Reasonable Faith Baltimore

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  • suffering and evil
    • Suffering And Evil
    • Why Hitler?
  • Know God?
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  • More
    • Home
    • Logic and Reason
      • Why Christians Leave
      • Logic and Reason
      • Logical Fallacies
    • Gods Existence
      • Kalam
      • Leibniz
      • Teleological
      • Resurrection
    • suffering and evil
      • Suffering And Evil
      • Why Hitler?
    • Know God?
    • Blog
    • Contact
    • Reincarnation
    • Gen Z and Apple Pie

Reasonable Faith Baltimore

Reasonable Faith BaltimoreReasonable Faith BaltimoreReasonable Faith Baltimore
  • Home
  • Logic and Reason
    • Why Christians Leave
    • Logic and Reason
    • Logical Fallacies
  • Gods Existence
    • Kalam
    • Leibniz
    • Teleological
    • Resurrection
  • suffering and evil
    • Suffering And Evil
    • Why Hitler?
  • Know God?
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Reincarnation
  • Gen Z and Apple Pie

Is It Possible To Know God?

Four Truths to know

  • God Loves You and created you to know Him personally
  • Man is sinful and separated from God
  • God’s solution is Jesus Christ
  • We must personally receive Christ as our Savior and Lord


Relation with Him

Personal relationship

Knowing the facts and arguments for God’s existence is important. I find them compelling, and they convinced me that belief in God is intellectually reasonable. However, apologetics alone does not save anyone. There is a critical distinction between believing that God exists and believing in God. Many  stop at the first question, assuming that once God’s existence is established, the rest should follow automatically. It does not.


Believing that God exists is a matter of evidence and argument; believing in God involves trust, surrender, and relationship. This distinction helps explain why many atheists and agnostics remain unconvinced even when confronted with strong philosophical or historical arguments. The issue is often not a lack of evidence, but a different kind of resistance—one rooted in posture rather than proof.


For me, knowledge played a role, but it was not decisive. What mattered more was approaching God with humility and sincerity: reading Scripture—especially the life and teachings of Jesus—praying, and being open to God’s guidance. Apologetics can remove intellectual obstacles, but they cannot substitute for a willingness to listen. Demanding that God perform on command—“Show up and astonish me with miracles”—treats God as an object of experimentation rather than a personal agent. That stance may be rhetorically powerful, but it is philosophically misguided.


Christian belief also requires moral realism. It begins with acknowledging that we have done wrong and need forgiveness. This is often the most challenging step, particularly in a culture that equates autonomy with authenticity. When I first considered asking God to be Lord and Savior, it felt like surrendering my personality, my freedom, and even my sense of manhood. That fear is common and understandable—but it is mistaken. My personality remained intact, my free will was not erased, and I am still fully capable of making poor choices. What changed was not my humanity, but my direction.


 Several years ago, during a routine medical procedure, my blood pressure suddenly dropped below 50; I genuinely believed I was dying. In that moment, I had no time for philosophical reflection. Having studied the resurrection for years, I understood the implications if my life were ending. What surprised me was not fear, but peace. I felt calm—even though I knew I would miss my family and friends.

Six weeks later, a brain tumor was discovered. I was concerned, but not overwhelmed by anxiety. That response was not the product of wishful thinking or blind faith. It flowed from a worldview I had already examined intellectually and then embraced personally. Apologetics helped me see that Christianity was true; trust helped me live as though it mattered.


In short, evidence can point someone toward God, but relationship is what carries them across the threshold. Christianity does not ask us to abandon reason—it asks us to move beyond mere assent and into commitment.


Site Content

Virgin Birth

y human and fully God. Now, that is complicated. 

Atonement through Jesus crucifixtion

Is this a miracle? Of course. The Creator of billions of stars in billions of galaxies would have no difficulty creating DNA with three billion nucleotide bases. Human beings, on the other hand, cannot create DNA without proteins, nor proteins without DNA.
The virgin birth is essential to Christ’s deity. While on earth, Jesus possessed two natures: He was fully human and fully God. This is a profound and complex truth, but it lies at the heart of Christian faith.

Eternal life

Even skeptics often acknowledge that if God exists, He would have to overcome the problem of death. Jesus did exactly that. The resurrection of Jesus is not a peripheral doctrine but the foundation of Christianity itself. The apostle Paul makes this unmistakably clear in 1 Corinthians 15:14–19, where he states that if Christ has not been raised, Christian preaching is meaningless, faith is futile, sins remain unforgiven, the dead are lost, and Christians are ultimately to be pitied.

Christianity therefore stands or falls on the resurrection. If Jesus rose from the dead, His claims to deity are validated; if He did not, Christianity collapses entirely. The resurrection is not merely a matter of faith—it is the decisive answer to the problem of death and the central claim upon which Christian hope rests.

Decision to accept Jesus as lord and savior

For salvation, we must confess our sins, ask for forgiveness, accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and have a relationship with him. That is enough, but hopefully, we grow in our relationship with him. For this fellowship with other Christains, study of his word and prayer are essential.

death by crucifixion and forgiveness of sin

Without the resurrection, human life lacks ultimate meaning. While human beings may create art, cure diseases, and achieve moral progress, all such accomplishments are temporary. Every individual dies, memories fade, and eventually, all biological life ends.


From a purely naturalistic perspective, the universe itself is moving toward heat death—a final state of maximum entropy in which no life, consciousness, or memory remains. If this is the ultimate end of reality, then no human action has lasting significance. All values, achievements, and moral distinctions are erased with time.


In that framework, differences between lives are only temporarily meaningful. Although Mother Teresa and Hitler represent radically different moral trajectories, both ultimately dissolve into the same nonexistence. Any moral evaluation, while emotionally compelling, lacks eternal grounding.

