God's Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty Read Online Free

wish-fulfillment , the desire to have some “father-figure in the sky” who can straighten things out for us and talk to us when we are lonely. David Aikman, a former senior correspondent for Time and author of The Delusion of Disbelief , put atheism in the same category as religion, saying, “Atheism is itself a delusion,” the ultimate wish-fulfillment. 12 There are real reasons why unbelievers don’t wantGod to exist or at least seek to reduce Him to a blind impersonal force. No God—no accountability. No God—no real morals . “If God is dead,” said Malcolm Muggeridge, “somebody is going to have to take his place,” 13 and that somebody else is usually man himself.
    Think about it: more than 90 percent of the planet believes that God exists. To maintain that those who believe in God are deluded means atheists (or radical skeptics as I call them) believe the majority of the world is under some kind of mass delusion. In order to maintain this position from an objective intellectual standpoint, they would have to dismiss all evidence of God and then explain how everything we see around us arose on its own—by chance.
    The taunt of the skeptic is that those of us who have faith have no real proof for that faith. Skeptics say it’s all based on feelings or delusions or due to our religious upbringings. One of the standard lines from atheists sounds like this: “When I’m asked to prove god doesn’t exist, I ask believers to prove there are no fire-breathing dragons living in the center of the earth.” Some of the other analogies commonly used are the tooth fairy and Richard Dawkins’s personal favorite, the “Flying Spaghetti Monster.” 14 They sit back as if this alone justifies their disbelief, but they are wrong. There are no good reasons to believe in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, the tooth fairy, or fire-breathing dragons in the center of the earth. There are good reasons to believe in God.
    The real question is, how much proof is enough proof to convince you that God is real? Most of the time atheists haven’t thought about what it would actually take to get them to believe. When Dawkins was asked this during a public debate, he said, “That’s a very difficult and interesting question because, I mean,I used to think that if somehow, you know, great big giant, nine-hundred-foot-high Jesus with a voice like Paul Robeson suddenly strode in and said ‘I exist. Here I am,’ but even that, I actually sometimes wonder whether that would . . . ” 15 He doesn’t appear to have given much thought to this trivial answer. In fact, if someone else claimed to see a nine-hundred-foot Jesus, he or she would be ridiculed. The truth is, if your mind is made up about what you don’t believe and won’t believe, then no amount of evidence will convince you. You will dismiss even the most devastating testimony against your position.
    I have been challenged repeatedly on university campuses: “You’re going to have to prove to me that God exists and Christianity is true.” My response? “If I do, will you believe in Him and follow Christ?” When they say no I respond, “Your problem is not a lack of information. If you have all your questions answered and still don’t believe, then your real problem is spiritual , not intellectual.”
    W AR OF THE W ORLDVIEWS
    No one comes to these discussions completely neutral or objective. In other words, reason isn’t always reasonable. Our reason can be compromised by our own selfish motives. People who act corruptly or destructively may think they have reasons that justify their actions. On top of that, they have a way in which they view the world. Their worldview consists of a set of presuppositions that bias reason.
    The theistic worldview centers on God. Theos is the Greek word meaning “god,” therefore a theist believes in God and sees God as the creator and sustainer of life and the world around us.The physical laws, the constants in nature, and the complexity