Cold Case Christianity: The Challenges Facing Young Christians

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

The Challenges Facing Young Christians

Posted: 05 Jul 2017 01:13 AM PDT

 Every other week, from May to August, I have the honor of speaking with students at Summit Worldview Academy. I typically teach on the nature of truth, the reliability of the gospels, and the evidence for God’s existence.

Do you allow the kids to see how your evidence holds up while being cross examined by an informed bible critic in a live debate?  Or do you know what all professional marketing firms know (i.e., the less you respond to direct real-time criticism, the more you can increase sales)?

 The students are eager to learn and have many good questions during the breaks, during our lunch and dinner time together, and at an evening session specifically set aside for questions.  The students usually share a number of stories related to the ways they were already being challenged as young Christians. Many have experienced a season of doubt and are grateful for the training they receive at Summit. Dr. Jeff Myers, the president of Summit Ministries, has assembled an incredible collection of thinkers, teachers and trainers to help prepare students to face challenges and “analyze the various ideas that are currently competing for their hearts and minds.” These young people are eager to prepare themselves for these encounters. Christian students are surrounded by competing worldviews from a very young age. As I speak with the young men and women at Summit, I think about the many ways our kids are challenged from childhood through their college years:

 The bible does not require Christians to get so involved in the scholarly stuff that they cross swords with skeptics at every level.  You are allegedly doing all you need to do when you quote the bible to "answer" a skeptic.  But since, by your relentless promotion and marketing of your books, you clearly don't believe the bible alone to be "sufficient" for faith and practice, never mind.

They Are Challenged by the Media

Young Christians are challenged very early, beginning with their first exposure to television, movies and the internet. Much of the media is aligned against Christian values, and Americans spend about one-third of their free time, (more than the next 10 most popular leisure activities combined) watching some form of television. The messages communicated by television programming are often in direct opposition to the teaching of Christianity, and students are deeply impacted by what they absorb from the media. Two out of every three shows on television, for example, include sexual content (a dramatic increase over the past 15 years). 50% of the couples involved in sexual behavior in television programming are depicted in casual relationships (10% of these couples had just met, and 9% of television programs depict sexual behavior between teens). In a set of Kaiser Family Foundation studies, 76% of teens said that one reason young people have sex is because TV shows and movies “make it seem normal”. College students who were exposed to the many examples of sexual behavior on television were more likely to believe their peers engaged in those same activities.

Maybe I'm just a spiritually dead atheist, but sounds to me like the sins of television counsel that you start telling your readership to stop watching tv.  Oh wait, if they didn't have a tv, they couldn't watch your dvds, which means sales of your stuff would decrease.  Never mind.  

They Are Challenged by Elementary and High School Programming

Make no mistake about it, when Christian values are attacked in the public education system, the basis for those beliefs (Christianity) is also attacked. Here in California, for example, comprehensive sexual health and HIV / AIDS instruction requires schools to teach students how to have “safe sex”. “Abstinence only” education is not permitted in California public schools. In addition, California schools cannot inform parents if their children leave campus to receive certain confidential medical services, including abortions. Classic Christian values related to sexuality (and marriage) are under attack in the public school system.

So the best effort the Christian parent can put forward to battle this ungodly secular school system, is to take their kids out of it and home-school them.  If they don't, this shows the limit to which their faith is genuine.  If mom and dad cannot make the mortgage payment if one of them quits work to home-school the kids, then they should prioritize preserving their Christian morality above the pleasures of this temporary world that the truly faithful put no stock in anyway, Hebrews 13:14.  What's more important?  Keeping kids free from satanic influences, or making mortgage payments?

They Are Challenged by University Professors

Once students get to college, they are likely to encounter professors who are even more aggressive in their opposition to Christianity and Christian values. According to the Institute for Jewish and Community research, a survey of 1,200 college faculty members revealed 1 in 4 professors (25%) is an atheist or agnostic (compared with 4-5% in the general population). In addition, only 6% of university professors say the Bible is “the actual word of God”. Instead, 51% say the Bible is “an ancient book of fables, legends, history & moral precepts”. More than half of professors have “unfavorable” feelings toward Evangelical Christians. Charles Francis Potter (author of Humanism: A New Religion) said it best when he proclaimed, “Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism.  What can the theistic Sunday-schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five day program of humanistic teaching?”

Nothing, which is why you need to start getting a bit more "real" with your "apologetics" and tell Christian parents they'd be battling Satan far more effectively if they started by taking their own kids out of Satan's school and home-school them, even if it means they'll have less money and won't be keeping up with the Jonses anymore.

They Are Challenged by University Students

The attitude and influence of hostile professors is often accepted by University students happy to reject the moral precepts of the Christian worldview. Atheist student groups are multiplying dramatically in universities across America. The Secular Student Alliance, for example, grew from 80 student clubs in 2007 to over 250 clubs in 2011. These students groups are eager to identify themselves with names that challenge the intellectual capacity of Christian students. Atheist groups often seek titles such as “Free Thinker Society,” the “Coalition of Reason,” or the “Center for Inquiry”. The implication, of course, is that Christians are ignorant and constrained by their antiquated worldview.

They are.  Only a fool would marry a woman he never previously slept with or lived with.  God does not honor his word in the practical world, and many people often experience disaster when they forge again on some mission that they know they did not adequately prepare for.  If you never sleep with or live with your intended spouse before you marry, there is nothing from God to indicate he will help fix any natural incompatibilities you might discover after the honeymoon.  Smart people prepare adequately for the mission to be accomplished.  They don't just graduate high school and then apply for a job as a rocket scientist, foolishly thinking whatever they lack on the job, God will magically provide.  God allows people to fail too many times for lack of adequate preparation, to justify thinking he'll magically fix any living or sexual incompatibility you discover after your honeymoon.  God's ultimate ideal for marriage is pointless in light of your belief that he allows human freewill to fuck up his intentions.  He won't be magically causing a sexually incompatible Christian boyfriend/girlfriend to desire each other that way if they discover their incompatibility on their honeymoon, so God cannot complain if they fix the anticipated problem of God doing nothing for them, by making sure they are compatible sexually and as living partners BEFORE they get married.

The Church will never begin to address the growing problem of young people leaving the faith if it doesn’t first recognize the challenges facing Christian students. The young Christians at Summit have already begun to feel the impact of the cultural forces aligning against the Christian worldview. That’s why they are so encouraged to discover and experience the robust intellectual tradition of Christian thought as represented by the professors, speakers and trainers over two intensive weeks of worldview training.

Can poverty-stricken young people attend too?  Or do you limit these gospel-essentials to just the rich Christians?  If your stuff is so essential to faith today, shouldn't you be conducting the Summit in a way that allows all born again people to attend at minimal cost?  Why aren't you satisfied that simply putting up videos on youtube will suffice?  If god is not involved in an atheist learning biology in college and then becoming a biologist, why do think God has the slightest thing to do with some Christian learning apologetics arguments and then becoming an apologist?  God's "presence" in this endeavor appears to be little more than a religiously necessary afterthought appended to the whole process.  You are doing nothing more than making money off of peoples' natural tendency to adhere to false religion.  Except that it must be said you do it with a bit more respectability than do the prosperity gospel preachers on TBN.

These young people are forever changed by their experience at Summit. They are equipped to meet the challenges they already face, even as they prepare for an even greater challenge in the university setting.

Not if you have anything to say about it.  You've routinely declined multiple invitations to answer critiques of your book in a real live debate session.  Some would argue this refusal of yours to be cross-examined has more to do with your knowledge of marketing psychology and less to do with your confidence in your apologetics arguments.

All of us, as youth pastors and ministers, can learn something from programs like Summit.

