In today's culture if you want to know something, and really know it, you ask a scientist or at least that's how it's generally thought of.” Science gives us truth. Religion might give us a feeling or a purpose but science tells us about the world as it actually is, not things we have to believe on ‘faith’, or in some type of belief in spite of evidence.”

Science tells us the truth, or at least that how it's said. Some people would even say that if science doesn't say it or can't support it then it's not something we can know, that it's not true. This is what's involved in the shift in our educational system to saying that a fact is something that can be proven. An opinion is something you believe but a fact is something that can be proven, through some type of scientific or naturalistic process. 

Well this has grave implications for very important life issues like abortion and euthanasia, and so we're going to talk about that today and answer the question, "Can science tell us when abortion is okay?" You might be expecting me to say, "Yes, it can tell us when it's okay and it actually says it's never okay."

That is actually not something science could ever tell us. Science can never tell us when something is okay, or when it's wrong, because that's a moral claim, that's a moral determination. That would be something for the area of philosophy, or theology, or ethics, but certainly not science.

Science has an important role and we need to understand what that role is, because as I started out saying most people think science is the source of knowledge about the way the world really is. In some ways that's true, but science gives us a subset of knowledge about the world and the way it is. It cannot tell us everything, and the mistake today is to ascribe too much worth and give away too much in our lives to science and its supposed authority.

Let's talk about when live begins. 

Is there scientific consensus on this? Marco Rubio was recently doing an interview on CNN and he said that there is scientific consensus about when life begins, and he actually did a very good job, especially for a politician, of defending unborn life in pointing out: what else could it be that's growing in there besides a human being.

The fact that a human being is growing in its mother is not actually that controversial. We try to use other terms to distance ourselves like fetus or tissue, but it is human. It's not a dog. It's not a cat. He did a great job pointing that out. It is a being, it's alive… or is it? That's the question that we're going to look at now.

There are actually quite a few views in the scientific community about when life begins. There's the metabolic view, and this would say that when a cell is functioning that cell is alive. It's really easy to tell if a cell is alive or not. Is it taking in nutrients? Is it expelling waste? Is it doing cellular respiration? Is it creating energy? 

If the answer to those questions is yes, then whatever that thing is - that cell or group of cells - that's alive. That's one view. On that view the sperm is alive, and the egg is alive. We would affirm both of those things but they're not the same type of “alive” as the fertilized zygote or fertilized egg. 

We need to look at another view of when life begins, and this would be the genetic view. This would say that when you have a new genome that has been formed, a totally unique set of DNA that life has begun. I think this view actually pairs well with the metabolic view. You take two cells that are themselves each alive, they come together to create a totally new set of genetic code that never been seen before and never will be again. 

Those two living cells, now one, reproduce and recreate after themselves and grow. All of those constituent cell…

It's often said by Muslims and others that Jesus never claimed to be God. Is this true? 

At the very heart of Christianity, is the truth that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity who came to Earth and took on flesh, lived a perfect life and died on the cross for our sins, for our redemption, for our justification. Part of this that entails Jesus being God, so this raises the question: If Jesus was God, did he ever say that he was God? Well, for this, we need to turn to scripture.

The first passage we'll look at is John 8:58. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence, I AM." Well, what's going on here? Jesus, you've got some bad grammar — "Before Abraham, I am." Okay, what's going on there? 

This takes us all the way back to Exodus 3:14. God said to Moses, "I AM that I AM," and he said, "You must say to the Israelites, I AM has sent me to you." When Jesus says “before Abraham came into existence I AM," that this would not have been lost on the Jewish listeners of the day. They would have understood that he was claiming to be the "I AM" from the Old Testament who the Jews understood to be God, that Father, that figure, that person, and that being.

We know they understood what he meant because they picked up stones to stone him right after this. While we might not understand on first reading that Jesus is claiming to be God, the Jews certainly did because they wanted to kill him. We see another example of this in John 10:30. Jesus says, "The Father and I are one." Again, the Jewish leaders picked up rocks to stone him to death. Jesus said to them, "I've shown you many good deeds from the Father. For which one of them are you going to stone me?" It seems slightly sarcastic but it gets a very good response from them, at least one that's helpful for us.

