Why is There Evil and Suffering in the World?

At our previous life group study, we discussed the "problem of evil" as it is popularly called, or "why is there evil and suffering in the world?" Some other ways to ask this question are, "why do bad things happen to good people?" or "if God is all-powerful, and all-loving, why is there evil in the world?" Anyways, this is a common question for a lot of people and it definitely prevents some people from believing in the existence of a good God.

Our group decided that it is possible for evil and suffering and a good God to exist at the same time. The reason for this is that God created us with free will and this free will gives us the ability to choose if we will do good or evil. God created us with free will because he wants us to be able to love Him and each other. If we don't have free will then we can not truly love. Just imagine if God created us with only the ability to do good and not evil. If this were the case, we would all essentially be robots under his control. If He did make us as robots that were forced to love Him, then it wouldn't really be love, would it? Love does not mean anything if it is our only choice. It only means something if we have the ability to choose to love or not to love and we choose to love.

"Well," you might ask, "what if God created us with free will, but then whenever anybody was going to do something evil, He would intervene and stop them?" Our group decided that if God created a world like this then we wouldn't really have free will. If He stopped us from committing any evils then we wouldn't really have a choice to do evil or good, we would only have one choice.

Another question that was raised in the book we are reading through was, "Is free will worth the possibility of such great suffering?" Well, let's think about this. We already decided that in order for love to be possible, evil must also be possible. Therefore, if great love is possible there must also be the possibility of great evil. This can then lead us to conclude that the amount of love possible can only be proportional to the amount of evil that is also possible. This is the nature of love. But yes, love is risky. Anyone who has given their heart to another person knows this. That person then has power over your heart to give you great joy, or conversely to cause great pain. So is it worth it? What do you think? If you have ever been hurt by somebody, did this cause you to stop loving anybody? Or did you eventually decide to try giving your heart again to someone else? Most of us will choose to try to find love again because of the transcendent joy that come with finding true love. Love is what makes life worth living. What would life be like without any love? What if there was no love or evil in the world, what kind of life would that be?

God took the greatest risk when he created this world because he has the greatest investment in it. His heart breaks every time that anyone in his creation is hurt or lonely. His heart cries when he sees the helpless being downtrodden. He mourns every injustice that takes place and He sees everything that happens. His heart also breaks every time we reject Him and his laws that are designed for our own good. The amount of His risk is best seen in the event of sending his own son to earth to die on a cross in order to save humanity from evil.

Another good response to this argument that I like is the one that Ravi Zacharias uses: The skeptic claims that the existence of evil and suffering proves that God does not exist. However, when you say that evil exists, you are also admitting that good exists. And if good exists then there must be a moral law. And if there is a moral law then there must be a moral law giver. Therefore, the existence of evil doesn't disprove the existence of God, but in fact proves that He does exist.

Why has the Church Caused so Much Harm?

This past week our life group started off with the question of why have so many atrocities been committed in the name of Christianity? This is a very valid question as we can all think of many evils perpetrated by the Church throughout history such as the inquisition, the crusades, and the witch trials. I'm sure that there are many others, too many to name here. This problem can be a tough stumbling block for many people to get past because the Church is supposed to represent God, right? Shouldn't Christians always act in a blameless manner if they claim to be God's people? Does the harm caused by the church invalidate the Christian faith? Or should we look at this a little closer...

Our first point that we made at our life group was that not everyone who calls them self a Christian is really a true follower of Jesus. We can call ourselves whatever we want to, but our true beliefs and motives can be seen by our actions. Even Jesus himself taught that your faith is shown by your actions (Matt 7:16-18). He also said that not everyone who calls Him their lord is a true believer in Matthew 7:21. Thus, we should be able to draw a distinction between those who use the name of Christ to advance their own selfish desires and those who truly are Christians by their actions. Augustine once said that you should not judge a worldview by its abuses. We should therefore, as Ravi Zacharias says, judge a worldview by the teachings and life of it's founder.