And it can all be learned and profited from in ways that don't require one to rent cars and motels, and incur travel expenses.  Except that you don't believe the bible, alone, to be sufficient for faith and practice, apparently.  Nobody will have the proper "forensic faith" unless they purchase your materials.

Cold Case Christianity: Why the Differences in the Gospel Accounts Make Them MORE Reliable

This is my reply to to Wallace on his post

Why the Differences in the Gospel Accounts Make Them MORE Reliable (Video)  

Posted: 04 Jul 2017 01:35 AM PDT

(I answer his actual video in point by point fashion after rebutting his introductory comments, see below)

J. Warner Wallace discusses the nature of reliable eyewitness accounts and demonstrates why we ought to expect eyewitness details to vary.

Given that the gospels clearly fail the "ancient documents rule", they are not admissible in court, and therefore, Wallace is begging for defeat by pretending the gospels should be evaluated by rules of evidence adopted in American courts. 

And given that the gospels are more likely anonymous than authored by eyewitnesses, they show themselves to be eyewitness accounts, using American rules of evidence as found in American courts to evaluate the gospels is even more asinine.

 This doesn’t make them unreliable; in fact, the variations are a demonstration of their truthful, reliable nature.

Which is rather stupid because under that logic, every time two eyewitnesses provide variant accounts, the variation can only mean they are being truthful (!?) 

All believers must learn the rules of evidence and train themselves and develop a more reasonable, evidential faith, as described in the book, Forensic Faith: A Homicide Detective Makes the Case for a More Reasonable, Evidential Christian Faith.

So apparently the person who wrote those words does not believe the bible to be, alone, sufficient to govern faith and practice.  Wallace clearly thinks you are missing something vital from your Christian faith and practice, if you don't associate what the bible says, with what he says.

Let's move on to answering Wallace's specific points in his video:

First, Wallace has soft music playing in the background, apparently his motives are no different than the churches who play similar music while the tithing plate is passed around.  Churches wouldn't do this if such music didn't have a psychologically soothing effect increasing the odds the reader will find the speech acceptable.  Hollywood knows emotions are stirred by such music, at least for most people, which is most serious romantic movie scenes are accompanied by soft music.  Apparently, Wallace doesn't think the Holy Spirit moving through his voice is sufficient, Wallace apparently feels the need to employ the same psychological tricks secular people and organizations employ in their own godless advertising.  Billions would not be spent on marketing like this, if soothing music had no appreciable effect on most of the intended listeners.

Second, Wallace says he never flinched for a minute on the differences he saw in the 4 canonical resurrection accounts (video at 1:30 ff).  His reason?  He knew, as a detective in modern-day America, that eyewitnesses often agree on the truth while providing variant testimony.  Of course, this is foolish, because the variations in the resurrection testimony of the canonical gospels are there for reasons other than mere typical tendency of eyewitnesses to differ.  Wallace's characterizing the canonical gospels as roughly on the order of under-oath affidavits taken shortly after the event in question happened, is foolish for myriad reasons:

---a) most Christian scholars do not believe the gospels were written by resurrection eyewitnesses (for example, most scholars accept that Matthew borrowed most of his text from earlier Mark who allegedly wrote down what Peter preached), in which case we have an eyewitness apostle Matthew choosing to prioritize the way a non-eyewitness characterized an alleged eyewitness's testimony, over Matthew's own memories, which is highly suspect to say the least.  Worse, this scholarly view of Matthew contradicts Wallace's desire that eyewitnesses be separated early so they don't collude.  Matthew did worse than collude, nobody can tell where his text reflects his own memories, and where it reflects only his copying off of Mark;
---b) Patristic accounts differ on whether Mark was written before or after Peter's death, raising the possibility that Peter died before he could supervise the finished form of Mark's record, hurting the apologetics argument that the gospels were written when the eyewitnesses were still alive and could be questioned;
---c) Clement of Alexandria said Peter knew about, but neither discouraged nor encouraged, the written version of his preaching produced by Mark, suggesting Peter thought it best that a written version not be made, or that the written version did not accurately record his preaching;
---d) we don't know enough about Matthew and his credibility to make a reasonably certain judgment call about his ability or willingness to tell only the truth; his presenting Jesus in the most Jewish of lights suggests Matthew's selection process was guided more by desire to spin Jesus a certain way, than to mere convey historical facts;
---e) the Muratorian Fragment asserts that apostle John wanted the other apostles to contribute to "his" gospel by fasting for three days and then reporting whatever  had been divinely "revealed" to them, showing us just how far departed this alleged gospel author was from the modern Christian belief that he only intended convey historical facts.  The MF says that in response, Apostle Andrew convinced John to write the account himself, and allow it to be "reviewed" or corrected by the other apostles before publication...if this be true, then it will prove impossible for the reader to figure out which parts of John's gospel, if any, represent errors by John that were corrected before publication, hence a possible way to impeach John's credibility has been lost.
---f) Luke and Mark infamously remark that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the disciples sometimes looking so different that they didn't recognize him, or that their eyes were supernaturally prevented from recognizing him, and this sounds more like fictional drama to heighten the tension of the story, than it sounds like a god with the least bit of concern to lay a basis for future apologist to argue eyewitness authorship of the gospels.

Third, Wallace is absurd here because he doesn't have the first clue how much or how little the gospel traditions were changed and shaped before the time of our earliest textual evidence (church fathers).

Fourth, Clement of Alexandria asserted that after John recognized the Synoptic authors did a sufficient job providing the "history", he chose to write a "spiritual" gospel, and the fact that in John, Jesus makes his deity known far more clearly than in the Synoptics, suggests that the Synoptic authors either didn't know about, or didn't approve of, this critically important material, suggesting John either invented it as fiction, or made use of false traditions about Jesus.  Exactly how much of the Christ-sayings in John are what Jesus historically said, and how many Christ-sayings were invented by the author and to what extend, is a never-ending debate in Christian scholarship...yet apologists think atheists are "compelling" to step into this in-house Christian debate and try to figure out which of God's spiritually alive people discerned the truth correctly.

Fifth, Wallace says its always good to separate murder-eyewitnesses when they are at the scene (video at 2:10 ff).  That was rather disingenuous, since, if the basic history of the gospel is true, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had plenty of time to share their experiences before they allegedly separated for mission work abroad.  If Wallace thinks it critical to seperate eyewitnesses early, then logically he must think the gospel authors fail his own proposed test, and failed it with a great deal of gusto.

Sixth, Wallace blindly presumes that because the resurrection accounts differ the way other multiple eyewitness accounts do, the gospels must be eyewitness accounts.  Again, Christian scholars are locked in ceaseless debate about how close the canonical form of the 4 gospels today matches the form/content they had before the second century.  Most scholars dismiss Papias' testimony about Matthew, but for fundies who accept it, every other church father who mentions the language Matthew wrote in says Matthew wrote in Hebrew "letters", which likely means they thought Papias meant Hebrew "letters" when he said Matthew wrote in Hebrew dialectos.  But most scholars agree that today's canonical Greek Matthew does not appear to be translation Greek.  Fundies insist Matthew "must have" written a second original in Greek after his original Hebrew version (showing how willing they are to stop believing arguments from silence are fallacious, whenever expediency dictates), but a) there is no patristic testimony for a Greek-version Matthew, and b) while the church fathers say "Hebrew" every time they mention the language Matthew wrote it, they never say anything about him writing in "Greek", up to and including Jerome, writing in the 4th century.  If that testimony is reliable, it means somebody other than Matthew is responsible for creating the Greek language form of that gospel, thus raising legitimate questions about how much or how little the Greek version departs from the original Hebrew version.  Why do fundies believe the Greek and Hebrew versions contain exactly the same materials, when they don't have a clue what the Hebrew Matthew gospel looked like in the first century, and when they cannot possibly know who was responsible for creating the canonical Greek Matthew we use today?  Wallace is a fool to characterize the 4 gospels as basically 4 affidavits from 4 eyewitnesses recorded soon after they saw the crime.

