WHAT IS ‘THE POACHED EGG’?!? The Poached Egg Christian Worldview and Apologetics Network, in partnership with Ratio Christi Student Apologetics Alliance, is where Christian apologetics, history, philosophy, science, theology, and pop culture collide. Our goal is to help guide believers, seekers, and skeptics alike to the Ultimate Source of Truth and a better understanding of the Christian worldview. Founded and edited by Greg West. Greg is passionately committed to the cause of Christian apologetics; providing an adequate and reasonable defense of the Christian faith. The Poached Egg is a large and continually expanding virtual library of articles and essays compiled from all over the World Wide Web. Noted apologists, biblical scholars, philosophers, scientists, historians, students, and laymen all come together under this one site…   continue reading >>>

---

WHAT IS RATIO CHRISTI’S GOAL? Simply put - A Renaissance of Christian Thinking in the University. We want to re-establish a strong and reasoned presence of Christian thinking in academia. Our goal is to place apologetics clubs at all major universities. Situating Ratio Christi chapters at universities around the world is an important step in reversing the skepticism that permeates most educational institutions. We desire to partner in taking back the mind of the University for Christ. By equipping… continue reading >>>

PARTNER WITH US In just a few short years Ratio Christi has progressed from having just ten chapters to over one hundred thirty chapters on university campuses in the U.S. and around the world. The demand for chapters has outgrown our resources and staff- Christians students eager for a more authentic faith are waiting for chapters to be formed in their area. Financial partners are needed now more than ever to help us place trained apologists as university chapter directors. Will you join with us?  Donate now >>>

APOLOGETICS RESOURCES Our Apologetics Resources Store is where you can start building your apologetics library at a fraction of the cost of hard copies. I scour Amazon to find the best Kindle deals in Christian Apologetics to help you do just that. Don’t have a Kindle? Not a problem—you can download a free Kindle App for your PC, smartphone, or tablet here. Over 130 titles are listed in alphabetical order by title and range in price from 99 cents to $5.99. Not all prices are permanent and are subject to change without notice. Shop now >>>

KINDLE DEALS OF THE WEEK (mouse over thumbnails for prices):

             

FEATURED ARTICLES:

WHAT ARE THE LIMITS OF PHYSICS? Contrary to the disciples of scientism, physics has limits. Philosopher Ed Feser gives a quick run-down which is worth passing along. Feser writes: As I have emphasized many times, what physics gives us is a description of the mathematical structure of physical reality.  It abstracts from any aspect of reality which cannot be captured via its exclusively quantitative methods. Let’s stop here because this is important. What Feser is saying is that when the methods of physics are applied to any object, any event, any piece of the world around us, the method only addresses the parts of that object, event, or piece of the world that can be mathematically quantified. Physics ignores any…  more >>>

THE CRUSADES: BUSTING SOME MYTHS Just what were the Crusades? In his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday, President Obama likened the evil savagery that ISIS has been perpetrating in the name of Islam to Christianity and the Crusades. First, it makes no sense to with a wave of one's rhetorical hand dismiss one evil because of another. In logic, that is known as the tu quoque (Latin for "you too!") fallacy. Yet, there is another problem with the president's comparison: it's based on a very common, very popular, but very wrong misconception about what the Crusades were about and what actually happened historically. I want to take a moment to play myth-buster and show why the modern assumptions are very much backwards …  more >>>

TWISTING THE GOSPEL Almost a decade ago, I remember attending Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, packed with thousands of young evangelical leaders. It was there, that I first heard a young creative pastor named Rob Bell, pastor of the fast growing Mars Hill in Michigan. At the age of 25, I was finishing up seminary, but felt rejuvenated when I heard the line up of Catalyst speakers like Rob Bell, Donald Miller, and Andy Stanley. These teachers were creative but avoiding a lot of the controversial doctrinal issues that I heard from my alma mater Liberty University’s founder Jerry Falwell. Rob Bell and these Catalyst communicators did not have pulpits, but were…  more >>>

FEATURED VIDEOS:

MORE FEATURED ARTICLES:

YOU MIGHT BE A HYPER-SKEPTIC After producing the Tough Questions Answered blog for 5 years, we have had hundreds of skeptics comment on our blog posts. With so many skeptics, I’ve seen patterns of behavior that have led me to refer to some of the skeptical commenters as hyper-skeptics. A hyper-skeptic is someone who will not ever consider any evidences, arguments, or reasoning given for Christianity. For those fair-minded skeptics out there who don’t want to become like this, here are the warning signs I’ve seen. What makes a person a hyper-skeptic? Well, you might be a hyper-skeptic if … You don’t need to read anything actually written by Christian scholars, because you are just smarter than they are…  more >>>

