I love listening to Ravi Zacharias. He reminds me that Christianity is not illogical, though that is what many claim it to be. He reminds me that when we follow all arguments that have been leveled against Christianity through, we can find answers and defend our faith not just by saying "I believe it, that settles it." but by giving real answers that leave no other door to walk out of. Men should have no excuse as to why they dishonor God other than, "I know he exists, I just choose to disobey." I listened to one of his older debates where he tackles the question of evil. The question of the evening was;
Can an all powerful all loving God allow so much evil to flourish in the world? If Evil exists surely God doesn't exist.
Response:
To claim there is evil is to claim there is good. The claim to good and evil assumes a moral law by which one can determine what is evil and what is good. To assume a moral law, is to assume moral law giver...because if there is no moral law giver where do we get our concept of what is good or evil?
Some interesting readings he pointed out in his debate were the Atheists creed...notice the irony.
Atheist’s Creed
We believe in Marx Freud and Darwin.
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your definition of knowledge.
We believe in sex before during
and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated and
you can prove anything with evidence.
We believe there's something in horoscopes,
UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man
just like Buddha Mohammed and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher
although we think some
of his morals were basically bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same,
at least the ones that we read were.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven hell God and salvation.
We believe that after death comes The Nothing
because when you ask the dead what happens
they say Nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan.
We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.
We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
We believe that each man must
find the truth that is right for him
and reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust. History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.
We believe in the rejection of creeds.
And the flowering of individual thought.
If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear
State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.
Ravi also uses a wonderful quote by G.K. Chesterton on what nihilism does to men. We become a society of double standards when we assume that life and morality are meaningless.
But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything.For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book in which he insults it himself... As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”
G K Chesterton, Orthordoxy