The resurrection of Jesus directly challenges this conclusion. If Christ rose from the dead, then death is not the final horizon of human existence, and meaning is not limited to temporal outcomes. Moral choices matter beyond the grave, justice is not merely provisional, and human life possesses enduring significance.


The resurrection therefore does more than offer personal comfort; it provides a coherent foundation for objective meaning, moral accountability, and hope that transcends the eventual decay of the universe..


Faith and Religion Hub

Women in the church

Oh my, women: what they can do and what they can’t in the church. Indeed, confusion exists, but there are a couple of reasons for the confusion. In this article, the issues are a misunderstanding of Greek grammar and a lack of knowledge of women’s roles in the Bible, as well as whether a biblical command was intended to be universal and timeless or for a specific location and time. Without knowing the culture of the time, it isn’t easy to understand the verses.


 One of the most misunderstood verses in the Bibe is found in Ephesians  5: 21-24.

Paul was addressing mutual submission to everyone in the family, including slaves. Paul speaks of mutual submission, but in Greek, verse 22 lacks a verb. In this case, the verb in verse 21 is carried over to verse 22. Therefore, husbands and wives submit to one another.


In Corinthians 14: 34-35, Paul states women should not ask questions in church.   Does this make sense? Well, yes, in specific settings. Females were much younger and, of course, much less educated than their husbands (women worldwide had educational limitations). Women's simple questions would have interrupted the gathering. Instead, Paul suggested men tutoring at home, and then women would increase in knowledge.  


Throughout the history of the Old and New Testaments, women have always held significant roles. For example, Debra, who lived in the 12th century, was a prophet and a Judge. In Judges 4, Israel refuses to go to war against the Canaanites unless Deborah joins the army. Not surprisingly, the war did not play out well for the Canaanites. 


Hulda, a prophetess whose counsel king Josiah sought over the male prophets.


The four women discovered the empty tomb and started a new religion —unheard of at the time and super embarrassing to the men. No man would make up such a story.


The woman at the well had the most extended single conversation with Jesus, then became an evangelist in her own town and spread Christianity throughout the area.


 Junia, mentioned in Romans 16:7, was an apostle and was imprisoned for her faith. 


Priscilla worked with the apostle Paul and helped establish churches in Corinth and Ephesus. 


Typhena and Tryphosa were women, according to the apostle Paul, who spread the word. 


Another woman, Phoebe, was responsible for taking the Book of Romans from Cenchreae to Rome? It was a 700-mile trip that would’ve taken 10 to 22 days one way. She was chosen, most likely because she had a better understanding of Paul’s letter. Not only that, she would have recruited males for the trip, assigned them roles, and directed them for the round-trip. Obviously, when she arrived in Rome, it was her responsibility to answer questions and teach. Did she have to explain to Roman men about references to the Old Testament and circumcision? Not a job I’d volunteer for. Did she teach males? Of course.


In conclusion, women have been highly esteemed and held positions as prophets, teachers, leaders, and apostles. It is challenging to justify women being limited in Christianity.



The Power of Prayer

Last week, I questioned capital punishment for homosexuality in Genesis 19, and we were also surprised by Lot’s offering his daughters. With no knowledge of Hebrew and limited knowledge of human culture in Genesis, I would like to share some thoughts on these two topics. I am not a revisionist, nor do I play one on TV, but you can spend hours on the internet reviewing alternate reasons for why homosexual acts are acceptable. On the other hand, I do not want to be insensitive to those who experience same sex attraction. Regardless, sex outside of heterosexual marriage is wrong.


Many skeptics and atheists today believe that man, on his own, can devise a set of rules and regulations for society. Yet an early look at humans in Genesis and the countries surrounding them were depraved by almost everyone today. The Jewish people, although far from perfect, were better than other countries: 

Canaanites, Egyptians, and Babylonians. It is hard to believe that child sacrifice, bestiality, and temple prostitution were acceptable. The rules on homosexuality were varied and complex. Right or wrong depended on passive and active positions, one’s status in life, and even the age of the passive partner.

It was even acceptable when used to punish, humiliate, and embarrass another man and to increase one’s own superiority. God simplified the complexity and varying beliefs on homosexuality. God clearly stated in strong language that it’s wrong. There are no ifs, ands, or buts (pun intended).


Also, from our discussion, Lot’s behavior does not sound like the man Peter describes in 2 Peter 2:7-8, where he says God delivered Lot from the sinful city of Sodom. Peter writes, “and he rescued Lot, a righteous man who was distressed by the filthy conversation and unrestrained behavior of the immoral people around him”. Lot was indeed flawed, but perhaps not as bad as it sounds.


At that time in human history, it was not unusual for a traveling stranger to be taken into a home and treated like royalty. Obviously, travel at that time was dangerous, and Lot was following a code that still exists in some parts of the world today. In the movie “Lone Survivor,”   an American military unit in Iraq was wiped out except for one man. Surprisingly, he was taken into a clan, and they refused to hand him over to other clans that wanted him. They risked their lives and the lives of their own family to save him.


Lot’s behavior, of course, sounds quite bizarre unless you understand the culture of the time and the intent of the men trying to break into Lot’s home. Lot was following a code to protect the visitors, and did not know they were angels. Of course, he knew the attackers’ intention, and it was not for a romantic moonlit walk followed by an expensive dinner and roses. Supposedly, and I believe it’s true, male Israeli captives received this torture from Hamas.


Fortunately, the angels pulled Lot back into the house and blinded the attackers. To me, the attackers got off easy, and as far as I’m concerned, capital punishment was merited.


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