The Jewish leaders replied, "We're not going to stone you for a good deed but for blasphemy, because you, a man, are claiming to be God." They understood that when Jesus said, "The Father and I are one," he was claiming to be God. They also understood when he said "Before Abraham, I AM," that once again he was claiming to be God. 

Now, there is a fundamental problem that exists in the New Testament as to how to say that Jesus is God without saying Jesus is the Father. You'll see Paul in many places go to great lengths to affirm the deity of Christ without coming right out and saying Jesus is God.

In fact, I don't think there is a passage that says Jesus is God, because here's how that would have been understood in that day. In Greek, the word used for God is "ho theos." Literally, The God, but it just gets translated as God, and they understood that God to be one person and one being, and they understood that person to be the Father. If Jesus comes along and says, "I am ho theos." They are going to hear “Jesus is the Father”, which is incorrect actually, but it's also confusing. It's the same thing as if I were to say, "Brian is Phil." You would probably reply, “no, you're not. You're Brian and he's Phil.”

What we really see here, is Jesus trying — or, you might say he wasn’t “trying”, since, on one level they understood what he meant — to come up with a different way to say that he is: divine, he is co-equal with the Father, He is God, without saying he is the Father. It might take some time for you to wrap your mind around that. There's a really interesting passage in Romans 8 where Paul uses “God”, “Jesus”, and “the Spirit” in parallel ways to reinforce the fact that they are all God, although they are all distinct persons.

The Christian belief, as expressed in the Trinity, is not that there are three gods. It's not that there are three beings who are God. It's that there is one being who is God who exists in three co-equal, c…

It's often said by Muslims and others that Jesus never claimed to be God. Is this true? 

At the very heart of Christianity, is the truth that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity who came to Earth and took on flesh, lived a perfect life and died on the cross for our sins, for our redemption, for our justification. Part of this that entails Jesus being God, so this raises the question: If Jesus was God, did he ever say that he was God? Well, for this, we need to turn to scripture.

The first passage we'll look at is John 8:58. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence, I AM." Well, what's going on here? Jesus, you've got some bad grammar — "Before Abraham, I am." Okay, what's going on there? 

This takes us all the way back to Exodus 3:14. God said to Moses, "I AM that I AM," and he said, "You must say to the Israelites, I AM has sent me to you." When Jesus says “before Abraham came into existence I AM," that this would not have been lost on the Jewish listeners of the day. They would have understood that he was claiming to be the "I AM" from the Old Testament who the Jews understood to be God, that Father, that figure, that person, and that being.

We know they understood what he meant because they picked up stones to stone him right after this. While we might not understand on first reading that Jesus is claiming to be God, the Jews certainly did because they wanted to kill him. We see another example of this in John 10:30. Jesus says, "The Father and I are one." Again, the Jewish leaders picked up rocks to stone him to death. Jesus said to them, "I've shown you many good deeds from the Father. For which one of them are you going to stone me?" It seems slightly sarcastic but it gets a very good response from them, at least one that's helpful for us.

The Jewish leaders replied, "We're not going to stone you for a good deed but for blasphemy, because you, a man, are claiming to be God." They understood that when Jesus said, "The Father and I are one," he was claiming to be God. They also understood when he said "Before Abraham, I AM," that once again he was claiming to be God. 

Now, there is a fundamental problem that exists in the New Testament as to how to say that Jesus is God without saying Jesus is the Father. You'll see Paul in many places go to great lengths to affirm the deity of Christ without coming right out and saying Jesus is God.

In fact, I don't think there is a passage that says Jesus is God, because here's how that would have been understood in that day. In Greek, the word used for God is "ho theos." Literally, The God, but it just gets translated as God, and they understood that God to be one person and one being, and they understood that person to be the Father. If Jesus comes along and says, "I am ho theos." They are going to hear “Jesus is the Father”, which is incorrect actually, but it's also confusing. It's the same thing as if I were to say, "Brian is Phil." You would probably reply, “no, you're not. You're Brian and he's Phil.”

