Category: Apologetics

Book Plunge: Atheism: A Critical Analysis

What do I think of Stephen Parrish’s book published by Wipf and Stock? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Stephen Parrish has written a book that is highly philosophical, and yet at the same time, highly readable. The book is a look at the idea of atheism. Does it really stand up to scrutiny? He looks at it from a scholarly level and from a popular level both.

At the start, one gets treated to definitions. What is meant by atheism and theism? What is meant by religion and science? What is meant by the term supernatural? These are all terms that we use freely, but very rarely do we stop and ask what they mean. I am one who never uses the term supernatural thinking it is way too vague and when I get a claim such as someone talking about the evils of religion, I ask for a definition of religion.

He also deals with popular objections. Is atheism merely a lack of belief in God? What about the idea that someone is an atheist to many other gods out there. The one who identifies as an atheist just goes one god further. Sure, these are all piddly weak on the surface and the old atheists would have been embarrassed to see such arguments, but they are out there today.

Parrish’s work that presents problem areas mainly for atheism come in three categories and these can be broken down further. The first is the origin of the universe. This is an interesting topic in itself, but I am pleased to see that he goes even further and asks not only how the universe came into being but rather how does it continue in being. It’s not enough to ask why it came in the first place. Knowing how it remains here is something great to ask too.

The second area is the problem of the mind. How is it that the mind works? What is the explanation of consciousness? There are a plethora of different theories out there. Parrish works to explain the flaws in the other theories and gives a case for why theism has better explanatory power.

The last is ethics and morality. There is a subsection here on beauty as well. How is it that we live in a universe where there seem to be principles of good and evil that most people consider objective, binding, and authoritative? Could they all really be subjective?

An atheist reading this could think, “Ah. Those are issues, but surely he should discuss the issue that’s problematic for theists. The problem of evil.” He should and he does. He looks at this and a number of defenses and theodicies and then turns and says that on his argument, the problem of evil is more of a problem for the atheist than the theist.

Some of you might be wondering why I don’t spell these kinds of thoughts out even more. There’s a simple reason for that. You need to go and get the book yourself. I can’t help but think of the quote of C.S. Lewis.

“In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere — “Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,” as Herbert says, “fine nets and stratagems.” God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”

A man wishing to remain in his atheism should also realize that this book is a trap as well. While I am far more Thomist than Parrish is in my philosophy, there is far more that I agree with than I would disagree with. Anyone who is a critical atheist needs to get this for a critical analysis of that view.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Moral Combat: Why The War On Violent Video Games Is Wrong

What do I think of Patrick Markey and Christopher Ferguson’s book published by BenBella books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Gaming has always been a pastime of mine that I have highly invested in. I have heard for years the panic about video games leading to violence. This has often been assumed and taken for granted. If you let your children play violent video games, they will be desensitized to violence and be more prone to be violent. Besides, look at all these school shooters who played violent video games. What more do you need?

People who think that way need to read this book. It is an excellent look at how these claims are blown out of the water. What is going on is often bad science. People are often tested to see if they’re more aggressive after playing a video game. Question. How do you measure aggression?

You don’t let people walk the streets with a crowbar in their hand seeing if they’ll bludgeon someone. Instead, questions are often asked like would you put hot sauce in someone’s food if they didn’t want it? You could be asked if you would be prone to hurt someone’s feelings. Some people will want to do this anyway. Some people might want to do the hot sauce thing not because they’re aggressive, but because they like to pull pranks on people.

When some games have come out, such as some in the Grand Theft Auto series, it has been speculated that there would be a rise in crime. It was even compared to the Polio scare. Well, the game under question came out and yes, crime was affected.

Crime dropped.

What about school shootings? How about someone like Adam Lanza? He’s the guy who shot up the Sandy Hook school. It was said that he was a player of video games and this without the hard evidence and people ran with it. Well, it is true. Lanza was spending significant time playing video games.

He had a reputation of spending hours at the arcade playing Dance Dance Revolution.

What’s interesting is that sometimes, these killers had a history of NOT playing violent video games. This actually could have made them more prone to violent shootings. Why? Because games are nowadays a way that people come together and bond together socially. People who are not doing that can be social outcasts and feel rejected by their peers and be more prone to shootings.

