Answers for the Skeptics of God’s Existence
Most skeptics of God are not receptive to hearing about Jesus in the first place, especially if they have a pre-conceived knowledge of Christianity or evolutionary beliefs. I, too, was a skeptic of God and the reliability of the Bible. I could almost always find an argument that would leave Christians frustrated. Not because I proved them wrong but because most Christians don’t know how to defend their faith. I heard too many times, “just have faith” or “Well, it’s in the Bible therefore, it must be true,” right? Whether you were never introduced to who Jesus was, told what his message is, or perhaps you grew up in an atheist’s home, whatever the reason if you don’t believe in God, it is because you either never heard of him, you have serious doubts, or you choose not to have that relationship. This is part one of a series of three articles that will attempt to answer the things I most often get told or asked about when discussing Jesus with a skeptic of God’s existence.
“If God is real, then why can’t you see him?”
Some people do not believe in God because there doesn’t appear to be any physical signs of God’s existence today. This is understandably one of the most challenging concepts for non-believers to grasp. I agree that if God were someone we could see, touch, hear, or smell, it would be much easier to help us know the truth. Or would it?
A little more than 2,000 years ago, Jesus walked the earth. Yes, physical, historical, and archeological evidence proves that the Son of God walked on the planet. Many of the most brilliant yet secular historians, scientists, and archeologists worldwide agree. But religious leaders seemed to overlook him as the authentic Messiah even as he walked the earth in the flesh. They called him blasphemous and accused him of being possessed by demons. Jesus performed miracles right before their very eyes, making the lame walk, the blind see, the sick healthy, and the dead come back to life. He spoke differently than any other teacher using parables and with authority, meaning from God. Yet the Pharisees and high priests refused to accept that he could be the Messiah. They were expecting the Messiah to be a great warrior who would rescue them from Rome, and instead, this humble man appeared to be teaching about God’s love, morals, salvation, the Kingdom of God, and the new covenant. The Messiah stared them right in the face, and they still did not recognize God. They ultimately killed Jesus for his claims, and when Jesus returned, resurrected, it would change the world. Despite the well-documented and witnessed account of Jesus, many still resist to believe.
He will not likely knock on your door and say, “Hi, I am God. You Called?” Although, I admit my experience with God was just as unexpected as that. But even if you saw him, would you recognize him? Some of the most religious people on the planet spent their entire lives studying and teaching the scripture, praying for his return, and still didn’t recognize him, even though he was right before their eyes. I can’t show you God, because God is not a person; he is omnipresent. But I can tell you how you can experience him. You must open your heart, accept Jesus’ gift of salvation, and ask him to reveal himself. He will in ways you don’t expect, but you must seek him first.
“I prefer the big bang theory and evolution over some imaginary creator.”
The big bang theory is called a theory for a reason. The word theory is defined as “an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action,” according to the Oxford Dictionary. Some incredibly scientific and in-depth resources on this topic explain both perspectives, and I will list them throughout this article. Ultimately, it only proves that it takes way more faith to believe that an accidental explosion in space that was so precise created the world and all the life on it than if there is an ultimate creator who designed it that way.
However, there is potential proof that something of a great magnitude did occur. Still, the evidence noted in the book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist solidifies arguments that God’s energy created the universe. If the most minute detail were off, there would likely be no life on earth. Atheists argue that they cannot see God; therefore, a God must not exist. Physicist Alan Guth claims, “Suddenly, an explosive expansion began, ballooning our universe outwards faster than the speed of light. This was a period of cosmic inflation that lasted mere fractions of a second,” . Oddly enough, the Bible claims that the world was created with an epic force (God) and though it took six days total, each creation mentioned in Genesis chapter 1-2 was formed at a terrific speed, (And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light”). However, they refuse to accept the Bible’s account since they cannot see God, therefore he must not exist. Despite never having seen any explosion of any capacity that could produce anything close to life, let alone anything near perfect. It usually has the opposite effect. That is why explosions are so fun to watch because they blow stuff up! Lastly, how can something be created from nothing? It only makes sense that everything was created by God!
Belief in God is still more reasonable than a spontaneous explosion that produced a cell which managed to end up perfectly located in an incubated body of water that eventually evolved into all the living creatures and vegetation we see today. You cannot create trees, grass, crops, humans, and animal life from a singular cell. You can’t breed a monkey and a dog or lizard with a fish because they are not of the same kind. You can, however, bread a wolf and a coyote or a lion with a tiger because they are of the same kind. Therefore, a cell of each kind would have had to be created from nothing in order for evolution to take place. And as previously stated, creating something from nothing is impossible.
“God didn’t write the Bible, and it was written by people over a long period, ultimately creating a fictional story to justify our existence or who could altogether be lying.”
This statement is partially correct in that God didn’t write the Bible, and multiple authors wrote it over a 1500-year period. The Bible was not a journal or book passed from generation to generation, nor is it a single book, but a collection of 66 different books and writings combined. All the writings were “God Breathed” or “Inspired by God.” Some were letters written to churches, and some to individuals. Others were witness accounts, songs, poems, and other historical accounts. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew on scrolls, usually made of animal skin, and the New Testament was primarily written in Greek on papyrus scrolls. What is so significant is that the writings regarding Christ were amazingly accurate.
