In part,
John Loftus recently wrote the following:
What if a scientist rejects religion because s/he cannot adequately test supernatural hypotheses? What if a historian rejects the claims of a religion because as a historian s/he must assume a natural explanation for the events in the past? What then? Are they culpable for doing so when this is all they know to do? When can it be said that a person can rationally reject a religion? Surely the theist cannot possibly demand that nonbelievers must know all that can be known before their rejection of religion is warranted.
To put it in terms of the Outsider Test for Faith, how much should someone know in order to reject Mormonism, or Catholicism, or Islam, or Orthodox Judaism, to name a few. How much do YOU know of them?
The FacePalm is due to silly presuppositions that under gird Loftus' ideas in this article: people are capable of rationally rejecting
Christianity. Such an idea is nonsensical because by definition no one can understand the Gospel without
God opening their minds so that they can do so. We are unable to go to
Jesus unless we are drawn by the Father (John 6:44). One does not become a Christian because they are smarter or more spiritual than non-christians. When an atheist says that they are unable to believe, I agree. We are all unable to believe before God regenerates us and replaces our heart of stone with a heart of flesh. Unbelief is not mad impossible by a lack of evidence. And neither is belief made possible by sufficient evidence. We have plenty of evidence. The problem is us. The problem is not God. I believe the Gospel because God chose to give me the amount of grace I needed to be saved. He can do the same for you as he has done for countless others from Adam, Noah, Abraham until today. And because I have been saved by faith I want to do good works which validates and evidences my salvation not procure it. Therefore because you can't rationally reconcile or understand Christianity is no reason to reject it. You can have a personal relationship with God and He can re-image you in Jesus so that you can be one of His. This is the good news of the Gospel. You don't have to be doomed to eternal separation from God...just put your trust in Jesus without reservation. Why? God has set it up this way. If you don't like it, take it up with Him. Good luck with that.
As for what do I know of Mormonism, Islam, Catholicism, or Orthodox Judaism....quite a bit. I've studied them all and have weighed them against Biblical Christianity. When I said above that salvation is not dependent on what you understand, I'm not saying that salvation is based on believing things that are contrary to hard evidence. It's believing what God has revealed even if you don't understand every single nuance. I think that that if you can find and prove that something is not true then you should not believe in it. With regard to mormonism, we know Joseph Smith was not visited by neither
God the Father and Jesus and we know he was not visited by Elijah and Elias. How? Simple: No man has seen the Father at any time as stated in John 6:46 and that can't be true if as Joseph Smith said his teaching were right along with the Bible. Second Elijah and Elias were the same man!!! "Elijah" is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and "Elias" is the English transliteration of the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew. Big mistake there.
As for Roman Catholicism...there are too many inconsistencies eith the Bible to bring up here. Anyone interested in that should consult the work of James White,
John MacArthur, and others.
As for Islam...we know it contradicts the Bible. They both can't be true. No way. One example is that the Qur'an tells us that Jesus was not crucified and he did not die on the Cross. That throws the whole book into question. We know historically that Jesus really was crucified and that He really did die that day.
As for Orthodox Judaism, the main disagreement is that that we believe that Messiah has come and he brought life. They disagree. They are waiting. This is a major problem But according to their own scriptures (our scriptures which we share) Jesus is the only one who meets the standard of being Messiah. Of course I realize that not everyone looks at the evidence and comes to the same conclusions I have, but I wonder if they have honestly really looked at it. But then I remember, no once is able come to Jesus unless they have been drawn by Father. There are many Jews who do come and find Jesus. There will be more and more in the coming years.
Debunking Christianity: I Know More Than You Do! Na Na Na Na Na NA! Or, You Don't Know Jack Shit.
Brian Auten has posted an interesting quote from Anthony Flew: Anthony Flew was one of the foremost atheistic philosophers of the 20th Century. If he can look at the evidence showing that the universe was intelligently designed and that there was a designer. I'm not saying that he became a Christian but at least admitting that there is a God was a great first step.
