Serious Issues & Solutions 

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We naturally object to statements that we think untrue. We sometimes do have doubts about Christian faith even if raised in a Christian home, or are Christians ourselves. Consider these doubts and answers. I’ll present the objection in title or bold print below and the following paragraph will be the response in each case.

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There is no absolute truth.

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Are you absolutely sure? Then, opposites can be equally true. We don’t have to believe what our parents, children, teachers, doctors, lawyers, tax collectors, sales persons, bosses, or anyone else might tell us is really true. We don’t have to believe traffic signs, labels on medicine, house numbers, and a hundred other things we take for granted every day. In fact, we don’t even have to believe the statement above that “there is no absolute truth” is true either—it self-destructs. Honestly, can any statement be more ridiculous? Persons making this objection usually only apply it to spiritual and moral issues. They don't consider the evidence because it suggests they change their way of living to please God.

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Jesus was only a good man and great teacher, but not the Son of God.

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This statement is self-refuting. Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and our Savior. If that’s not true, then Jesus is a liar or lunatic. And that would mean he’s not even a good man. Moreover, he did things over three years that demonstrated publically before large crowds that only God could do such as heal diseases instantly, walk on water, raise the dead, and assent into Heaven. Neither man nor nature can do such things—only God alone. Therefore, Jesus must be God as he claimed. Friend, have you read the Bible with an open mind, or just uncritically assumed someone’s negative comments were correct?

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Man is not evil, but only good.

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A  bad environment can make persons turn bad. Provide good education, housing, jobs, and all basic human needs and people will be good.

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History and psychology show conclusively that man is naturally corrupt in thought, will, and practice. Children don’t need to be taught to lie, steal, cheat, or harm people or things. If man is good, why do people everywhere have locked doors, a police force, judges, prisons, and armies? This shouldn’t be true if people were really good. We can have evil thoughts even when we don’t act on them. Nazi Germany was the most educated people, yet murdered millions of Jews and anybody who disagreed with Hitler. Of course, monists can redefine sin and evil as illusion, but they can’t live at though it’s true—ask one to step in front of an oncoming train. Human pride prevents people from admitting their sinners. Scripture is true that man’s heart is deceitful and wicked (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 1:18-32). We humans can do good, but we have a dark evil nature as well in thought, word, and deed. Realistically, we have both a dignity and a depravity.

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I’m an atheist who says dogmatically there’s no God of any kind.

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Just because you haven’t seen anything you would call a personal God, does that mean he can’t exist or can’t be an immaterial Spirit? Do you know what’s going on in the next town, next house, even the next room? If we could draw a circle big enough to represent universal knowledge, a period, if that, would represent a man’s knowledge. A person would have to know everything in time and space to say there’s no God, or God can’t act in our world, can’t perform a miracle, or can’t speak to a human mind. Isn’t atheism then an arrogant self-contradictory pretension to having a God-like knowledge? The agnostic says, ‘I don’t know or we can’t know about God’. Of course, he’s right that a mystic’s subjective claims about God (Muhammad, Buddha) have no evidential value. But he’s fooling himself if he hasn’t addressed the ancient detailed prophecies about the Jewish Messiah fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and Christ’s miracles, sinless life, and resurrection?

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Science proves miracles never happened.

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How does science prove miracles never happened? Miracles are a matter of eyewitness history. Can science prove anything in history by experimental method like the existence of Napoleon or Caesar? If a Creator God exists, then miracles, angels, human souls and divine revelations certainly can exist. It’s only the false assumption of naturalism that denies it. The atheist would have to have exhaustive knowledge to disprove it. Moreover, human senses can detect spiritual things as God and angels if they choose to show themselves. Christ is better attested in history than what others believed without doubt.

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Evolution Best Explains the Origin of Life.