What about Columbine? Contrary to what is thought, the killers had not made a level of DOOM modeled after their high school. Also, the skills needed in a video game to shoot the enemies do not transfer to real life. My father-in-law is quite good at sharpshooting I have been told. Let’s go back to when I used to play Goldeneye. I could play that all day and still go to a shooting range with him and do horrible even if I was the best player of Goldeneye there was.

Many games nowadays also contain moral judgments. Some people will go through a game again and try to be as ruthless as possible just to see what happens, but most will actually start to think about these moral issues. Final Fantasy X can get one thinking about the relationship between religion and technology and what it requires to atone for one’s sin.

What about video game addiction? This can vary. When Breath of the Wild first came out, many of my friends were spending hours playing this. Does this constitute addiction? No. This is just guys getting a new toy and playing with it. Sadly, there are cases where intense horror has taken place, such as the daughter who starved to death while her mother played World of Warcraft.

A child could play 3-4 hours of video games a day and still function well with their peers and make good grades. If they are able to do this, that does not constitute addiction. By contrast, someone could play 1-2 hours and have their grades suffer and that could constitute addiction.

What about obesity and video games? This sounds like a no-brainer, but again, it isn’t. Take away a child’s video games and it doesn’t mean they’ll jump outside and start running and jumping. They can just as easily find something else to do. If anything, now we have games that require movement which are being good exercise. My wife once decided she really wanted to lose weight and did it with the DDR exercise plan. What’s that? It’s playing the aforementioned Dance Dance Revolution. It worked. She lost 30 pounds.

More and more games are coming out like this. It can also be better than going to a gym because with video games, you can get instantaneous rewards that motivate you, such as a high score or trophies or achievements unlocked or reaching new levels.

Now many of you know that this is an apologetics page. What does this have to do with apologetics? First, we need to be people of truth in every field. I don’t care for football at all, but that doesn’t mean I want to spread a claim that playing football makes someone more violent if it isn’t true.

Second, a work like this can show us how misinformation can spread easily. Many people who complained about certain games revealed by their words that they had never played or seen those games and were going on secondhand information. This never does our cause any good.

Third, if we attack false causes of violence, we never get at the real cause. No one doubts the nobility of the desire of people to want to reduce violence by eliminating violent video games, but if that is not the cause, then you could eliminate all such games and violence would still take place.

Fourth, paranoia should never be our friend as Christians. It’s easier to go after something else rather than saying that maybe we should do a better job of raising our children and teaching them good from evil. How about a parent instead of banning some games, maybe try something like renting through Gamefly first and, I know this is bizarre, playing it with your kid and talking about it. If you fear some of the content, go on YouTube and watch the videos of the game and discuss why or why not the child should be allowed to play it.

Also as Christians, we don’t want to unnecessarily alienate video game players. The overwhelming majority of us, including me, grew up playing games and we are not violent people at all. As someone with Aspergers, I was also pleased to hear about how games have helped people on the spectrum socialize and I can attest that that is true.

So my fellow gamers, game on. Enjoy and have fun. We all want to end unnecessary violence in our world today. Maybe now we can go and find the real culprit.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 9/21/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Happy families are all alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Many families will not put their dysfunction out there for the world to see. If you post on Facebook, very rarely will you see something like, “Wife and I got into an awful fight over how to do the laundry and we ended up yelling at each other for an hour.”

The LGBT community might look happy on the outside. We just want to get along. This is a group all about love and tolerance. Right? Maybe not. Maybe there’s a lot of chaos going on in this family as well. What if they can’t all just get along?

My guest this Saturday has done a lot of looking into this community. Things are not as they seem. The feminist movement already doesn’t like what’s happening with transgenderism which puts a lot of tension between the L and the T. The B movement isn’t going so well with that either since that assumes that there are only two genders.

Okay. So the LGBT community isn’t getting along with itself. What does that have to do with us? For one thing, if this is accurate, this can show us the path we could be going on. What if we Christians are right and this is a war against reality? What if the tensions underlie a much deeper issue? What if issues of sexuality have to do with more than just whoever you sleep with?

To discuss this, I’m bringing on someone who has researched this movement and has the knowledge about what’s going on. He came highly recommended by Dr. J of the Ruth Institute. He’s a writer for the Christian Post and his name is Brandon Showalter.

So who is he?

Brandon Showalter is a 2007 graduate of Bridgewater College of Virginia. He earned a BA (cum laude) in International Studies and Spanish and was a fellow the Flory Honors program, studying abroad at the University of Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain in 2005. He is also a fellow of the John Jay Institute for Faith, Society, and Law.

