An apologetics library

I love Christian apologetics, which has to do with rational defenses for Christianity. There has been a  tremendous outpouring of books on the topic, so it can tough to decide which ones should be on your shelf. Here are some of my favorites.

1. The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
All of Lee Strobel's books are required reading for two reasons. First, they are good introductions to the subject and provide a good overview of the material from some of the best scholars in their fields. Second, the writing style is very accessible, taking you alongside a journalist in his investigation of the evidence for Christianity. In this particular title, Strobel focuses on the life and identity of Jesus.

2. The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel
This book is just as readable as The Case for Christ, but this one delves into the evidence for the Creator. Another thing that makes this good reading for the beginner is this: whatever areas you find particularly interesting can be pursued further by reading the sources interviewed in the book.

3. The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel
In The Case for Faith, Strobel moves from making a positive case for Christ and a Creator to defending Christianity from some common criticisms and objections. This one deals with the hard faith questions such as the problem of pain and suffering and issues of doubt. Again, all three of the Lee Strobel books are a great starting point for the beginner.

4. Holman QuickSource Guide to Christian Apologetics by Doug Powell
No doubt about it--this is a strangely-shaped book (tall and thin). This book, filled with tons of graphics,  will introduce you to the wide landscape of apologetics by outlining, diagramming, and illustrating all of the key arguments for the existence of God, the reliability of the Bible, the beliefs of other world views, and common objections. This is very helpful in providing visual categories for the content you are taking in.

5. Love Your God With All Your Mind by J.P. Moreland
Moreland is one of my favorites in the field. He's thoughtful and clear--not always the case with deep thinkers. In this book you'll be challenged to live a vibrant life of intellectual engagement with your faith. This is a classic book that every apologist should read, and that's why it finds itself firmly in the foundational books recommended here.

6. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl
Koukl is probably my favorite apologist, with a radio show and great live presentations. This book will train you not only to use apologetic content in everyday life, but it will also train you to be a better, more critical thinker. This is another "must read" book, and mastering its contents early in your apologetic studies will put feet to your faith.

7. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Mike Licona & Gary Habermas
The resurrection of Jesus is central to Christianity. This book equips you to understand and defend the resurrection from an historical perspective. Not only does the book have useful diagrams, summaries, and an accessible style, but it also comes with a CD-ROM with interactive software for teaching you the material. This is an essential book for the apologist.

8. Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists by Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow
Now it's time to look at some of the most common objections that have come against Christianity since the rise of the new atheism. There's no better book at dealing with these in a concise yet dense way, while providing additional reading suggestions and introducing some of the key apologists that deal with these questions.

9. I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist by Geisler & Turek
Geisler and Turek have authored a great apologetics book that also takes a step-by-step approach to showing that Christianity is true—and it's filled with lots of information. This gives the growing beginner a ton of good content, while strengthening the framework of a cumulative case for Christianity. This book will help to grow your overall general apologetic knowledge as well.

10. Cold-Case Christianity by Wallace

J. Warner Wallace, a former cold-case detective who has been featured on TV, does an excellent job investigating the claims of the gospels. He shows you how his skills play a huge role in deciding the case for Christianity is as convincing as any case he worked on as a detective.

Thomas Nagel and why he matters

There's a new book out by Thomas Nagel who up until now has been considered the darling of atheists and secularists everywhere. But he has shaken up many and brought down upon himself a great deal of wrath with the publication of a new book. Let's explore the uproar in this blog and future ones.

First, a bit of background about Nagel. He's a philosopher who has written on ethics, politics, and the philosophy of the mind. People actually enjoy reading him because of his clarity and simplicity. Imagine that--a philosopher you can read and understand. He previously taught at Princeton, he writes well-received articles for snooty journals, and he's a confirmed atheist. 

 

But then he wrote and published Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Boy, did the excrement hit the fan. Nagel has become an embarrassment and traitor to many of those who reject the idea of a God. In fact, a British paper awarded the book its prize for the Most Despised Science Book of 2012.