Have you ever played the game telephone as a kid? You whisper a phrase to someone, and they pass it to the next kid, and so on, until the last kid must yell out what he heard. Just about every time, the message was remarkably different from the original phrase which resulted in a burst of laughter. In 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a cave near the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea. These scrolls were nearly two thousand years old, yet they were well-preserved and legible due to the arid environment. When compared to today’s Bible, the accuracy was found to be about 95% accurate. There are more original first-fifth-century writings regarding Christ than of anyone we know who walked the earth, even more so than kings or scholars.
Another interesting fact about the Bible is that the synoptic gospels known as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all write an account of Jesus’ life and ministry. As Jesus’ Apostles, we know that Matthew and John were direct witnesses whom Jesus chose to help him in spreading the Gospel. They personally, along with many others witnessed Jesus’s miracles, his death, and his resurrection. They were also martyred well after Christ’s resurrection for proclaiming the Gospel. Why on earth would they continue to risk their life trying to share the story of Jesus, knowing the horrible ways in which Christians were killed, if they didn’t believe what they saw? I’ll be blunt here and say that if the resurrection didn’t happen, then Jesus was a fraud. But the remaining 11 Apostles (Judas Iscariot committed suicide after betraying Jesus), along with a few women, personally witnessed and met with Jesus after the resurrection. According to one Gospel, hundreds of others witnessed, Jesus in person after he was resurrected from the dead. One they called Doubting Thomas because he struggled to believe, told Jesus that he wouldn’t believe unless Jesus showed him his wounds from being nailed to the cross and where he was speared in his side by the Roman soldier (John 20:25). Jesus went so far as to allow Thomas to stick his fingers into the wound on his side caused by the spear. After seeing this, Thomas was convinced that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead and went on to proclaim God’s message until he was killed decades later. Again he was willing to die for what he personally witnessed and experienced. If Jesus would not have been resurrected, Christianity would not exist.
If you were to write a book about your life as an Apostle to Jesus, there are details that you would likely leave out, especially if you were trying to convince the readers that Christ exists. The Bible did not veer from admitting their shortcomings. The very Apostles that followed Jesus throughout his ministry mentioned their failures, such as falling asleep when they should have been watching out for Jesus as he prayed. They even expressed their occasional doubts, wrongdoings, and betrayals. Why would Peter admit to denying Jesus three times when just moments earlier, he proclaimed that he would be willing to die with Jesus? There were several incidents that they could have left out if they wanted to appear self-important and even more so to convince us that they were the chosen Apostles of Jesus Christ. The fact that they wrote about their flaws displays solid evidence that they were being truthful and the Bible is God Breathed. John 19:35 says, “ The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth and testifies so that you also may believe.”
Conclusion
I am not here to attempt to force anyone to believe in God. That is not my goal. I am here to show you some of the evidence, and then you can make your own choice. However, I genuinely hope and pray that you will accept the gift of salvation, but at the end of the day, I know where I am headed when I die. What about you? It’s a hard pill to swallow, but at most funerals, we hear talk of how we will see the deceased again someday or that they are up there talking to Grandma and Grandpa, but I will be blunt once again. Not everyone goes to heaven. Not everyone gets to see their past relatives “up there”, and not even being a good person gets you in the door. The ONLY way to get into heaven is by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Why? Because how could there be a heaven but not a God to create it? (P.S. The only exception to this is children; they are innocent and granted into heaven per God’s word.)
Perhaps that is not the case for you, maybe we die, and that is it. If that is true, you have nothing to worry about. It just means that your purpose in life was simply to exist. Most of us will never do anything that changes the world or is even noteworthy enough to go into the local newspaper. You’ll likely work into your sixties, and if you’re a male living in the United States, the average life expectancy is only 77, and 80 if you’re a female. So, you work most of your life away to survive in a society that doesn’t care about you, then, assuming you make it that far, you just die old. No reason other than to live your short life and hope your kids and grandkids live a good life. Within a few decades, unless you made a huge impact on your community, you will be forgotten, and no one will know who you were even as you stepped foot on this earth.
Just think about this. What if God is real? Well, if you are an unbeliever and it turns out God is real, there is a terrifying place where you will spend eternity, even if you are a good person. There is no dying. You suffer until…. forever. And you thought life was hard! I am just saying that if you don’t believe God can exist, then you won’t know that he does until it is too late. On the bright side, if you discover his salvation, you can live for eternity with your loved ones and be in complete bliss in the Kingdom of Heaven.
I have done my research, and so have many others, many of whom were way more intelligent than me, who, despite trying to disprove God’s existence, only found evidence that he does exist. I challenge you to read a book By Lee Strobel called The Case for Christ. He was confident that God did not exist and spent a long time as a journalist trying to disprove God. He was committed and used every resource that he could gather to prove to his Christian wife that God was not real. You can guess how it ends, but trust me, the extent of his research is worth reading about. Otherwise, there are a lot of other great resources to help answer your questions. I highly recommend watching the documentary Genesis: Lost Paradise on Amazon Prime, especially regarding details about creation versus evolution, the age of the Earth, and also the big bang theory. If you really want to get into scientific detail, I recommend the book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler.
It’s important to note that heaven is not the end goal in Christianity; being in Jesus’ presence in heaven is!
If you have questions, please use the “Contact us” button and send me a message. I will gladly get back to you.
Keep an eye out for Part Two and Part Three of Is God Real?