Genetically Modified Skeptic is Wrong About Religious Experience

response to genetically modified skeptic on religious experience

Here’s my unpopular opinion: I actually like the argument from religious experience. As part of a cumulative case for God’s existence, I think it works. Spiritual experience is one of those things that should make people curious, at minimum. However, not everyone is a fan. This includes a lot of Christians, who find it too problematic. There are two common objections that critics raise against this argument that I want to dig into in this post. To help me state these objections, I’m going to refer to a video made by prolific atheist YouTuber Drew McCoy, AKA Genetically Modified Skeptic. In less than 2 years, Drew’s channel has gained over 173K subscribers and over 13 … Read more

Do arguments for the existence of God fail because they don’t give us a full picture of God?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had this experience: You’ve learned a thing or two about the cosmological argument or the design argument. You eagerly share it with a friend of yours who doesn’t believe in God, and they accept all the premises. But they aren’t moved. They’ll reply with something like: “Even if these arguments work, they don’t prove enough. They show there was a first cause of the universe or a designer, but that is a far cry from the God of traditional theism.” Or they might say “well, that doesn’t prove that the first cause or designer was Jesus or Yahweh. Try harder.” How do you respond to that? This reply is at least as … Read more

7 Reasons Why Belief in God Isn’t “Wish Fulfillment”

“You’re only a Christian because you’re afraid of death!” “You only believe in God because you need a magical sky daddy figure to make you feel better about yourself!” Have you ever heard accusations like these before? If you’ve been on the internet for very long, then I’m sure you have. Skeptics often accuse believers of wishful thinking. For example, here’s the late Christopher Hitchens: “Freud made the obvious point that religion suffered from one incurable deficiency: it was too clearly derived from our own desire to escape from or survive death. The critique of wish-thinking is strong and unanswerable.” To give you a better idea of what Hitchens is referring to here’s the father … Read more

Answering Ehrman: Why We Won’t Lose or Abuse Free Will in Heaven

The problem of evil comes up a lot when talking to non-believers. If you haven’t got the question about why an all-good, all-powerful God allows evil, you need to step out more. Why are there suicide bombers, school shooters and people that eat Tide Pods? Why does God allow such pointless evils? The standard Christian rejoinder is that God gave man free will. He doesn’t want Stepford Wives, he wants people who can make free choices. Free will makes love possible, but it also makes evil possible as well. Now that’s not a bad response to the problem of moral evil. There’s a problem, though. Christians are also committed to the idea that the saints … Read more

3 intelligent former atheists who became Christians because of the Moral Argument

There’s a dizzying array of arguments for the existence of God. For a newbie looking to get into apologetics, it can be intimidating trying to figure out where to start. You have the cosmological argument, but it helps if you know something about cosmology, physics, and even math. There’s the argument from the origin of life, but now you’re talking about chemistry, DNA, information theory and it can feel overwhelming. There’s the ontological argument, but that requires understanding modal logic and let’s be real here, has anyone in the history of the universe come to faith because of the ontological argument? Sorry, St. Anselm. If you’re looking either for ammo to argue against naturalistic atheism … Read more

The argument from religious experience: Don’t discount the apologetic value of sharing your “God-encounter”

The Bible is full of people who have had experiences of God. Abraham heard a voice that told him his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. (Genesis 12:1-3) Moses heard God’s voice from a burning bush. (Exodus 3:3-14) Isaiah and Ezekiel both had visions of God. (Isaiah 6:1-8, Ezekiel 8:1-3) Jesus had the Spirit of God descend on him like a dove and heard “you are my beloved Son, with whom I’m well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17) The 120 early Christians experienced the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4) And Paul had a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. (Acts 9:3-6) Not only that, Christians throughout the centuries have testified about these … Read more

No, the Question “who Made God?” is Not a Knock-down Refutation to the Cosmological Argument

One of the most astonishing facts that scientists have discovered over the last 100 years is that all physical reality began to exist in the finite past. Before big bang cosmology, scientists thought that the universe existed eternally. While there are still a few Christians who get a little squeamish about the Big Bang theory, I like to tell them that the Big Bang is your friend, not an enemy. Far from disproving the existence of God, the theory shows that all space, time and matter began to exist. If that’s the case, then the required cause of space, time and matter can’t depend on space, time and matter. Let that sink in a little. … Read more

If believing in Jesus is such a huge deal, why doesn’t he do whatever it takes to show himself to me?

Back in New Testament times, Jesus supposedly worked miracles. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. He has even resurrected himself. He said he did these things so we might believe. (John 14:10-11) Shouldn’t he do the same for me if it’s so important that I’m persuaded? Have you ever heard questions like these? Philosophers and theologians have a fancy term for this. It’s called the problem of divine hiddenness. The problem goes something like this: If there’s a God, he knows everything. He has all power. And he is all good – meaning he loves everyone. If that’s true, he’d know what it would take to convince me. He’d have the power to … Read more

The Christian and the Euthyphro Dilemma

One of the arguments raised against God being the basis for morality is the age-old Euthyphro Dilemma. Socrates, in Plato’s dialogue, asks Euthyphro: “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” The modern adaptation raised against theism goes something like this: “Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God?” The Catch-22 for the theist is this: God could command any arbitrary thing that popped into his head – like killing kittens – and we’d be obligated to obey and call it good because God says … Read more

Is Jesus Alive?