What did he say that disturbed so many? Here’s a quotation from the book that reveals his crime:

“For a long time I have found the materialist account of how we and our fellow organisms came to exist hard to believe. It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. . . I would like to defend the untutored reaction of incredulity to the reductionist neo-Darwinian account of the origin and evolution of life.”  

Sorry, but I've got to leave you hanging at this point since life is happening to me, and a lot of things are calling for my attention. But I want to explore this important book further in a future blog.

 

Are electric cars the answer?

I recently read an article in The Wall Street Journal that reinforced what I had suspected about electric cars: they aren’t so green after all.

Let’s start with the energy used for their manufacture. A 2012 comprehensive life-cycle analysis in Journal of Industrial Ecology shows that almost half the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an electric car come from the energy used to produce the car, especially the battery. The mining of lithium, for instance, is a less than green activity. By contrast, the manufacture of a gas-powered car accounts for 17% of its lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions. When an electric car rolls off the production line, it has already been responsible for 30,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide emission. The amount for making a conventional car: 14,000 pounds.

Then there are the continual battery charges. Owners have to use electricity overwhelmingly produced with fossil fuels. Thus, the life-cycle analysis shows that for every mile driven, the average electric car indirectly emits about six ounces of carbon-dioxide. This is still a lot better than a similar-size conventional car, which emits about 12 ounces per mile. But, as the article pointed out, the production of the electric car has already resulted in sizeable emissions—the equivalent of 80,000 miles of travel in the vehicle.

What’s the bottom line? Unless the electric car is driven a lot, it will never get ahead environmentally. And that turns out to be a challenge. For example, the Nissan Leaf has only a 73-mile range per charge. That makes for short trips rather than lengthy tours of nearby states.

But the news is even worse than the above stats would indicate. The batteries in electric cars fade with time, just as they do in a cellphone. Nissan estimates that after five years, the less effective batteries in a typical Leaf bring the range down to 55 miles. As the MIT Technology Review cautioned last year: "Don't Drive Your Nissan Leaf Too Much."

The article crunched some numbers to show the problem. If a typical electric car is driven 50,000 miles over its lifetime, the huge initial emissions from its manufacture means the car will actually have put more carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere than a similar-size gasoline-powered car driven the same number of miles. Similarly, if the energy used to recharge the electric car comes mostly from coal-fired power plants, it will be responsible for the emission of almost 15 ounces of carbon-dioxide for every one of the 50,000 miles it is driven—three ounces more than a similar gas-powered car.

But our government plunges ahead as if the electric car has all the answers. The feds essentially subsidize electric-car buyers with up to $7,500. In addition, more than $5.5 billion in federal grants and loans go directly to battery and electric-car manufacturers.

Of course, the electric car might be great in a couple of decades, but as a way to tackle global warming now it does virtually nothing.

Has the sky fallen yet?

This will be a sarcastic blog, just so you know . . . After hearing President Obama run around the country, feverishly outlining all the disasters that would befall the country if the sequester plan went into effect, I waited to see the awful results when Monday rolled around.

I want to tell you what I encountered this first day back to school. I biked to Palomar College and noticed several incredible horrors. There was traffic near a couple of schools, sometimes the light turned red for me and a lot of cars, my office was a bit too warm, some students didn't have papers to turn in, a student who planned to meet with me couldn't make the appointment.

Wait . . . These actually seem to be pretty normal, now that I think about them. Is this possible? Can we slice around 2% of the budget and not expect Armageddon? Keep in mind this represents, in the bizarre world of federal budgeting, no less money than was available last year.

No wonder Obama spent a lot of time warning us. He was trying to rescue the nation from the horrors inflicted by his opponents. Oh, wait again . . . He was the one that originally set up this plan. Is that possible? Does he think we are so stupid that we would forget? Sure, the nation re-elected him, so he's confident in our collective stupidity.