Since 2016 he has been a journalist with The Christian Post covering a wide range of topics. His reporting has been cited in the US State Department’s 2017 International Religious Freedom report and in the 2018 book “Braving the Future: Christian Faith in a World of Limitless Tech.” Earlier this year, the Evangelical Press Association awarded him and one of his colleagues first place for best Article series. In late October 2017 he traveled to Germany to report on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

Tomorrow then, that’s what we’ll be talking about. We are working on updating the shows and getting them to you. I hope to be fully caught up before too long.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Thanks For 39

How shall today be celebrated? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Normally on Thursdays, I talk about the show for the upcoming week. It’s going to be different just this week. I want to talk about today instead. Today is one of those days where I woke up and I was sure today was going to be a special day.

Today I officially turn 39. It’s quite odd knowing when I was praying with Allie last night that that would be my last night at the age of 38. I wonder where all the time has gone by so often. How did I get from being the kid playing video games upstairs in my bedroom at home to the guy on the adventure of apologetics waking up next to the woman I love? (And okay, the video games part still hasn’t changed.)

None of us really knows what the future holds. I would not have thought that my life would involve this kind of ministry growing up, mainly because I didn’t know this kind of ministry even existed. Now I find myself being the person that is emailed by others with questions and answering them and giving them the encouragement they need. I never would have thought this is what would have happened when I began this journey in college.

I also think back to how just about six months ago I debated Dan Barker. My father-in-law, Mike Licona, and I both find it interesting that our first live in-person debate was with the same person. We are already talking about a future debate some time. This is the path I want to be going down.

Being married is also a surprise. I never thought it would have happened growing up. Next year, we will celebrate ten years together. Marriage has taught me more about self-sacrifice than anything else I have done. It’s also increased in me a greater appreciation for beauty and caused me to make necessary changes in myself.

Chesterton said each one of us is a great might-not-have-been. I’m thankful I was. Consider as a Christian that you are not an accident. You have been eternally in the mind of God. Theologically, God could never stop thinking about me. I’m always on His mind.

Tonight, I’ll be enjoying a party with some friends at a support group Allie and I belong too. My parents gave me the Collection of Mana for the Switch (Rather they got me a card so I could get it, but the same difference). My wife got me Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far. Mike and Debbie got me an Amazon gift card. All the gifts are just a reminder of meaning something to someone. They all say “We are happy that you exist.”

None of us had to. This universe could have gone on just fine without any of us. None of us are essential, but we’re all invited to be a part of the story. I am thankful that I get included in that story.

Many people have already posted on my wall on Facebook for today. Thanks to all of you who have done that. It really is nice to have so many friends, to know you mean so much to people, and to be able to make a difference. Many of you are also reminding me how much you affirm the virgin birth, which I do affirm. Thanks to all of you who are contributing to make today special.

I look forward to the next year and as many years as God will give me. For now, we will see where the adventure goes from here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

God And The Origin Of Life

What does the origin of life have to do with God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday while surfing through Facebook, I see someone make a post about the origin of life and said something about how it would be good to go ahead and see if we can make life out of non-life so we can finally settle the God debate once and for all. I really think it’s sad that anyone would think such a thing. It would be sad enough if an atheist thought that would settle the debate, but it would be far worse if a Christian thought it would.

Ultimately, if that is what you think, God is just a placeholder for you when you have a question that can’t be answered, and that being a scientific question, and then once it gets answered, well, so much for God. It is essentially God-of-the-Gaps thinking. If you really think such a way, here are some other truths you must already think.

You must think the universe came into existence by its own power.

If you think the universe is eternal in some form or another even if a multiverse, you must think this whole system not just came into power, but also exists by its own power. The universe needs nothing outside of itself not just for coming into existence, but for existing as well.

You must think that once life began, then that’s enough for evolution, which if you’re a Christian and arguing this you likely don’t believe in, could operate from its own power from that point.

You must believe that either good and evil are not objective then or if they are, that somehow those eternal realities exist in a purely materialistic universe.

You must have a belief about human consciousness that can be explained in an entirely materialistic universe.

You must believe there is a non-theistic metaphysic that explains the existence of those realities as well as others like triangularity, beauty, numbers if you think they are real, and existence itself.

