Fear and Trembling

  Last Summer, we took up questions from our Adult Sunday School Class at First Presbyterian Dyersburg, Tennessee.   I have adapted the answers I gave in articles in the church newsletter, and I wanted to share them here.   I hope you find the short essays helpful.   Why would I want to be part of a system that has done so much harm?  Regarding people who have left the church/faith due to injury by broken churches.             Always find out what a person means by their objection.  Ask, “Why do you believe that?”  Ask questions until you understand the real reason.  Listen well.  One answer to personal issues is sympathy, empathy, and shared tears.  This objection is very much like the problem of evil discussed at length above, so the answers given here will be short and to the point.  You don’t usually quit eating out because of a bad meal at one particular restaurant....

              Last Summer, we took up questions from our Adult Sunday School Class at First Presbyterian Dyersburg, Tennessee.   I have adapted the answers I gave in articles in the church newsletter, and I wanted to share them here.   I hope you find the short essays helpful.   What do I say when a person says they believe in many gods?             Why do you believe in many gods/religions when those religions contradict each other?  See the essay above for where to go from there.  The point is that logic applies to all of reality.  It must.             To say that all religions are equally true is to say something can be true and not true at the same time and in the same relationship.  That cannot be right.  Some religions agree on some things, but the contradictions are many.     ...

  Last Summer, we took up questions from our Adult Sunday School Class at First Presbyterian Dyersburg, Tennessee.   I have adapted the answers I gave in articles in the church newsletter, and I wanted to share them here.   I hope you find the short essays helpful.   That’s your truth, not mine.           There is only one truth.   Truth is the way things are in the real world.   Things can be both true and false at the same time and in the same way.   Religious things are no exception.   Sometimes, this means that the problem is one of bias, so I will answer that as well.  People are Christians for a variety of reasons, humanly speaking.  Many of us were raised in a Christian home, by Christian parents. Many of us have attended church our entire lives. Does this mean we are biased? Yes, but it does not logically follow that we are wrong.  The strength or weakness of an argument should be evaluated i...

  Last Summer, we took up questions from our Adult Sunday School Class at First Presbyterian Dyersburg, Tennessee.   I have adapted the answers I gave in articles in the church newsletter, and I wanted to share them here.   I hope you find the short essays helpful.   Do you truly love LGBTQIA+ if you bar them from being their true selves?  Are you supposed to accept people for who they are?                “Their true selves” are valuable and lovable because they are made in God’s image.   They are not defined as a person by their behavior.   They are separate from that.   It is clear from the Bible that God considers homosexuality a sin (Leviticus 18, Romans 1).  Are people defined by their sin or by their being made in the image of God?  People are valuable and worthy of respect because they are made in God’s image (Genesis 1).  I can accept a person who is made in God’s image and still...