Thanks, that means a lot. I try to resemble Christ in sharing the faith, but sometimes it can be VERY hard. The simple questions are what I try to use most. I’ve found my self (ever since having these conversations on KP) praying that I would be able to debate an atheist and lead him to Christ! That’s a huge step for me, I used to…[Read more]

My beliefs are non-denominational, so I don’t have Calvinist or LDS views, but discussing them is interesting to me. I hope these conversations can help bring to light the truth.

@everyone

also, and this is open to everyone, my church is doing a VBS about apologetics and I thought it would be a good time to…[Read more]

My church is non-denominational so I don’t have LDS or Calvinist views, but it is very interesting to talk about it. One thing I do admire about the LDS churches is that they have missionaries in their own towns. I know that some non-LDS Christians do that too, but I haven’t noticed them as much. I hope that through all…[Read more]

Don’t get me wrong here, you can believe in Calvinism if you want (it’s a variation, not a false gospel), but since this forum is about defending our beliefs, I’d like to give my reasons for not being a Calvinist.

1. If we must be chosen by God, and we cannot choose him (as you stated), why wouldn’t anyone in the Bible say so? The…[Read more]

I completely agree. I try to use science as much as possible, since it is the thing that most people would trust more than anything. The only time I wouldn’t is if someone was obviously emotional at the time and what they really need to hear is just that they have a loving Father who’s there for them. At any other time, I love to…[Read more]

First off addressing the translations. We have original documents of the written Bible (In its written language), and we use those to make our translations. We are not copying one English Bible and changing it to a Spanish Bible, we are deriving each one of them separately from the original Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew.…[Read more]

Yeah, you got it right. That’s what I meant.

Interesting theory. I can see that being true.

My take on it is that the plagues were the hardening of pharaoh’s heart. God gave him a chance after every plague, but because of the plagues his heart was hardened. God also knows everything, so he would’ve known if there was any chance that pharaoh would give in without the plagues. There’s a lot more to it but that’s my basic opinion.

That theory is definitely true, one hundred percent. I have discussed God with at least a few atheists before, and all of them said they didn’t believe in God because of Christians. They said they had seen Christians act godly on Sunday, but then be hypocrites the rest of the week; people were trying to fit Christ into their…[Read more]

Great job with your WIP!

Good points again, but the whole thing with numbers, you’re starting at one. God didn’t start. He is outside of time, and by eternal, I mean we perceive Him to be. He exists outside of time, so in our eyes, he never began and never will end. It’s not that he’s inside of time, he is outside of it, which means He literally can’t…[Read more]

1. The reason God is exempt of being caused is that the only things that need a cause are things that began to exist, because eternal things logically could not have a cause.

2. It doesn’t have to prove that God created eternity. We can’t. Not scientifically at least. Science deals with what we can test, and we can’t test the…[Read more]

Yes, I completely agree.

People forget about the “repent” side of things. They accept Jesus as lord, but not savior. It’s sad how many people believe that they are saved, but are deceiving themselves.

But as Christians, we know the truth, and we are compelled to tell others about it in the Commission.

Then Jesus came to them…[Read more]

Good points, but I do think there’s an answer to all of them.

1. God of Gaps) For volcanoes, we discovered a cause for it other than a god. But what caused the cause for the volcano? With the God of Gaps theory, maybe there is some object or substance besides God that could create a universe, but what caused that to exist?

2.…[Read more]

Honestly, I laughed aloud after reading that XD I didn’t even think about it 😀

@thearcaneaxiom

Well, the evolution we see in real time is evolution in regard to change within a kind, not change of kind. We have never seen in fossil records nor in person a single change of one creature to another creature. We can also look at…[Read more]

Good points. I would say, based on your response, that even if God is somehow material, the atheist still has one problem. If the atheist says, “The Big Bang caused the universe,” I would respond, “Who created the Big Bang?” They have the same problem that Christians supposedly face, but here’s the difference. There needs to be a…[Read more]

I don’t really know where it will take me, but I do want to become a preacher. I plan on including lots of apologetics in my sermons. I am learning to code, so I’ve considered making a website that includes Christian apologetics.

@smiley @mackenzie @keilah-again

I went to the Ark Encounter too!

I agree. Most of my characters don’t have much depth in maturity level, so this is something I think about a lot. I may put in some characters, but there’s only one teenager in my writings that I know well enough to put in here. Excited to see what others put in here! 😀

Yes, my sister made a forum for our book anyway.

I agree that there’s a lot more to it. But they are nothing in comparison to reality in my opinion. They are just discovering more mathematical facts that could possibly prove that in some other reality, hyperbolic or spherical geometry exist. The mathematical laws we see describe…[Read more]

So…

I don’t believe that God created Himself. I believe that He is immaterial and does not need to be created. Just like concepts aren’t be produced by labor– they just exist. He also created time, which means He exists in the past, present, and future all at once. So, He didn’t exist “forever”, at least not how we often mean…[Read more]

Yes, that is what I meant about soft world building, and yes, I do very much like harsh extremes or seemingly doomed situations XD (generally it works out in the end though).