You must believe that Jesus, at this point if He even existed, was just a man and nothing about Him was deity whatsoever. You must believe that the event that is claimed to be His resurrection can be explained in purely materialistic terms. You must believe that the Bible may be interesting reading, but it cannot be considered Scripture in any way.

All of this will follow if you place the case for the existence of God on the origin of life.

Now does this mean that the origin of life can be explained without God’s direct intervention? Not for me to say. Even if scientists can do this someday, there is still everything else. This is the benefit of not marrying your worldview to any scientific claim whatsoever. He who marries the spirit of the age is destined to be a widow.

If you’re a Christian, please give God a bigger place in your life than this. There are quite likely aspects I left off of this list. That’s okay. It’s not meant to be exhaustive, but it should be enough to get you thinking.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Awful Choice

What choice do you need to avoid at all costs? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

September is always a special month for me. It is my birthday month and the day for me will be this Thursday. I will be 39. No. I don’t man Jack Benny 39. I mean I was literally born in 1980.

So there is always something I look forward to in September. Nowadays also, it’s pretty easy for people to give gifts to me. Just Amazon cards and I’m good. My folks gave me a gift card to the Nintendo eShop so I could get the Collection of Mana on the Switch, my wife gave me Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far, my in-laws got me an Amazon card, my sister will be getting me something I’m sure, and Thursday night a depression and bipolar support group Allie and I attend will be having a cake party for me.

Yet with all of that, I decided to also donate my birthday to a cause and that is to stop an awful choice. September is a happy month, but it’s also a time to think about something quite serious. September is National Suicide Awareness Month.

Suicide is the awful choice, and I know about it all too well. My wife is someone who struggles with this and when I met her she had just had a suicide attempt. The worst day of my life, and nothing else ever comes close, was when I found out she had had a second overdose. Nothing comes close to that. Thankfully, she is starting to get the therapy that she needs.

When someone is wrestling with suicidal temptations, they really are not thinking straight. I meet people who had a loved one commit suicide decades earlier and they are still being affected by it. It is never something that you just get over. It leaves behind so many questions.

The thing is that suicide is a way of saying that nothing else is worth it. Evil has won the battle over good as far as the person is concerned. There is useless suffering in their lives. It’s not a shock that many times this is coming alongside of doubt in God. This is normally not so much His existence, but His goodness. Does God really care?

One can easily think of C.S. Lewis. When his wife died, he wrote A Grief Observed. There he found that the awful fear was not that God does not exist. It is that God does exist and this is what He is really like. It is easy to question God’s forgiveness and love.

This is even more so when we live in a society that tends to base everything on our emotions and how we feel. If we feel like God doesn’t care, well guess what? It seems obvious that God doesn’t care. Add in that God could do something and He doesn’t seem to and you have a recipe for disaster.

I wish I could convince anyone out there like this that that is not so. The truth is, a rational argument will very rarely overpower an emotion. Might I just urge you then to do a few things?

First off, please get a counselor. An LPC is preferred but even if simply a pastoral counselor, get one. You need someone you can talk to who can help you through this.

Second, get out of the house some. It’s so tempting to isolate, but that only makes it worse. Go out and spend time with friends and family who do care about you.

Third, if you have to, go to a hospital or some place like that. Get yourself taken care of. Don’t be afraid if you’re a Christian, or anyone else for that matter, to take psychiatric medication. Your brain can need medication just as much as your body can.

Fourth, please try to realize you are loved. Your emotions will very often lie to you about many many things. It’s hard to hear that they are, but the truth is, they are.

Fifth, if you need to, reach out to the Suicide Prevention Hotline. You have no idea how many people will miss you if you do something to yourself. You might think you are no big deal, but the truth is that you are. I would not even wish my worst enemy to commit suicide.

Whoever you are reading this, please understand you are loved as you are. Love is not something earned. It is a gift. You are a gift as well. Someone out there views you in some way as a gift.

Please don’t make the awful choice.

Please live.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Suicide Prevention Hotline can be donated to here.

Laziness In Study

Should it be necessary to study the Bible to know if it’s true? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Often, I meet skeptics who don’t understand why God gave a book. Couldn’t God just tell us these things Himself? Why rely on a book that’s so old? This is coming with the big assumption that if God somehow showed up and told these people all the truth that is in the Bible already, that they would readily believe it.

