So me and my homie yesterday were having a really good conversation about the differences between Protestantism and Orthodoxy. For context, he is Orthodox. While having some of our disagreements, he always pivoted back to a central argument he would use. His argument was that the reason Orthodoxy has to be true is because Orthodoxy can trace its lineage directly to the Apostles. In essence, we know what we speak is the truth because we can trace our teaching to what the Apostles taught who were closest to Jesus. If we are to trust anyone, it would be the apostles who were closest to him; and the church they built is modern day Orthodoxy. He also discredited Martin Luther by in essence saying that we shouldn't take one man's side on the interpretation of the gospel, especially when the Orthodox church has been unified for 1500 years before him. How could we have been wrong for 1500 years and then he shows up and fixes it was his take more or less. What would be some rebuttals you would use to counter that point?

I’m aware that everyone is at different points in their apologetics journey. Whether that be philosophy, theology, science, biblical studies, etc. What I want to know is: what areas do you feel you need the most competency? This is to help us coaches know how to best help you. Please be specific and detailed. Expectant for your feedback 🙂

Wanted to share a "win" moment that happened this week. As background, I've been engaging in evangelism/outreach/apologetics online in a game known as VRChat for over 4 years now. If you know, you know. If not, well, think of it as a pocket of condensed internet culture combined with never ending debauchery and the worst of human inclinations. A place that desperately needs Jesus. But who doesn't desperately need Jesus? Regardless, I attended my first ever Wednesday live-session on Objection Handling this week. It happened to include a special appearance from Big Jon Steel. Not only was it super educational and helpful, but Tim mentioned a principle on engaging others that stuck with me. It was how we shouldn't allow ourselves to be derailed by questions when it's the other person's burden to substantiate their argument. Seeing it played out in practice and the various strategies to stay focused was super helpful. Cue the very next night, when I'm world hopping and come across a deconstructionist who hosts his very own "anti-Bible studies" and creates video content on the matter. We end up engaging and the conversation quickly becomes about Deuteronomy 22:13-21 (stoning a woman who is not a virgin on her wedding night). To avoid bloating this post with details, I essentially present the position that the law is not meant to be read as a code or strict, explicit rules but functions more as a legal treatise full of judicial wisdom. He pushed back with classic responses as "nuh uh" and "you're adding to the Bible", and then waved his flag of moral outrage that this is an unjust and disproportional law. I asked him to substantiate his conclusion that this was morally wrong, because all he was doing up to that point was making the assertion that it's immoral and wrong and asking us to just accept it. And it happened. He agreed to demonstrate how he came to that conclusion. I kid you not, the very next words to immediately come out of his mouth were: "Do YOU think this is ok?" It felt surreal that I was already being given the opportunity to practice one of the key principles I had learned the night before! I simply stood my ground, refused to answer, and emphasized that what I think has no bearing on how he reasons to his conclusion. He pushed back in all kinds of ways, like saying that I was "running" because I was afraid to answer. I stayed firm, and that created a turning point in the conversation.

Hey my PUPS(people understanding philosophy)! Just a quick update on the courses. We’re making amazing progress on the new foundations course. More news to come on that soon. Just heard back from Dr. Ryan Mullins as well and we have an amazing course planned out. You’ll get lectures from him on models of god, theories of creation and the coherence of theism.

I've browsed the web for debate content for quite some time now, I have come to notice a multitude of either Agnostic/Atheist that hold to a Non Cognitivist idea of Metaethics. Now my area of Christian Theological study at the present moment explores more of the historicity of the Old and New Testament. That being said, I very much lack building logical, ethical ideas that I want to express into words. So here's where i'm asking you my philosophy friends to possibly make sense of such a conundrum... Here it is.. "If an Emotivist believes that no moral claims hold trueness or falsehood, and morals derive from a persons emotional state, then why does anyone with such a view bother to debate their opinion in the first place?" No matter what way I slice it, I just can't understand the inanity, even when i'm genuinely trying to understand. For some of these people to speak with such "expressiveness" and "emotion", it is to be suggested to a live audience that this person truly does cares about what they are speaking about AND care about how a viewer "feels" about their opinions. If this is a proposition, it could be assumed that this person wants to convince someone of their ethical worldview being correct, EVEN IF they wont state they are objectively right." Basically, if people do not subscribe to their ethical ideas (that the debater believes to be right but can't prove) then they will begin to lose a following. Which is why some of them would have to AT THE VERY LEAST pretend to care about what they talk about, which would just completely ruin all credibly for arguing for the very thing they seem to be carrying out. Now i'm not saying it's impossible to take an emotivist stance, however it just becomes incredibly difficult to be convinced in a formal or informal debate setting, as a viewer, to care about what they have to say. There is way more I wanted to talk about but I hope I expressed my ideas enough to hopefully spark up some conversation. I really am not trying to just bash anyones beliefs, I just need more help understanding. Part 2 Coming soon possibly..