However, there probably have been some evils committed across history by "real" Christians. To this we responded that Christians are not perfect people and neither do we claim to be perfect. We still have to wrestle with temptations and sometimes we make the wrong choices. This is a clear teaching throughout the Bible, some examples being Romans 3:23 and 7:7-25. Therefore, on behalf of all Christians, may I ask for the forgiveness of the people who have been wronged by sins that we Christians have committed. We have sinned, we have been hypocritical and prideful and ungracious. I pray that we may change our ways and right the wrongs that we have committed.

Since we Christians are not perfect, we should be looking to Jesus instead. What did he teach? How did he live? Did he commit any evils? Is God really good and loving as he claims to be? God does not control his people, he has given us all free will, so we must all be held responsible for our own actions. We can't blame every sin committed by humanity on God and his sovereignty. To find out if he is worthy to be worshiped we must look to His character and His promises, and what Jesus did while he was on earth. (We will talk more about all this later).

In closing, let us look at how atheism as contributed to evils of history. Many atheistic dictators, such as Stalin, Hitler, and Mao have killed millions more than anyone operating under the banner of Christianity. The fundamental difference between these two cases however, is that when "Christians" commit evils in the name of their religion it is contrary to what their teacher actually taught. But when atheists kill in the name of evolution or ethnic cleansing, it is the logical outworking of their beliefs.

The Hard Questions Faced

My wife and I just started a new life group (aka small group, aka bible study) at our house and are very excited about the topic we will be discussing. We wanted a topic that would interest anybody that might come, whether a christian or not, so we decided to study the hard questions against the christian faith. We will be using Letters From a Skeptic by Gregory Boyd as a guide to our study and a help when we may become stumped. This book was read by my wife and I almost two years ago and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a collection of letters written back and forth between a father (the skeptic) and son (the apologist) about the father's objections against christianity.

I hope to be posting a summary of our discussions, or at least my opinions on the topics, and hope that you will enjoy following along. I welcome your comments and questions and will try to answer them as best I can. Here we go...

Is the Bible Worth Trusting?

Pictures from Caleb's Birth

It's a boy!!!

Hello friends and family,

We want to share the wonderful news with you that Kendra went into labor Tuesday night and gave birth to Caleb Jonathan Fraze last night at 8:43pm. He weighed in at 7lbs, 3oz. and stretched out to 19 inches long.  Mom and baby are doing well. They are resting and recovering nicely.

Love you all,


Jason, Kendra and Caleb

Book Review: The End of Reason

The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists by Ravi K. Zacharias

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Ravi Zacharias writes a magnificent response to Sam Harris' scathing attack on religion, especially Christianity in his two books, "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation." Ravi clearly and definitively reveals the holes in Sam's logic and shows us where following his type of thinking has lead us before and will lead us again. He also does a great job of defending the reasonableness of the Christian faith as well as showing us the hope that it offers. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has been exposed to Harris' writings or talks along with anybody who is generally interested in the science vs. faith debate.


View all my reviews.

Book Review: The Mystery of Marriage

The Mystery of Marriage 20th Anniversary Edition: Meditations on the Miracle by Mike Mason

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Mike writes this more as a meditative journal entry than a how-to book. He explores all of the wonderful mysteries of marriage and how they compare to the mysteries of knowing and being united with Jesus. I was especially intrigued by his chapters on "Death" and "Oneness". I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is married or considering marriage. It's a great tool to inspire meditation and reflection.


View all my reviews.

A Weekend in the Desert

A couple weekend ago I went to Moab and Fruita with some friends and coworkers. Kendra was doing a girls weekend in Florida, so I took the opportunity to do a weekend of mountain biking in the desert. We left on Thursday and came back Sunday. It was raining like crazy in Fruita on wednesday and part of thursday so we decided to keep going to Moab. It was also supposed to be warmer in Moab than in Fruita. It was still pretty chilly in Moab on thursday and friday, but ride-able. Saturday and Sunday were beautiful though! We rode Poison Spider Mesa on Friday morning and Slickrock that afternoon. Then we did Porcupine Rim on Saturday. Sunday morning we broke camp and headed to Fruita to get some book cliff riding in on our way home. There we rode Kessel's run, Zippety-do-da, and Prime Cut. 3 of the guys were so hardcore that they stayed an extra day in Fruita and rode Mary's loop area! Here are some photos from our trip for your enjoyment. (Unfortunately my camera died before we got to Fruita.)