About the WIP, I’m wanting to start one, but my main focus is a trilogy me and @Solfyre , my sister, are writing. It has lots of wasteland, so I guess it…[Read more]

About the WIP, I’m wanting to start one, but my main focus is a trilogy me and @Solfyre , my sister, are writing. It has lots of wasteland, so I guess it could be dystopian.…[Read more]

I like math and Biblical studies too!

I’d say hard world building, that way it can’t be interpreted the wrong way at the start of the book and cause confusion in the future.

Well, I really like the idea of dystopian areas. Wasteland or volcanic areas, or even on a moon.

Here’s my take on that last question. If God were to not…[Read more]

Great job! The farthest I’ve ever made it is 30,000, soooo…

no problemo

I may have misread your question. I thought you meant encouraging someone who is already a Christian, but now I’m thinking you meant someone who is no longer a Christian but used to be.

So, if that’s the case, I would try to say something like, “Hey, you wanna come to church/youth group/a church event, etc.?” Then if they say no, I…[Read more]

Cool! I’ve always wanted to learn JavaScript and HTML, mainly because you can make websites with them. I want to be a preacher and Christian game designer (I know, weird combination), so I thought it would be good to build a website for it all. Python’s neat too. I’ve seen it used for stuff like API for different websites, but I’ve…[Read more]

the verse you mentioned is a great one to go by. Lots of people will try to use it the wrong way and say that since Jesus says to have childlike faith, we are somehow unresponsible for knowing how to defend our faith. But that’s not true. By childlike faith, Jesus meant to be humble and respect God as Father, knowing that we need Him to…[Read more]

Hey, I’m not sure if it’s the same kind as what you do, but I really like to do computer programming too! I like to make games in C# coding language. How about you?

@mackenzie

I have had lots of conversations with both friends who call themselves Christians but don’t respect God. How I would encourage them is trying to bring…[Read more]

Well if they treat you childish for it, you could assume that they think it is basically a fairy tale, or a crutch for weak people to lean on. They clearly don’t know that there is strong evidence and proof for God’s existence. A good thing to do in that case would be to say something like, “It’s not like I believe in a fairy tale. Did…[Read more]

He wasn’t necessarily struggling with the idea, he admitted it. But he did say quite a lot that he was a good person, that type of thing. It was hard to get across to him that doing good things wasn’t enough, but here’s what I said: “If you commit a crime, and when you are proven guilty, you say, ‘But I’ve done a lot of good things,’…[Read more]

heheh good question.

This one’s a bit complicated. You should bring up Hell during any discussion of the Gospel. Without it, there is no Gospel. The whole thing is about Jesus saving us. From what? Hell. So, if you are explaining the Gospel, say something like, “Jesus came to earth, lived a life without sin, then suffered and died on…[Read more]

That’s great that you listen to them on your way to school. Most kids would probably listen to secular music instead! XDXD  I’m homeschooled so I don’t have time to listen to it in my way to school, but I’ll find time some other part of the day.  I’ve heard of Time Keller, but David Platt is new to me. Thanks for the advice! 🙂

Thanks a lot! I’m happy I could help.

It really depends on what your experience is. Don’t randomly make everything about you if your experiences aren’t related to the discussion. On the other hand, if your friend is struggling with something you’ve struggled with, bring up how you got through it with God’s help. Also, it’s okay if you…[Read more]

all righty. I’ll try to see them if I get the chance! 🙂

If your friend is hurt by her parents’ actions, you could try to get through to her with that. You could tell her about her Father in heaven who will never do the hurtful things her parents did. God is all-loving and wants to save her from eternal death and bring her an everlasting life in heaven with Him.

Well, the thing is that Christianity is about God, not Christians. Even if people who call themselves Christians mess up, they aren’t the focus. Also, Christians are sinners, and we admit it. So what hypocrisy is there really? Now I do agree that it is hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and then not even try to be one.

How I would…[Read more]

By the way, if anybody has defended their faith to a friend or colleague before, please let me know how it went! I would love to learn from it 🙂

If they aren’t convinced or their mind isn’t changed, though it may seem hard, try to get across to them a picture of what will happen when they die without faith. A good way to do this is ask them, “Would you give me your eye for three hundred dollars?” This gets them thinking about how much they value just their senses. Then, ask…[Read more]

Yes I have been asked about this before a few times.

Usually how it goes is somebody says, “How can God exist if evil does too? If he loves us and he’s all-powerful, how come he doesn’t get rid of all the bad stuff?”

At first their argument seems logical, but you can refute it instantly by asking, “What do you mean by evil?”

As…[Read more]