My Reading List

I have picked up some controversial readings. The first one is a book by Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist, called The Ancestor's Tale and it is a backwards history of evolution starting with the current state of humanity and working back to the first cytoplasm in the primordial ooze that supposedly started all life. I have only started reading it, but throughout Dawkins openly mocks Christians and anyone who would be ludicrous enough to believe in a supernatural being that created the universe. The other book that I am reading is by Sam Harris, who has been called a militant atheist by some (Frank Pastore), called The End of Faith. In this book, Harris calls for the destruction of all organized religion and any formal belief in a supreme being. He argues that most (maybe all) violence in this world throughout history can be attributed to some religious belief. His arguments are weak, and he overgeneralizes and oversimplifies Christianity and focuses on obscure Old Testament passages that make Christianity and Judaism look bad (such as Deuteronomy 13:7-11), but it is still an interesting read. I am reading these books for two reasons. First, I think it is interesting and important to understand what non-Christians are saying about Christianity. But also, and for me more importantly, I think it is important to understand why we believe what we believe as Christians. If these kinds of authors have good arguments, and these authors both have some good arguments, why are arguments for Christianity better? Why are they wrong, and can we defend ourselves if asked to give a reasoned defense? Christianity is not an entirely reasoned faith. God has made some key tenets of Christianity acceptable on faith alone so that we do not start to think of ourselves as too wise (I Cor. 1:27). But He also wants us to be ready to tell people why we believe what we believe (I Pet. 3:15)

Cloverfield Cloverfield Cloverfield!!!

This is the first 5 minutes of Cloverfield and its freakin' aweseome. Cloverfield comes out 1-18-08