Here's some advice on How To Do Good Research.Here is a selection of links to articles and websites that defend the validity of Christianity and the Bible.
Topics include:
This page may be especially useful for college students. Apparently, it's been discovered that many people raised as Christians lose their faith when they go to college and are exposed to alternative ideas. The articles linked to here may persuade people that Christianity and the Bible have not been discredited by science, research and reason after all. It may well be that a lot of Christians lose their faith because they've never really understood it, so it's easy for them to be persuaded even by the arguments of people who don't understand it either but think, based on their misconceptions about it, that it doesn't make sense, or that it's always a bad thing, or something else.
These articles will be useful for any Christian wanting to engage in friendly debate with atheists and those of other religions (or perhaps sometimes it'll turn into not such friendly debate).
There's no guarantee that everything in the articles is perfectly accurate; in fact, some of them may contain errors, and a few might be found to be based on entirely faulty premises, so don't go into debate thinking you know it all, but be prepared for a good rebuttal sometimes. In fact, there's no absolute guarantee Christianity's true, so it would be inappropriate to be dogmatic about anything; the atheists might turn out to have been right all along. But the articles will certainly help Christians to become more knowledgeable about the issues, so they'll be less likely to be dissuaded from being a Christian by information that is demonstrably false - and there's a lot of that about.
Although this page promotes Christianity, it is important to be wary of a lot of what goes on in Christian circles, such as con-tricks some pastors and televangelists play on large crowds of people who are often all-too-eager to believe them, and rumours or false claims some people can make that can scare people unnecessarily, or leave them believing things that are wacky and wrong-headed, or lead them to behave in ways that are foolish or downright mean-spirited to others. You can find out more in the article How to Avoid Falling for Many False Claims or Fears of the Supernatural.
If you're interested in debating a particular topic but the articles here on it don't have enough good information and the person you're debating is winning, there may well be better information out there you could find. Here's some advice on How To Do Good Research.
But it might not come to that.
Naturally it isn't necessary for people to know anywhere near all the things in the articles linked to on this page to become a Christian or understand the Bible. The important things, such as the beautiful New Testament teaching on the way Christians should aspire to live, are very easily understood. However, there are many places where the Bible has been challenged by people who've found things they consider offensive or contradictory or inaccurate. Though most of the Old Testament is indeed liable to be offensive to most people who read it, and it's understandable that people should want to question other things about the Bible, these articles seek to address the charges against it.
I put this page together partly because I discovered that when some people lose their faith in Christianity, they experience a life crisis that can even cause severe depression. I don't believe there's any need for people to lose their faith, and I seek to demonstrate why. It may be that a lot of people would be happier not being Christians. Fair enough. But for people who are disturbed that their faith may be being threatened, the page may be a source of worthwhile information, as it may be for others.
If you're experiencing depression or stress at the moment, for whatever reason, it might be best not to follow these links now, since you may find it difficult to concentrate on the details of the in-depth articles linked to here, which would just be a common symptom of depression and stress; and some of them contain material you may find especially upsetting if you're a bit upset to begin with. You could visit our self-help material first if you like, which covers depression, life-damaging worry, panic attacks, phobias and OCD, marriage problems, bullying and teasing, eating disorders and self-harm, addictions, grief, raising difficult teenagers and toddlers, looking after someone with dementia, and other things: Free Self-Help to Recover From or Cope With Some Problems.
Links to articles on other websites open in new windows, while links to pages on this site open in the same one.
These articles and other pages illustrate why the Bible is sensible to prohibit certain behaviours and encourage others. Several of the articles don't mention the Bible and are not written by Christian organisations, but they highlight problems and suggest solutions to things related to the kinds of practical life issues the Bible also talks about, so they can serve as illustrations of why many Bible commands are wise.
This subsection seeks to illustrate the need there is in the world for people with such attitudes, and the inspirational things others are doing:
The purpose of this subsection is to illustrate that disillusionment with and misunderstanding of Christianity can result partly from the psychological damage and misleading teaching done in churches where power is abused or doctrines are made up.
Note: This section is not meant to condemn atheism or evolution, but merely to refute the claim so often belligerently made that religion and especially Christianity is the cause of all or most wars, and the reason for all the executions of people accused of witchcraft. The items about witch killing are put here to demonstrate that the Christian Church did not have a monopoly on it, for it happens in non-Christian cultures, and for a variety of reasons, most of them non-religious. Similar reasons may possibly have motivated the Church to a large extent.
Note that it's the opinion of the person who put these links together that several of the articles linked to here should be taken as fun speculation rather than definite fact.
It's also very important to get a balanced view by learning about what mainstream science has to say, because rejecting it could mean rejecting some valuable new insights into medical advances and other things that could help humanity. For instance, evolutionary biology is teaching us a lot of interesting things. While it may possibly be incorrect about humans evolving from mere single-celled organisms, it has a lot of very important things to teach us about smaller changes. See, for instance:
Still, some interesting insights may also be gained by looking at alternative points of view. So here are some:
(News articles are indicated by the added information of their source and date.)
The articles linked to in the rest of this section could provide more of an idea of what some of the Pagans of biblical times might have been engaged in, and indicate that biblical warnings against various Pagan practices are still very much valid nowadays.
(Note: Modern Western-style Pagans will not engage in the gruesome practices described in the articles linked to above.)
Note: This section is not intended to condemn other religions, but merely to respond to the often-made challenge: "Why is Christianity or the Bible any better or any more likely to be from God than any other religion or religious book??" Other religions do contain some beautiful truths.
See, for instance, some quotes from a web page called Shared belief in the "Golden Rule" (a/k.a. Ethics of Reciprocity)
But here are some articles that suggest that if any religion is better than any other, it's Christianity:
Right! By the time you've read all those, you should be confident that if any query hasn't been answered here, it probably will be somewhere on the Internet! :-)
The Main Pages On This Site:
Don't be afraid to question the truth of what a religious authority figure tells you, or even the Bible or other holy books themselves, or certain people's interpretation of them. Nothing to do with religion or the supernatural is so well established in fact it shouldn't be questioned. To find out why caution is a good idea, visit:
Are you up to trying the challenges of the New Testament's moral guidelines, and would you like to know more of what it says about the love of Jesus? Here are some links to Bible quotes about the beautiful ideals the New Testament encourages Christians to try to live up to:
There are a lot of pages on this website with quotations from the Old Testament on them. Many of these are unfortunately rather gruesome, since the main theme of the Old Testament is warnings and stories about how it says societies were punished for mass lawless and hurtful behaviour, even to the extent of having war brought on them by God, that seem to have been designed to scare societies where crime and violence were rampant into behaving more ethically. In case there is any misunderstanding, it should be understood that this website does not endorse war as anything other than a last resort. The position of the website owner can be gleaned from the articles:
Fancy some light relief or laughter therapy? Then go to the first of our jokes pages:
If you have a problem affecting your mental health or well-being, like depression, a difficulty with life-damaging worry, panic attacks, phobias or OCD, marriage problems, an addiction, an eating disorder, recovering from the trauma of sexual abuse or domestic violence, coping with bullies in the workplace, or bullying and teasing at school, trying to lose weight, raising difficult teenagers, caring for someone with a disease like Alzheimer's, wanting to recover from anorexia or self-harm, or grieving for someone you were close to or feeling lonely, and you'd like some ideas on coping or getting past it, visit our Self-help series.
If this is the first page you have visited on this site, this is part of Broadcaster.org.uk, a website about social and psychological issues, what the Bible says about social problems and other topics, and how they affect people's lives today.
Go to the Broadcaster.org.uk home page to find out more.....