L. Alfred James

By L. Alfred James In a previous post, we saw that it is physically impossible for aliens—even if they live in the nearest inhabitable star system—to travel the distances needed to visit earth. At realistic speeds, it would take hundreds, thousands, or millions of years to make such a trip. The required speed for any spacecraft making this voyage would entail a continual collision with space debris equal to several nuclear bombs inflicting damage every single second of the very long trip. Most damningly, it would also entail an endless … Read More »

By L. Alfred James On August 25, 1951 in Lubbock, Texas, three science professors from Texas Tech were in a colleague’s backyard, sipping some tea and discussing the scientific issues of the day. A little before 9:30 pm, they saw something in the sky that absolutely shocked them: dozens of blue-green lights passed overhead in a boomerang formation. In a very eerie way, they were absolutely silent. These science professors could not fathom what could cause such a phenomenon. The lights behaved nothing like any aircraft they had ever seen. … Read More »

By L. Alfred James On October 11, 1973, Calvin Parker and Charlie Hickson were fishing from the bank of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. Parker noticed a blue light reflecting off the water but didn’t think too much of it. He assumed it was just some police officers arriving to tell them they needed to fish somewhere else. But when he looked up, he was shocked to see that the light was coming from a craft like nothing he’d ever seen. In the summer of 2020, the Clarion Ledger published … Read More »

By L. Alfred James In the book of Leviticus there are two verses that clearly condemn homosexual behavior: “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” (Leviticus 18:22) “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.” (Leviticus 20:13) It is hard to imagine Moses being any clearer on the subject. Nonetheless, there are some valid objections to simply taking these verses at face value. Isn’t This Just An Old Testament … Read More »

By L. Alfred James “Sex is no big deal.” We hear it all the time. “So why do Christians make such a big deal out of it?” A good example of this kind of complaint comes from Sam Harris: You [Christians] believe that your religious concerns about sex, in all their tiresome immensity, have something to do with morality. And yet, your efforts to constrain the sexual behavior of consenting adults—and even to discourage your own sons and daughters from having premarital sex—are almost never geared toward the relief of … Read More »

By L. Alfred James I’ve had several conversations with young Christians who tell me they are puzzled as to why churches preach that premarital sex is wrong. They tell me that they’ve read through large parts of the Bible looking for passages that clearly condemn it, and they did not find anything. “So,” they tell me, “since the Bible doesn’t forbid it, and I don’t see how it hurts anything, I’m moving in with my girlfriend.” In response, this week we are going to simply do some basic exegesis to … Read More »

By L. Alfred James This is the final post of a long series of posts designed to provide an intellectual pathway for moving someone (or yourself) all the way from hardcore atheism to biblical Christianity. We first reviewed several arguments for God’s existence, and then arguments for Christianity (including the resurrection of Christ). Since then, we have worked our way through the most common objections to Christianity. Today, we finish with one last objection that deserves much more attention than it commonly receives: How can Jesus be both God and … Read More »

By L. Alfred James As a young Christian, I remember learning about the concept of the Trinity for the first time. I read a lot of books that said belief in the “deity of Christ” (the doctrine that Jesus is God) is extremely important. At the same time, I also worked at a grocery store right alongside a Jehovah’s witness who consistently told me that Jesus was definitely not God and never claimed to be God. This coworker (who was a very nice guy) insisted that the Bible never even … Read More »

By L. Alfred James Last week, we saw that one reason why God allows people to do evil things is because of his decision to give human beings a free will. Without freedom, genuine love is impossible. If human beings were pre-programmed to always do the right thing, their love would be a sham. However, this does not solve all problems pertaining to suffering. Even if true love requires the possibility of doing evil, why does there have to be so much suffering in the world? Just think about how … Read More »

By L. Alfred James There is an astonishing amount of evil in our world. Consider these three levels of evil events: Some evil events happen at a local level. For instance, in February of 2020 a sweet 6-year old girl in Cayce, South Carolina was strangled to death by one of her neighbors who then slit his own throat. This grisly crime stunned everyone in the metro Columbia area. Sometime evil is felt at a national level, such as the Las Vegas shooting a few years back. On October 1, … Read More »