Seventh, Wallace says the resurrection account details can be harmonized, but a) the ability to harmonize something is done with expert proficiency by jail house lawyers every day in court to patch up problems in their dishonest client's testimony, but ability to harmonize hardly argues that the accounts are true. 

b) Wallace seems to forget that variation can also come about because the two accounts are contradictory;

c) most Christian scholars assert that Mark is the earliest published gospel and that he intentionally ended his story at 16:8 (i.e., they say the long endings of Mark are later interpolations), and if that theory be true, it would appear that the resurrection appearances spoken of in the three later gospels are fictions created by later authors who knew the original story could be made more memorable and dramatic if such details were embellished into it.

Finally, Wallace says nothing about the fact that one of the most scholarly of the resurrection apologists today, Mike Licona, infamously believes John contradicts the Synoptics in some details , in ways that leave other Christian apologists stunned.

Again, Bart Ehrman says Mark's crucifixion time at 9 contradicts John's time for the event at around noon, and Licona responds by saying John used "artistry" when giving his own account.

And let's not forget Licona's infamous belief that the zombie resurrection in Matthew 27:52 was mere apocalyptic imagery:

Why is it that all of the other Gospels and nearly all of the earliest Church fathers who mention the darkness, the earthquake, and the tearing of the temple veil neglect to include the raised saints? To me, “special effects” is a more plausible understanding of how Matthew likely intended for his readers to interpret the saints raised at Jesus’s death.

One could well argue that with conservative Christian scholars disagreeing with each other on such critical matters, the average atheist walking down the street has perfect rational justification to dismiss the question of Jesus rising from the dead and prioritize doing anything else in their free time after work or school.  Bonding time with the kids, or fixing stuff around the house, or volunteering for a homeless charity event,  is far more important than pointing out that your opponent on a religious issue got something wrong.

God is quite capable of presenting the evidence for Jesus rising from the dead in a way that is undeniable (such as with the force that causes jurors in criminal cases to overcome presumption of innocence and declare the defendant guilty, which they routinely do without having their freewill violated), so God shouldn't be asking me to put forth my best effort at analysis until he puts forth his best effort at presentation.

Cold Case Christianity: My recent challenge to J. Warner Wallace

I sent this debate challenge to Wallace by email on July 7, 2017, at 12:20 p.m.

I provide point-by-point responses to each article you post to the internet,

see https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/search/label/Cold%20Case%20Christianity

I offer to meet you in any internet forum of your choosing to have a formal written debate on any bible or apologetics topic of your choosing, at any time and date of your choosing, so long as we are allowed equal word limits and equal limits to cross-examine each other. 

The more you use silence to respond to this challenge, the more I will blog that you fear the only way to make your "evidence" convincing is by preventing your audience from seeing how your stuff holds up under informed cross-examination in the real-world you admit they are going to encounter after they put down your book and go outside their houses.

Feel free to surf the other parts of my blog, such as those parts where I provide the world all the incriminating evidence that "apologist" James Patrick Holding is no less of an unsaved scumbag than Benny Hinn.  At least Benny Hinn never subjected his readers to shockingly gross pornographic metaphors.

Barry Jones

-------------------------


 So far, this is the response Wallace has made:

Conversation opened. 2 messages. 1 message unread.

debate challenge

Barry Jones                 12:21 PM (2 hours ago)

I provide point-by-point responses to each article you post to the internet, ...

J. Warner Wallace <jim@coldcasechristianity.com>

12:27 PM (2 hours ago)

to me

Hello!

Thanks for writing me. I'm presently on a tight writing deadline and I

may not be able to respond to this email quickly. Please forgive me if

that is the case; I so appreciate your understanding!

J. Warner Wallace

Cold-Case Detective, Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian

Worldview, Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Biola, and Author of

Cold-Case Christianity

<https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Homicide-Detective-Invest

igates/dp/1434704696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344968964&sr=8-1&keywords=c

old+case+christianity> , Cold-Case Christianity for Kids

<https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Kids-Investigate-Detectiv

e/dp/0781414571/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8> , God's Crime Scene

<https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Christianity-Kids-Investigate-Detectiv

e/dp/0781414571/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8> , and Forensic Faith

<http://coldcasechristianity.com/forensic-faith-by-j-warner-wallace/>

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Cold Case Christianity: Why Are You a Christian Believer?

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

Cold Case Christianity: Why Are You a Christian Believer?  Posted: 03 Jul 2017 01:49 AM PDT  

I’ve been speaking around the country for a number of years now. I often address church groups of one nature or another, and when I do, I usually begin by asking a simple question: “Why are you a Christian?” The response I get is sometimes disappointing. Typically, attendees provide responses in one of the following broad categories:

Answer 1: “I was raised in the church” / “My parents were Christians” / “I’ve been a Christian as long as I can remember”

 Answer 2: “I’ve had an experience that convinced me” / “The Holy Spirit confirmed it for me” / “God demonstrated His existence to me”

 Answer 3: “I was changed by Jesus” / “I used to be [fill in your choice of immoral lifestyle], and God changed my life”

 Answer 4: “Because I just know the Bible is true” / “Because God called me to believe”

It's nice to know that you regard as "disappointing" these perfectly biblical answer:  Answer 1 (kids are supposed to be raised in the church and are expected to not deviate from this after adulthood, Ephesians 6:1, Proverbs 22:6);  Answer 2 (experience is a valid basis for religious conversion, what about Paul's experience of Jesus on the road to Damascus, Acts 9, 22, 26?  The Holy Spirit often uses "experience" to "confirm" conversion, Acts 14:3); Answer 3 (giving up immorality is an attribute of true Christians, 1st John 3:9, 1st Cor. 6:9-11);  Answer 4 (conversion on the basis of God "calling" something is biblical, Romans 1:6, 8:30;  1st Cor. 1:9, 24, 7:21, Galatians 1:15, Ephesians 4:4, etc, etc.)

 That will perhaps tell your readers which goal (their spiritual maturity or their selling your books) you prioritize higher.

As often as I ask this question, I seldom receive anything other than these four responses.

Because Christianity appeals mostly to people looking for a social club, not people who are impressed with its academic claims (1st Cor. 1:26). 

If you were asked this question, which answer would you give?

When I was a Christian, my answer was "because I've done what the bible says I need to do, in order to be saved, confess Christ as Lord and believe in his resurrection, Romans 10:9".

Some of these are good answers, but others are not. If you’re a Christian simply because you’ve been raised in the church, how can you be sure Christianity is true?

Well since the bible requires Christian parents to raise their kids in the faith, it is apparently God's will that certain adults be Christian more because they were raised that way, and less because they are impressed with things asserted by Christianity's current car salesman, J. Warner Wallace.
 

If you’re a Christian because you’ve had a transformative experience, how do you know if this experience is truly from the God described on the pages of the New Testament?

They don't need to know for sure, Paul apparently was capable of being a good apostle despite the fact that he couldn't tell, even 14 years after the fact, whether a divine experience he had was in his body or out of his body, 2nd Corinthians 12:1-4.  Apparently, knowing "for sure" wasn't as big of a deal to first-century Christians, as it is to modern day business men who view Christianity as an opportunity to making money and be the center of attention.

As an atheist for most of my life, I learned to be skeptical of people who told me they believed something simply because they grew up a certain way or had an “experience.” I wasn’t raised in a Christian home, and the man I respected most (my father) was a cynical detective. He was (and still is) also a committed atheist.

