An Interview with Ray Comfort and a Special Edition of Dr. Brown Answers Your Questions

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In the first hour, Dr. Brown interviews popular evangelist, teacher, and debater Ray Comfort and in the second hour takes your questions on biblical, theological, moral, cultural, practical, or apologetic questions.

 

Hour 1:

 

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: We need to get back to the truth of the Gospel and The Fundamentals. A Holy God, we have sinned against Him. There is mercy alone at the cross. Back to the basics!

 


Hour 2:

 

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: Put your hope in the Living God. He is faithful to save, to deliver, and to keep. He will finish what He starts!

 

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You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Answers!

What do you tell pot-smoking teenagers who say that the Bible doesn’t speak against marijuana? Is it inappropriate for a Christian to have images (pictures or statues) of Christ in their homes? Is it important for local churches to be multi-ethnic? What is my view on interracial marriage?

You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Answers!

Should a Christian minister perform a marriage ceremony for a non-believing couple? Do I have an opinion on the new movie The Hunger Games? Should Christians financially support Rabbi Eckstein’s International Fellowship of Christians and Jews?

Engaging Culture, Congress, and the Media w/Pat Mahoney [MP3 CD]: How does the gospel intersect with culture? What is the church’s role in society? How can we take the gospel into the streets and into our communities? How can we influence Congress and the media? Pat Mahoney, who has been on the front lines of cultural engagement for more than twenty-five years, will provoke you to godly action and inspire you to rise up and change your world in the life and power of the Spirit.

A Time For Holy Fire by Dr. Brown: Are you fed up with Christianity as you know it? Does your heart long for something more? Have you had it with the same old religious cycle? Then this book is for you. Revival is our only hope—yet there is hope for revival!

59 Comments
  1. I don’t know much about mass energy but I don’t think that it by itself had the power, dominion, or the glory of God.

    If indeed mass energy ruled and reigned in the beginning, it did so with God, according to his power, and if it did so, it did so according to the will of God which was also in Christ Jesus.

  2. Matt B
    Boris, nobody has yet produced a plausible explaination for the origin of life apart from a Creator- yet the evidence and the science perfectly indicate Creation by God. The only reason creation would not plausible is because you choose not to believe in a creator, and willfully disregard the evidence.

    Response: You willfully disregard my objections to your claims and arguments. Your best “evidence” that your God exists consisted of the personal experience argument. I pointed out that people of all religions make the exact same claims about experiencing their Gods. I asked you why I should accept “evidence” from you that supposedly proves your religion is true that you would not accept from adherents of other religions that their religion is true. You completely ignored my objection and question and went right on repeating your claim as if no objections to it had been raised at all. Before this conversation goes any further you must first answer my question and respond to the objection you ignored.

    S. Johnson
    And where did you come up with the idea… Once again, if you want to take down the cosmological argument, I suggest you read Geisler’s book where he quite carefully evaluates the argument in its various forms and answers the critics. His final form seems to be coherent and logically tight. As I mentioned earlier, when he sent the book out to atheist philosophers of the same caliber, they had little to say that was worth hearing.

    Response: That’s YOUR opinion. In almost every post addressed to me is a link to some website or a suggestion that if I just read this or that I’ll somehow be convinced of something. Do you see me doing that? No you do not. I can’t debate Geisler because he’s not here. I’ve refuted the Cosmological Argument and you have no rebuttal. Telling me some other person can challenge my objections to the Cosmological Argument will not do. You need to prove that mass-energy has not always existed in one form or another. You need to counter my objection that the Cosmological Argument relies in special pleading by claiming God could always have existed but mass-energy could not have. And I need you to answer this objection: Even if I accepted this argument’s flawed logic, all it proves is that there was a first cause. It doesn’t prove that this first cause still exists today, that it is omnipotent or omniscient, or that this first cause has any interest in or awareness of human beings or that it is conscious or anything else. An atheist could accept this entire argument and then posit that the first cause was a purely natural phenomenon. If you can’t offer a satisfactory response to these objections in your own words then my refutation of the Cosmological Argument stands.

    ron david metcalf
    Partly because psychology and evolution are based more upon ‘religion’ than ‘fact’. Theories are accepted by faith until a better theory explains a better way;

    Response: Theories prove themselves by making accurate predictions and producing viable results. Evolution does these things and very well. Intelligent Design does neither and so it is not a theory or science but rather based solely on religion rather than fact.

    S. Johnson
    Have you read “Signature in the Cell” a very carefully crafted book that reviews all the proposed theories for the orgin of life? If you can counter Myer’s thesis as to why each of these theories fails to account for the information rich systems that are needed, let me know. Some fairly prominent evolutionary biologists have tried to their own embarrasment. Their counterclaims have been evaluated in the follow-up book, “Signature of Controversy”.