What we really see here, is Jesus trying — or, you might say he wasn’t “trying”, since, on one level they understood what he meant — to come up with a different way to say that he is: divine, he is co-equal with the Father, He is God, without saying he is the Father. It might take some time for you to wrap your mind around that. There's a really interesting passage in Romans 8 where Paul uses “God”, “Jesus”, and “the Spirit” in parallel ways to reinforce the fact that they are all God, although they are all distinct persons.

The Christian belief, as expressed in the Trinity, is not that there are three gods. It's not that there are three beings who are God. It's that there is one being who is God who exists in three co-equal, c…

Is it murder when God kills someone or what about when he orders the destruction of a whole nation?

Most people have a family member that they just don't want to be seen in public with -  they’re awkward. They say things they shouldn't at the wrong times, things like that. For Christians, if there's a part of the Bible that they're most likely to be embarrassed about or not know how to handle, it's probably what some people have called, "The morality of God." How do we deal with God killing people or ordering their death or those types of things. There are numerous examples of this. We have Abraham and Isaac. You have a father ordered by God to kill his son, and he almost does it.

We have God killing Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament, they just drop dead. And we have the largest example of God-sanctioned killing with the Canaanites, a whole people group that God ordered the destruction of. What is often said by atheists and non-Christians is “this is immoral. How can you believe in a God who would do these things? Your God can't be good. He is fundamentally evil.” Christians don't often know how to respond to that, so we are going to address that topic today. This is going to be the third and probably the last for a while in our little mini-series on Old Testament issues.

We've looked at women in the Old Testament, we've looked at slavery, and now we are going to look at the destruction of the Canaanites, that people group, for whom God ordered destruction. Here's a passage from Deuteronomy where we see this command given: "For the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing to survive. Instead, you must utterly annihilate them - the Hittites, the Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites - just as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God."

In this we are given a glimpse into the heart and mind of God as He orders the destruction of lot of "ites." Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, and on and on and on. "Just as the Lord has commanded you, don't allow a single living thing to survive. You must utterly annihilate them." Well, that doesn't fit with the warm, lovey, fuzzy — God loves kittens, unicorns, and rainbows — image of God that all too often Christians like to portray, where God is love. That's the primary thing when we think of God. But we have to have an idea of God that encompasses passages like these - passages where God seems to be wrathful, where he is exhibiting judgment and justice.

God is just as wrathful as he is loving. God is just as just as he is loving also. There isn't a hierarchy of attributes in God, but for some reason we always want to talk about his love and not his holiness. We always want to talk about his love but not his justice, and this is a skewed concept of God. 

We're going to look at the specific example of the Canaanites and their destruction and what we should say about that and how we should understand these passages as Christians, and then we're going to reason to the general issue of what is God's relationship to human life, what responsibilities does he have, what moral obligations does he have.

The first thing we should say about the Canaanites in this example is that God was willing to wait more than 430 years before he destroyed them. They were sinful, they were depraved and wicked and yet God says the sin of the Amorite people has not yet reached its limit, and we see this in Genesis 15:16. He didn't judge them right off the bat. He gave them opportunity to turn from their ways. Now they didn't, which is why he ultimately judges them. Now, what are we tal…

Is it murder when God kills someone or what about when he orders the destruction of a whole nation?

Most people have a family member that they just don't want to be seen in public with -  they’re awkward. They say things they shouldn't at the wrong times, things like that. For Christians, if there's a part of the Bible that they're most likely to be embarrassed about or not know how to handle, it's probably what some people have called, "The morality of God." How do we deal with God killing people or ordering their death or those types of things. There are numerous examples of this. We have Abraham and Isaac. You have a father ordered by God to kill his son, and he almost does it.

We have God killing Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament, they just drop dead. And we have the largest example of God-sanctioned killing with the Canaanites, a whole people group that God ordered the destruction of. What is often said by atheists and non-Christians is “this is immoral. How can you believe in a God who would do these things? Your God can't be good. He is fundamentally evil.” Christians don't often know how to respond to that, so we are going to address that topic today. This is going to be the third and probably the last for a while in our little mini-series on Old Testament issues.