Which should have told you that the way the human mind works, there's more reason why we believe or deny something, than merely "evidence".  Yet you carry on as if your intended readership could be blank slates ready to process information as objectively as a computer.

I grew up as a skeptic and noticed something important along the way: the members of every religion seem to give the same answers. The four responses provided by my Christian audiences today are also the four answers my Mormon friends offer when asked why they believe Mormonism is true. In fact, the vast majority of believers in any religion—from Buddhist to Baptist—are likely to offer the same responses. While these kinds of answers are common, they are not sufficient. Mormonism and Christianity, for example, make entirely contradictory claims related to the nature of Jesus, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, salvation, and a myriad of other important theological truths. Both groups could be wrong, or one could be correct, but they can’t both be right, given their contradictory beliefs. Yet both groups offer the same kinds of answers when asked “Why are you a Christian / Mormon?”

Perhaps Christianity is just as false as Mormonism?

It seems that all believers (regardless of religious affiliation) typically answer this question in the same way, and that’s the problem. If our answers sound like the answers given by every other religious group, we need better answers.

Trouble is, you have failed in your materials to establish Jesus' resurrection as historical fact.  You certainly talk a lot about it, but you refuse debate challenges from informed bible critics. You apparently recognize you'll be less successful allowing your readership to see how well your fluff stands up under real life attacks, and you apparently think you'll be more successful selling your stuff if Christians are the only ones doing the talking.

You know the one response I seldom, if ever, get when I ask my believing audiences why they are Christians? It’s this one: “I am a Christian because it is true.”

Testifying to what a failure Christianity is.  Perhaps a more biblical answer is "I am a Christian because I don't want to suffer in hell for all eternity", and Lord knows the bible sets nforth conscious eternal suffering in the afterworld as a motive to "get saved".  Luke 16. 

Few people seem to have taken the time to investigate the claims of Christianity to determine if they are evidentially true.

That's because Christianity is not an evidentialist faith.  God has chosen to do less than his best to establish Christianity as a true religion, thankfully creating a problem that your reasonably priced materials can $olve.

In fact, as I present the case for Christianity around the country, people repeatedly approach me after my presentations to tell me they never knew there was so much evidence supporting what they believe.

And they wouldn't come up to you like that had you done the nmore objective thing, and present your Christian case in the context of a live debate with an informed bible critic.  When it's just you who is doing the speaking, your audience isn't being given the opportunity to see how your alleged evidence holds up under real-world crossfire by informed skeptics like me.

These Christian brothers and sisters have intuitions and experiences that incline them to believe Christianity is true long before they’ve actually investigated the case. They’re correct, but when challenged to tell others why they believe Christianity is true, they sound like every other non-Christian theistic believer. Their defenses seldom stand up to aggressive challenges and are often less than persuasive. Why should atheists accept the testimonial experiences of Christians when Christians themselves don’t accept the testimonial experiences of other believing groups—or of atheists? Now, more than ever, it’s time to develop a Forensic Faith. It’s time to know what you believe and why you believe it.

Translation:  "Now, more than ever, it's time to purchase my reasonably priced materials intended to fix the problems created by God's failure to explain things better in the bible.  How can you possibly have that Forensic Faith if you depend solely on the bible as sufficient for faith and practice?"

Cold Case Christianity: Students Love Answers More Than the Church Loves Answers

This is my reply to J. Warner Wallace's article

Cold Case Christianity: Students Love Answers More Than the Church Loves Answers

Posted: 30 Jun 2017 01:42 AM PDT

271I’ve been training high school students at Summit Worldview Academy in Manitou Springs, Colorado for several years now. We hold nine 2-week conferences for young people each year (six in Colorado, one in California and two in Tennessee), designed specifically to “teach students how to analyze the various ideas that are currently competing for their hearts and minds.”

So your curriculum includes instructing them on how to figure out which version of Christianity is true?

The curriculum is incredibly rigorous and students spend long hours in class each day, listening to Christian case makers, professors, teachers and speakers from all over the country. Some students even take written exams at the end to qualify for college credit (offered through Bryan College as part of a “Contemporary Worldviews” course, Philosophy 111). This is not your typical high school “camp”; it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn why Christianity is true and how to develop a Christian worldview rooted in this truth. While there are certainly fun activities scheduled for the students, that’s not why they come. Students come to Summit to be trained.

Do you think they'd get a more realistic experience of what your informed critics have to say, if you made them attend a few live in-person debates with some of your more informed atheist critics?  Or did I forget that as a Christian, you prioritize whether something is "biblical" a bit more than you prioritize whether it is "objective"?

I spent part of my pastoral life as a youth pastor and I witnessed firsthand the challenge young people face in high school (and especially in college). When I first began as a youth pastor, I expressed my creative inclinations robustly (I have a degree in design and a master’s degree in Architecture). My weekend services were a visual and audible extravaganza. I was focused entirely on experience. About a year into my pastorate I realized the incredible deficiencies of this approach. The seniors graduated from my ministry and eventually graduated from Christianity altogether. They were simply not prepared to respond to the challenges they faced from skeptics in the university setting. They needed answers, and I wasn’t providing them; I changed my approach to youth ministry completely.

Nothing's changed.

I began to share the evidence I found so compelling when I was a skeptic, and I started responding to the objections and questions my students already had (but were sometimes afraid to express). Many of my youth pastor colleagues thought I was crazy to make “apologetics” the sole focus of my weekend meetings, but the students we prepared in this way were ready for life in the “real world”.

And it is precisely your debating a real live informed bible critic/atheist in person, that would more "realistically" prepare your students for what they will get when they leave the nest.

I discovered something important: Students want the truth. Don’t let the pundits or cultural observers fool you into thinking students are more concerned about experience, entertainment or storytelling. Students want answers. In fact, I think young people want answers more than the Church knows or understands.

That's a really great marketing technique:  tell your readers how objective they are and how concerned they are to know the truth.  It makes it sound like you write the intros used by the news media.  They also inform their listeners just how much the listeners want truth as opposed to anything else...then they present that "truth" with slickly produced videos, voice inflections and every other trick that is designed to make a person want to listen.  But I think the popularity of television and internet gaming and texting is sufficient to show that the vast majority of people, including "Christians" seek to be entertained.  You don't go where a church has only "truth".  You go where the church gives you the right "vibe".

When I first planted a church, I formed the core congregation from the young people I was training as a youth pastor. It wasn’t long before their parents began to join us to see what was happening at the church where their sons and daughters were excited to train and serve. After a few years, the younger members of my congregation grew up, moved off to college or got married and moved to new job opportunities. The parents of these young people stayed behind, and my congregation “aged” considerably. I noticed a palpable difference. The urgency and need for answers waned. These older members were much more comfortable in their daily settings and, as Christians, they were not being challenged nearly as vigorously as their students had been. As a result, they were less interested in “case making”.

You fail to consider that it was spiritual maturity that caused these older Christians who stayed behind, to express little interest in "case-making".  But no, you need to promote your book like a car salesman employing the told "create a problem/offer a solution" paradigm:  How convenient that the only way today's Christian youth can grow spiritually is by purchasing your case-making materials.

I get the chance now to travel all over the country sharing the case for Christianity.

But the funding for such trips would not come from your book sales if you allowed your devotees to see how sorry you perform in a live debate with an informed bible skeptic like me.  I find your confidence about as fearful as the confidence of Benny Hinn that he can do miracles.  YAWN.

I recognize the difference between student and adult congregations.

But one difference you didn't account for was the obvious likelihood that the adult congregations generally care less about case-making, by reason of their generally greater spiritual maturity.  

