What if I Have Doubts? (continued)

Intellectual, Skeptical, and Antagonistic Arguments

Short Answer Version

Skepticism, distrust, apprehension, and reluctance toward believing in Jesus are understandable human responses. We can understand them, but they are not warranted. In fact, they are dangerous long-term to the person entertaining the thoughts.

Many people have adopted these hard-hearted characteristics and have chosen to close their minds and hearts to God's love. Some are energized by a motivation to dissuade people from believing in God and trusting in Jesus. At this point they become dangerous to others long-term because their misconceptions poison others into closing themselves off from a better life.

Long Answer Version

People who hold contempt for even the idea of God can be very strong in their convictions. We need to be aware of their devices and motives. We don't want the doubts of other people to prevent us from believing in Jesus, who is the always the best option.

Many people take on the common skepticism of their culture about many things. Ironically, these people are the most likely kind of skeptics to listen to reason about Jesus. After all, there is much in this world that warrants skepticism, and Jesus offers real help, wisdom, and guidance. God helps us avoid unwarranted negativity that can hold people back from experiencing the good things of God.

Those who build intellectual cases, arguments, and teachings for this purpose tend to have chinks in their armor. They are on the wrong side of the debate, and will ultimately be proven incorrect in their convictions.

In the meantime, we need to be aware of their devices and motives. It will help us not to succumb to their influence. We don't want the doubts of other people to prevent us from believing in Jesus, who is the always the best option.

Some people take on the common skepticism of their culture about many things. These people are the most likely kind of skeptics to listen to reason.

When properly applying reason to the negativity that holds people back, they can move forward in considering Jesus.

Then there are those with a strong stance against God and the Bible out of bias, prejudice, or misguidance. They often want to discredit Jesus as the one true Savior. The most common of these are atheists or those entrenched in anti-christian belief systems.

Their statements sometimes prompt me to think, "What is driving these hard-hearted people so strongly?" This is particularly true knowing that believers in Jesus produce so much good to benefit humankind.

Somewhere inside nearly every skeptic is a seeker. The things I say are based on a desire to show them and other seekers the recognizable errors of most vocal detractors opposing salvation in Jesus.

I learned long ago that such people are unlikely to heed even the most salient points about God, during a discussion. They might, however, walk away with a few new ideas that could lead to heart-searching and grow with time into something beautiful, maybe even heaven.

My audience is people who have hearts of openness to spiritual truth, or at least those who might consider it. The statements I make below could help you filter out the empty arguments of the "talking heads" who would like to prevent you from meeting Jesus.

We will be examining some atheistic arguments. I will be referring to logic fallacies to identify how easy it is to see through false reasoning. Later, the final web page in this section on Doubt is devoted to bringing the reader up to speed on the tools of recognizing logic fallacies.

If you are not familiar with this discipline, the subject of logic fallacies can be very eye-opening to help you come out ahead in various life experiences you might encounter.

My hope is that you would see the love in what I am about to say. I am not trying to discredit people, only the faulty arguments and wrong behaviors that tend to prevent others from being saved. I do this out of love for seekers like you.

Some Christians feel the Bible says they should have a ready argument against any objectors to their beliefs. I'm not sure this is what Peter meant when he rightly said, "Always be ready to give an answer to every man who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, with gentleness and fear."

In my opinion, Peter was referring to people who inquired about Jesus, and at some level sincerely wanted to find a reason to believe.

In all my life, I have never successfully argued anyone into the arms of Jesus. I have, however loved people into those arms.

Many scholarly unbelieving experts have contrived complex logic models to indicate reasons for their lack of belief. Perhaps the most renown is Bertrand Russell who, in 1927, presented the five reasons he was not a Christian in front of the National Secular Society.

We will spend time below debunking Russell's points because most of today's anti-Jesus biases grew out of Russell's foundational teachings.

I have read the full transcript of "Five Reasons I am Not a Christian" presented at the Battersea Town Hall on Sunday March 6, 1927. I also listened to Russell's original presentation recited by a British actor who made me feel like I was right there in the room during the presentation.

The text was shortened into a pamphlet, which presented only the more persuasive points. Recently, most of what I see on the internet are shortened, watered-down versions of the original.

It is not difficult to dismantle Russell's five reasons. They were actually rebuttals to early 20th century statements that were based on faulty premises.

