Roundup and EDV intro

These letters should make you roll your eyes. Islam murders cartoonists? Why, whatever for? Daniel P. from Evanston, IL echoes what countless of my blogging friends have been saying for years:

So do not lecture me about "sensitivity" toward Islam until its followers are willing to demonstrate tolerance toward dissent.

This op-ed confirmed my suspicions about a certain Political Alignment which Will Not Be Named that intimidates people into abandoning direct democracy.

Now to some less depressing news: the essentials of the user's guide and preface/intro to McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict, vol. 1. I am assuming a mainly Christian audience, but if you are not a Christian, fire away. Questions you ask give me something to do.

To help the reader master all the evidence presented (all 367 pages of it), McDowell suggests, in the ancient Hebrew way of showing "knowledge of a subject by asking astute questions about it," to write questions on the left half of a piece of paper, write the answers on the right half, and quiz yourself every once in a while.

One important key to maintaining a successful witness to our subjective culture is the ability to present solid evidence to support our faith. A great quantity of that evidence is given in these volumes [1 and 2]. It must be mastered.

From the Preface, useful facts to aid in understanding the volume:

• Evidence is not a book, but rather lecture notes.
• The proper use of those notes "is to glorify and magnify Jesus Christ - not to win an argument." Leave that to the lawyers.
• Answer the skeptic's questions, then shift the dialogue to Christ.
• Format: citations in footnotes look like this: 47/21-23. The 47 is the source number in the corresponding bibliography (there is one bibliography per section); 21-23 refers to the page numbers in that source.
• Sections in this volume: (1) Why trust the Bible? (its uniqueness, preparation, canon, and reliability); (2) The person of Christ (the historical Jesus, His divinity, C. S. Lewis's trilemma, observations by great thinkers, Messianic prophecies, and the resurrection); (3) God's work through history and individuals (historical prophecy, Christianity's uniqueness, and McDowell's personal testimony).

Each day, I will boil down a section of text to its essential points. Please join me in thinking about this book...write your questions in the comments section!