    Response: First of all there’s no controversy over the validity of evolutionary theory. Creationists in America have spent millions of dollars attempting to convince the gullible and scientifically ignorant American public that such a controversy really does exist but it doesn’t. Only in America where it’s always okay to be wrong. If these biologists were so “embarrassed” then how come none of them are now out there promoting the magic of Intelligent Design? After all scientists just love proving each other wrong by coming up with new and better explanations for things. Anyone who could refute evolutionary theory would become instantly rich and famous and get a Nobel Prize for science. However no one including Stephen Meyer has done that nor are they ever going to. This is because Meyer hasn’t come up with anything new. It’s the same old creationism. This paper demonstrates that, contrary to Meyer’s claim, chemistry and physics can account for the origin of the genetic code: Yarus M, Widman JJ, Knight R, 2009, RNA-Amino Acid Binding: A Stereochemical Era for the Genetic Code, J Mol Evol 69:406-429.

    Appealing to the complexity of the cell is an empty straw man argument. Meyer is assuming that what took 4 billion years to evolve just popped into existence at the whim of Jesus although he’s careful to hide his true motive for writing his book. You let me know when Christian colleges and universities start using Meyer’s version of “science” and disregard evolution by natural selection. That day is never going to come and we both know why don’t we? I don’t think this subject even warrants the attention of critics anymore. 400 pages to try to prove the first man was made from dirt and the first woman from a rib, that God took human form and was reborn to a virgin and has invisible messengers called angels and invisible enemies as well such as Satan and demons, that God died on a cross and rose three days later and if you don’t believe all this you’ll burn in hell forever. Meyer isn’t fooling anyone but the choir.

  3. Actually, the best evidence for God’s existence (and everything that follows) is Jesus’ empty grave. There is no historical evidence to the contrary, and a large weight of evidence that in fact Jesus was crucified, placed in a grave whose location was well known to all involved, garded by Roman soldiers, and that on the third day Jesus was no longer in the grave, to the amazement of all (His followers and the authorities alike). It is well accepted by historians, textual critics, and archeologists that his followers in numerous locations and times had the experience of seeing Jesus alive again. In fact nobody has maintained a plausible explanation to the contrary. Boris, you yourself have not presented evidence or plausible explanations for all the history of this- only opinions (which you are entitled to)- and of course you and I are not the experts in this matter. We can however examine the findings and writings of those who are.

    Dr. William Lane Craig once debated a professor who had completed his doctoral thesis on the resurrection. The following quote indicates how difficult the crucifiction and resurrection events are to explain outside of aknowledging that Jesus was in fact resurrected:

    “Now this puts the sceptical critic in a rather desperate situation. A few years ago I participated in a debate on the resurrection of Jesus with a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He had written his doctoral dissertation on the resurrection, and he was thoroughly familiar with the evidence. He could not deny the facts of Jesus’ honorable burial, empty tomb, post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in the resurrection. So his only recourse was to come up with some alternate explanation of those facts. And so he argued that Jesus of Nazareth had an unknown, identical twin brother, who was separated from him as an infant and grew up independently, but who came back to Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, stole Jesus’ body out of the tomb, and presented himself to the disciples, who mistakenly inferred that Jesus was risen from the dead!”

    The fact, Boris, that you claim that the Gospel writers were knowingly and intentionally writing fictional literature leaves us with little to talk intelligently about. That’s right up there with your claim that Constantine invented Christianity. Unfathomable.

  4. Sadly, not unfathomable. Ahmadinejad and Assad are doing exactly the same thing: “I am right about everything because I say so, and that’s all the proof anyone needs.”
    As the self-appointed ambassador of atheism to Christianity, Boris’ comments are becoming more ridiculous in the face of more evidence against him. This is “exposing the darkness”.I pray that more begin reading these blogs, and understand how little ‘proof’ the US educational system has about anything and everything it asserts as it continues its assault on our Judao-Christian heritage. Obama is counting on just over half the voters agreeing that all Christians are stupid; I’m here to prove him wrong; but need all the help we can get.
    In Him, Ron M.

  5. 1.Sorry Boris, I must have missed something here. You said –“I have given several rebuttals to the cosmological argument by showing that it violates the law of mass-energy conservation, which states that mass-energy cannot be created or destroyed.” Sounds like you just said that the basis for your rebuttal of the cosmological argument is based in a law of physics. When I asked you what that law was, you replied with silence. So if your rebuttal is really based on something other than laws which you cannot give support for, then perhaps you can explain what your rebuttal is based on.

    2.You said “You need to prove that mass-energy has not always existed in one form or another.”

