The Case for Heaven Quotes

“As C. S. Lewis famously said, ‘God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: [evil] is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“There are five fundamental questions that each worldview must address,” he said. “First, is there a God, and what is God like? Second, what is ultimate reality? Third, how is knowledge obtained? Fourth, where is the basis of morality and value found? And fifth, who are we as human beings?”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“To say there are no absolutes is to make an absolute claim. It’s self-refuting,” he said.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“Meister wasn’t buying it. “If I said, ‘My truth is that your rental car isn’t in the parking lot,’ that wouldn’t be accurate just because I say it’s my truth; instead, that claim would be false. It doesn’t match reality. Opinions and beliefs are subjective and personal, but facts aren’t. Besides, there’s a logical problem with relativism.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“God is relational, existing from eternity past as the Trinity, and so like him, we are relational beings. This means we can interact personally with God. He is someone to be encountered. He is a first-person experience, not a third-person observation. We can go beyond facts about God and really know him.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“many philosophers say this means we wouldn’t have free will in any meaningful sense. For instance, atheist Sam Harris says that although we think we’re acting freely, we’re simply fulfilling what our genetics and environment compel us to do. Basically, our neurons fire and we obey—it’s as simple as that. “Free will is an illusion,” declares Harris, who earned his doctorate in cognitive neuroscience from UCLA. “Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from the background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.”34 This is called “hard determinism.” I wanted to know from Dirckx: Does this view stand up to scrutiny? “Let me apply three tests used to assess the legitimacy of any worldview,” Dirckx said.35 “First, is hard determinism internally consistent? Not really. If all our thoughts are driven by nonrational, mechanistic forces, then they are not really our thoughts as such. They come from forces beyond our control and therefore are meaningless. The person expressing a hard deterministic view is asking you not to believe them!” “Second, does hard determinism make sense of the world around us? Again, not really. If free will is an illusion, why do we continue to imagine it’s real? Why do we strive for autonomy? Why do we seek control over our finances, our health, and our careers—are we free to shape our own lives and decide our own fate or not?”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“Complexity, all by itself, wouldn’t be enough to get us across that chasm. Of course, there are Christians who take an emergent view, but for them, the system is not closed. If God exists, extraordinary things are possible. Then that chasm can be crossed.” She paused and then continued. “I’ll add another potential line of evidence that humans are more than molecules,” she said. “If consciousness and the brain were the same thing, then when a person died, their consciousness would be extinguished—right?” “That’s right,” I said. “But,” she asked, “what if near-death experiences [NDEs] show that we can still be conscious without a functioning brain? Again, that would demonstrate that human consciousness is more than just physical brain activity.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“That consciousness simply cannot be synonymous with brain activity.” “You’re saying that although they work together, they’re not the same thing. Consciousness—the mind, the soul—are beyond the physical workings of the brain.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“As a neuroscientist, I’ve measured the electrical activity of people’s brains, but I can’t measure their experience in the same way. I can’t measure what’s in their minds. I can’t measure what it’s actually like to be you. Why not? Because the brain alone is not enough to explain the mind.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“We could give the chemical structure of caffeine, but that wouldn’t get us any closer to the smell of coffee,” Dirckx said. “We might talk about the physiology of what’s happening in our body as we drink it, but that doesn’t capture the aroma. To understand what coffee smells like, you need to experience it. Life is full of qualia like that—for example, seeing the color red or tasting a watermelon.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“The Bible says that God has made himself known in two ways—through the natural revelation of the physical world and the special revelation of Scripture. Science tells us a lot about the natural world, but we still need theology and philosophy to plumb special revelation—the Scriptures—and to give thought to questions that science cannot answer. Questions like ‘Why can we think at all?”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“Might we be more than just our brains? Should we question the Darwinian dogma that the soul is a figment of our imagination? Or is it possible that ancient teachings are true: humans are both body and spirit?”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“To cease as though one had never been, to exit life with no hope of living on in the memory of another, to be expunged from history’s record—that is a fate literally far worse than death.”23 Really? Literally far worse than death? That’s quite a statement. I turned to Jones. “What are some of the most common forms of symbolic immortality that people pursue?” “Having or adopting children is a big one—trying to live on through your kids,” he answered. “Nathan Heflick was explicit in Psychology Today: ‘So why do people have children? One reason is to transcend the great specter of death.’24 The great actor Sir Peter Ustinov said, ‘Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.’”25 “Why doesn’t that work?” I asked. “Just do the math. Our genetics quickly get watered down. In twenty generations, your future offspring will only have 0.000004 percent of your genes. You couldn’t feed a mosquito with that. Actually, given the way genes are transferred in blocks, with some dominant and others recessive, it’s unlikely any of your genes will survive that long.” “What about memories that are carried on through families?” Jones smiled. “Do you know the first names of your great-great-grandparents?” I felt sheepish. “Uh, no, I guess I don’t.” He reassured me with a pat on my shoulder. “Don’t feel bad,” he said. “I’ll often ask classrooms full of students if they know the first names of their great-great-grandparents—”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation . . . Furthermore, subjects with no religious affiliation perceived fewer reasons for living.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death

“A church leader studied the history of architecture in New Zealand and found that before World War II, homes were built with verandas, where people would sit in the evenings with their family to greet passersby and invite them to stop and chat.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death - Library Edition

“A church leader studied the history of architecture in New Zealand and found that before World War II, homes were built with verandas, where people would sit in the evenings with their family to great passersby and invite them to stop and chat.”
― Lee Strobel, The Case for Heaven: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for Life After Death - Library Edition

“Sharon Dirckx concluye su libro de esta manera: «Si usted es solo su cerebro, entonces fue hecho solo para este mundo, por lo que el único lema para vivir es que viva bien y aproveche al máximo la vida mientras la tenga. El cristianismo dice que usted es más que su cerebro: está hecho para la eternidad. De una forma u otra, habrá conciencia”
― Lee Strobel, En defensa del cielo: Un periodista examina la evidencia de la vida después de la muerte (Case for ... Series)