We've looked at women in the Old Testament, we've looked at slavery, and now we are going to look at the destruction of the Canaanites, that people group, for whom God ordered destruction. Here's a passage from Deuteronomy where we see this command given: "For the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing to survive. Instead, you must utterly annihilate them - the Hittites, the Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites - just as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God."

In this we are given a glimpse into the heart and mind of God as He orders the destruction of lot of "ites." Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, and on and on and on. "Just as the Lord has commanded you, don't allow a single living thing to survive. You must utterly annihilate them." Well, that doesn't fit with the warm, lovey, fuzzy — God loves kittens, unicorns, and rainbows — image of God that all too often Christians like to portray, where God is love. That's the primary thing when we think of God. But we have to have an idea of God that encompasses passages like these - passages where God seems to be wrathful, where he is exhibiting judgment and justice.

God is just as wrathful as he is loving. God is just as just as he is loving also. There isn't a hierarchy of attributes in God, but for some reason we always want to talk about his love and not his holiness. We always want to talk about his love but not his justice, and this is a skewed concept of God. 

We're going to look at the specific example of the Canaanites and their destruction and what we should say about that and how we should understand these passages as Christians, and then we're going to reason to the general issue of what is God's relationship to human life, what responsibilities does he have, what moral obligations does he have.

The first thing we should say about the Canaanites in this example is that God was willing to wait more than 430 years before he destroyed them. They were sinful, they were depraved and wicked and yet God says the sin of the Amorite people has not yet reached its limit, and we see this in Genesis 15:16. He didn't judge them right off the bat. He gave them opportunity to turn from their ways. Now they didn't, which is why he ultimately judges them. Now, what are we tal…

Why does the bible require a rape victim to marry her rapist? Stay tuned and find out on Unapologetic.

If you ever hear about the bible and it's stance on rape, you'll probably hear about it from an atheist. This is one of the arguments that they will generally tout out against the Bible, and God, and Christianity, to show that Christianity is immoral because the bible condones and seems to even endorse rape, “it requires a rape victim to marry her rapist, right?” Actually, no.

You probably guessed that was going to be the answer, and that is the answer but we really need to cover why that is the answer. This objection comes from a superficial reading of some Old Testament passages. We're going to look at a few different Old Testament passages that talk about rape and sex outside of marriage. The first that we're going to look at is Exodus 22:16-17, which says,

“If a man seduces [patah] a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.”

Now, this word seduces, it's the Hebrew word “patah", I'm not a Hebrew scholar, I'm relying on the work that other notable people who are experts in their field have done in this area. “patah" is not the strongest word that could be used here as we will see.

What we do see is this man seduced this woman who was a virgin, and was not engaged. Now, unless the father absolutely refuses, they're going to have to marry each other. That's one passage that we're going to look at. Why would this be the case? Well, a non-virgin is going to have a very hard time in that society getting married in the future. What's also noteworthy is he could not divorce her - the man that seduced this woman - he could not divorce her after they got married. Which is contrary to the fact that generally divorce could happen in that culture though it was not looked favorably upon and certainly not God's design, but he was paying for his crime. You might say, "He seduced her, why does she have to stay with him for the rest of her life?" Well, it's not an ideal system, that is for sure. However, this at least provides for her physical security, she's going to be married, she's not going to be on her own; it's going to provide for her financial security which she would also not have necessarily, if she were on her own.

It's making the best of a not great situation, but it's not rape. The word there is not as strong as the word might be for “forces”, when the word that's used is “seduces”. Let's look at another passage, Deuteronomy, chapter 22,

“If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city [i.e., where her screams could be heard], and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.”

This is not rape, that's not what's being described here, this is adultery that's being described, sex outside of marriage.

You'll see that no-one is having to marry someone else in this case, because they're both going to be dead at the end of the story. Adultery was a capital crime. It warranted the death penalty in the Israel theocracy. You might say “well, how do you know that this was consensual?” The passage says she didn't cry out. "Oh, so she has to cry out in order for it to be consensual?" No, it does reason that a woman might not cry out if she's being raped. However, this was a standard in place that tried to do the best it could in a day where there weren't security cameras, and cellphone cameras, and DNA…