    Response: Interesting logic—do I need to prove that leprechauns don’t exist either? What the cosmological argument does prove is that there had to be a first cause, else something comes from nothing. Now since the scientific evidence supports that the universe had a beginning (second law of thermodynamics, empirical evidence for expanding universe, radiation background, Einstein’s theory ) can we assume that you also believe the universe had a beginning? And if this is the case something brought it into existence. Now if you want to call this something “mass-energy” fine. Let’s compare notes. This “mass-energy” then is uncaused, eternal and the first cause that brought all else into existence. For the Theist, God is uncaused, eternal and the first cause that brought all else into existence. The similarities are striking. Now I don’t know about you, but whatever brings all else into existence in my book qualifies for omnipotent.

    3.You are right that the cosmological argument doesn’t prove the other attributes of God in some forms. To do that you would have to step it up a notch and look at the form based on actuality and potentiality which is something beyond a blog discussion. You also would need to understand that the effect must be like the cause. The cause cannot give or create in the effect something totally dissimilar. So if the effect has morality so does the cause etc., etc.

    4. You said “In almost every post addressed to me is a link to some website or a suggestion that if I just read this or that I’ll somehow be convinced of something. Do you see me doing that? No you do not.” Response: Maybe you should then you might not talk about laws that say energy cannot be created or destroyed. And as far as Dr. Geisler’s book goes, it does address many critics of the argument. And since you claim to have refuted the cosmological argument with such certainty, it might be a good place for you to check your facts. And then I and many others will wait with baited breath for you to publish your refutation and enlighten us all!! No hand waving, but a point by point refutation.

    5.You said “First of all there’s no controversy over the validity of evolutionary theory. Creationists in America have spent millions of dollars attempting to convince the gullible and scientifically ignorant American public that such a controversy really does exist but it doesn’t.”
    Response: Show me the evidence. As Stephen Gould one of the poster children of Evolutionary theory said: “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and the nodes of their branches.”

    But what about the DNA evidence? A few years ago Francis Collins and others shook the ID movement with the idea that if DNA were designed it wouldn’t have so much “junk” in it. This “junk” can only be remnants of evolution. But alas, as predicted by the ID proponents, Junk DNA is now being found to have complex functions.

    6.You said of Meyer’s book: “400 pages to try to prove the first man was made from dirt and the first woman from a rib, that God took human form and was reborn to a virgin and has invisible messengers called angels and invisible enemies as well such as Satan and demons, that God died on a cross and rose three days later and if you don’t believe all this you’ll burn in hell forever.”

    Response: It is apparent from your statements that you have not read Meyer’s books and yet you are giving a critique. How do you know this paper addresses Meyer’s arguments if you haven’t read his book to know what his arguments are?

    7.You said “My morality is objectively based on the value of life itself. Yours is subjectively based on what other people have told you the deity of a particular religion desires.”

    Response: What makes the value of life an objective standard? Perhaps you can argue that a “survival” gene makes you value your life, but why should you value anyone else’s life? You could argue how cooperation makes is beneficial to all, but if one becomes so powerful he no longer needs to cooperate and it is to his advantage not to cooperate then is he wrong to kill others that get in his way?

  6. Matt B
    Actually, the best evidence for God’s existence (and everything that follows) is Jesus’ empty grave. There is no historical evidence to the contrary,

    Response: There’s an invisible pink unicorn in the trunk to my car and no evidence to the contrary. Your arguments become weaker as your desperation to prove your religion is true increases.

    and a large weight of evidence that in fact Jesus was crucified, placed in a grave whose location was well known to all involved, garded by Roman soldiers, and that on the third day Jesus was no longer in the grave, to the amazement of all (His followers and the authorities alike). It is well accepted by historians, textual critics, and archeologists that his followers in numerous locations and times had the experience of seeing Jesus alive again. In fact nobody has maintained a plausible explanation to the contrary.

    Response: The empty grave, the story of the crucifixion, the Roman soldiers and Jesus’ followers are all part of the SAME STORY! We’ve been through this before. You are using elements of the story to prove the story is true. This is like using the eyewitness testimony of Lois Lane, Perry White and Jimmy Olson to prove the existence of Superman! It’s ludicrous! Fictional events and characters do not prove a fictional story is true. Outside of the Bible there are no references whatsoever to this empty tomb (where is it anyway?), the witness of Roman soldiers, the trial, crucifixion or resurrection of Jesus or any of the disciples. History knows nothing of any of these people or events. So your “best evidence for God” turns out to be no evidence at all. Again.

    ron david metcalf

    Sadly, not unfathomable. Ahmadinejad and Assad are doing exactly the same thing: “I am right about everything because I say so, and that’s all the proof anyone needs.”
    As the self-appointed ambassador of atheism to Christianity, Boris’ comments are becoming more ridiculous in the face of more evidence against him.

