RC Talk - The Official Blogs of Ratio Christi Chapters

The upcoming vote on North Carolina's constitutional amendment draws attention to the ongoing debate about the position government should take on the issue  of homosexual marriage. This topic of same-sex marriage is extremely controversial, and discussion on the topic is often heated. I believe that many people miss the key point of this debate.   

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by Josh Welch (RC Member & Student at Ohio University)

In American pop culture, Christians who share their faith (or even admit to believing in Christ) are viewed with disdain and perceived as threatening. Of course, a few Christians do act like jerks, but this is not why people are so upset at Christians. In fact, it is evangelism itself that upsets them. I was discussing this topic with someone once, and in a burst of passion, she finally admitted what upset her about evangelism. “You Christians think you’re right!” she burst out.

The fact that Christians claim to have the truth is offensive. It flies in the face of the widely held idea that questions of morality and religion are open to individual interpretation. Nobody has any right to tell another person that what he is doing is wrong. I mean, who do these Christians think they are? They have no right to tell others that the way they're living is wrong, right? As one author put it, “The freedom of our day is the freedom to devote ourselves to any values we please, on the mere condition that we do not believe them to be true.” Most people in our culture hold this view, though they may not ever consciously realize it.

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by Josh Welsh (RC Member & Student at Ohio University) 

One of the arguments atheists most frequently raise against the existence of God is the problem of evil. What they don’t realize is that evil is a bigger problem for atheism than for theism.

Simply stated, the problem of evil is as follows:

1. If God exists, then he is all-powerful and perfectly good
2. A perfectly good God would want to put  an end to evil
3. An all-powerful God could put an end to evil
4. Evil exists
5. Therefore, a God who is both all-powerful and perfectly good does not exist

The argument hinges upon showing a logical contradiction between God’s character and the existence of evil. However, the two do not necessarily contradict. One plausible way of reconciling the two relates to the idea of free will.

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