I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Athiest

Key Questions to always ask

Do you believe that an absolute truth can exist?

• Are you absolutely sure about that?

If Christianity were true, would you be a Christian?

Main problems with Christianity

• Intellectual

  • Age of earth, evolution, problem of evil, etc.

• Emotional

  • Exclusivity, church hypocrisy

• Volitional

  • Restricting our choices in life, being held accountable to something greater

What is an apologist?

Why apologetics matter??

An apologist = someone who shows how good reason and evidence support or contradict a particular belief.

Serves not just to evangelize people, but also to strengthen our own faith!

Socrates: the unexamined life is not worth living

• Extrapolate this to the unexamined faith

We are also commanded to know what we believe and why

• Give answers to those who ask (1 Pet. 3:15)

• Demolish arguments against Christianity (2 Cor. 10:4-5)

Love the lord your God not just with all your heart and all your soul, but all your mind

Why in the world would anybody not want Christianity to be true?

Often because it would require them to change their thinking, friends, priorities, lifestyle, or morals

Not willing to give up control

Humans have a fatal tendency to try to adjust the truth to fit our desires rather than adjust our desires to fit the truth

• We love truth that enlightens us, but we hate when it convicts us

Truths about Truth

• It is discovered, not invented. It exists independent of anyone’s knowledge.

• It unchanging and independent of human beliefs and perceptions.

• Contrary beliefs are possible, but contrary truths are not possible.

Road Runner Tactic

Identify and refute self-defeating statements

• A statement that fails to meet its own standard

A method of argumentation that highlights contradictions within an opponent's claims, demonstrating their inconsistency.

Evangelism Explosion Technique

1. Can I ask you a spiritual question?

2. If you were to die tonight and stand before God, and God were to ask you, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” what would you say?

If Christianity were true - would you become a Christian?

Would you be willing to look at some evidence?

• Being willing is essential. Evidence cannot convince the unwilling.

Almost nothing can be “proven.” But you can be convinced and shown “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Can all religions be true?

Truth vs tolerance

Major world religions DO NOT all teach the same things. They have very major key differences. They can’t all be true, because they teach opposites.

We therefore can’t subscribe to the new definition of tolerance demanding we accept all to be true. We are to respect individual beliefs while recognizing conflicting truths.

CS Lewis on “good philosophy”

“Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason,because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” This highlights the importance of philosophical discourse in addressing misconceptions and errors in thought.

Why should anyone believe anything at all?

Because they have evidence to support those beliefs, and because beliefs have consequences.

The Cosmological Argument

Premise 1: Everything that had a beginning had a cause (Law of Causality). A necessary and fundamental principle of science. Evidence shows that the universe had a beginning

• Anything that ever existed either always existed and is therefore uncaused, or it had a beginning and therefore was caused by something else

S- Second law of thermodynamics

• In an isolated system, entropy increases over time. If the universe was eternal, all the energy would have run out by now - the universe would be dead (heat death)

U - Universe is expanding

• Expanding from a single point that if it was reversed would actually shrink to literally nothing.

R- Radiation from the big bang

• Cosmic background radiation exists exactly as predicted from if there was an initial Big Bang

G- Great galaxy seeds

• The “galaxy seeds” were tiny density fluctuations present at the very beginning of the universe that gravity later grew into galaxies and large-scale structure.Their precise, early appearance shows the universe started in a finely tuned, structured state — strong evidence for a definite cosmic beginning.

E- Einstein’s theory of relativity

• Time, space, and matter are co-relative. They are interdependent - you can’t have one without the others.

The Teleological Argument

The Greek ‘telos’ which means ‘design’

The Anthropic Principle: extremely precise and interdependent environmental conditions that seem fine-tuned for human life

• Constant 1 - Oxygen level:stable at 21%, more would cause nonstop fires, less wouldn’t support life

• Constant 2 - Atmospheric transparency: allowing the appropriate amount of sunlight

• Constant 3 - Moon-Earth gravitational interaction: tides, atmosphere, rotation, climate

• Constant 4 - CO2 level: allowing plant life vs too much greenhouse effect

• Constant 5 - Gravity: the force that holds planets and galaxies together, critical for the universe's structure and function.

There are a total of ~128 constants. There are predicted ~10²² planets in the universe. The probability that this many necessary constants would occur for a single planet to exist and sustain life is ~10¹⁴⁴

The “best” counter is the multiverse theory - which is essentially just a speculative explanation without evidence, proposing countless universes to justify our finely tuned conditions.

The first life

Varying views on evolution vs intelligent design - but the major problem evolution runs into is first life

One estimate by Michael Behe has said that the probability of getting 1 protein molecule (about 100 amino acids) by chance would be the same as a blindfolded man in the Sahara Desert 3 times in a row. And that’s just to get one single protein molecule, which you need about 200 of those together to get life.

Science is a slave to philosophy

There are at least 5 rational beliefs that can’t be proven by science:

1. Math and logic

2. Metaphysical truths (minds existing outside of my own)

3. Ethical judgements

4. Aesthetic judgements (beauty can’t be proven)

5. Science itself (can’t be discovered by the scientific method itself)

If mental processes are nothing but chemical reactions in the brain, then there is no reason to believe that anything can be true.

The Moral Law

All people are impressed with some fundamental natural sense of right and wrong that transcends cultural differences and suggests an objective moral standard.

• Affirmed by Romans, Hebrews, Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah, Psalms

If there is no God, then everything is permitted (Ivan, Brothers K)

The moment you say one set of moral ideas is better than another, you are measuring them both by a standard. Are the Nazis moral standards unethical?