YOU’VE RUINED MY LIFE!! My name is Adam. I am an atheist, and have been one ever since I can remember. I was brought up in the Roman Catholic church, but could never really say that I held any theistic beliefs with any sincerity. For instance, one time, when I was around eight or nine years old, I asked a nun at my church where I "was" before I was born. She responded: "You were with God." I was still curious, so I asked her how long I was with God, before my being born, and she proclaimed: "For an eternity!" I then asked her why I could not remember "existing with God” for an eternity of time (is an eternity of time even a coherent concept?). She had enough with that question and proceeded to shew me away…  more >>>

LIKE IT OR NOT… On one occasion, someone suggested to a friend that we have no need of ‘theology’; we should, instead, merely think and talk about God; my friend replied that ‘theology’ simply means ‘words about God’ – we are all theologians. Likewise, philosophy – we are all philosophers. Francis Schaeffer put it this way: There is a second meaning [of philosophy] that we must not miss if we are going to understand the problem of preaching in the twentieth-century world. For philosophy also means a person’s worldview. In this sense all people are philosophers, for all people have a worldview. And Tim Keller wrote, in his book, The Reason for God, “All doubts, however skeptical…  more >>>

121 QUOTES ON WHY WE NEED APOLOGETICS:

The hemorrhaging of youth from our churches won’t stop until we get intentional about solving the problem.  On the university campus, secular college professors are very intentional about indoctrinating your kids.  In a candid moment, prominent atheist professor Richard Rorty tells you exactly what college faculty like him plan to do with your kids: ‘...we try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own…we do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization....So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable..’ Make no mistake, there are plenty Richard Rortys out there, waiting for your kids.  So, what are you going to do to prepare them for the serious challenges ahead? —Brett Kunkle Instead of addressing teens’ questions, most church youth groups focus on fun and food.  The goal seems to be to create emotional attachment using loud music, silly skits, slapstick games -- and pizza.  But the force of sheer emotional experience will not equip teens to address the ideas they will encounter when they leave home and face the world on their own. A study in Britain found that non-religious parents have a near 100 percent chance of passing on their views to their children, whereas religious parents have only about a 50/50 chance of passing on their views.  Clearly, teaching young people to engage critically with secular worldviews is no longer an option.  It is a necessary survival skill. —Nancy Pearcey The only way teens become truly “prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks” (1 Pet. 3:15) is by wrestling personally with the questions. Ironically, those who have never grappled with diverse worldviews are actually the most likely to be swept away by them. As G. K. Chesterton wrote, ideas can be dangerous — but they are far more dangerous to the person who has never studied them…we should always couch discussions of Christianity in the language of reasons and evidence. We should be giving apologetics from the pulpit and in the Sunday school classroom. Every course in a Christian school should be an opportunity to show that a biblical perspective does a better job than any secular theory of accounting for the facts in that field, whether psychology, biology, government, or business. Apologetics should be naturally woven in to all our discourse. —Nancy Pearcey When you become a Christian you do not become immune to life. You will have questions, you will have bad days, you will lose hope and you will need answers. Enter apologetics. To outsiders this discipline answers objections, to insiders it builds faith and promotes intellectual inquiry. If you are a Christian and feel guilty about having questions, please don’t. Ask away, build your faith, learn whatever you can. First from Scripture, then from the teachers whom God gifted his church with. If you have lost sight of hope, do not get discouraged. —Glenn Hendrickson We need to help people be aware of the important issues with which they will need to contend. In the area of apologetics, we must give reasons for why we believe. We see so many believers who have only a superficial understanding of Scripture and have no basis for saying why the Christian faith is true and or why he is not a Hindu or a Muslim. Without that awareness of an objective foundation for belief, they will buy into books like the Da Vinci Code and will be much more vulnerable to the tactics of new religious movements like Mormonism or Jehovah Witnesses. Because they are not biblically or theologically founded they can become more easily confused and rattled when they read a book like Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion. They just have not thought deeply about their own faith; so they become swayed by anti or non-Christian perspectives. —Paul Copan I think increasingly we are going to need to be not only the bearers of the gospel to others but a people who have answers available to questions such as, “What about the problem of evil? and “How do I know God exists?” We will need to give basic answers to these objections. Typically, the same questions come up over and over again. You won’t need to learn lots of new material with each person you talk to. If we have a mastery of some of the basics, we can really go a long way. And, as we’re evangelizing, as we’re talking about our faith, we will have greater confidence in presenting the gospel and won’t be daunted by the potential questions that might come up, but rather will say, “I believe the Christian faith does a better job of answering these sorts of questions.” —Paul Copan    more >>>

