Is Christianity a Psychological Crutch?

    It's a common objection raised against the Christian faith. Christianity is just a psychological crutch for the week, needy, and the fearful. In this view, God is a benevolent father figure for those who do not have the intellectual capacities nor the training to provide comfort and security for themselves. Two apologists point out the flaws behind this charge (links below). Several arguments are put forth so take time to read them carefully.

1. Ravi Zacharias International Ministries : Is Believing God a Psychological Crutch?

2.  Bethinking.org : Is Christianity Just a Psychological Crutch?

My take:

    Those who call Christianity a "crutch" are actually using this objection as a crutch so that they are freed from being held accountable for their sinful actions. It's their escape route to self-justification. It's a cover-up excuse for their refusal to accept the absolute sovereignty and moral authority of God over their lives.

     The God in the Bible is inscrutable. His ways are higher than our own. As I ponder about his sovereignty, his love, his holiness, and his justice and how that is fully all expressed in the saving work of Jesus Christ, he is certainly far more than the fatherly, Santa Claus-like caricature. God is not simple. This trinitarian, divine, Being whose name is a phrase ("I AM") cannot be put in a box. That is what makes Christianity a most intellectually and emotionally satisfying faith.

Christianity Explored - including the tough questions

    This is a great website to learn about Christianity. It explores the core message of the Christian faith and answers some of the tough questions that skeptics have raised and believers have struggled with through time. This site also includes stories of how people have come to faith in Christ from different cirumstances in life.

    If you've been curious about Christianity then start your investigation from this website. This is also a great resource for those who want to brush up on the basics.

Go to the website : Christianity Explored

Review Roundup of Stephen Hawking's Grand Design

A skeptical reviewer says that Hawking overreached with his conclusions.

From the Economist (Full Review) :

The main novelty in “The Grand Design” is the authors’ application of a way of interpreting quantum mechanics, derived from the ideas of the late Richard Feynman, to the universe as a whole. According to this way of thinking, “the universe does not have just a single existence or history, but rather every possible version of the universe exists simultaneously.” The authors also assert that the world’s past did not unfold of its own accord, but that “we create history by our observation, rather than history creating us.” They say that these surprising ideas have passed every experimental test to which they have been put, but that is misleading in a way that is unfortunately typical of the authors. It is the bare bones of quantum mechanics that have proved to be consistent with what is presently known of the subatomic world. The authors’ interpretations and extrapolations of it have not been subjected to any decisive tests, and it is not clear that they ever could be.

It takes a lot of faith to embrace M-theory as the ultimate explanation on how this universe came into existence.

From the Observer (Full Review) :

"Our universe and its laws appear to have a design that both is tailor-made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alternation," they state. "That is not easily explained, and raises the natural question of why it is that way." The answer, the authors say, lies with M-theory. (The M apparently stands for "master, miracle, or mystery". The authors are unsure which.) The vital point is that M-theory allows for the existence of 11 dimensions of spacetime that contains not just vibrating strings of matter but also "point particles, two-dimensional membranes, three-dimensional blobs and other objects that are more difficult to picture." Simple, really.



    Crucially the laws of M-theory allow for an unimaginably large number of different universes. Thus we exist because the laws of our particular universe just happen to be tuned to the exact parameters that permit the existence of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and other key atoms and which also generate laws that allow these entities to interact in ways that build up complex chemical combinations. Other universes are not so lucky.

    M-theory is the unified theory of physics that Einstein was hoping to find, state the authors, and if it is confirmed by observation, it will be the successful conclusion to a search that was begun by the ancient Greeks when they started to puzzle about the nature of reality. "We will have found the grand design."

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Are Christians Hypocrites?

    Among the objections skeptics raise about Christianity is that the church is filled with hypocrites. Therefore, Christians are no different from unbelievers. The logic then leads people to conclude that unbelievers can live a moral life without the need of transformation that comes from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

   A well known atheist, Christopher Hitchens, describes it as such in his book God Is Not Great :

"We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true – that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow."


   Certainly, hypocrisy is present in the church today. There's no denying that fact. However, the argument set forth by skeptics and by many misled, disillusioned Christians who buy this message is set on false assumptions and wrong understanding of the theology of Christ's redemption.

   How?  Read RC Sproul's TableTalk article : Is the Church Full of Hypocrites?