Category Archives: General Apologetics

Atheism, General Apologetics

What Would You Say to Him?

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YouTube has an enormous number of videos dedicated to Christianity, atheism, and every other kind of worldview.  I want to post some of these videos from time to time and ask you for your response to these videos.

The first of these, found below, is from an atheist who raises a handful of issues that he thinks should render belief in the Christian God as nonsensical.  Watch the video and comment in this blog post on any issues he raised that interested you. 

As you’re watching, ask yourself some questions.  What are his arguments?  Does he provide good reasons for his positions?  Does he really understand Christianity?  If you are a Christian, is there anything he said that reflects one of your doubts?  What would you say to him if you met him for a cup of coffee?

I look forward to your responses and will plan on making a few comments myself later on.

General Apologetics, Truth

Truth Is What?

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All truth is relative!

You can’t know the truth!

That’s true for you but not for me!

These are some of the most popular statements that float around our modern society.  Talk to any college or university student and you are likely to hear something  similar.  They seem to make truth out to be like your favorite sweater… that sweater is good for you but not for me.  Truth is talked about as if it is something that is different from person to person… completely relative.  Can this possibly be accurate?  Fortunately, the answer is no.

What is truth?  Quite simply truth is what “is”.  Truth is not like your favorite ice cream.  Truth is absolute.  Here are some facts about truth that I recently read in Norman Geisler and Frank Turek’s book I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist.

  1. Truth is discovered, not invented.  It exists independent of anyone’s knowledge of it.  For example, gravity existed prior to Newton.
  2. Truth is transcultural.  If something is true, it is true for all people, in all places and at all times.  2+2=4 in China, America, Australia, etc.
  3. Truth is unchanging.  Our BELIEFS about what is true will change from time to time but truth itself does not change.  When we discovered the earth was round our BELIEFS about the earth changed.  However, the earth itself has always been round.
  4. Beliefs cannot change a fact, no matter how sincerely we believe them.  One can SINCERELY believe the world is flat, but they will just be sincerely WRONG.
  5. Truth is not affected by a person’s attitude.  An arrogant person does not make a truthful message they share with you wrong.  A humble person does not make a wrong message they share with you right.
  6. All truths are absolute truths.  Even truths that appear to be relative are in fact absolute.  For example, I, Darrell, was cold yesterday at 2 PM.  Even for a person in China, it is still true that I, Darrell, was cold yesterday at 2 PM.

What all these add up to is one thing… contrary BELIEFS are possible but contrary TRUTHS are not.

So, what about the statements at the beginning of this post.   They are the latest thinking in society.  Are they TRUE?  No!!  They are self defeating.  We can turn them on themselves and easily see how illogical they are.

All truth is relative.  Is that a relative truth?

You can’t know the truth.  Do you know that to be true?

That’s true for you but not for me.  Is that statement true for you or is it true for everyone?

Think about it!!

Also, if you have a chance, I highly recommend I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist.  It is a great book!!

Darrell

Atheism, General Apologetics

What If There Is No God?

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I think many people toy with some form of atheism at some point in their lives.  They wonder if all they were taught growing up is really true.  They don’t see God, they don’t hear from him, and they don’t touch him or smell him, so maybe he doesn’t really exist.

Wondering whether God exists, it seems to me, is perfectly rational and reasonable.  Most of us struggle with doubts, but we learn how to deal with those doubts, maybe by finding good answers to our questions, or even having an experience with God that reassures us.

Some of us, though, willingly turn those doubts into a strong and hardened form of atheism.  Granted, hardened atheists are a tiny percentage of the population (most surveys I’ve seen say it’s less than 5%), but there is still a larger percentage who are toying with the idea of no God.  It is to those people who are toying with atheism that I would like to speak. 

What if there really is no God?  What does that really mean?  I’m betting that many of us haven’t thought this through.  If there is no God, then there are real consequences for that viewpoint, and many hardened atheists who have rigorously examined their convictions would agree with me.  Here goes.

First, free will does not exist.  You are the consequence of random, natural processes, and therefore everything you say and do is determined at the atomic level.  You are not free to do anything.  Once science gets there, we will be able to predict everything you will say and do just by understanding the chemicals that make up your body and the surrounding environment.

Second, there is no absolute right and wrong.  Morality is a human invention which changes with time, place, and people.  What’s wrong today may be right tomorrow.  Transcendent moral laws are illusory because right and wrong are constantly changing.  We, as individuals, and as groups of individuals, decide what we call right and wrong.  When we die, our children will decide, and so on.  Slavery used to be right, but now it’s wrong.  Who knows, maybe it’ll go back to being right again some day, if there is no God.  

Third, there is no ultimate justice.  Those who commit heinous crimes in this life are never punished for those crimes in the next life, because there is no next life!  This is it.  Not to mention the fact that without a foundation for moral law, as seen above, how can anything be declared unjust? You have to know what is just before you can know what is unjust, but what is just is constantly changing.  If there is no God, then there is no ultimate justice for Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.  Maybe they were just doing the best they could given the time and place they lived.  Who is to say?

Fourth, as already mentioned, there is no life after death.  You will never see your deceased loved ones again.  Once you die, you will decompose into a pile of inanimate chemicals and never be conscious again.  As they say in the world of sports, it’s one and done.

Fifth, there is no ultimate meaning to life.  Your life has no cosmic purpose.  You aren’t here to fulfill any kind of mission.  The only meaning you can have in your life is the meaning you subjectively give yourself.  That meaning, however, is just a psychological comfort, a pleasant illusion to keep you going.  It really doesn’t matter if you live or die.  Everything you accomplish in this life will eventually be destroyed and forgotten. 