While the Church seems to be satisfied with undemanding Sunday experiences, young people want so much more: They want answers.

No, they are human beings, and you can no more deny that church fulfills a psychological need, than you can deny that bingo fulfills a psychological need.  Churches are not exempt from the naturalistic rules that motivate people to organize into groups.  Churches that cater mostly to the youth, employ all the tricks that godless secular media does to pull them in:  cartoons, slickly produced attention-deficit MTV-style videos, etc.

I'm just wondering when you plan on selling case-making shampoo.

They are willing and ready to roll up their sleeves and prepare themselves.

Again, the older Christians aren't so willing to do this, why?  Why do you keep discounting the possibility that it is spiritual maturity that dissuades older Christians from your marketing tricks?

They want their own doubts answered and they want to respond to the skeptics in their lives.

And the very fact that you so relentlessly promote your books as the answer to their dreams, testifies with trumpets and bullhorns that you don't think the bible is ALONE sufficient to do this job.  God will not speak his truth through the bible unless an imperfect sinner is there to help the Holy Spirit do His job.

Sadly, the Church doesn’t seem to recognize this yet, and it definitely seems ill-equipped to meet the challenge.

And one possibility to explain this is that Christianity is a false religion, and that's why many of its converts couldn't care less about the stuff you think is truly important.  You also find lazy Mormons and Muslims, also just as easily explained by the fact that those religions are false, nothing but social clubs.

I'm willing to have a formal written debate with you in any forum of your choosing on any bible or specific apologetics topic you feel most comfortable defending, but no, you just go on and on about how your materials are the key to taking the handcuffs off of the Holy Spirit.  What...did God get a degree in marketing since the bad old days?

That’s why I love Summit Ministries. They provide a much needed solution to the apathy I sometimes see in the Church.

Another reason to say you don't think the bible "alone" is sufficient to fix that problem.  If the bible "alone" is sufficient to equip Christian youth as you think they need to be equipped, then the Holy Spirit would not need your materials to do it today, anymore than he would have needed your materials to do this back in the year 783 a.d. 

If you’re a parent who understands the simple value of answers, I highly recommend Summit. It’s time for the Church to raise up a generation of young people who are equipped with a Biblical worldview and can articulate this worldview with strength and conviction.

Because the bible "alone" (i.e., reading the bible without the help of "Summit") would not be sufficient to fix that problem.

Students love answers; it’s time to woo the Church into a similar love affair with the truth.

Students also love socializing and being idealistic....now there's a money making opportunity:  They have a problem, their bible is, alone, insufficient to fix their problems, and you have the solution: they should invest money in your for-profit enterprises.  Well, at least you finally opened your eyes to the obvious:  the bible alone is not sufficient for faith and practice.  We all need the bible + J. Warner Wallace's materials, offered at a reasonable discount when purchased in bulk.

Cold Case Christianity: Two Signs From Your Opposition Your Argument Is Sound

This is my reply to J. Warner Wallace's article

Cold Case Christianity: Two Signs From Your Opposition Your Argument Is Sound

Posted: 23 Jun 2017 01:31 AM PDT

Those of us who acknowledge the self-evident existence of transcendent, moral truth claims (i.e. “It’s never OK to torture babies for fun”) need to be prepared for opposition from unbelievers who anticipate and reject the implications.

Wallace fails, like all apologists, to demonstrate an objective moral basis for his maxim that nobody should torture babies for fun.  Wallace is free to pretend that this is an absolute because so many people agree with it, but then he runs into a brick wall:  human beings do not decide what objective moral values are.  Wallace is free to argue that the reason so many people oppose torturing babies for fun is because God put his laws into our hearts, but this is hardly conclusive, as there's an equally good naturalistic explanation for this moral:  we instinctively know that babies are the key to keeping ourselves from going extinct, therefore naturally, we find it most abhorrent to torture babies for fun, since  to torture them is to reduce their likelihood of survival.


Indeed, if Wallace found somebody torturing babies for fun, he certainly cannot demonstrate that this is offensive to any god, all he can do is point out how most mature civilized adults despise such child abuse, and then, like Frank Turek, insist that no naturalistic explanation can account for why humans recoil from the prospect of torturing babies for fun.

On the contrary, most would agree that if the adult man is having penetrative sex with a 4 year old girl, this constitutes torturing children "for fun", and yet some of the earliest Rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud asserted that such little girls were "suitable for sexual relations", that a girl becomes "sexually mature" at the age of three years and one day, that such a child hates the practice the first two times but likes it the third time, and that girls who are 11 years old or under must use contraceptives during marital intercourse to guard against her becoming pregnant at such a young age. Contrary to popular belief, these rabbinical rulings were serious legal precepts intended to apply to real-world situations, they are not mere thought-expermiments or debates about the outer fringes of the law. Yes, there are other Talmud statements that counsel against pedophiic-marriage, but these only come from the later Rabbis, not the earlier ones.  And a general rule of historiography is that the earlier version is likely more correctly representing the original (Numbers 31:18) than the later versions.

And yes, the Talmud also asserts that all of the virgin girls in Numbers 31:18 who were spared, were "fit for cohabitation".

If objective, transcendent moral laws exist, the need for an adequate source (a transcendent Moral Law Giver) becomes apparent (more on that in future posts). In order to avoid the need for a transcendent Moral Law Giver, some will do their best to deny the existence of objective laws in the first place.

"Objective morality" is a contradiction in terms, because morality is based upon value-judgments that people constantly disagree on, while objectivity deals with concrete truths that cannot be affected by human opinion.

In doing so, they often employ the same tactics used by defense attorneys in criminal trials; tactics that typically signal smart jurors the prosecution’s case is sound. I’ve written an entire chapter about this in my book, but I recently saw two of these tactics used in response to the “baby torturing” claim.

Distract By Focusing on Minutia

After asking the direct question (“Is it ever OK to torture babies for fun?”) in an effort to provide at least one example of transcendent, objective moral truth, a skeptic responded by arguing I was “equivocating on the word ‘OK’” because “‘OK’ encompasses a dozen denotations that do not include objective morality.”

Then apparently the only way you can successfully promote your books, as you do, is to advertise to completely gullible idiots who know next to nothing about philosophy or the law, and then you do this by pretending the most stupid skeptic in the world is representative of how most bible-skeptics would argue.

Sorry Wallace, but I start classifying you like a charlatan tv evangelist from TBN in the 1990's, when you choose to base your conclusions on such absurd premises.

 If you want an example of a smart bible skeptic who could really beat you to a pulp in a real debate, you should ask me that question, and I'd respond by pointing out why you are wrong:  "What do you think the answer a human being gives to that question, is doing to help you establish that morale maxim as objective?  Don't you believe that human opinion is insufficient to establish objective moral truth?"

You may respond that most people agree with the maxim and that the most plausible way to account for such pattern is god putting his laws into our hearts, but I answered that above:  we also instinctively know, no less than the higher mammals, that harming babies/children lowers their ability to thrive, and since it is our natural instinct to thrive, it's perfectly reasonable, with no god in sight, to have problems with a person who tortures babies for fun.

While it’s true I am often philosophically imprecise in an effort to “translate” and communicate complex ideas at a lay-level, I tried to imagine a definition for “OK” that would allow someone to justify torturing babies for fun. Even when I insert a variety of implied definitions for this term, the result seems the same:

“Is it ever morally acceptable to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever legally permissible to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever socially agreeable to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever proper to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever culturally satisfactory to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever emotionally acceptable to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever fair to torture babies for fun?”

“Is it ever just to torture babies for fun?”

See the problem?

Yes, you've used a stupid skeptic and pretended his dogshit belief is representative of what serious academic skeptics have to say.  Sort of like me promoting my books to atheist high-school drop outs and concluding from the stupidity we see on TBN, that Christianity is obviously false.

