Duane Caldwell, Author at Rational Faith

About Duane Caldwell

Duane has served in many different capacities including pastor, elder, project coordinator and flight instructor. He is an ordained minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ by the Evangelical Church Alliance and holds a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, a Trinity International University school and a BS in Aeronautics from Parks College, St. Louis University.

100 Questions – Introduction and Question 1 concerning the bedroom.

Posted on November 19, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

Introduction to the 100 Questions/Challenges confronting Christians today

Before we get to the 100 questions, let me discuss why this blog exists. The reason for this blog is to demonstrate that it is reasonable and rational to believe the teaching of the Christian faith because all questions that challenge the faith can be rationally answered. It is neither foolish nor contrary to science to believe what Christianity teaches. Further, the answers are internally consistent and rationally coherent. Up to this point I have focused on challenges presented by secular understandings of science and atheistic misrepresentations. These include challenges from science about things like evolution and the age of the earth to philosophical challenges from the “New Atheists” like Richard Dawkins. Continue Reading

Israel at War – The Hidden Reason

Posted on October 30, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

On October 7th, 2023, the Jews in Israel suffered the most deadly, wicked, evil attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust. Perversely proud to be responsible for the massacre: the terrorist group Hamas who killed Jewish families in their homes, burning some of them alive, raped women, beheaded babies, and kidnapped people of all ages – from babies to grandmothers – to hold as hostages. As of this writing the count of the number of dead stands at 1,500 and the number of hostages is over two hundred.

Hamas supporters all over the world celebrated and continue to celebrate the evil event, and call for more, shouting “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.” By which they mean from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean sea, Israel’s homeland will be free of both the state of Israel and the Jewish people. In other words, they want to wipe both Jews and the Jewish state off the face of the earth. Continue Reading

Fujianvenator Prodigiosus – New Dino find puts Evolutionary Storytelling on Display

Posted on September 30, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

Fujianvenator Prodigiosus (artist impression) Credit: Chuang Zhao

The prestigious science magazine Nature featured[1] a curious newly discovered dinosaur called Fujianvenator Prodigiosus which is causing a stir concerning their ludicrous theory that certain therapod dinosaurs evolved into birds. They’re quite serious about that story though and the fact that they don’t quite know where to place this dinosaur into that fictional setting is causing problems forcing a “rethink of bird evolution” as the title puts it. But it does make a good case study for our purposes to see how evolutionists weave their tales of fiction by misconstruing the evidence by building on their previous lines of fiction.

Dawkins Joins Ranks of Evolutionists who Disprove Evolution

Posted on August 29, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

Richard Dawkins and Darwin’s Tree of Life

From its inception Darwinian evolution had embedded in its very definition the seeds of its own destruction. There are actually a number of these seeds and Darwin himself recognized one of the more obvious ones that disprove evolution that was clear even in his day. But let me come back to Darwin since his refutation, which he himself acknowledged, has been pointed out many times. Instead let me start with Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist and evolutionist who, as pointed out in the title, has joined Charles Darwin in the ranks of evolutionists who, in their efforts to validate evolution, have actually decisively proven it false.

Following are four evolutionists, including Richard Dawkins, who have provided criteria by which to disprove evolution, showing it to be false. So, according to their own criteria, evolution is demonstrably false. Continue Reading

Are We Alone? Assessing Whistleblower tale of UFOs and Aliens

Posted on July 14, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

Whistleblower David Grusch, an alien representation that allegedly looks like the one seen by Jesse Marcel, “Project Blue Book” representation of Area 51 test craft

Regarding the import of the discovery of a mere microbe on a planet other than earth, Gentry Lee, former Chief Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet propulsion Lab and narrator of the documentary “Are We Alone” stated “… it would be the biggest scientific discovery in history.”[1]

Now the claim is being made that not merely microbes but entire complex multi-cellular humanoid aliens in space craft have come to earth, and have been doing so for at least 90 years. For such an earth shattering announcement, the media reaction has been a rather ho-hum, nothing special, business as usual type of response. A number of big name media outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post were offered the story but passed on publishing it.

The story I’m referring to is that of the “whistleblower” allegations made that the U.S. government has in its possession alien (as in not from earth) space craft and the (dead) bodies of the crew that piloted the alleged UFO – which the military now calls UAPs – Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon – to avoid the extra-terrestrial (ET) connotations inherent in “UFO.” I put whistleblower in quotes, because for reasons which I will describe below, I am confident the U.S. government does not have what is claimed in the allegations, so that makes me wonder what the “whistleblower” is up to. Is he being a good g-man and running a black op for the elites? Is he really blowing the whistle on the government? Or has he failed a confidence test the government put him through? Or is he possibly just a stooge for satan? I’ll give my conclusion below, but first let me give some background and remove the smoke and mirrors so we can clearly see what’s fact and what’s fiction and judge accordingly. Continue Reading

