The Reason for God by Timothy Keller Ch 1 There can't be just one true religion

Keller makes the point that one of the main barriers to world peace is religion. This is a very valid point, almost too obvious to state. Look all around the world, the Middle East is torn up all over religion. They all want to kill each other and all want Israel gone. Muslims fight believing they should kill all infidels, it just makes for a big fight. There will never be world peace, these religions have been fighting since they were founded. Christians say Christianity is the only way to heaven, most christians won't even listen to an argument about a different religion, even if it is a valid point, they won't accept it, as with people of other religions, not just christians. Since obviously the human race has shown that it is impossible for all of us to agree to disagree about our religions, he suggested 3 things we can do to "solve" this problem, one is to straight up outlaw religion, another is condemn religion, and privatize it.

Many countries have tried to outlaw religion, the Soviets, China, Khmer Rouge (political group in Cambodia) and Nazi Germany. These attempts did not lead to peace or better life, they just lead to more oppression and fighting. So outlawing would not be a possible solution unless eliminating all of that religion, which the Germans tried, which that would take a ton of fighting, oppression, and death.

Another one of the "solutions" presented is to condemn religion. What he means by this is, through education and argument, to discourage religion and try to convince every religion that all other religions are just another way to heaven, resulting in no more divisions in culture, since after all religion is the main division in culture. However this couldn't work either, members of all religions take theirs very seriously, so they would all end up arguing about everything therefore this could not resolve the problem of cultural division. Especially in the middle east.

Chapters 4 and 5

I've decided to combine these 2 chapters as they in a way deal with similar topics. Chapter 4 deals with Christianity and the slaughter of innocents and chapter 5 talks about the 3rd reich. Now in the Bible it talks about when God instructed His people to go in a destroy another nation. This was not a random act of violence, in that time there were battles and wars going on constantly, they were simply defending themselves or getting their lands back.

Now for one of the most controversial issues of Christianity, the crusades. One cannot hold all of Christianity responsible for the wrong doings and wrong teachings of one period of time. The church became corrupt and world centered and were telling them that if they died on the crusades that they would skip purgatory and go straight to heaven. Now look at how good that would look to the poor people of the villages who had no good works, they had nothing to lose if they went on a crusade but their poverty, so they would go and fight. The church was also saying one way to be forgiven was to pay the church and they would be forgiven, this is a way they were corrupting the minds of their people. They were also telling the people that the muslims that occupied the holy land were evil people and telling lies about how they were acting. This resulted in the slaughter of many innocent people

Chapter 3 Christanity and Science

First off I would like to start off saying, it does not really matter to me your opinion of how the world was created, everybody has their own, and honestly it does not matter just as long as you believe that God was behind it. For example if God wanted the big bang to happen and create the world then fine, if he created it a billion years ago or 3 thousand it does not matter, its the main basis that the one true God created it that ultimately matters.

Now in the book, they state that the early church banned the teachings of Galileo, that the earth revolved around the sun. Now I do not really see this as a big deal, they just got that detail wrong, they never said that God was not involved in it. They also taught that the world was flat, so what? they just got some fact wrong, it doesnt change the basis that God created it.This however does not change the fact that they hindered the learning process of the people. This is one of the main reasons why the Middle Ages is seen as a "intellectual slump" so to say. People were not being taught the correct things. Now don't get me wrong, there are positive things that came out of the Middle Ages, I will cover that later.


The book says "There were many in the ancient world who believed that man's fate was simply written in the stars"(p. 59). This is talking about astrology. Now I not a person that believes one can find out anything about the future of your life through the study of nature. I don't let that dictate whether or not I got out or not. Astrology is nonsense. There is nothing you can predict about your life or who you are by the stars and space.It also mentions cyclical time. This is the belief that history and the world are on a cycle. The world will come to an end and nature will be rearranged and it will start all over again. Christians rejected this belief on the notion that Jesus would not come back and just keep dying and rising again for the same fallen society. Also in the Bible it says that Jesus has died and conquered death forever, so if Jesus has defeated death forever he won't die again.


There were also some people who thought that God was in nature. That he was in the trees and plants and everything. What differs from Christianity is yes they see God in nature because he created this great world, but they don't see Him IN nature. The people saw a plant and they wouldn't want to cut it down because they see God actually in it and that the plant is holy, a Christian wouldn't see it as holy but rather created by a holy God.