No matter which definition for “OK” I use, the answer remains the same. To focus on the term “OK” (as if it were some trick I was trying to employ) is merely a tactic offered to distract from the more important over-arching issue raised by the question.

Discredit Your Opponent’s Character

I responded to the skeptic as respectfully as I could: “I’m trying imagine a definition of ‘OK’ that would justify torturing babies for the fun of it. Which definition are you suggesting? Pick any definition you think works, and help me understand. How about this: Is it ever morally acceptable to torture babies for the fun of it?” The skeptic’s response demonstrated an immediate change in character. He became much more accusatory and described my second rendering of the question as a “shameful tactic”. He even claimed I was being dishonest. He began to focus on me rather than my argument.

Thanks for pointing this out.  Under your logic, internet apologist James Patrick Holding has been admitting, by his shit attitude toward everybody except his donors, that their arguments are likely correct.

Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience. Don’t be discouraged and, more importantly, don’t surrender your character. It’s easy to get “sucked in” to aggressive and demeaning exchanges when people start name calling, but there’s nothing more disheartening for me, as a Christian, than to see my fellow brothers and sisters argue for the existence of transcendent, moral truths while simultaneously ignoring the objective truth that we ought not be disrespectful to people who hold a view different from our own. We can reject their view without being obstinate and abusive.

Thanks again for admitting that as a Christian, you think there's an absolute objective law of God forbidding Christians from being disrespectful toward skeptics.  You clearly think J.P.Holding's demeanor as a Christian is unacceptable and unChristian.  I'll add you to the growing list of his detractors. 

Does your God approve of pedophilia? Part 7: Ezekiel 16 establishes nothing except more apologetics embarrassment

Most Christian apologists, once confronted with the fact that the bible never specifies the age or conditions a girl must minimally reach to be qualified for marriage (i.e., the bible god doesn't appear to think martial pedophilia is sufficiently immoral to deserve specific commentary as much as "justification by faith"), immediately cite to God's having metaphorical sex with Jerusalem:

 1 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
 2 "Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations
 3 and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem, "Your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite, your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
 4 "As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths.
 5 "No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.
 6 "When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, 'Live!' Yes, I said to you while you were in your blood, 'Live!'
 7 "I made you numerous like plants of the field. Then you grew up, became tall and reached the age for fine ornaments; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare.
 8 "Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine," declares the Lord GOD. (Ezek. 16:1-8 NAU)

The argument goes like this:  Ezekiel's stating that metaphorical Jerusalem was ready for sex with God after her breasts had formed and her public hair had grown, necessarily implies that Israel in the days of Ezekiel, and thus likely also in the days of Moses, generally believed that the minimum age a girl must reach before she can be legitimately married and engage in sexual relations, was puberty, or about 12 years old.  And since God is speaking through Ezekiel here, that's the age God himself thinks is the appropriate marriageable age.

But there are numerous problems with using the text that way:

1 - God is concluding that the presence of boobs and pubic hair on a girl makes her ready for sex (v. 8), and yet today, if we hear anybody say girls are ready for sex after their boobs and pubic hair have grown, we assume the speakers are just stupid inbred rednecks who lack common sense and don't realize that readiness for sex is a complex thing that involves far more than what features the girl has developed.  Is your god an inbred redneck for thinking her signs of puberty means she's "ready" for sex?

2 - Ezekiel was an exilic prophet, the Israel he represented were captives of Babylon (about 600 b.c.).  Yes, he could well be representing a tradition here that goes back to Moses, but since Moses lived around 1300 b.c., you'd have to say that Ezekiel's view on this minimal marriageable age, properly represents what the Hebrews from 700 years previous also believed about the minimum age of marriage.  If you insist the tradition is consistent, you leave yourself little reason to complain that the Rabbis and Sages of the Babylonian Talmud (700 a.d), who permitted adult men to use sexual intercourse with three year old girls to achieve betrothal, properly represented the earlier Jewish beliefs of the first century and before.  And given that Judaism itself evolved many theological ideas and caused many factions (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Samaritan Jews), the only person who would say Ezekiel is representative of the earlier Judaism from 700 years prior, would be fundamentalists who have their suicide guns at hand, ready to the pull the trigger if the least bit of imperfection should show up in the bible.

3 - I don't say marital pedophilia was normative in ancient Judaism.  All I claim is that there is no evidence from the bible that God viewed the act as "sin".  In that case, there is no problem accepting Ezekiel's view as normative of ancient Jewish morals.  What he doesn't address is how far this model could be deviated from without going off into sin.  And since James Patrick Holding has specified that he was allowing for some deviation one way or the other from the 12-year old age he proposed as the ancient Hebrew age for marriage, it would appear that where the minimal boundary age or conditions be, is more or less a subjective thing, and for that reason, Christians cannot use their subjective judgment call on the matter and pretend this is God's own view.  God thinks it normative to set the age of marriage at 12, but the question whether God views marriage below this age as "sin", is not answered.

Once again, the issue is not what was normative among ancient Jews.  The issue is whether the god of the bible views sex within adult-child marriages as sin.  Showing what God thinks is "normative" does not automatically require that any deviation from this would be viewed as "sin".  Sin is never defined int he bible as deviation from the norm, but only deviation from God's law.

And under the absolutist reasoning of Romans 13:1, it must have been God that enacted the secular 19th century Delaware rape-law that set the age of sexual consent at 7.  I've argued elsewhere that Paul appears to have meant that it truly is God who sets up even the secular governments whose laws violate the divine law.  Romans 9, God "raised up Pharaoh".

Does your God approve of pedophilia? Part 6: God expects Hebrews to use their "common sense"

Most Christian apologists, when confronted with the fact that the bible nowhere specifies the conditions and age that a girl must meet to be eligible for marriage, immediately mistake their cultural conditioning for the movement of the Holy Spirit, and insist that not everything was written in the bible, because God expected people to use their "common sense".

This is what John Sparks, the owner of theologyweb.com, argued in 2016:

08-11-2016, 09:20 PM #20 rogue06

Quote Originally Posted by The Thinker   
There is no age of consent in the Bible and Yahweh never says you must be over X age before you can have sex or marry. And older men marrying girls as young as 9 occurred back then. So if you feel that pedophilia is morally wrong, on what basis is it wrong on your view?     

There are a lot of things not specifically mentioned in the Bible because it was considered self-evident or common sense. So much for the claim that    

 If we use the "common sense" approach, then we have to ask why God placed in the bible a specific prohibition against bestiality:

 23 'Also you shall not have intercourse with any animal to be defiled with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion. (Lev. 18:23 NAU)

 Indeed, God apparently thought one single prohibition wasn't sufficient:

Exo 22:19 "Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death.
Lev 20:12 If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed incest, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.
Lev 20:15 If there is a man who lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death; you shall also kill the animal.
Lev 20:16 If there is a woman who approaches any animal to mate with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.
Deu 27:21 Cursed is he who lies with any animal. And all the people shall say, Amen.

If God thought the Hebrews would recognize via common sense that bestiality was sin, why did he include a specific prohibition against it in the bible?

Could it be that God's preference to specifically prohibit even the more obviously immoral sins, suggests that he didn't intend to allow humans to decide for themselves which acts were sinful?

Could it be that you really cannot fix the bible's silence on marital pedophilia by saying God expects us to use our common sense?

The Hebrews believed in burning their adolescent daughters to death should those girls have engaged in pre-marital sex:

Gen 38:24 Now it was about three months later that Judah was informed, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot, and behold, she is also with child by harlotry." Then Judah said, "Bring her out and let her be burned!"
Lev 20:14 If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality; both he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no immorality in your midst.
Lev 21:9  'Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.

