Defense of My Faith
I found this while surfing the web - a Top Ten List of arguments that pick apart Christianity. Thought I'd try to answer each item point by point...
- You vigorously deny the existence of thousands
of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when
someone denies the existence of yours.
First of all, I don't feel outraged when someone denies the existence of my God. God has an amazing respect for our free will (much more than men respect it, THAT'S for sure!) Which means He let's you choose if you want to deny His existence or not. Personally I try to follow His example and let others make that decision. In the end we all get to stand before Him and explain ourselves.
- You feel insulted and “dehumanized” when
scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but
you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created
from dirt.
The only time I feel dehumanized by secular evolution is when people use it to justify deviant behavior that is seldom seen in even the animal world. As far as evolution is concerned, I have a hard time believing people can be so absolutely certain of what happened billions years ago.
- You laugh at polytheists, but you have no
problem believing in a Triune God.
Actually I give people a good deal of respect for what they believe, especially if they've really thought about it. But my experience is most people aren't sure of WHAT they believe in. As a result they either avoid working thru a very difficult subject or simply go along with what everyone else believes - that's true for both Christians and non-Christians.
And I certainly don't laugh at that; if anything I empathize with it because I did the same for a long time. Unfortunately it took a great deal of pain in my life to get me to honestly admit that I didn't know very much about God... and I had been a "Christian" for over 20 years!
- Your face turns purple when you hear of the
“atrocities” attributed to Allah, but you don’t even flinch when
hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of
Egypt in “Exodus” and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic
groups in “Joshua” including women, children, and trees!
Cultures and times are very different. Consider during WWII allies killed 50,000 CIVILIANS in bombing raids over Germany - at the time this was never questioned and anyone refusing to support it would be thought a traitor. Yet if the same civilian losses occurred in today's war the men responsible would be prosecuted as war criminals.
My point is, in less than a generation the culture has changed. Attempting to convict previous generations, especially 4000 years ago, with no allowance for cultural setting, is not a good argument.
Better to question those who think the culture today should allow innocent people to be victims of Allah's worshipers.
- You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans,
and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no
problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who
then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life
and then ascended into the sky.
I don't pretend to know about Hindu beliefs or even Greeks. But I do know Mary was not the first pregnancy recorded in scripture from a spiritual being... Genesis 6 talks about the "sons of God" having children with the "daughters of men" - so a virgin birth was not unheard of regarding biblical events.
And the fact that non-Christian historians acknowledge a miracle worker in Judea named Jesus who was crucified by the Romans can only add credence to the claim of a resurrected man attested by hundreds of eye-witness accounts.
- You are willing to spend your life looking for
little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth
(few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing
dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents
and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
A closer examination will show the Bible is remarkable among ancient manuscripts for maintaining accuracy throughout the generations. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a witness to the word-for-word accuracy of modern day translations.
Consider also the checksum technique of Jewish scribes which assigned a numeric value to each letter in their alphabet, allowing every page to have both row and column sum totals. The accuracy of this technique is such that the same concept is used in computer science today for redundant code verification.
Regarding the age of the Earth, my comments in item 2 above remain the same.
- You believe that the entire population of this
planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs —
though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend eternity
in an infinite Hell of suffering. And yet consider your religion
the most “tolerant” and “loving.”
First of all, I'm GLAD to say I won't be making decisions about who goes to Hell and who doesn't. All I know is this is what God says: "Faith in Jesus is salvation". If you want to argue that with Him, knock yourself out.
Second, Christianity DOES say love your enemy, offer your other cheek, walk an extra mile, give your cloak as well. If that isn't tolerant and loving I don't know what is.
HOWEVER, many - maybe MOST - Christians struggle with these acts of faith. So maybe the question should be how much worse would the world be if Christians didn't even TRY to obey those standards.
- While modern science, history, geology, biology,
and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot
rolling around on the floor speaking in “tongues” may be all the
evidence you need to “prove” Christianity.
Scripture is very clear - if people are publicly speaking in tongues without an interpreter then it is wrong. Anything outside this teaching is either putting on a self-serving show or demonstrating a faith that is woefully inconsiderate of others - neither of which are endorsed by God.
Not sure why science, history, geology, biology and physics are supposed to convince me Christianity is wrong. These are all just disciplines which examine the created universe. If studying creation is supposed to prove God doesn't exist then mankind REALLY doesn't exist because NOTHING we have produced can even come close to the utter brilliance of the world we live in.
- You define 0.01% as a “high success rate” when
it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence
that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99%
FAILURE was simply the will of God.
I think that successful prayer is to know God's will and to ask for it.
Yes, I will admit it is very tempting to explain everything as "the will of God" - but again, nobody can honestly claim to thoroughly understand God or His will.
But I'm sure there are many examples of answered prayer. However this might be similar to Jesus performing miracles and telling others not to make a big deal of it. (They went ahead and made a big deal about it because, heck - a miracle IS a big deal.) But the point is answered prayers, like miracles, are not intended to be a public display of showmanship. God is not an entertainment network.
- You actually know a lot less than many atheists
and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church
history - but still call yourself a Christian.
I will grant that most people (myself included) do not have a good understanding of the Bible, Christianity and church history. And I will even grant that some (certainly not many) atheists and agnostics have a better understanding of these things than many Christians.
But faith in God is not based on intellectual knowledge. Several times scripture highlights the value of having faith like a child. Likewise there are several Bible passages that equate the wisdom of man with utter foolishness.
Can anyone argue the current state of man has benefited from the "wisdom" of mankind? Indeed, the phrase "it's only human" is intended to define the failure of man.
So claiming knowledge of things, even of the Bible and Christianity, is not a good measure when it comes to the understanding God.
Here is what I know - while salvation is so simple that even a child may grasp it, understanding an all powerful, all knowing, triune God is tremendously difficult. Maybe the amazing thing is not so much that some can understand Him as much as He continues to want to understand us.