Every time I see this happen I think back to when my mom asked my wife and I how it happens that people would bother to ask me about my faith or the hope that lies within me. It’s kind of funny but I think you have to actually tell people about your position on things to get them to ask you about them. Really, when was the last time you asked a random stranger how to rebuild an automatic transmission? You don’t ask random people important questions if you care about the answer.
Anyway, here’s the latest question and my response follows as usual. Enjoy. I’ll keep you updated if the discussion continues from here!
how do u know that christianity is conclusivly right? and hence what makes athieism wrong?
Because I have empirical evidence. It’s like if you’re watching a wind storm from inside a well insulated building. You see a tree bending and swaying in a strong wind but you don’t feel the wind itself. You know the wind is there because you can see the influence it has on the tree and you can see how powerful it is in the way that the tree twists and bends. In the same way, my life has been radically altered. The moment I fully repented of my sins and handed my life over to Christ – trusting in Him alone to save me – in that moment many of the big horrible issues I had were removed. My love for myself and my own pleasure was replaced with a desire to learn more about the God who saved me. The more I focused on that, the more God changed me into a husband worth having and a father my kids would care about. The best part is that I didn’t do any of this on my own. Everyone who knew me saw the change and knew that it was completely alien to my nature. Most of my friends were friends with the “old me” – the self-conscious conceited bastard who placed himself before the needs of anyone else. Even in my “good deeds” I had done previously it was only to get favor from others or to work my way to Heaven on some mix of Lutheran and Catholic view of propitiation.
Atheism is impossible. The basic problem is that you’re arguing a negative answer. That’s like me saying that “there’s no jalapeno flavored soda in the world”. Do I know that to be true? No. Even if I knew every kind of soda in the US could I possibly know every brand of soda in the world – every kind that has ever been developed? I mean, in Japan they have horse flesh flavored ice cream. EEW! That’s only here on the planet Earth. Saying that there’s “no God” is saying that you have total knowledge of every aspect of the universe – that you know it because you’ve been everywhere at the same time and you know, without a doubt, that there’s no God. You can’t know that. The reason you choose not to acknowledge God is because it’s counter intuitive to your nature. If you acknowledge God then you’d have to acknowledge that He could have some rights and responsibilities. Then it would be your responsibility to learn about Him and see what He wants. That’s where Christianity is different from all of the world religions – they all say that you have to work to gain favor to pay back God for your sinfulness or you have to deny yourself everything to atone for your sinfulness. Christianity acknowledges your sins and does so by God placing inside of you His moral laws. You know that lying, stealing, murder and adultery are all wrong. Jesus took it further – He said if you look with lust (yes, that includes porn) you’re committing adultery in your heart. That shows that God’s not only concerned about the acts you commit with your speech or body but even your thought life. If I were to take a computer chip and put it behind your ear and have it record every thought you have for a week, then play it back for your friends and family – how do you think they’d react to it? God is able to see everything in your whole life and He says when you die you’re going to have to answer for those things. No person can possibly meet those requirements and all are damned to Hell. That’s where the glory of the Gospel comes in – God promised way back in the Garden – that He’d send a Savior and to trust in that Savior to come for salvation. Jesus Christ is that Savior and we don’t have to trust in the Word of God prior to that that He’d eventually come – we can read His words and read about the principles He’s set up. It’s extremely simple – acknowledge your sinfulness – that you can’t do it on your own and that you need God to do it for you, repent of your sinful life and believe in Jesus alone as the Author and Finisher of your salvation.