Sixth, there is no purpose to human history.  All of the things that we as humans have achieved will eventually be lost when our species dies out.  History is not headed in any particular direction.  There is no plan for the human race.  Eventually, we will wipe ourselves out or some comet will smash into the earth.  Either way, human history is a dead end.

Still toying with atheism?

General Apologetics, Religion

Is Your Religious Belief Similar To Your Favorite Ice Cream Flavor?

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Often when I speak to people about my Christian faith, they respond by saying things like, “I’m so happy for you!” or “I’m glad you found something to believe in!” or “It’s great that Christianity works for you!”  Years ago, these kinds of statements puzzled me as it seemed like these people weren’t really understanding what I was saying.  I was telling them something that I thought was objectively true, and they were acting as if I was telling them about my favorite flavor of ice cream.

“I’m so glad you like Rocky Road!”  “Vanilla is a great flavor for you!”  “It’s important to have a favorite flavor!”  I now understand that this is what our secular western culture thinks of religion, by and large.

A favorite ice cream flavor, however,  is a subjective preference.  It says something about you, the subject, and nothing about the ice cream, the object.  You would never seriously argue with someone over their favorite ice cream flavor.  It’s just a personal taste, and no argument can ever sway the other person because the preference is within them and not moveable by evidential argument.

Same way with sports teams.  It’s hilarious to me that some people try to argue with each other over what team you should like.  It’s just a personal preference that is subjective.  In today’s sports world, if you root for a specific city’s team, you’re basically rooting for a uniform, because the team uniform is about all that stays the same.  The players and coaches constantly change.

When I make an objective statement, like “Raleigh is the NC state capital,” this statement can be argued by presenting evidence.  You can convince someone of this fact by showing them documentation that Raleigh is, indeed, the capital.  If I told you that George Washington, the first American president, was born in AD 1250, you could check that out, too.  It’s an objective statement.  Its says something about the object, George Washington.

So when I say I’m a Christian, am I just saying that I have a personal preference for Christianity, that I like their team better than other teams?  Is that all I’m saying?  If so, then it would be ridiculous of me to try to convince people of other religions to convert to my team.  Why bother?  You like chocolate and I like vanilla.  There’s no point in trying to convince you vanilla or Christianity are better.

Those of us who are serious about our faith understand that we are not talking about favorite teams, but about reality and what is true.  We are making objective truth claims.  Every religion makes claims about man’s origin, morality, meaning, and destiny.  Many religions also make historical claims.  If you are trying to judge a religion, then you need to evaluate the claims they are making about the empirically verifiable world, and then investigate those claims to see if they are true.

For example, if a religion denies that pain and suffering are real, that they are just illusions, then run away!  It is the universal experience of every person who ever lived that life is full of pain and suffering, so a religion better explain where that comes from.  Just denying it’s there is totally inadequate and incomprehensible.

If a religion makes claims of history that are patently false, then run away!  Any religion that gets major historical events wrong is untrustworthy.  If they can’t get verifiable history right, then how can we expect them to get heaven and hell right?

Bottom line: treat each religion as a real and testable hypothesis.  Do the research and see for yourself.  If you think that religions are just personal preference, you’ve completely missed the point.

General Apologetics

The Fear In "Happy Holidays"

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Every year during December, someone says to me “Happy Holidays” and I cringe inside, knowing that this person has bought into a climate of fear.

We know that 80% of Americans are Christian and we know an even higher 95% of Americans celebrate Christmas. If the dominant American holiday during the month of December is Christmas, and the traditional way to wish someone well during this time of year is to say “Merry Christmas,” then why not say that? What are we afraid of? Worst case, 1 out of 20 people will take offense. It’s actually a much smaller number than that because the vast majority of the remaining 5% will not mind someone saying “Merry Christmas” if they know the person is just ignorant of their particular beliefs.

We’re wishing each other well, after all. We’re not hurling insults at someone by saying “Merry Christmas” but that’s the way many of us act. In a meeting the other day, I suggested that we adorn our company website with pictures of outdoor Christmas trees and snow for the month of December, and you would have thought I was advocating genocide! Three people almost immediately jumped on the idea as offensive to some employees. This is a climate of fear and hypersensitivity.

If you know someone doesn’t celebrate Christmas, then wish them well in the way they prefer, but please stop cowering in fear by wishing everyone “Happy Holidays.” It degrades everyone’s beliefs.

General Apologetics, Historical Christ

Favorite C. S. Lewis Quote

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I am a big fan of C. S. Lewis because he had a way of explaining complex issues in simple ways.  This quote from Mere Christianity below is probably my favorite because it really addresses people who want to re-define the historical Jesus of the Bible.  Enjoy!

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.”  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic – on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to.

General Apologetics

Great Modern Apologetics Books

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There have been many good apologetics books written, but there are a few that I find myself going back to over and over to do additional research.  You can’t go wrong consulting these volumes:

Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

Scaling the Secular City

Handbook of Christian Apologetics

Again, I realize that there are many other good ones, but you will be well-served by these.

General Apologetics

Christian Thinkers

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One of the best things I can do for those seeking to learn more about Christianity is point them to some of the scholars who have taught and influenced me during my life.

Norman Geisler is the greatest living Christian apologist, period.

J. P. Moreland, John Ankerberg, Ravi Zacharias, Greg Koukl, R. C. Sproul, Hugh Ross – all of these folks are well worth reading and hearing.