Evan Minton's Blog, page 37

A Quick Case For Jesus' Divine Self-Understanding

As Christian Apologists, it's important we learn to play the accordion. What I mean by that is that we need to learn when to go in-depth in explaining the arguments and evidence for Christianity and when to compress our case into a presentation of 5 minutes or less. Just as you expand and contract when playing the accordion, we need to expand and contract (depending on the situation) when presenting the arguments for Christianity. I wrote an article a while back called "A Quick Case...

Why Can't God Just Forgive Us?

Some non-Christians, mainly Muslims, ask why Jesus had to die on the cross in order for us to be saved. "Why does God need a blood sacrifice?" They'll ask, "Why can't He simply just forgive us?"

This objection was recently posed to me in the comment section in another article in this sight. This fellow said "God is the one who set up this system of sacrificial atonement. This is where I began to have serious doubts about the authenticity of the Bible as the Word of God. I can see a primitive s...

Why Do Josephus and The Gospels Contradict Each Other About John The Baptist?

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus was born in A.D 37. In about A.D 90, he wrote his book "Antiquities Of The Jews" in which he writes a history of the Jewish people. In this work, he mentions several individuals who appear in The New Testament such as Jesus, James', the brother of Jesus, Caiaphas, King Herod the Great, and John The Baptist, among several others. With regards to John The Baptist, Josephus says that King Herod (Antipas) killed him, just as The New Testament does. Josephus w...

Reasons To Accept The Gospels' Traditional Authorship

Non-Christian scholars and laypeople alike have argued that we don't know or can't know who wrote the gospels. The gospels are written anonymously, they say, and the names attached to them as we find them in our English Bibles were given to them as a scheme to make their content more credible. After all, if the people writing these things were actually there, that boosts their credibility, doesn't it? The Non-Christian charge that Matthew didn't really write Matthew, that John didn't really w...

A Response To Vexen Crabtree: God Does Have Free Will

We often talk of human beings having free will. In fact, I wrote an article giving 5 arguments for why human beings have it. I have the freedom to choose to eat healthily or to eat junk food, I have the freedom to watch Doctor Who on a Saturday evening or watch Pokémon. But we scarcely ever think about God's free will. Does God have free will? Not according to one blogger; Vexen Crabtree. In this blog post, he goes on to give 5 arguments for why he thinks God does not have free will. Vex...

Q & A: Did Jesus Really Sacrifice Anything Since He Was Resurrected?

pls an agonist friend of mine sent me this, what do you think


Let's talk about Jesus' 'sacrifice'...

Apart from the obvious highly improbability of his asexual conception, the utter ridiculousness of the magical grocery multiplication and his alleged resurrection, another thing I find really interesting about the story of the Jesus character in the bible is the portrayal of the concept of sacrifice in the story.

According to the Bible, humans were so awful that God had to send his son, who also...

5 Reasons Why I'm A Kindle Guy Now

For most of my life, I've always preferred physical books over e-books. Having an impressive library of books all aligned on shelves, the smell of the books, the ability to have authors sign them if and when I meet them, and the fact that they're composed of atoms instead of 0s and 1s were all reasons for me preferring physical books. However, in the past year, I've come to have a love for e-books and in fact, I now prefer obtaining them over their physical counterparts. Here are some reasons...

Being A Good Apologist Is More Than Knowing The Right Answers

1 Peter 3:15 says to "Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have, yet do so with gentleness and respect" and 2 Corinthians 10:5 says "We demolish argument and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ." These two verses are the primary verses that make Christian Apologetics a precedent for the follower of Christ. We are to give the unbelievers reas...

What Is The Cup That Jesus Asked The Father To Take Away?

"Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, 'Pray that you will not fall into temptation.'  He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 'Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.' An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the gro...

My NCCA 2017 Experience

The National Conference On Christian Apologetics (NCCA) is the largest conference on Christian Apologetics in the country. I've said before that it is like The Comic-Con of apologetics conferences. In fact, in 2011, a whole year before this blog's launch, my first apologetics conference was the NCCA. Unfortunately, due to finances, I haven't been able to attend this specific conference since 2012. Between the ticket, gas, and hotel to stay 3 nights, it adds up to approx. $400. Fortunately, my...