A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to describe a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view (but is easier to refute), and then attribute that position to the opponent. It deliberately misrepresents and weakens the argument of the opposing side. This can be done by leaving out key points of an opposing argument, quoting a person's words out of context, or presenting a particular person's poor defense as the entire defense of an opposing side. In...
I am a youth leader in my church, and as such spend a lot of ministry time on myspace (I know, sounds odd)... Well, as part of my account, I uploaded an edited viewing of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" that was shown at our youth group last for Easter '07. To date, it has been viewed over 30,000 times... and I have people leave comments on the video.
One such occassion, a young guy posted a comment which said, "this movie was nothing but a snuff film that made us concentrate on the suffering jesus went...
Over the course of my life I have seen the rise and rise of one Oprah Gail Winfrey. Through her incredible acumen with the media of television, she has risen to arguably one of the world's most influential (and - according to Forbes, Winfrey is worth over $2.5 billion, as of September, 2007- richest) women. And this is something that has been printed time and again...
Winfrey was called "arguably the World's most powerful woman" by CNN and Time.com, "arguably the most influential woman in the World" by the American Spectator, "one of the 100 people...
When you preach salvation, people come to know Jesus. When you preach about loving Jesus, people become better lovers of Jesus. When you preach prosperity, people want to be prosperous. When you preach about the second coming, people get ready. When you preach healing, people will be healed. When you preach hope, people are more hopeful. When you preach about tithing, people tithe.
What you talk about is what people are going to respond to. In other words, you get what you preach for.
This is not about communication manipulation. This is about communication transformation.
Do you have any obscure hobby that people don't really know about? I do. As strange as it may sound, I actually love to read quotes and to ponder on them. It doesn't matter if they're intellegent, or comedic, insightful, or just plain rhetoric- as long as there's something that I can consider, I'll check it out. And then, if I've found it to be particularly good, I'll jot it down somewhere (or nowadays, put it into a word document).
So today, I wanted to ponder a quote from a very famous 20th century Christian author by the name of...
In the words of one of my old Bible College Principle's, Dr Wayne Richards, "There is a lot of qualified garbage out there." He was talking specifically about Christian books and the premise that general western Christian will believe that something is of good quality based on no more qualification than a) it's something has been published, and b) it is being sold in a Christian bookstore.
I believe that the same principle can be held true of Christian blogs. Just because a person has a blog, and just because a person says that they are Christian does not automatically...
How do we know that the Bible we have today is even close to the original? Haven't copiers down through the centuries inserted and deleted and embellished the documents so that the original message of the Bible has been obscured? These questions are frequently asked to discredit the sources of information from which the Christian faith has come to us.
Three Errors To Avoid
Do not assume inspiration or infallibility of the documents, with the intent of attempting to prove the inspiration or infallibility of the documents. Do not say the bible is inspired or infallible simply because it...
I don't know about you- but I personally find Facebook has been a great way to keep some fun contact with my friends, both at home and abroad, as well as being a fantastic tool with which I have found my old school and youth group friends from over a decade ago. And to a lesser extent, Myspace has also been great for this.
What has bothered me recently though has been something my wife said. She is openly defiant of virtual social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook. For her, if someone is a friend and when they...
This is a phenomenal clip to watch. The clarity with which this gentleman talks of the Christian faith is quite impressive. What is more impressive though is the fact that he is an atheist That's right. He is not a Christian. He is not a theist. He is not an agnostic. He’s an atheist (someone who chooses to live a life that denies the provable existence of a god [assuming a moderate atheistic view]).
The amazing thing for me is that this seems to have “fallen into my lap” as the popular vernacular goes. I simply did a...
I just wanted to blog about something worth mentioning- and it's an idea that was raised in a blog by marketing guru Seth Godin, and expanded upon by one of the team members at Church Marketing Sucks... And I thought that it was a point well worth exploring a little bit more in the God Shack blog space too.
So below, you will find the original blog post by Seth, following by the CMS blog, and I will then add my own thoughts at the end.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us- for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree." - Galatians 3:13
God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. - Romans 3:25
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. - 1...
With the advent of virtual social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook, much of the networking that was done through The God Shack has gone abroad. But as The God Shack has been online for almost 7 years now, we have decided that it is time for a complete overhaul of the site, including the fantastic new addition of this blog!
And so we have our very first God Shack blog.
There's much that will be written about. Stories we've heard, articles we've read, commentaries on social issues, cults, apologetics... and much more! This is a new dawn for...
