Cold Case Christianity: J. Warner Wallace mistakes repetition for actual argument

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Quick Shot: “If God exists, he wouldn’t be so hidden”

Posted: 18 Feb 2019 01:10 AM PST

Our “Quick Shot” series offers brief answers to common objections to the Christian worldview.

And what would you think if a skeptic offered brief answers to common apologetics arguments?  Wouldn't you automatically presume from the brief nature of the remarks that that material was shallow?  After all, don't you start out telling yourself that the opinion of a 3,000 poem writer about atheists is infallible?

Response #1:

“Have you considered the notion that God might appear hidden for a reason?

 Yes, and I reject it because by reason of more involved arguments and evidence, the silence is more reasonably ascribed to god's not actually existing.  Remember how unmoved you felt when you read the Book of Mormon?  Same here.  The Mormon god does not exist, THAT is why you don't give a shit about the book of Mormon.  Not because the Mormon god has decreed that you shall be blind to the truth for a while so he can create a higher good with his mysterious ways.

Furthermore, skeptics are wise to avoid getting drawn into the stupid discussion of what the bible god "would" do.  There is good evidence that the silence of god is best explained on a theory that he doesn't exist, not that he has higher mysterious reasons.  Christians cannot even figure out what God "would" do, nor can they even agree on what God did do in the past.  It's thus reasonable for skeptics to say "fuck you" to an offer to waste their time getting involved in the perpectually speculative and irresolvable question of what a highly intelligent ogre "would" do.

Let me give you an example. Even as mere humans, we understand that true love cannot be coerced.

 But since you think there will come a day when you authentically love god without the ability to sin (i.e., after you get to heaven), your god has no excuse for creating creatures who can sin.  if you can authentically love God in heaven without ability to sin, you can authentically love god on earth without ability to sin.

We love our children and want them to love us, but if we forced them to love us (if that were somehow possible), it wouldn’t be true love; it would just be a disingenuous, coerced response.

 Some would say Mom jerking her son out of the middle of the street as the drunk barrels toward him is a greater love than if she merely stood there issuing offers, opportunities, and commands to the kid.  True love often does force the loved person to act.

In a similar way, when we give our kids direction and ask them to accept this guidance as a reflection of their love for us, we must step away and give them the freedom to respond (or rebel).

So you'd never use force on a person you loved?  Your idea of love is rather childish.

If we are ‘ever-present’, they may simply respond – not because they love us – but because they know we are present (and they fear our negative reaction).

I don't see your problem: did you ever read Deut. 28?  What else is that dogshit except "obey me or I'll fuck you up"?

Have you considered the fact that God may remain hidden (to some degree) to allow us the freedom to respond from a position of love, rather than fear?”

No, not any more than I've considered that the Mormon god doesn't make me feel good when reading the Book of Mormon because he has some higher purpose.  Those feelings never come around because the god allegedly behind them doesn't exist.

Response #2:

“Have you been looking for evidence of God’s existence?

 No, I stopped looking after I correctly determined that "god" in the traditional religious sense constitutes an incoherent idea.  I'd no more search for god than I'd search for square circles or other dimensions.

If so, where have you been looking?

Fuck him:  when he decides to quit playing hide-and-seek, he knows where to find me if he's that concerned about having a relationship with me.  Your fantasy that I wouldn't believe god no matter what he did, is contradicted by all human experience, wherein people often change their mind when confronted with infallible evidence.  Sure, some people have mental conditions that prevent them from being this realistic, but I'm not one of them.  So quit making yourself feel better with some excuse that makes it seem wiser for God to keep himself hidden from me. If I cannot benefit from detecting tangible evidence, your god shouldn't have given me my 5 physical senses.

The evidence abounds if we are sensitive to it.

And it doesn't abound if you are objective and neutral toward it, which is why you don't post for skeptics, you only post for Christians.  That's why your apologetics constitute nothing but clever marketing games you can advertise to those who are already Christians.  Atheists who know their bible very well just laugh at you. 

For example, the best explanation for the information we find in our DNA is an intelligent mind.

 Then it was an intelligent mind that created certain animals to be carnivorous...thus your god intended. without relation to "sin",  for animals to suffer horrific misery, when in fact the existence of cattle and other herbivores shows God could have simply made all animals as plant-eaters, preempting much misery.  And if sin degraded life, it would not transform molars into fangs as there's no such thing as a beneficial mutation, remember?  So your god's perverse desire that this world be filled with intelligent beings that inflict horrific misery on each other is clear from your own bible.

If you are childish and insist that the teeth of lions didn't transform from molars into fangs until after "sin" entered the world, you are most certainly a waste of time to argue with.

The best explanation for the beginning of the universe is an all-powerful, non-spatial, non-temporal, non-material Being.

