Top Posts of 2012 #5: The Hunger Games

Well, I've decided to take a break from blogging for the rest of the year. But I'm not about to leave my faithful readers too "high and dry". Each week this month, I will feature one of the Top 5 most popular posts from the past year.

If you are new to Faithful Thinkers, this list reflects the posts with the most catchy and clickable titles, and may provide an indication that other readers found the content useful. :)


Today is #5: Hunger Games: The Atheist's Utopia Revealed


Previous Winners:
Since there is no #6, here's the Christmas post from last year: Santa Claus and Our Children's Trust


Thank you to all my readers who tweet and post the articles for others to see. 

Thank you, too, to everyone who has been willing to offer constructive critique of my posts. The posts in the list are still open for comments...feel free! :)

A Special Thanks to Apologetics 315, The Poached Egg and The Christian Apologetics Alliance for their fantastic apologetics ministries as they have been instrumental in getting the content of Faithful Thinkers, and most importantly the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to the thinking masses.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

The Advantages of Hypocrisy

Contradiction in Hypocrisy
One of the objections to Christianity that I hear quite often doesn't really come as a challenge to the traditional arguments for God's existence or Jesus' resurrection. It, instead, makes an observation about the followers of Christ and draws a conclusion about the truth of their beliefs based on how well they follow what they say they believe.

This is the problem of hypocrisy in the Church. Many unbelievers look at Christians and see that we all are not perfect and that we sin, quite often, in fact. What gets people is that if someone believes something, then they should be acting like they believe it. They think that if someone's actions are not perfectly in line with what they say they believe, then they don't really believe it. "If someone who says they believe something doesn't actually believe it, then why should I believe it?"

I like how Ravi Zacharias describes this in his book, The Grand Weaver. Zacharias points out that such hypocrisy creates a contradiction in the life of the Christian (Chapter 4). The unbeliever sees this contradiction, and knowing that contradictions are not a part of reality, they may then reject the worldview of the Christian.

Is Faith Emotional or Logical?

So many people, both religious and non-religious, believe that faith is purely emotional, and in most contexts people imply the word "blind" before "faith". While few others believe that faith is logical- that it is firmly grounded on something. Lately, I've been reading the book "Emotional Intelligence" by psychologist Daniel Goleman and a few thoughts came to mind regarding this seeming dichotomy between faith being based on emotion versus being based on reason. Before I go into that connection or disconnection, though, I want to establish what I mean by "faith".

Faith in Time
I hear people all the time say that they "have faith". It seems to inspire them and those around them, but it often leaves me confused. Sure, someone can say that they "have faith". But when I hear this, I am compelled to ask a few questions:

"What do you have faith in?"
"What makes you believe that thing is worth placing your faith in it?"
"Why do you need to put 'faith' in something anyway?"