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There are several problems honest thinking people cannot ignore. How can something come from nothing? Nothing means no-thing or nonexistence, and no power to produce anything. How can order evolve from disorder? Drop red, white and blue confetti from a plane and it doesn’t arrange itself into the American flag. Life doesn’t emerge from non-life--spontaneous generation is a myth.. Blind lifeless chemicals can't arrange themselves into the complex life forms in any amount of time. There's no missing links--it's a whole missing chain. Life forms  have systems and organs genetically programmed to function together from the beginning. Such complex design strongly suggest an infinite designer--God.

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Christianity is okay for you, but not for me.

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People have right to their own lifestyle. So don’t bother me with your religion. What feels good is true and right for me, and I don't like Jesus.

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Hedonistic lifestyles lead to disaster. They are a selfish disregard for others. They destroy trust, objects, friendships, families, and nations as well as the hedonist. Some persons take pleasure in deception, robbery, rape and murder--would you call such things right? If a compassionate friend had the cure for your cancer, would you say, “don’t bother me?” Christians show compassion to tell sinners of the Savior from godless living and eternal Hell. Do you know no judgment day and no Hell exist? Can you prove it? It’s too serious a matter just to risk eternal darkness and torment. And how would you feel and be if everyone applied your inconsiderate lifestyle to you, you’re friends, and your loved ones?

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I am not a sinner.

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 A sinner is a social outcast--a drunk, dope addict, or whore, but I’m not bad like that.

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We can always find others worse than us and condemn them. This makes us feel superior, self-righteous, respectable and prideful like the Pharisee in the temple (Luke 18:9-14). The truth is we all sin to different degrees and in different areas. Our list for respectability is different from our neighbors and usually doesn’t include our own sins. We even blame God for giving us the freedom to commit them. Would you prefer the opposite of free will? be programmed machines without human dignity.
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We cannot obey God’s laws 100% of the time. Nor can we take away sins already committed. This means we must humbly acknowledge our sin and trust the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man and Savior of us sinners.  Jesus paid for our sin in His death on the cross and His righteous is credited to our account. His resurrection proves all He said and did is true and He is our only hope for life eternal  in Heaven. Call Christ paying for our sins injustice if you like, but without Jesus we have no basis for injustice in an animal eat animal jungle.

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I’m too bad a sinner.

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I’m not respectable. I’m a no-good, a whore, drunk, drug addict. God could never forgive me. Christianity is only for good, respectable persons.

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Surprisingly, the Bible teaches that “good people” go to Hell and “bad people” go to Heaven. Jesus said he had not come to call the righteous but sinners. In other words, prideful self-righteous persons unwilling to acknowledge their sin and unworthiness before God are doomed to Hell. But persons who humbly confess their sin and need of forgiveness, like the tax collector praying in the temple are justified, but not the proud self-righteous Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14). God will save any true repentant believer in Christ (Acts 16:31; Rom. 10:9-10).

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I don’t believe Jesus arose from the dead.

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Jesus’ resurrection depends upon evidence, not an assumption of universal knowledge about nature. Five hundred witnesses saw Jesus after he arose from the dead (1 Cor. 15). Brilliant skeptics have devised a dozen failed theories to explain it away, but cannot. The sealed guarded tomb, left grave clothes, Jesus appearances, skeptical disciples, establishment of the church, martyrs, Sunday worship, and the New Testament, dating time B.C to A.D., make no sense unless Jesus arose. See my articles on Jesus’ resurrection.

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If God doesn’t exist, then human dignity, rights and freedom mean nothing. We’re mere soulless dirt as atheists believe or recycled energy and on our way to nothingness as pantheists believe. We can't know the Lord is good until we trust Him and see. Jesus is the only way, truth, and life for all who say--I trust in You Lord Jesus to be my Savior, Lord, and life Guide.
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If you know someone who feels this way, share this blog on www as a ministry to help a desperate world in need. Thank you. "Lord, bless my friend for his or her conviction,  courage, and Godly helpful ministry."
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For more short rebuttals of false assumptions I recommend, The New Atheism and The Erosion of Freedom by Robert A. Morey and The Christian Combat Manual by Dan Story, and True For You But Not For Me by Paul Copan.