Now for the positive effects the church had on the Middle Ages. One of the most important inventions in the world came from the Middle Ages, the clock. The clock was the first complex device made of metal. The clock had "...effects on human psychology and habits"(p. 66). It organized everything in the world and as Lewis Mumford said they "dissociated time from human events"(p. 66). The clocks were for the Monks to know the exact time for them to pray because they have 6 prayers a day and need to know when. Another great of the Middle ages is the university. They came from the cathedral school and most were schools of theology. 

Christianity on Trial Ch. 2

As I was saying in my last post about Slavery, Christianity cannot support it. Many people say that back in the day (civil war times) many Southern Baptist supported it and the slave trade, this was mainly because slavery was a way of life, it was how all the huge farms functioned. Without the slaves they couldn't have ran a huge farm.  Most preachers also bent the scriptures to support their ways. Now don't take this as that I support slavery or that I am trying to justify their ways, I am simply explaining their thoughts in my opinion. I do think that the farmers could have treated them better, given them a choice if they wanted to work, offered them pay and better housing, etc., therefore they would no longer would have been classified as slaves.

David Brewster wrote in a column for Scripps Howard News Service saying "The slavery of America's antebellum South found support in the theology of many of men's churches until the nation ran red with blood and the righteousness of reason prevailed" (p. 25)
Now I do see where he comes from about slavery finding support in the churches, because that's what was really happening, and I have already explained why that happened. But how can one say "...until the righteousness of REASON prevailed". Reason is based on a personal preference and definition, so in the farmers mind their reasoning was that slavery was fine. Everyone has their own definition of right or wrong based on different things. So the slave owners were not ignoring right or wrong, most of them were raised to believe that blacks were inferior to them, as did the law with the three-fifths compromise, saying that slaves were only counted as three-fifths of a person. So between the law and the "scriptures" (they were bending them to make them fit for their cause) their reason was right and just. So it would be unjust to attack christianity as a whole for so called "supporting" slavery.

Also, look at it from a neutral point of view, if someone walks in a room, they can't read, communicate (language barrier), and lack of basic knowledge, you automatically feel superior to them

Christianity on Trial Ch. 1

I'm reviewing the book Christianity on Trial.  This book explains the common beliefs about how Christianity was involved with the past events. It explain it in the western cultures,how it was believed to support slavery, science, the slaughter of innocent people, The Nazis and the Third Reich, Charity, the environment, and the government.  It is written by Vincent Carroll and David Shiflet. Vincent Carroll lives in Denver, Colorado and is an editor of the editorial pages at the Rocky Mountain News. David Shiflet is a freelance writer living in Midlothian, Virginia, He also wrote the book The America We Deserve, with Donald Trump.

In the first chapter of Christianity on Trial he talks about the Middle Ages and way back in the Roman Empire. One of his points that stuck out to me was "without belief in moral equality, there cannot be any hope for the western legal system or equality before law."
This is a good point made, you  can't contradict your legal system and beliefs, it just doesn't work.  True Christianity cannot support slavery in any way.  If a Christian believes that everyone is made in the image of God then how can one be better than the other? It is impossible, one would have to contradict his beliefs reject the Bible.  Once he believes true Christianity he believes that all men are moral equals and once he believes that he cannot support slavery.  Why would one want to make another serve another master besides God when he would want to serve another either.  A true Christian would encourage one to serve God and be happy rather than make one serve a tyrannical ruler. This is one reason why women preferred Christianity.  Most Religions in the ancient times just used women, they were just a number, not allowed to vote or speak.  Most girls were sold into slavery as prostitutes for the temples, so the chance to be equal and feel like they mean something was a opportunity they couldn't pass up. Even though in the Bible it says for men to be above women, it is more leaning to that a man should lead his family and wife toward Christ and set a good example for them to follow, it doesn't mean that a woman is just to bow down, they can suggest compromises to problems they disagree with.  The pagan religions would often abandon a child if it was not a boy or if the boy was deformed, girls were rarely kept.  Men out numbered women by 30 percent. 


Christianity said that no ruler was above the law, but on the other hand Roman Emperors were as a god.  This is why Romans did not like the Christians, they did not worship the Emperor.  Romans did not care who you worshipped just as long as the Emperor was one of them.