If the Hebrews could depart so far from what modern Christian apologists believe is common sense morality/justice, then it is rather stupid of them to just blindly assume the Hebrews thought like us, wherever the bible is silent about a moral issue.

When you think about a father tying his daughter to a post a burning her to death because she lost her virginity to her boyfriend, and you wince and are totally horrified by such a thought, is that attitude of yours from the same Holy Spirit who inspired the above-cited bible verses, yes or no?

Why is God so psychotically pissed off at this sin in the days of Moses, but according to you, today God doesn't think such girls should be burned to death?  God doesn't change, does he?

For all these reasons, it is highly unlikely that the reason 'god' stayed silent on pedophilia is because he expected people to use their common sense.  All that would prove is that the reason God prohibits bestility multiple times in the Mosaic writings is because God did not expect the Hebrews to recognize this obvious sin solely by their common sense.

This is my reply to J. Warner Wallace's article:

 Why Would a Good God Behave So Badly?  

Posted: 16 Jun 2017 04:00 AM PDT

I have many unbelieving friends who laugh when I claim the God of the Bible is both all-powerful and all-loving. As they read through the Old Testament, they point to a variety of passages and episodes where God seems to be anything but loving. They cite passages, for example, where God seems to command the pillaging and killing of Israel’s enemies with great brutality.

they should have pointed out the passages where God specifies that he will take "joy" in causing men to rape women, and causing parents to eat their own children, such as:

 15 "But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

 16 "Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.

 30 "You shall betroth a wife, but another man will violate her; you shall build a house, but you will not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.

 53 "Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you.

63 "It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. (Deut. 28:15-63 NAU)

 "Delight" in both cases is the same word, whether in Hebrew or Lxx, so you won't be escaping this one on linguistic grounds.  And good luck finding a Christian commentary that provides any argument that might favor your position.  Indeed, if God really meant his threats to inflict horrific torments, to be taken seriously, then he does indeed delight to inflict such things no less than he delights to prosper those who obey.

 How can a God who would command the brutal destruction of Israel’s enemies be called moral or loving?

Easy, he isn't moral or loving in the modern American sense, he's only moral and loving in the ancient Semitic sense.

It’s easy for us to judge the words and actions of God as if He were just another human, subject to an objective standard transcending Him. But when we judge God’s actions in this way, we are ignoring His unique authority and power.

Not really, god admits in Genesis 6:6-7 he sometimes regrets his own decisions, so with precedent like that, you cannot dismiss the possibility that god is such an asshole in the OT because that was back when he had less moral maturity.  I don't believe in biblical inerrancy, so I couldn't care less that you can find another bible verse that says God is infinitely wise.  Inerrancy is so disputed even among spiritually alive people, that spiritually dead people are smart to dismiss it as speculative, and refuse to use it as tool of interpretation, and therefore, to insist we can know what Genesis 6 means without reconciling it with everything else in the bible.

While great work has been done by Paul Copan (Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God), describing the proper context of these passages in the Old Testament,

I've already refuted them; their exegesis of 1st Samuel 15 (where King Saul is dispossessed by God precisely because Saul did not completely destroy the kids as the ban had required) is foolish, and completely ignores the reason why those kids were ordered killed:  their great-great-great-great grandfather Amalek had attacked the last of the Israelites as they exodused from Egypt, an event that took place more than 400 years before Saul's time.  That is, the reason that current generation of Amalekite kids was ordered slaughtered is not because they were obstinately holding on to parts of the promised land God wished to give to Israel, but because they were corporately guilty of an ancestor's sin.  In which case they wouldn't stop deserving death merely because they fled the land. 

and by Clay Jones (Killing the Canaanites: A Response to the New Atheism’s “Divine Genocide” Claims), describing the view God held toward the sin of Israel’s neighbors,

"Genocide" merely muddies the waters.  The problem is that this god gives every appearance of thinking his plan for Israel to go around killing off pagans is his "best" plan, when in fact he could have achieved his goal without causing children to suffer, by waving his magic wand. And his employment of an imperfect plan argues there is no god to discuss, this is just godless ancient Hebrews who are mischaracterizing their military strategies as if they were commands of God.  NOthing more significant than the modern fundie who justifies his bombing of an abortion clinic by saying "God told me to do it".

I would like to add the following observations about the nature of God as we consider His actions in the Old Testament:  God is the Greatest Artist If you and I were in an art class together and I suddenly grew frustrated with my sketch and decided to destroy it, you wouldn’t complain in the least.

That's because destroying inanimate objects doesn't create suffering of live creatures. 

If I stepped over to your easel and destroyed your sketch, however, you would certainly complain that I was doing something unjust. You see, the artist has the authority and right to destroy his or her own work.

You also have the right to burn all of your house and possession to the ground as long as you don't do it for a criminal or illegal reason.  But if you did that once per year, people would still conclude, with rational justification, that you were crazy, despite the fact that you had the "right" to do it. 

The art belongs to the artist.

And according to Genesis 6:6, the artist often screws up.  It could very well be that God today, if he exists, thinks similarly to Genesis 6:6, that is, that he regrets having been such an asshole in the OT.  Once again, that bible verse and its likely meaning will not go away just because you presuppose bible inerrancy as a hermeneutic, and you think we need to reconcile Genesis 6:6 with the rest of the bible.  Bible inerrancy, for reasons already staed, does not deserve to be exalted in our mind to the status of governing hermeneutic.  Therefore, you cannot get rid of the imperfect God that verse tells about, by smothering it with something else in the bible.  And even if bible inerrancy were true, you don't know whether Genesis 6:6 should be interpreted in the light of other bible verses, or if the other bible verses declaring God infinitely wise, need to be interpreted and delimited in the light of Genesis 6:6.

If there is a God, all of creation is His handiwork. He has the right to create and destroy what is His, even when this destruction may seem unfair to the artwork itself.

Exactly why there is no rational reasoning with Islamic extremists.  YOU might not think it fair to be injured in a suicide bombing, but Allah does.  So there's no rational reasoning with you, your religious belief becomes more important to you that common sense once you get to thinking God wanted something done a certain way.

  God is the Greatest Physician If you or I suffered a snake bite on our elbow and were miles from the nearest hospital, a doctor might advise us (over the phone) to tourniquet the arm to save our life. In doing so, we would surely sacrifice an otherwise healthy hand to prevent the venom from spreading to our heart. But the doctor understands that this drastic action is required to prevent our death.

That's because the doctor is not an all-powerful genie who can cure us with a wave of his magic wand.  Your God is.  Now back to your "his-ways-are-mysterious" excuses.

You and I might not agree with the plan, or like the outcome, but the doctor knows best.

 But the doctor of Genesis 6:6-7 admits to regretting his own decisions, so it's far from rock solid that because God is God, his choices are beyond criticism.

The treatment plan belongs to the doctor. If there is a God, all of us are His patients. He has the wisdom and authority to treat us as He sees fit, even when we might not be able to understand the overarching danger we face if drastic action isn’t taken.

Such as when a little girl dies from an STD she got due to an adult man raping her.  The truth is that your god has far more in common with fairy tales than reality, the arguments for God's existence are less than convincing and suffer the fatal religious language objection, and for these reasons, we are rationally justified to limit how often we entertain your trifling excuses, as often as we are justified to limit the extent to which we entertain Mormon apologetics. But clearly, you aren't arguing to convince skeptics, you are building your argument on presuppositions you share with other Christians.

  God is the Greatest Savior If you and I live as though our mortal lives are all we have, we’ll often become frustrated that our lives seem to be filled with pain and injustice.