Opting Out of Pride Month

Posted on June 7, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

Whenever I hear talk of gay “pride” or “Pride Month”, I can’t help but think of the Bible verse about those who take pride in what they should be ashamed of, a verse that also talks about their destiny. (Php 3.18-19) Here it is amplified from the Today’s English Version (TEV). I say “amplified” because the TEV is not a straight translation. In attempting to put the scriptures in modern English, they liberally paraphrase. So here it is from the TEV:

I have told you this many times before, and now I repeat it with tears: there are many whose lives make them enemies of Christ’s death on the cross. They are going to end up in hell, because their god is their bodily desires. They are proud of what they should be ashamed of, and they think only of things that belong to this world.
Philippians 3.18-19 TEV

As it did in the apostle’s day, this describes people living in sin and that is no more true today than it is for the many people promoting “pride” today. Knowing the destiny of such people, the apostle Paul was grieved to tears as we all should be. But aside from our grief, what is an appropriate Christian response to the inundation of events and propaganda concerning “Pride” month? A proper response begins with a proper understanding and assessment of what “Pride” month is and what it stands for. Continue Reading

Nefarious – Movie Review

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

Are demons real? Is demonic possession possible? Are the actions of this serial killer the actions of someone experiencing a dissociative disorder (split personality), or can it really be a case of demonic possession as he claims?

These are the questions presented to the protagonist Dr James Martin, a brilliant psychiatrist in the 2023 movie “Nefarious.” Dr Martin, both a valedictorian and salutatorian in his school career, has been tasked with determining whether a serial killer is sane and therefore can be cleared to suffer his court decreed penalty: death; or whether he is insane and must therefore be remanded in custody until it can be determined he is sane. The movie follows Dr Martin’s investigation, and in so doing presents the above questions and many other Biblical and moral questions to the audience in a manner reminiscent of one of CS Lewis’ masterpieces, The Screwtape Letters. Continue Reading

Which Resurrection will you choose?

Posted on April 9, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

Which Resurrection will you choose?

A Resurrection Day Meditation

John Donne’s Poem “For Whom the Bell Tolls” ends with this:

Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

It is a stark reminder that every death points to our own mortality. A reminder for each person to say to yourself – one of the times the funeral bell tolls, it will be for me.

Death is the resulting horror, penalty and curse of sin. But the good news of the gospel is that death need not be the end of the story. Every resurrection day is a reminder of that fact. A reminder of the resurrection life that can only be found in Jesus: Continue Reading

Were The Pyramids Built Before the Flood? Correcting The Record

Posted on March 29, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

From the title of the video, “Were the Pyramids Built Before the Flood”[1] by Nathan Hoffman, you might suppose this video was going to focus on the dating issues around which came first, the pyramids or the global flood? If you thought so, you, like me, would be wrong. Next, you might think it was on issues concerning biblical dating, with his suggestion that the earth is older than the 6,000 years that biblical creationists claim it is. If so, you, like me, would be mostly wrong again. While his issue concerns dating, that is not really the focus nor his main issue. As Dr. Watson is a foil to show how smart and clever Sherlock Holmes is, these issues are merely foils to lead into his main issue. The main issue that Hoffman has – which he focuses on in both this pyramid video and his previous video “How Long Were the Israelites in Egypt”[2] – is with the text from which today’s Bibles translate the Old Testament. The Old Testament in today’s Bibles is translated from what is considered the most reliable text by bible scholars, the Masoretic Text (MT). But Hoffman has an issue with it, an issue bordering on an unhealthy antipathy, it appears. Think I exaggerate? Hoffman says of the MT: “All of our Bibles were copied from this corrupted version of the Hebrew.”(29:08) Corrupted? It is known there are scribal errors in all versions of hand copied ancient scriptures. But scholars, who respect the text, typically don’t call the texts “corrupted” and, in fact, work to identify such errors to get back to what the original text – which we no longer have – said.

Pyramids or Flood First?

I wrote this critique of his video not because of the question in the title. In viewing, it quickly becomes clear the age of the pyramids is not the main concern for Hoffman because he starts the video by refuting the theory that the pyramids were built before the flood in the first minute of the video when he points out: Continue Reading

Question Evolution Day 2023 – The Platypus and Coelacanth

Posted on February 12, 2023 by Duane Caldwell

Question Evolution Day 2023

Here we are at another February 12th, Question Evolution Day, where instead of presenting evidence for creation, we offer creation skeptics an opportunity to check their intellectual freedom and integrity. This is an opportunity to see if they are slaves to the evolutionary dogma or if they have the intellectual freedom and integrity to seriously consider the many challenges to Darwinian Evolution. It is an opportunity to observe that Darwinian evolution is not only internally inconsistent but the evidence does not support it. The evidence supports creation. Continue Reading