Is this an apolegetics forum?

[OpenYourEyes]

Hi. I am a new member but I have been reading topics on this forum for a year. I was under the impression that this forum was for Christian apolegetics with the intent of reaching nonbelievers through reasoned arguments. However since I joined I have felt like its more of an anti-Christian apolegetics forum. I'm basing this on posts that I've read that mock and show hatred towards Christianity.

I understand that in debates, people will disagree with Christianity but disagreeing should not involve bashing and near promoting of anti-Christian sentiments. If the goal is to bring people to Christ via apologetics, this forum sends out mixed signals when it allows Christian bashing. .

[Overcomer]

Open Your Eyes wrote:

I understand that in debates, people will disagree with Christianity but disagreeing should not involve bashing and near promoting of anti-Christian sentiments. If the goal is to bring people to Christ via apologetics, this forum sends out mixed signals when it allows Christian bashing.

It is true that there are some atheists here who consistently talk about God, the Bible and Christianity in disrespectful, mocking tones and with insults. But there are also some who ask good questions with an honest interest in receiving all kinds of answers from all kinds of people with all kinds of views -- including that of the Christian. I would suggest that you concentrate on those.

Re: the Vitz book (Faith of the Fatherless) -- he highlights some well-known atheists who either had absent fathers or weak, ineffectual male role models including Freud, Voltaire, Sartre and Nietzsche. I have encountered people who find the idea of God the Father a real stumbling block because of their earthly fathers -- often because those fathers were abusive or failed to provide them with needed love and protection or just weren't around enough to have much of an impact. I can understand that it would be hard for some people to overcome the negative experiences with father figures to connect with God as a father.

Therefore, I agree that one's father or male role model CAN play a part in the atheism of some. However, it certainly isn't at the root of ALL atheism. It is a topic worth discussing, but it's important NOT to assume that all atheists have had lousy fathers. I expect some of them have had good relationships with their parents and there are other things at play in their disbelief.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Open Your Eyes wrote:

I understand that in debates, people will disagree with Christianity but disagreeing should not involve bashing and near promoting of anti-Christian sentiments. If the goal is to bring people to Christ via apologetics, this forum sends out mixed signals when it allows Christian bashing.

It is true that there are some atheists here who consistently talk about God, the Bible and Christianity in disrespectful, mocking tones and with insults. But there are also some who ask good questions with an honest interest in receiving all kinds of answers from all kinds of people with all kinds of views -- including that of the Christian. I would suggest that you concentrate on those.

Re: the Vitz book (Faith of the Fatherless) -- he highlights some well-known atheists who either had absent fathers or weak, ineffectual male role models including Freud, Voltaire, Sartre and Nietzsche. I have encountered people who find the idea of God the Father a real stumbling block because of their earthly fathers -- often because those fathers were abusive or failed to provide them with needed love and protection or just weren't around enough to have much of an impact. I can understand that it would be hard for some people to overcome the negative experiences with father figures to connect with God as a father.

Therefore, I agree that one's father or male role model CAN play a part in the atheism of some. However, it certainly isn't at the root of ALL atheism. It is a topic worth discussing, but it's important NOT to assume that all atheists have had lousy fathers. I expect some of them have had good relationships with their parents and there are other things at play in their disbelief.

It may be noted that all of the prominent atheists which were mentioned above had mothers as well. Perhaps THAT is commonality which serves as the is the seat of atheism. Or, perhaps the commonality here has more to do with the fact that each of the individuals mentioned had fierce intellects and a strong inclination to think for themselves when they became adults. It may also be noted that the father of another prominent intellectual, Albert Einstein, died when Albert was only 23. Possessing no mean intellect himself, Albert Einstein was a devout Jew during his teen aged years, but over the course of his life intellectually changed and altered his beliefs to the point of having evolved into a firm atheist by the time he died. Is this the result of Einstein having been deprived of his father as a young man? Or could the process have been an entirely intellectual one undertaken by a famously intellectual man? As for my own experience, I knew that I was an atheist by the time I was 13 years old. I had never met another atheist at that age, and had no idea where I might attempt to even find one. But I knew I was one. Having been raised Pentecostal, I stopped believing for no greater reason than Christian teaching simply stopped being believable for me. As I pointed out in my posting above, my father passed away three years ago. Is this separation from my father the cause of my atheism? Given that I am currently 66 years old, 63 years old when my father passed, and that I have been an unwavering atheist for more than fifty years now, it certainly seems unlikely. One possibility here is that attempting to connect atheists to weak or absent fathers is every bit as intellectually vapid and fundamentally insupportable as believing in the existence of invisible friends and that a corpse came back to life and flew away.