Ben Stein Interview about Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

This is an interview of Ben Stein by R.C. Sproul on his new movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, about how intelligent design theory is being suppressed in academia.

You can view the trailer for this movie here.

I for one can't wait to see this movie!

THE BIG (UNTOLD) STORY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

According to this post in one of Joel Rosenberg's blogs, Muslims in the middle east are trusting in Christ for their salvation in record numbers! Of course, this big news isn't being reported in the mainstream media, but that doesn't mean that it's not happening. Here is an excerpt from Joel's report:

Consider the latest evidence:

* AFGHANISTAN --
In Afghanistan, for example, there were only 17 known evangelical
Christians in the country before al-Qaeda attacked the United States.
Today, there are well over 10,000 Afghan followers of Christ and the
number is growing steadily. Church leaders say Afghan Muslims are open
to hearing the gospel message like never before. Dozens of baptisms
occur every week. People are snatching up Bibles and other Christian
books as fast as they can be printed or brought into the country. The Jesus
film, a two hour docudrama on the life of Christ based on the Gospel of
Luke, was even shown on television in one city before police shut down
the entire TV station."God is moving so fast in Afghanistan, we're just
trying to keep up," one Afghan Christian worker told me, requesting
anonymity. "The greatest need now is leadership development. We need to
train pastors to care for all these new believers."

* UZBEKISTAN -- There were no known Muslim converts to Christ there in 1990. Now there are more than 30,000.

* IRAQ --

Cross Post from Scroggles!: The Flood and Global Warming

I'm reading through Genesis right now and have been noticing some interesting details about creation that I haven't noticed before. For example, during the flood account in Genesis chapter 7 the Bible states that:

¹⁸And the water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the surface of the water. ¹⁹And the water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.

I understand that some people argue that Noah's flood could have been a localized flood instead of a world wide flood, but this passage seems to rule out the possibility of this flood not being world wide. When it says that all the mountains under the heavens were covered with water, that doesn't seem to leave any mountains on the earth remaining uncovered.

Also in Genesis chapter 9 after the flood has receded, God makes His "Rainbow Covenant" with Noah and all creation stating:

¹¹"And I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth"

To me, this promising from God seems to negate the possibility of God allowing global warming to cause world wide flooding that would turn the earth into a "water world". This doesn't mean that there can't be localized flooding, but there cannot be another world wide flood to wipe out all creation.

Baby's First Pictures

We just had our first ultrasound of baby! Doesn't baby look cute? You can see in the first picture that baby is waving to mommy and daddy.
(I still can't believe that I'm going to be a daddy!) Here's a shot of baby's big brain:
We decided not to find out the sex of our baby. We think it will be cool to be surprised at the birth. We're about half way through the pregnancy now and it sure did fly by! Baby will be here before we know it!

It was really cool seeing baby moving around inside there!

I'm Gonna Be a Daddy!

So I'm gonna be a daddy! We got pregnant in October and we are due around July 23rd. It's pretty crazy to think that I'm going to be in charge of another life! I'm going to be in charge of nurturing, protecting, and teaching another person. I will have a major influence on this person's life. I can influence their self esteem and identity and purpose. I will even influence what their likes and dislikes are such as what their favorite sport is and where they like to vacation. I will also affect their beliefs about life. I pray that God will help me to make all the right decisions and be the best father that I can be.

I am very excited about all of this as well! I'm looking forward to pouring out my love on this new person. I think I will enjoy protecting and caring for them. I want to share everything that I have learned in life with this person so that they can do even better in life than I have. I also can't wait to share good times with them doing various activities such as biking, backpacking, traveling, playing sports, etc. I also feel that it will be a privilege to introduce my child to my God.

I can't wait to meet this new person!

Scroggles!

My friend Theo (mathematician, philosophizer, programmer, Christian, blogger, pontificator) recently created his own website for blogging, journaling, ... etc. He invited me to join his blogging community and I thought it sounded like a fun opportunity to blog with people I know who also enjoy blogging. It will be cool to read their blogs and have them read mine as well.

