion that it doesn’t work. Here, we first…
-
#8 Soul and Afterlife: Bible says “yes” or “no” to immaterial soul?
Many Christians think they get their idea(s) about the human soul from the Bible. But the Bible doesn’t actually say too much about that. Which is rather paradoxical or ironic given that one would think that the Bible is all about the development of our soul. What exactly does the Bible have to say about…
-
#7 Soul and Afterlife: Bible also gives a human perspective
Before we look at what the Bible has to say about the soul, we take a look at how the Biblical authors obtained their scientific understanding on things in general. Luke first introduces his understanding of “phenomenological science” — the science of their day — and then goes through several examples of science reflected in…
-
#5 Soul and Afterlife: Introduction to the series
In this episode, Luke goes out to do “on-the-street” interviews, asking people three questions about what it means to be human. Since the three main words used by the Bible in this context are heart, mind and soul, he asked students during Frosh Week, people from my church, and professors at the university their ideas…
-
#3 Plato’s Cave: Luke’s story – Reconstruction
In this second half of his story, Luke describes why he didn’t go the whole way in becoming an atheist when his Christian faith became too uncomfortable to hang on to, but instead found a new Christian faith that was much more compatible with the 21st century. Part of the solution came from giving up…
-
#2 Plato’s Cave: Luke’s story – Deconstruction
Luke describes the first half of his journey in which three things kept eroding his Christian faith to the point that it finally became too hard to hang on to it. The first of those three eroding influences was science: a Fundamentalist world view that forced a six thousand year time-line on the origin of…