[help3434]

[Replying to post 5 by Tired of the Nonsense]

My uncle once told me how I treat my mother will reflect on how I treat my wife. After reading the Psychology of Atheism by psychologist Paul C. Vitz I realized that your relationship with your father will reflect on your relationship with God as a father figure (moral authority, disciplinarian, etc).

My point in bringing this up is that I have no intentions trying to reach an atheist who hates Christianit,y and God by extension. With these types the problem is psychological and stems most likely from early childhood.

What about those who are strong believers in early adulthood and then become deconverted? Did there childhood magically retroactively change? I have a great father and I don't believe in God. So much for that theory.

[Haven]

The psychoanalyzing of atheists (or Christians!) in an effort to distract from the intellectual claims up for debate is, in my opinion, nothing more than a thinly veiled ad-hominem attack. Can't we stick to the issues?

[David the apologist]

Hi. I am a new member but I have been reading topics on this forum for a year. I was under the impression that this forum was for Christian apolegetics with the intent of reaching nonbelievers through reasoned arguments. However since I joined I have felt like its more of an anti-Christian apolegetics forum. I'm basing this on posts that I've read that mock and show hatred towards Christianity.

I understand that in debates, people will disagree with Christianity but disagreeing should not involve bashing and near promoting of anti-Christian sentiments. If the goal is to bring people to Christ via apologetics, this forum sends out mixed signals when it allows Christian bashing. .

I assure you that this is a forum for Christian apologetics. Places like this let you fine-tune your arguments by putting them up against the concerns of real live skeptics. If you just want tips for doing apologetics, there's a place called the Holy Huddle. I've never been there, but we have it.

Now, it is true that the majority of the posters here aren't apologists. And it's true that sometimes they come across as anti-Christian. But you have to keep in mind that the atheists think that God is just a delusion, and the spiritual ones think that the God of the Bible is a monster. It's hard to try to convey (let alone defend!) those sentiments without coming across as anti-Christian.

In practical terms, you're going to have to get used to anti-Christian sentiments if you want to do apologetics. Your target audience is going to have some strong anti-Christian sentiments, after all! Your skin gets thicker over time.

It also gets WAY easier to deal with if you can build up a rapport with somebody. As much as I disagree with Divine Insight (say), I can understand him, and I can understand where he's coming from when he says that YHWH would need some kind of therapy if He were real. As much as they disagree with you, they are humans. And isn't that the point of apologetics anyways? To try to convince real humans of the truth so that they can be saved?

[Divine Insight]

And isn't that the point of apologetics anyways? To try to convince real humans of the truth so that they can be saved?

I think this is a very interesting question you have just asked.

Is the purpose of apologetics to convince people of the truth so they can be saved?

If so, then what's the difference between apologetics and evangelism? Not much any.

I don't necessarily agree with your conclusion concerning the point of apologetics, but I confess that semantics is typically open to personal opinion.

Apologetics seems to me to be a "defense" of why a person believes in the Bible. They are offering interpretations that basically make excuses for what the Bible actually literally says.

It doesn't necessarily need to be aimed at convincing the other person that they should believe also and thus be "saved". That is better defined as Evangelism.

~~~~

I hold that evangelism is actually ridiculous. And here's why.

If there exists a God who has inspired the writing of the Bible as "His Word", and has even gone to such lengths as to have his only begotten son born of a virgin, deliver a message, and be crucified to pay for the salvation of men, that should have been sufficient right there.

But then to place on top of this the further requirements that everyday people should be needed to convince others of the "Truth" of all this seem ludicrous to me.

After all, if God of the Old Testament failed to convince me that he's real via his inspired book. And Jesus failed to convince me that he's real via his literary silence and dependence on contradictory hearsay rumors. Then why should I be convinced by some mere mortal evangelist?

In fact, if you stop and actually think about this, if that evangelist convinced me that Jesus and God are real, then he or she would have succeeded at something that neither God nor Jesus were capable of doing on their own.

It seems to me that evangelists think they can beat both God and Jesus in terms of being better communicators and teachers. What sense does that even make?