Already kicked Frank Turek's Big bang bullshit to the wind.  For starters, Genesis 1-2 neither expresses nor implies any gigantic explosion, and it certainly wouldn't have been seen that way its originally intended and pre-scientific addressees.  Nobody in the ANE believed in a big bang.  You should not ask whether the big bang can be "reconciled with" Genesis.  Professional liars get paid every single day to reconcile their dishonest theories with the known evidence, they're called lawyers.  The more objective inquiry asks "how did the author intend his words to be understood" and "how did the originally intended addressees likely understand his words?".  Once you ask that, no more biblical big bang for you.

The best explanation for transcendent, objective, moral laws and obligations is the existence of a transcendent, objective and personal moral law giver.

 The trouble being that you cannot name any act that you can show to be objectively immoral, since you cannot demonstrate any objective moral standard.  The most you can do is scream "don't torture babies to death solely for entertainment", then blindly insist that anybody who disagrees with you is too mentally abnormal to justify responding to...which therefore does nothing more than derive an objective moral out of a dogma. Sorry but "most people think its wrong!" might be good for enacting social policy, but doesn't rise to the level of demonstrating the existence of a transcendent objective standard for morality.  Try again.

The evidence of God’s existence is available, even though God can’t be physically seen.

 And given how people's skepticism of anything is assuaged when they finally see evidence of it, your god has no excuse for pretending that it is better to remain hidden.  You never talk about the good that could be done of your god made himself known to everybody, in the same manner that anybody else makes themselves known to others, because you know that far more unbelievers would convert, thus implying that your god's choice to remain hidden is a defect in his intelligence...or that he simply doesn't exist.

Have you been looking in these areas, or have you attributed these aspects of reality to something other than God?”

The latter.

Response #3:

“Sometimes we miss the activity of God because we aren’t open to seeing it.

 There you go again, YOUR APOLOGETICS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH SKEPTICAL OBJECTIONS, THEY ARE CONCERNED SOLELY TO IMPRESS THOSE WHO ALREADY HAVE A CHRISTIAN FAITH.

How many times has something incredibly unlikely occurred and we simply attributed it to chance?

 Are you addressing Christians who should be filled with the Holy Spirit and thus never attribute anything to chance?  Only idiot rank Arminians would pretend that God is ever surprised.

How many miraculous cures were attributed to a mis-diagnosis?

How many mis-diagnoses were attributed to miracles?

How many unimaginable ‘close-calls’ were chalked up as luck?

Ok, then to Whom do you ascribe the "luck" of the pedophile who happens to convince a little girl to enter his home unsupervised?  What is your god doing at that point in time? 

God often shows Himself to us in supernatural ways, but we simply fail (or refuse) to see it.

Let the scared pussy known as your god part the Red Sea in front of us, the way he allegedly did for Pharaoh.  Let Jesus come back to earth and do his miracles in public, so that Christianity's theologians can then debate whether the ensuing mass hysteria and mob activity that ends up causing people to be trampled to death, was "god's mysterious will",

Then lie to yourself and say unbelievers are incapable of changing their mind when presented with contrary evidence.  Yeah right, like every unbeliever in the world NEVER changes their mind on ANY subject even when confronted with convincing contrary evidence.  No, that NEVER happens, we just all plod along sticking our fingers in our ears, jumping up and down, singing to ourselves to drown out the contrary evidence, because we are trying to avoid acknowledging reality.  FUCK YOU.  Unbelievers are sued all the time, and in thousands of cases, one party will make drastic concessions after the "discovery phase" has completed.  you are a liar...the average unbeliever is NOT horrifically narrow-minded about examining theistic evidence.  That's merely a slur you tell yourself so you can feel better about the fact that your god doesn't exist.

Are you willing to set aside your bias against supernatural explanations long enough to recognize the hand of God in the events you used to attribute to chance, luck or good fortune?”

First demonstrate that "supernatural" has a coherent meaning, then we can talk.  Deal?  No, you don't demonstrate coherency with a mere dictionary definition.  The dictionary also has a definition for "hydra", do you suppose that makes the concept of a multiple headed sea monster that grows two new heads each time one is cut off, is the least bit coherent?

Sometimes we miss the activity of God because we aren’t open to seeing it.

An answer that would surely impress the Christians who already agree with you, but laughably dismissed by informed atheists.  There ought to be a law:  you are not allowed to sell Jesus unless your arguments thereto rise above the level of preskool.

But nice job in coddling the preferences of today's largely attention-deficit culture.

What's next, Wallace?  5-minute Sunday services?  After all, couldn't we argue that we have fellowshipping in the Spirit while nose-glued-to-computer-screen no less than we do when at church?  Gee, wouldn't that make church more attractive to the unbeliever?