“The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me – the ravings of insanity, superstition gone to seed! I want no part of such a God.” – Luther Burbank The age-old question “How can a good God send people to Hell?” has bothered Christians and been used by others as proof that Christianity is rubbish. But what exactly is Hell, and what is Heaven? Can the concepts of God and Hell be reconciled? An afterlife is not exclusive to Christianity, but is common to almost all cultures. Where did such a concept come from? Brian Schroeder attempts to show that the concepts of Hell and of a good, loving, all powerful God are perfectly compatible and together do make sense.
Eusebius of Caesarea (263 AD – 339 AD) is commonly known as the “Father of Church History”. He lived during a time of great persecution under the Emperor Diocletian but survived to see Emperor Constantine give Christianity official recognition. He also lived within a few generations of the lives of the first Christian apostles and had access to early copies of their writings and those who they discipled. As Bishop of Caesarea he participated in the Council of Nicaea and mixed with fellow church leaders. Caesarea had a great library on which he was able to draw. From this experience, Eusebius was able to look back on the first 300 years of the Christian faith and document its growth, its heresies and its persecutions.
His major work is “Ecclesiastical History” (or Church History), which is our most important source on the development of Christianity from the completion of the New Testament through to the time of Emperor Constantine the Great (early 300s). So, he has done us a service in recording the foundations of the Church from an early perspective. He also wrote a glowing biography of Constantine, as though the Church had entered its millennial blessing. With such a reputation, he has of course come under attack. So, is his history reasonably accurate and can he be trusted?
Genesis chapter 22 describes how Abraham was called by God to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. This story is set about 4,000 years ago and is stunning. Some people say that it is horrible, barbaric, and even pagan, and that the religion of the Bible is primitive and no better than that of other ancient peoples. Yet this story is important to the Jewish and Christian faiths, and even in the Islamic faith, and has been so for many centuries.
Geoff Russell believes that it’s a wonderful story, which gives us significant insights into the mind and heart of God. This very story gives us reasons to believe that God is good, and that the Bible is His revelation to us.
The presentation and discussion can be viewed on You Tube
Many people conclude that there must be a designer at least to account for the complexity of living things. However, Richard Dawkins contends that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, through natural selection, can explain the rise of complexity by gradual degrees from simple beginnings. In “The Blind Watchmaker”, Richard Dawkins states:
Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker. (p.14)
Dawkins goes on to claim that God is superfluous and highly improbable. Are Dawkins’ argument reasonable?
Christians have responded in quite different ways, ranging from substantial rejection of evolutionary theory, through to acceptance of some form of guided evolution. To the lay person, the divergent claims can be very confusing. So, the following questions often arise:
What can I know?
Who should I trust?
Does the world need a designer?
Kevin Rogers provides an overview and discussion of the arguments presented in “The Blind Watchmaker” and addresses the above questions, including “Does the world in which we live point to a Supernatural Designer?”
Most people have some awareness of artificial intelligence (AI), perhaps from Hollywood movies or news articles about driverless cars. However, most people are not yet aware of the breadth of applications possible today, nor the stunning advances that have been made with AI in recent years. Already there are a growing number of important ethical and practical implications arising from these current and continuing advances in AI; yet the general public is not involved, nor the Church and even governments are scrambling to catch-up. This talk is part 1 of a 2-talk series on AI and will survey the current status of AI as well as near term advances. It will introduce and consider ethical questions such as:
What are the impacts for jobs in civil society in next few years and decades?
What are the right and wrong uses of AI technology? For example, should we use AI robots to keep the elderly “company”?
What happens when video and audio can be created by AI so well that real video/audio is indistinguishable from generated?
What are the risks from our current and likely future reliance on AI technology?
What conversations should we be having to care for each other as AI ushers in a huge increase in the pace of change?
One of the miracles ascribed to Jesus is that of feeding over 5000 people with 5 small loaves of bread and 2 fish. Interestingly this is one of very few stories that appears in all 4 gospels. So, how are these stories different and how do they differ?
Kevin does not try to prove that this miracle really happened, but shows that there are a large number of incidental details which strongly indicate that, at the very least, this story is based on an actual event.
This year (2022) we plan to address the elephant in the room.
In past meetings, the discussions have often been diverted
when someone expresses an opinion regarding Young Earth Creationism (YEC) or
Old Earth Creationism (OEC). As the minister responsible for herding cats, it
has been my job to move the discussion back onto the original topic. But this
is an important issue that won’t go away by pushing it under the carpet, so
this year we are going to give it a fair bit of attention.
All Christians are creationists of some sort but disagree on
how or when. Roughly, opinions fall within the following groups:
Young Earth Creationists (YECs) believe that the
6 days in Genesis 1 should be interpreted as 6 literal 24-hour days. Hence the
age of the earth (and usually the rest of the universe) is just a few thousand
years. This view is argued by Creation Ministries International (CMI) and
Answers in Genesis (AIG).
Old Earth Creationists (OECs) and mainstream
science claim that the earth is ‘approximately’ 4.543 billion years, and the
universe is 13.77 billion years. Some OECs believe that God intervened
miraculously in the development of life, whereas theistic evolutionists believe
that evolution proceeded mainly through natural causes.
The time frames between the YEC and OEC positions differ by
approximately a million to one, so at least one opinion is diabolically wrong.
So, this year people can express and argue their opinions (on
both science and Biblical interpretation) and will hopefully listen to others
in a respectful and empathetic way.
On 10 February 2022, Steve White presented a scientific case for a young earth, followed by discussion and questions from the audience. A recording of the meeting is at
On Thursday 11th April, Reasonable Faith Adelaide held an informal debate between Kevin Rogers (director RFA) and Scott Sharrad, the president of the Atheists Federation of Australia on the topic “Is Christianity a force for good?”
The debate and discussion have now been published on You Tube.
This is a summary of a talk Artificial Intelligence and its implications on ethics today. The talk was given by Tom Daly to Reasonable Faith Adelaide on the 12th of April 2018.
The talk can be viewed on You Tube and you can access the slides here.
The New Testament starts with the 4 gospels: Matthew, Mark Luke and John. Each gospel also provides unique material. For example, only Luke gives us the parable of the prodigal son and only Matthew tells us about the visit by the Magi, but, some material is repeated. I have sometimes reacted, “Ho hum, boring! I have heard this all before”, but I was wrong.