~~~~~~~

Moreover, the very idea that God might damn someone if an evangelist doesn't get to them first and convince them that God is real seem kind of absurd as well.

Think about this. If the actions of an evangelist were to result in the saving of so much as a single soul who would have otherwise been damned by God, then the evangelist would be totally responsible for that soul having been saved. God would have damned that soul had it not been for the evangelist.

Does this really make any sense to anyone?

The whole idea that evangelists need to convince people of the truth of God before they are damned is actually quite silly if you really stop and think about it.

Also whatever happened to the concept of morality? What's up with the idea that people might be damned for simply not believing in this God? How is not believing in this God making someone an "immoral" person who is choosing evil over good?

That idea right there is utterly stupid.

The very idea that someone deserves to be damned just because they don't believe something is ludicrous.

The only people who would deserve to be damned would be people who actually believe that this God exists and are purposefully doing evil things knowing full well that what they are doing is evil.

This idea that people can be "innocently evil" simply because they don't believe that a God exist is nonsense.

Any God who would condemn people who were in that situation would not be a righteous or just God at all.

The whole idea that people will be damned for not believing in this religion is an utterly absurd notion. In fact this is indeed the HALLMARK of a cult that uses this sort of fear tactic to keep it's followers under their thumb.

This very notion is one of the major things that gives this religion away as being totally fraudulent.

If there actually existed a truly righteous God, that God wouldn't care one iota what people believe in. All it would care about it how people behave. Period.

In fact, it's far more reasonable to conclude that such a God would be far more impressed by decent atheists then by religious people who are only trying to be good because they fear the wrath of a judgmental God.

An atheist who is just being a good person because it's who they naturally are would be the pride and joy of any creator parent.

Nothing could please a parent more than to see their child turn out to be a good person even when they don't believe that their parents (who are playing hide and seek) don't exist.

The whole idea that Christians are paranoid that their God will wrongfully damn innocent people if they don't evangelize to them first, is actually an insult to any God that might exist.

Christians are the ones who have made their God into a Monster. No one else is responsible for this. The Christians have done this all on their own.

Evangelists are doing nothing more than going around screaming at people, "Yes God is a monster and if you don't start believing it he will damn you to hell".

[puddleglum]

[Replying to post 15 by Divine Insight]

If there exists a God who has inspired the writing of the Bible as "His Word", and has even gone to such lengths as to have his only begotten son born of a virgin, deliver a message, and be crucified to pay for the salvation of men, that should have been sufficient right there.

It is necessary to tell people these facts. That is what evangelism it. The evangelist's job is simply to give others the information they need to be saved. God, not the evangelist, is the one who convinces them that it is true. The resurrection of Lazarus is an illustration of the evangelist's job.

https://clydeherrin.wordpress.com/2011/ ... vangelism/

[McCulloch]

There is a major difference between apologetics and evangelism. Evangelism is spreading the message to those who have not heard (hint: enough already, I've already heard) whereas apologetics is the study of why Christians believe what they believe, applicable to both believers and non-believers.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 15 by Divine Insight]

If there exists a God who has inspired the writing of the Bible as "His Word", and has even gone to such lengths as to have his only begotten son born of a virgin, deliver a message, and be crucified to pay for the salvation of men, that should have been sufficient right there.

It is necessary to tell people these facts. That is what evangelism it. The evangelist's job is simply to give others the information they need to be saved. God, not the evangelist, is the one who convinces them that it is true. The resurrection of Lazarus is an illustration of the evangelist's job.

There seems to be two problems here.

The first is the obvious fact that many non-believers already know what the Bible claims. If it's the job of an evangelist to tell me what the Bible says then they can stay him because I already know what the Bible says and I reject it as being utterly absurd.

The second, is that if an evangelists is telling anyone that these things are "facts" then they are outright lying to people.

Evangelists are themselves evangelists because they have placed their faith in these absurd stories to begin with. If they were to be truthful with people they would confess that they merely believe this nonsense on faith themselves.

To tell people that these are "facts" is a lie. Therefore if this is what evangelists are doing, then evangelists are going around lying to people.