I started a blog on his site called jason in real life. On this blog I mostly write down my thoughts on health, politics, news, religion, and other real life topics. I'm also co-blogging on a blog there about with a theme of science and creationism.

Don't worry, I plan to continue to blog on this website as well. I think I will mainly blog about more personal stuff on this site, but who knows. I could mix it up a little bit.

I hope you enjoy my new blogs! And be sure to check out the other scrogglers while you are there as well.

King of the Rockies - The Legendary Tiperary Creek

This was the sixth and final race of the 2007 winter park race. The course was on the legendary Tipperary Creek course which was the first winter park course ever raced on. The race was an epic 25.8 miles long with over 4,000 feet of climbing. The course map can be seen here (follow the dashed white line) and the course profile can be seen here.

This course was a lot of fun. It started out with a huge climb in the beginning, followed by a huge descent and then some up and downs with some pretty technical sections to the end. The overall course gained altitude, so that was good for me.

I completed this course in 2 hours, 19 minutes and 58.7 seconds which put me in 4th place, just 32 seconds off of the podium. The full results are here. I was very happy with this finish however because it gave me enough points in the series to capture 2nd place overall! I ended up with 236 points for the season whereas the 1st place finisher had 247 points and the 3rd place guy had 231 points. The complete series rankings can be viewed here.

I had a great time competing in the winter park mountain bike series this year. The courses were challenging, the scenery was beautiful, and the competitors were all very cool and friendly. I hope to take part in these races again, I guess I will have to upgrade to expert next year though. So much for podium finishes. I'd also like to try more of the Mountain States Cup series races.

Winter Park #5 - Cross Country

This was the fifth winter park race this summer. This one started near Fraser and finished at the base of Winter Park. A map of the course can be seen here and the course profile is here. This race was 24 miles long and it had a huge climb at the beginning to start of the race. The first hill was over 2,000 ft of climbing and over 6 miles long. This was to my advantage since I am a better climber than descender. It was pretty cool that morning and I wanted to be nice and warmed up by the time we started so we parked in Fraser and Kendra and I both biked the few miles out to the start line. Right before the start of my race I rode up the road a little ways to see how the incline was after the start, but I went out a little too far and almost missed my race start! At got back to the start line right before the gun went off. When it did most of us started nice and easy since we had a long day ahead of us and a huge climb right in front of us.

There was a mile or two lead out on a dirt road before we hit the singletrack and the incline wasn't too bad. On the approach I chatted with the guys that I normally race against and are about the same speed as me. Before we hit the singletrack our group moved up towards the front. Once we hit the singletrack I let Brian lead us and we kept the pace pretty steady. Half way up the climb there is another dirt road that is relatively flat and short. I decided to attack right before this road and got a small gap. On the road I caught the guy that was in second place in our category (James Mack) and asked him if we could work together. I drafted him for a minute and then we traded pulls for the rest of the flat section before we hit the "wall". This next singletrack section was extremely steep and rocky. I did my best to just hang on James' wheel for the climb and was successful until the last half mile or so when it really pitched up and was covered with loose rocks. He pulled away from me and summited about a minute before I did. Once I started the downhill, I just hung on the the incredibly fast descent. Shortly after the start of the downhill I passes James who had unfortunately crashed on a water-bar in the trail. There were already medics there so I kept on going. I crashed on one of the couple tight switch backs, but was going slow enough that I didn't get hurt too bad. This allowed Andrew to catch me though and he passed me. I worked hard to catch him and was able to by the bottom of the huge descent.

Andrew and I took turns leading each other for about half of the race, but he pulled away from me on Vasquez Road right before we had to cross Vasquez Creek again. I didn't see him again until the finish line, but ended up in 3rd place! Here's a picture of me crossing the line:


I was pretty happy with my finish and had a great time on this course. It was definitely my favorite course of the series. It took me 2:17:47.7 to finish the race and I was 133rd overall. The complete results can be seen here. Here's a picture of me on the podium :-)

Winter Park #4 - Valley Point to Point

The fourth winter park mountain bike race this summer was the Valley Point to Point. This race started at the Winter Park resort base and finished just outside the town of Fraser. It was 18.8 miles long (the longest so far), the starting elevation was 9,080 ft. and the finish elevation was 8,830 ft. with 1,950 ft of climbing along the way. Which means this race was mostly downhill. There is a map of the course here. And the course profile is here.