Too many Christians have complained that their lives seems to be filled with pain and injustice, for you to pretend that becoming a Christian will fix that attitude.

But the Christian Worldview describes human existence as eternal.

Unfortunately, the OT contains statements that cannot be reconciled with that idea, according to other spiritually alive orthodox people such as 7th Day Adventists, which means you are a fool to expect spiritually dead atheists to figure out who is right in this in-house Christian debate.

We have a life beyond the grave.

Not if the best that can be argued toward that end is J.P. Moreland's ridiculous The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters.

We live for more than 80 or 90 years; we live forever, either with God in Heaven, or separated from God for all eternity. If there is a God, He is certainly more concerned about our eternal existence than He is about our mortal comfort.

If he was as concerned about our eternal well-being as you say, he'd likely be doing ALL that he could to save us, not just the minimal bit he says is sufficient to compel faith.  When our kids are drowning, we don't do what we think is minimally sufficient to save them, we do all that we can until we either save them, or find that our best efforts weren't good enough.  I don't ask you whether God thinks He's done what is "sufficient" to make the gospel believable.  I ask you whether God is doing his "best" to make the gospel believable.  Could God have provided more convincing evidence than what 2,000 years of church history gave us?  He apparently doesn't mind violating freewill, how blown away do you suppose the Israelites were when they saw the wall of water on either side as they passed through the parted Red Sea?  God is NOT doing his "best" to convince unbelievers, hence, he is less concerned with saving unbelievers than you say.   And quit pretending that your view is "the" Christian view.  5-Point Calvinists quickly insist that God never wished to save those who end up in hell.

His plans are grander than our plans. His eternal desires are greater than our mortal desires.

They are also occassionally errant, Genesis 6:6-7, and the "anthropomorphism" interpretation cannot be sustained by anything in the grammar, immediate context, or larger context, hence such interpretation is likely false.

 If there is a God, He is more concerned about saving us for eternity than He is about making our mortal lives safe.

Spiritually alive Christians known as Calvinists refuse to classify all unbelievers as loved by God, the way you do.  Don't expect spiritually dead atheists to correctly figure out which of you got it right.

  Christians understand that there have been times in the history of humanity when God’s chosen people (those who placed their trust in Him) were in great eternal spiritual jeopardy from those who surrounded them. God understood the risk as the Great Physician and often prescribed drastic action to cut off the threat.

He could have used his telepathic tractor beam powers and stirred the hearts of whoever he wished away from whatever sinful goal they were trying to achieve.  God has that kind of power according to Ezekiel 38:4.

God had the authority as the Great Artist to destroy what was His in the first place,

And as noted before, if you employ your "right" to destroy your stuff too many times, most people will conclude, with rational justification, that you have mental problems.  So god's having the "right" to destroy his people, doesn't insulate him from a justified charge of being the sadistic lunatic he is.  Deut. 28:63 

and He also had the wisdom and compassion as the Great Savior to do what was necessary to protect the eternal spiritual life of His creation.

Then he failed, since he could very easily have made the gospel far more believable in past centuries, to those who rejected it and apparently went to hell, and he could have achieved that goal without violating their freewill...unless you think a jury's freewill is violated when the prosecutor's evidence is absolutely unassailable?

If God failed to act in these situations, we would hardly call him all-powerful and all-loving.

There's plenty of biblical passages that cannot be reconciled with the others that teach God is all-powerful and all-loving.  God can defeat wooden chariots but not iron chariots in Judges 1:19 (inerrantists are forced to read their speculations into the text in order to "reconcile" this with other bible passages nabout God's omnipotence, and yet you shall not add to his word, Proverbs 30:6.  And I don't care what you say, burning your daughter alive because she had premarital sex (Lev. 21:9), or putting children to death by burning because they helped their father steal a wedge of gold (Joshua 7:15) has about as much chance of being reconciled with any rational understanding of love, as beating them to death does.

God approves of alcoholism, Proverbs 31, Psalm 104

I contend that, regardless of whatever else the bible may say, there is a passage that approves of alcoholism.

 4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, It is not for kings to drink wine, Or for rulers to desire strong drink,
 5 For they will drink and forget what is decreed, And pervert the rights of all the afflicted.
 6 Give strong drink to him who is perishing, And wine to him whose life is bitter.
 7 Let him drink and forget his poverty And remember his trouble no more. (Prov. 31:4-7 NAU)

There are several signs in this passage the strong drink in question is real alcohol, not diluted wine or grape juice:

• The "wine" in v. 4 is defined as "strong drink" by hendiadys (Hebrew idiom: expressing one idea by means of two different descriptions).
• that it really is "strong" drink is confirmed from the King forgetting his own decree after imbibing (v. 5).
• Other persons are expected to forget their troubles if they partake of this stuff (v. 7)

Grape juice and diliuted or weak "wine" does not make those who drink it forget their decrees or forget their troubles.  But there's endless empirical evidence that alcohol surely accomplishes this goal.

The inerrantist-driven NAC says much against my interpretation, but can be dismissed because it does so by preaching to the choir, not by evidence and supported argument:

31:4–7 Verses 4–7 advise the king to maintain sobriety in order to carry out the work of establishing justice in the kingdom.3 The queen-mother does not recommend a free beer program for the poor or justify its use as an opiate for the masses; her point is simply that the king must avoid drunkenness in order to reign properly. The comparison to the suffering poor and to their use of alcohol is meant to awaken Lemuel to the duties that go with his class and status rather than to describe some kind of permissible drunkenness.

Garrett, D. A. (2001, c1993). Vol. 14: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of songs (electronic ed.). 

Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 246). 

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

On the contrary, the proverb contains the mandate to "give" strong drink (v. 6).

The WBC is a bit more realistic:

6–7 The emphasis on royal justice is followed by a rather bold and singular recommendation. Instead of enjoying personal consumption of the royal cellar, the king is to provide a supply of drink for the unfortunate people who need it as a kind of comfort (?) for their misery. This strange command has provoked several hypotheses. On the one hand, it has been considered to be “cynical” and perhaps a later addition; as noted in Note 5.a.*, the command is in the plural. On the other hand, it has been interpreted as providing some relief for the unfortunate. What is to be, as it were, doled out to kings is to be provided generously for afflicted members of the realm, whose comforts are little enough. Even though this can be only a temporary measure, a kind of ancient opium (as well as modern?), it is nonetheless recommended.  

Murphy, R. E. (2002). Vol. 22: Word Biblical Commentary : Proverbs. 

Word Biblical Commentary (Page 241). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

It likely wouldn't have evoked several hypotheses, unless what was being commanded in the passage was something exceptionally difficult for bible believing commentators to reconcile with the rest of the bible. And indeed, that is the case.  Paul forbids getting drunk, Ephesians 5:18,

Somebody will say Paul was only addressing the church.  That doesn't make sense; Proverbs must also be viewed as God's word to the church no less than Paul's epistles.


Something in the context of Psalm 104 makes it clear that it is God who not only provides wine, but provides it for the sake of making men's hearts merry:

 14 He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, And vegetation for the labor of man, So that he may bring forth food from the earth,
 15 And wine which makes man's heart glad, So that he may make his face glisten with oil, And food which sustains man's heart.
 16 The trees of the LORD drink their fill, The cedars of Lebanon which He planted,
 17 Where the birds build their nests, And the stork, whose home is the fir trees.
(Ps. 104:14-17 NAU)

Furthermore, the context is praising God for what God does, so it is absurd to expect that these words about wine were simply a neutral assertion that mankind makes wine for himself.  That wine is no less a positive thing frm the Lord the the grass for the cattle, the vegetation for man, the water for the birds, the trees of Lebanon, or the trees where birds build their homes. All that stuff is positive, not neutral.