But if God wanted us to know Christianity is true, wouldn’t He want to make His word clearer? This also assumes that it’s our generation that is just so awesome and special that we deserve that privilege. We have lived with a people with an idea that we are entitled to special treatment and what a shock we think that if God is there, He also owes us this treatment.

Laziness is not a virtue though.

Many people who say this will have plenty of time to binge watch Netflix or go on a video game marathon or tell you everything about their favorite sports team or spend a night on the town sleeping with every woman they meet. Yet when it comes to this topic, they think it shouldn’t be required. For some reason, it is God’s responsibility.

There seems to be this idea among skeptics of Christianity that God is playing a trivia game for us and all He wants is for us to get the question right of knowing that He exists. If God’s goal was just to convince everyone that He exists, that could be done easily enough. What if that’s not His goal?

Most any husband knows what this is like from living with his wife. Our wives want to be wanted for who they are. They don’t just want to be someone that we go to only when we have a desire for sexual activity and then leave them alone. They want to be wanted. God is the greatest lover of all. He wants a people who want to know if He’s really there and say that He’s worth pursuing.

If the desire for forgiveness really matters to you, you will seek it out.

If the desire to know that Jesus could be risen from the dead and evil could have a solution matters to you, you will seek it out.

If you want to know if unconditional love is really out there, you will seek it out.

If you don’t really want to know these kinds of things and don’t want to know if God is real and Christianity is true, why should you get some special attention? God can let you go your own way. In other words, you are getting exactly what you want. God is leaving you alone.

If you do want to know if any of the above is true, you will study. Something about us as humans is that we will pursue something if we really want it. We can say that there are things we want, but our actions will be the great revealer of what we want. Will it require work for some to see if Christianity is true? Yes. Will it be worth it? Yes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why I Don’t Speak of the Supernatural

Is there a problem with this term? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many times when debating atheists, I find it amusing that they will always use the word “supernatural.” I don’t. Majority of the times, when I ask what this term means, I do not get an answer. It is a term I refuse to use anymore as I think it’s much more problematic.

For one thing, with this term, whatever is natural is treated as a given. What has to be proven is the supernatural and who gets the burden of proof then? That’s right. The theist does. The atheist has to make no defense of the natural.

Let’s look at that for a bit. One of the big mistakes we make is that we think we just need to argue for how the world came to be. How about arguing for how the world is? What keeps the world in motion? Look at your own self. You could go and end your own life with suicide if you wanted, but if Christianity is true, you would not end your existence. Your existence would go on. (I realize some Christians believe in conditional immortality, but even then it is God who destroys your existence and not yourself.)

You can sit in a chair all day and say “I will myself to not exist” and it will not happen. You will go on existing. You might starve yourself to death or some other means, but your mere will alone will not terminate your existing. You also are not always willing yourself to exist. After all, you have to sleep sometimes. Your existing comes from something else.

Atheists don’t usually seem to want to engage with this question.

But then, let’s go a step further. What is natural? It is hard to describe. This gets us into making supernatural even harder to describe. If natural refers to the material world, many of us believe in things that we don’t see in the material world. We believe in triangularity even if there weren’t any triangles. We believe in love and goodness. We believe laws of logic are real. We believe our consciousness is real. There are differing opinions, but some believe numbers are real. We could even say existence itself. After all, you can’t take some existence, put it in a jar, and study it.

If material reality is all that there is, then these things mentioned here do not really exist. None of them are material in nature. This is one reason I prefer to not use the term supernatural, but I instead speak of the extramaterial. A skeptical will be in a much harder position dealing with those realities, and yet here they are.

Supernatural too often becomes a term coined with anything referring to religion. (Another hard term to define, but we won’t go down that rabbit hole again.) Get rid of that and what is left but atheism? Atheism is treated as a given then, the default position.

If a skeptic wants to claim only material realities or natural (Whatever that means) exist, let him demonstrate that claim. That’s the rule. Whoever makes a claim has the burden to demonstrate it and failing to demonstrate one claim does not mean the other claim is demonstrated. It just means one party has poor reasons for believing their claim.

Defining terms is always important in debate. When supernatural comes up, it tends to end in a debate on what the supernatural is. It tends to put the Christian automatically on the defensive because they accept the term. I recommend then not using the term. It only leads to problems.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 9/14/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It used to be that if you were filling something out and it asked what gender you were, there were two options. You were male or you were female. We all understood that. However, now we live in an age that seems to call everything into question including basic facts of biology.

