I was recently challenged in regards to my beliefs as a Christian. Now I think those challenges are worthy of a response, which I will get to in another blog. However, it should be noted that Christianity isn’t the only worldview out there making claims. The Atheists cannot just sit back and sling arrows at Christianity and think they are immune from challenges themselves. In fact for Atheism to be true, it must not only show Christianity to be false (every religion as well), but it must also then put up its own evidence for its philosophy of reality. Both Atheism and Religion make claims on reality, and they both cannot be right, perhaps wrong, but not both right at the same time in the same way.

It seems that Christianity is usually the blunt of jokes, criticisms, questions, and attacks, so that the Christian is usually just on the defensive. However, like I said before this shouldn’t be the case. The Evolutionist / Atheists believes some things about reality, and must be able to defend his or her view. It is not enough to say Christianity is wrong thus I am right, there must actually be evidence put forth on the Atheists side to explain the difficult questions in life. So I will start out with some of my own challenges to Atheism / Evolution which require their response, and then later I will respond to the challenges that were made to me. Please note that there are issues in life that must be explained and the view that explains it the best and simplest is probably the most accurate view of reality.

So let it be noted that the Atheist must explain these things (among others):

1. The origin of the universe.
2. The existence of evil.
3. The existence of religion.
4. The resurrection of Jesus.

So here we go with my questions and the problems regarding this big life issues.

1. The Origin of the Universe:

Everyone has to deal with this and no one can escape it. Let me know which you find to be more rational as to how the universe, and therefor us, came into existence:

Evolution: Something came from nothing, order came from disorder, laws come from non-laws, and life from non-life.

Theism: A supernatural all-powerful, eternal Being built the universe.

Really, honestly, truthfully, which one seems to fit what we see around us? If we look around we see that life doesn’t come from non-life, we see that things birth other things, and non-things don’t birth anything. Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could. We see the universe moving from order to disorder not the other way around. We see design everywhere, and complexity, which in other contexts, we would easily deduce a creator. So the Evolutionist / Atheist has to propose theories about origins which contradict the known universe and everything we see around us. It contradicts scientific laws ladies and gentlemen. Show me the scientific evidence for some thing coming from nothing, or show me were less complex things become more complex over time, show me that entropy doesn’t exist, and that we are gaining energy not losing it.

Please don’t say that matter has always existed, this has proven to be impossible, because you cannot have an infinite series of time or of events and ever arrive at a present. If time was infinite, we would never reach now is how the basic argument goes. And also since we know of no machine or thing in the universe that actually creates energy out of nothing (outside of the idea of God), the infinite universe would have ran cold an infinite time ago as we see entropy working.

P.S remember this is a discussion about Evolution vs. Theism, you cannot assume what you are trying to prove, you must doubt both, then look at the evidence to deduce what seems a better representation of what we see and know about our world. The main question is which theory better explains the existence of the universe, considering what we already know about the universe and the way things appear.

2.  The Existence of Evil.

A lot of people think this is only an issue for Christians and religion, but it’s not, it’s a problem for everyone, religious and non-religious. Everyone must explain how it is we all believe certain things, actions, or beliefs are better or worse than others. How it is we call certain things wrong and other things right, or evil and good. If you want to hold God as evil, or Christianity as wrong, you must be appealing to some moral law above them both, but where do you get such a notion in nature? Isn’t that God is the moral standard a better explanation? Consider:

A moral law requires a moral lawgiver. If there is a standard of evil or good that is above us all, then there must be a being even higher than it. Without morals, we are all worthless creatures and there is no reason to differentiate how we treat each other for all responses are equal. Thus without morals I can beat and kill you and it is no different than saving you from drowning and feeding you. See more here: http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5237

God brings dignity to humans, and tells us we are valuable and thus we should treat each other a certain way. Evolution says humans are products of chance, have no worth, and thus you can do what ever you want, it doesn’t matter. Which way do we act in our society? Do we act like people have value, or do we not? Do we as a whole believe that life and property should be protected, or do we all see it as meaningless?

You see the Atheist wants to play in the Theists playground, to use his toys, while denying that the playground and toys exist. What Atheists do, is they say Christianity is wrong, but in Atheism there is no such thing as right or wrong. So they use a Christian (Theist / Moralist) term to disprove Christianity. They are using something that doesn’t exist in their worldview to disprove a different view.

3. The Existence of Religion.

The Atheist must explain why man so quickly runs towards religion and the belief there is a God. In fact the majority of all people who have ever lived on this earth were religious and believed in a god, thus the Atheist is a very small minority. Not a proof of non Atheism from numbers, but just an interesting fact that should cause the Atheist pause, for based on numbers the odds are the Atheist is the one wrong about God.

Perhaps Religion is a crutch, Christianity says it’s a real and needed crutch. The truth is that there are many things in life which religion best explains:

Origins, Morality, Meaning, Human Dignity, Order, Laws, Beauty, Love etc.

The Atheist must explain how out of nothing, came matter, and out of non life came life, and out of disorder came order, and how out of order came laws, and out of laws morality, and out of morality meaning and out of meaning beauty, and out of beauty love, and out of love human dignity. The Theist has an easy and reasonable explanation: A Good, Loving, Beautiful, Orderly, Powerful, God created all these things with a purpose.

Which one really seems more plausible? I think the Theist’s response is reasonable, what about the Atheist’s? Well please give one if you have it.

4. The Resurrection of Jesus.

I deal with this more in my upcoming blog, so I will just pose the problem here. It is a historical fact, which very few debate, that Jesus existed. Most people Christian or not believe Jesus was a real man. Majority of Scholarship agrees with this statement, that Jesus is a historical figure, I have heard that the number of Scholars that think He didn’t exist can be counted on one hand.

The fact that he died is an historical fact found in the New Testament, Non Christian Jewish historians, and Non Christian Non Jewish historians. No one ever produced a body, which was in the best interest of all the non-Christians living during that day. They had the power and the money to find and produce the body if it existed. Note: the New Testament isn’t one book, but many, and the 4 Gospels are 4 different books considered by Scholars to have around 5 different unique sources for their claims about history.

Then you have the fact that hundreds of people (12 Apostles and 500+ others) all claim to have seen Jesus dead, and then alive. Many if not most of them suffered, were tortured, and killed for their beliefs, and they didn’t recant. If it was a group conspiracy, how did so many people keep it quiet, and what would posses them all to suffer so much and die for a lie they knew to be a lie? It just doesn’t make any sense, and the best explanation is that it really did happen.

So, in conclusion the Atheist has some very tough and difficult beliefs to prove. And it does seem that Christianity has better explanations for them in my view.

To my Atheist friends, what I have proposed here requires a thoughtful and reasonable response from you. Please respond with your REASONS and evidence for believing there is no God and that Evolution is the best explanation of the issues I provided. Please refrain from attacking Christianity to prove your view. Even if you “prove” Christianity is wrong, that doesn’t make you right, your views must stand on their own.

Please keep your responses orderly and in response to my points. If you wish to challenge Christianity, please do so separately from your response. Please note there is a difference between attacking the traditional teachings of Christianity, and the people who do things in the name of Christianity. A man could blow up Abortion clinics and call himself a Christian, however, traditional Christianity teaches against such behavior, and the person was not acting in a Christian manner thus his actions cannot be considered an argument against Christianities teaching, Christians yes, teachings no.

I will not respond to your challenges until you respond to my own, its only fair. Lets discuss the points I have laid out, in a rational and mature manner.