While Dan Brown’s books may make for good readin’ (or not) they shouldn’t be used to ascertain historical facts. I’ve already made some posts about The Da Vinci Code. This article from the UK’s Telegraph newspaper gives a list of 50 of the more grievous ones: The Lost Symbol and The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown: 50 factual errors

I’m not posting this to poke fun at Dan Brown, or take pleasure in pointing out his mistakes. Nor am I confused about the status of Brown’s books as being fiction. So responses of “IT’S ONLY A FICTION BOOK GET OVER IT” are not welcome or helpful. Although well aware that Brown’s books are fictional, many people DO believe at least parts of them are accurate. An example is my former co-worker who, upon learning I am a Christian, said something to the effect of “Oh I guess you haven’t read The Da Vinci Code, it destroys Christianity!”

Of course after he saw The Real Da Vinci Code program on TV and got the facts he changed his mind. But it illustrates the need for proper information.

Yo Kanye, Imma let you finish, but OK Go still has the best video of all time!

Was just listening to the song Shadow of the Day by Linkin Park, and noticed how easily the lyrics could be turned from a depressing song about darkness to an encouraging song speaking of a deeper truth:

Who is this “Son”, “Savior”, “Jesus” anyways?

It’s no secret that “religious people” have, over the last several thousand years, done a lot of bad things. And they continue to do a lot of bad things today. I touched on this issue previously in a post titled “Christians do bad things, where I started off by saying: “I’d like to begin this short post with an apology: I’d like to apologize on behalf of Christians who have, throughout history, done some pretty rotten things supposedly in the name of Jesus Christ.”

While it is indeed lamentable that such things occur, what does this prove about whether the Christian faith is true or not?

I was thinking about this yesterday while spending some time with a friend who is very distrustful of “organized religion”. I don’t know the exact reasons for this distrust, but perhaps it’s because my friend has been exposed to many stories of religious abuse, scandal, and charlatanry. But while this may prove something about humankind, it proves nothing about God.

While I was walking to the mall today (in the brisk -16C Toronto weather) I thought … “Just because people cause problems, does that mean that God is not great?” The latter doesn’t follow from the former.

The latter (“God is not great”) also happens to be the title of a book by Christopher Hitchens, who in my humble opinion is a skilled orator and rhetorician but not necessarily a precise thinker or researcher of facts, which will make his upcoming debate with William Lane Craig very interesting. I hope that Craig realizes this debate will be much different than his usual debates against his philosopher peers.