The night before the race we camped just outside of the town of Winter Park off of Vasquez Rd. It is national forest so you can camp there for free. Here is a picture of our campsite and our new tent! It was nice spedning the night before up there so that I didn't have to worry about getting up early and driving all the way up there the day of the race. It was a nice night, chilly; but not freezing.

The next morning we got up and brushed our teeth (Kendra came with me of course) and ate some breakfast. Then I started warming up by riding up the road to where the race would be on it and checked out the Vasquez Creek water crossing to scope out what the best strategy would be to get across it. Then I rode to the start line and prepared to start. I saw the regulars in my category and made some small talk before the race. Here's a picture right after the gun went off. I tried not to go out too hard at the beginning.This race was pretty tough for me because I am better at going uphill than I am at downhill. At least it started out going uphill so that I could get into good position before the downhill. I think I was in 2nd place by the time that we started going down. I held my place pretty well on the first serious downhill. I think I might have gotten passed by one person. Then we had another tough uphill where I was able to pass him back. Then a little downhill and the water crossing.

I was actually able to make it all the way across the water without stopping. Putting it in a really low gear was key. Then we rode down Vasquez Rd. for a little before turning off and heading up a challenging climb. Before we got to the climb I noticed that my seat was slowly sliding down lower and lower. This wasn't going to do, so I decided to stop on the uphill to raise my seat and tighten it and I was passed by two or three riders in my category! After this uphill the rest of the race was mostly downhill and I continued to get passed. The final stretch was really rocky and really beat me up. I don't think my suspension was ideally tuned. Eventually the finish line actually showed up though.


I ended up finishing in 7th place in my category, 207th overall. The race took me 1:35:04.7 which was a pace of about 5 minutes per mile. The complete results are here. This wasn't my best race ever, but I survived and I learned a lot. I'm glad that my loose seat post was the worst of my mechanical issues for the year. I got to talk to Brian Kleinman after the race and met his wife as well. He is a pretty cool guy and I would get to talk to him at other races this year, too. I enjoyed racing against him.

Winter Park #3 - Cross Country Super Loop

The third winter park race was on July 7th. The course consisted of one BIG loop at the ski resort. The map can be viewed here. I raced sport category again so my course was 14.7 miles. The race was pretty hard and I only ended up getting 8th place. I think this was largely due to the very long downhill portion of the race. The complete results can be seen here.

WP#2 - Mountain Circuit One

The second Winter Park race was on June 16th. It was a cross country circuit race which means it was a loop that you do several times. Our category did two loops for about 15 miles of racing with 900 feet of climbing per lap. I also talked my friend and coworker, Derrick, into racing with me. We were in the same category and lined up against each other at noon.

When they blew the whistle I used the same race strategy as I had last week. I fell in behind about the 5th rider and just held on to see what the pace would be. They started out a little faster this week since there was only a short climb at first and then a flat section on fire roads before we hit the singletrack.

I slowly moved up until I was sitting in second place and could see the turn onto the singletrack section. Since it is much more difficult to pass people on the singletrack I made up my mind to get in front before we were there. I was successful and started the singletrack trail in first place.

I held this position for about a mile, but was unable to shake the racers behind me. I was using a lot of energy to lead the way up the climb so when I hit a fairly technical switchback to get around, I had to put a foot down and gave up my lead to two other riders.

I kept pushing to the top and don't think I was passed again. I caught up to some of the guys in front of me by the top of the hill and then we started descending. I was passed by two guys on the descent, but stayed with one of them and passed him again on the uphill part of the next lap. This uphill section was even longer than on the first lap! It was a long hard climb to the top, then we had a very long downhill to the bottom.

When I was almost to to the very bottom, I was going around a tight switchback a little too fast and lost traction on my front wheel. My bike slipped out from under me and I went down hard, scraping up most of the left side of my body. It hurt pretty bad, but I got up right away and got back on my bike. I pushed hard for the finish line and didn't give up my spot. I ended up finishing 4th which I was happy with.