Russell was addressing five points made by the Catholic church in an attempt to prove God exists. This was the first time the church officially attempted to offer such proof.

It has been suggested that religious authorities were trying to fulfill an assignment under deadline, if I understand the background correctly. The contrast between these Catholic authors and today's writers, including modern Catholic scholars, could be due to growth in the last century in knowledge, debate, and presentation skills.

Approximately a century after Russell's presentation, it is easy to recognize that the early 1900s work of the Catholic scholars was weak from our vantage point today.

This in turn serves to weaken Russell's rebuttals. In retrospect it seems that Russell’s “Five Reasons I am Not a Christian”, should more aptly have been titled, “Why I Don’t Want to Be Like the People in 1927 England Who Are the Face of Christianity to Me.”

I say this because he was framing his points around exposure to Christians who, by our standards, were not the epitome of spiritually mature believers.

Russell lived in a society and time many have considered almost devoid of faith and the power of God within the church compared to today's more life-breathing churches. His arguments are therefore not for today or for our culture.

What is more important to keep in mind is that Russell was making a case against the life of a Christian as he understood it, not against accepting Jesus Christ and knowing Him personally by faith. The difference is huge.

Throughout his presentation Russell side-stepped the issue of why he did not believe in Jesus for salvation. Instead he focused mainly on implying that his disdain for Christians was credible support for atheism.

It is similar to the logic-fallacy Guilt by Association. It is childish. It is as if Russell was saying, "If you who believe in God don't treat me nicely, then God can't be real."

In response, Christians are not Jesus. Therefore, atheism is not the logical response to distaste for Christians.

Unfortunately, we encounter the same flawed argument today when people still try to demean Jesus by discrediting those who claim to be His followers. We can currently see a pervasive media bias to that effect.

He also grossly misinterpreted passages to mean Jesus was sinning, when He clearly was not. We, however, can see through these errors, even though the implication was presented with fervor.

In short, these are the five reasons Russell gave, which I will later deal with:

1. I don't know who or what caused God, and I believe everything must have a first cause.

2. Chance is prevalent, and we can't see God in chance.

3. It is incorrect to say "Everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different we could not manage to live in it."

4. The existence of right and wrong, morality, and goodness in humans does not prove God exists.

5. The idea is wrong that the need for justice proves God's existence.

Russell also presented his believe that Creationists have no proof, and proof is what matters. Darwinist evidence therefore, constituted better proof.

Russell did not believe God existed. He then started from that line of reasoning. That is the fallacy of arguing from an unsupported presupposition.

Russell attempted to annul our human right to believe in a first cause for all created things while also believing there was no first cause for the Creator.

He assumed that everybody saw the logic in his statement his father told him, “if God made me, who made God?” In reality, Russell did nothing more than ask a question. Apparently, he thought the question proved something. Russell did not provide any credible support beyond that.

This logic-fallacy is identified as "begging the question." It also happens to be a rhetorical question without substance". It is both unsound and manipulative.

A question can never prove anything - not even one that seems impossible to answer.

Russell did not believe that what we call the laws of nature were created by God, but rather that they happen by chance and statistical probability. That was his second of five arguments as to why he was not a Christian.

He would be hard-pressed to explain why there is so much consistency in these accidental occurrences that we can trace thousands of them that happen the same throughout the earth over millennia and give a name to each type.

Russell did not live in a time of space exploration, but today we see the same overwhelming consistency identified as "laws of the universe".

His third reason, which he called, "The Argument From Design", is actually a true statement. However, it has no bearing on believing or not believing in God. He was right to disagree with the concept that he had heard believers held. Those believers held an unjustifiable concept. Most true believers in Jesus today do not agree that "if the world was ever so little different we could not manage to live in it."

This is called the fallacy of unwarranted assumptions. It is in the category of presumptive fallacies. The premise implied that if some Christians believe in the erroneous argument, then to disagree with it is to disprove design.

Russell's fourth reason is a similar fallacy type. He tried to refute Immanuel Kant's theory that the goodness in people reflects the goodness in God. To do so he went on to use convoluted logic, referring back to his first argument for support, as if it had been proven. It was a presumptive logic fallacy.

Reason number five is an unwarranted assumption fallacy as well, assuming that if a debater discounts an unproven or unsubstantiated argument, he has proven his own opposing point. But to discount an opposing point proves nothing.