ENDORSEMENTS:

Greg West provides a valuable service for the Christian community with his website The Poached Egg. With so much content available online, it is easy for people to either be overwhelmed by it, or to remain entirely unaware of helpful resources. Greg's work of content curation means that readers who are interested in apologetics can find consistently high-quality material for ministry, apologetics, and educational use. Furthermore, The Poached Egg helps to build community among Christian apologists, fostering a spirit of support and mutual encouragement in what is often a very challenging ministry field. Finally, Greg makes effective use of ‘apologetics in new media' as he uses social media in effective ways to further the cause of Christ." Thanks for all you do, Greg!  —Dr. Holly Ordway (Chair, Department of Apologetics, Houston Baptist University; blogger at Hieropraxis; and author of, Not God's Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms) I cannot adequately say how much I appreciate what Greg has done in the service of Christian Apologetics. I am a pastor as well as a high school teacher at a Christian school, and I find myself increasingly saying, 'Why don't you check out the Poached Egg? It's got a TON of resources.' For all the work you do, Greg – thanks! —Anthony Weber (Pastor, teacher, blogger at Empires and Mangers and TC Apologetics, author of Learning To Jump Again: A Memoir Of Grief And Hope) The Poached Egg has been in invaluable resource both in my own ministry and in directing interested seekers and apologists to a wealth of resources. By consistently providing links to articles from a number of areas of interest for Christians, TPE has become one of the most important hub sites for Christian Apologetics. I have been blessed by Greg in a number of ways, and I am particularly appreciative of his efforts to share others' works with his readership. When he links an article of mine, I am able to observe a notable spike in traffic for several days, along with numerous hits over the course of time as interested readers search his site. I highly recommend the resources he provides, and further commend his dedication to the field of apologetics and the service of the Kingdom. —J.W. Wartick (MA in Christian Apologetics, Biola University, blogger at Always Have a Reason) The Poached Egg is by far the most influential Christian apologetics ministry on the internet, reaching the ends of the earth spreading the reasons for the Christian faith, edifying believers and providing intellectually powerful reasons for the truth of Christianity to unbelievers. —Arthur Khachatryan (Apologist, blogger at Cold and Lonely Truth, and author of Cold and Lonely Truth: The Beckoning of God's Reality in an Age of Rationalization) I consider Greg West's "The Poached Egg" to be one of the best apologetics blogs of all time. Greg has the ability to find articles that grasp the essence of an issue and address it in a deep, thoughtful, balanced and readable way. Highly educational! Highly recommended! —Dr. Edgar Andrews (BSc, PhD, DSc, FIP, FIMMM, CEng, CPhys. Emeritus Professor of Materials Science, University of London, UK, and author of Who Made God? Searching for a Theory of Everything) The Poached Egg performs the vital function of communicating truth in an accessible manner that informs without dumbing down and challenges without antagonizing. A great resource for Christians and skeptics alike. There is no apologetics web site quite like it, which reflects Greg West's God-given discernment and wisdom and Greg's desire to provide answers to those who doubt. —Stephen McAndrew (Attorney, Apologist, Ratio Christi Chapter Director, blogger at Songs of a Semi-Free Man, and author of Why It Doesn't Matter What You Believe If It's Not True: Is There Absolute Truth?) I want to say how valuable Greg’s the Poached Egg is on two levels: One, as an aggregator of information, one of the best go-to places on the Internet for a wide range of solid Christian thinking. To me it's also an encouragement. I appreciate it when TPE links my articles there—it boosts traffic very noticeably, which indicates they've got a good amount of readership. Two, I also appreciate seeing others' articles there—to learn from and to remind me I'm part of a living community of people with similar concerns. —Tom Gilson (Apologist, Ratio Christi National Field Director, strategist and writer at BreakPoint, blogger at Thinking Christian, and co-author/editor of True Reason: Christian Responses to the Challenge of Atheism)

 CONTINUE TO THE POACHED EGG BLOG >>>