Now we have boys who claim to be girls and vice-versa. We have an Olympic athlete who has undergone an operation so he can become a woman. Transgenderism is a major new item today and terms like non-binary are showing up more and more.

A great concern is about the possible medical dangers involved with transgenderism. It’s problematic enough to many of us to think that you are a member of the opposite sex. It’s something else quite different when you put hormones in your body to bring about a change. It’s even more concerning when small children who are incredibly impressionable are led down this route and even take puberty blockers and begin a transition. These are kids who have a hard time deciding what to wear to school the next day and yet make major life-altering decisions like this.

But what are the medical side-effects of this? We have drugs that could help people overcome cancer that aren’t released yet, but we seem to want to do something of this extreme level without understanding the circumstances. Are we playing a dangerous game? Could we be damaging children in a way irreversible by scientific means?

To discuss this, I need some help. Obviously, I’m not a scientist or a doctor and I don’t play one on TV. I need someone knowledgeable on this. I need someone like my guest this weekend. Her name is Michelle Cretella.

So who is she?

Dr. Cretella is Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds). She was elected to the Board of Directors in 2005, and served two terms as president prior to being hired as the executive director. Dr. Cretella previously chaired several committees which enabled her to become one of the ACPeds’ chief researchers, editors and spokespersons. Her article Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate was published in the 2016 summer issue of Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Following this, she became one of the world’s most outspoken critics of gender ideology in pediatrics. She is regularly consulted by many media news outlets. 

Dr. Cretella serves on the Advisory Board of the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice, and is Chair of the Gender Identity Subcommittee for the Catholic Medical Association. She is a peer reviewer for the journal Issues in Law and Medicine, and also for the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Cretella received her medical degree in 1994 from the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine. She completed her residency in pediatrics in 1997 at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut. She completed a fellowship in College Health through the University of Virginia in 1999. After 15 years of group practice in rural Connecticut and Rhode Island she left clinical practice to devote more time to family and the ACPeds. Dr. Cretella and her husband are the proud parents of four children.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed that episodes are now going up. We hope to be caught up soon. Please be watching your feed for this and other upcoming episodes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Never Forget

How is the world different so many years later? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many times when Allie and I are going in and out of our apartment complex, we see kids waiting for the school bus or getting off the bus. I have told Allie that these kids are growing up in the digital age. All their lives there would have been iPhones and internet and wi-fi and so many other things.

Today, there are people now who are full-fledged legal adults. They are a small number now, but it will grow over time. They are people who are adults who have never known a life without 9-11.

For these people, this evil will be a part of history always, and that is a great concern. When evil becomes a part of history, we tend to miss its shaping and influence. We assume the world is as it has always been. This is normal.

Today, many skeptics complain about slavery in the Bible arguing that we can all know that slavery is wrong. It’s easy to say that after centuries of a Christian background. Go back in time and many people you meet will say the exact opposite. It’s a part of life.

It’s not knowing our history that causes us to not appreciate where we are today.

I hope that we will pass on to the next generation the lessons of history that we have come to learn. I hope we will pass on how many innocent people died in the most horrific terrorist attack on U.S. soil to date. Even now when this day comes, I wonder if some terrorist organization will try to do something again.

9-11 did something in shattering our safety. We are not invincible. We can be attacked. We all learned it. I was listening to a radio program awhile ago talking about something that was eerie in Manhattan on that day was the silence. Manhattan is usually buzzing with noise, but it wasn’t that day. Everything was shut down. Schools were even still closed the next day. People had to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to get home.

For me, I was in Bible College in Knoxville, Tennessee. Before the chapel service began, someone came in to tell us a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. Okay. We didn’t know much about it. I suspect a lot of us forgot about it. I was thinking it was likely some crazy freak accident by a drunk pilot.

After the service, we heard about the second plane hitting the second tower.

This was no accident.

Before long, many of us were gathered in a lobby area for students watching it on TV. I certainly remember watching when the first building came down. I remember a leader suggesting we all gather and pray.

Safety is easy to take for granted.

In reality, every good thing is easy to take for granted.

Let’s never take our safety for granted and let’s always remember our history. Evil is real. We need to learn what the world was like before great events and after. If we do not learn from history, we will keep repeating it.

And no one should want to repeat 9-11.

Never forget.

In Christ,
Nick Peters