    Response: What evidence? ROFL! I’ve crushed every argument presented to me and I don’t ignore objections and questions the way you Ron and the rest of the Christians are constantly doing.

    S. Johnson

    For the Theist, God is uncaused, eternal and the first cause that brought all else into existence. The similarities are striking. Now I don’t know about you, but whatever brings all else into existence in my book qualifies for omnipotent.

    Response: That’s right first distort what I said and then argue against a straw man. We know that the universe as we now observe it had a beginning but the scientific consensus is that the mass-energy that comprises the universe must always have existed. For example some scientists posit that the Big Bang was preceded by a big crunch. Whether mass-energy is eternal or not is beside the point. The fact that it could be completely dismantles the First Cause Argument. You have failed to show the universe needed a cause and is not itself the uncaused cause of everything else we observe.

    And then I and many others will wait with baited breath for you to publish your refutation and enlighten us all!! No hand waving, but a point by point refutation.

    Response: That’s not how it works in a debate. I could just as easily point to the refutations of the Cosmological Argument that are all over the Internet and demand you refute them, point by point. Would you read them? Of course not, you have been commanded to keep your thoughts in captivity and never to consider competing points of view. You need to make your own arguments or stand down and admit you cannot.

    Response: Show me the evidence. As Stephen Gould one of the poster children of Evolutionary theory said: “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and the nodes of their branches.”

    Response: You took that quote out of context, which is a common ploy used by creationists. Quote mining is no different than lying. Stephen Gould did not appreciate being misquoted by creationists: “Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists — whether through design or stupidity, I do not know — as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups. – Gould, Stephen Jay 1983. “The constant abuse of the body of Gould’s life’s work in the face of this is not merely dishonest, it is despicable.” – John (catshark) Pieret.

    Response: It is apparent from your statements that you have not read Meyer’s books and yet you are giving a critique. How do you know this paper addresses Meyer’s arguments if you haven’t read his book to know what his arguments are?

    Response: His argument is this: God did it and so scientists need to stop looking for answers before they discover even more facts that drive people to reject Christianity.

    7.You said “My morality is objectively based on the value of life itself. Yours is subjectively based on what other people have told you the deity of a particular religion desires.”
    What makes the value of life an objective standard?

    Response: Morality is based on choices and choices are rooted in values. For humans the ultimate choice is between life and death. This makes the value of life the ultimate value for humans.

    Perhaps you can argue that a “survival” gene makes you value your life, but why should you value anyone else’s life? You could argue how cooperation makes is beneficial to all, but if one becomes so powerful he no longer needs to cooperate and it is to his advantage not to cooperate then is he wrong to kill others that get in his way?

    Response: Murder is wrong under my system of morality. However under biblical morality murdering women, children, prisoners of war and mindlessly slaughtering animals are all permissible. Divine command morality is itself immoral, dangerous and the cause of most of the problems in the world today as well as in the past.

  7. Let’s take this a step further:
    Can someone like Boris morally object to any laws now enforcable in the US because his conscience and “Science Says” so, e.g. Illinois State Prosecutors v DOMA? What Standard is sufficient for a renegade such as Breivik (he did write a 1000+ page manifesto, after all, and may still walk free after some psychiatrist declares him ‘sane’ in a few years) to be Justified? I have mentiond Absurdist reasoning because this was being discussed in the highest intellectual circles shortly after WWII, and now we see it becoming global law INSTEAD of Biblical Law; so, is it Better? Depends on who is In Charge, doesn’t it? What I see coming is the Elite having no laws at all, and the masses the strictest sharia law you can imagine. Those who want to ‘glorify’ this approaching day I oppose with everything I have while I have the strength to do it.
    In Him, Ron M.

  8. You could argue how cooperation makes is beneficial to all, but if one becomes so powerful he no longer needs to cooperate and it is to his advantage not to cooperate then is he wrong to kill others that get in his way?

    Response: Do you mean like flooding the earth and drowning every human being except for one family? Do you mean like murdering entire people groups because they worshiped different gods? I think those actions as they are described in the Bible are wrong. I suppose you disagree. When there is no standard apart from God anything is permissible including genocide as long as believers imagine they are doing the will of God.

  9. Boris “Abortions have nothing to do with the fact that Christians are not being persecuted in the United States. “Help us, we’re 85 percent of the U.S. population and we’re being persecuted!” ROFL!”

    Boris, you choose to blind yourself. That you laugh at infanticide..well, we read your words understanding where your heart is. Not gonna give up on you though. That you cant control.

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