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10 Answers for Atheists: How to Have an Intelligent Discussion About the Existence of God
With notable nonbelievers such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens featured prominently in the media, it is no surprise that many Christians wonder how best to answer the growing number of atheist arguments they encounter every day. 10 Answers for Atheists is a one-of-a-kind resource from respected Christian apologist Alex McFarland that looks closely at the philosophical assumptions at the root of atheism and agnosticism and exposes the logical, historical and conceptual fallacies that perpetuate unbelief. Readers will find easy to understand charts and clear explanations of key beliefs, as well as trustworthy, biblical answers to the honest questions posed by atheists and agnostics. Every reader, no matter where he or she falls on the spectrum of belief, will hear a call to thoughtful engagement with the historic Christian faith.
- GenresChristianNonfiction
233 pages, Paperback
First published September 12, 2012
24 people are currently reading
180 people want to read
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March 30, 2020
This book lays out a nice view of common questions held by many regarding the validity of the Bible and of God’s existence. Overall I feel like McFarland did a great job at supplying evidence that would convince anyone that God is real.
However, the book’s title, “10 Answers for Atheists” is crammed into one single chapter at the end of the book. McFarland spends a considerable amount of time explaining the different terminology and ideas held by different faith groups and of non-believing groups. I found this helpful and informative, but I wished he could have spent more time on the answers by diving in deeper.
Overall, I would recommend this book as it has some solid methods and ideas on how to have a conversation with someone who believes differently than you do.
However, the book’s title, “10 Answers for Atheists” is crammed into one single chapter at the end of the book. McFarland spends a considerable amount of time explaining the different terminology and ideas held by different faith groups and of non-believing groups. I found this helpful and informative, but I wished he could have spent more time on the answers by diving in deeper.
Overall, I would recommend this book as it has some solid methods and ideas on how to have a conversation with someone who believes differently than you do.
January 23, 2018
Some content was insightful (for instance: the two pages on historical evidence and reliability of the bible/Christ. The examination of other major religions, and the overview of various philosophical positions through history)
But a lot of it was not, the tone was patronising (I kept thinking ‘if I were an atheist reading this genuinely looking for answers..’) and the majority of the book was essentially introductory philosophy. Also, the title is click bait. He only begins giving his ‘10 answers’ in the last 20 pages of the book.
But a lot of it was not, the tone was patronising (I kept thinking ‘if I were an atheist reading this genuinely looking for answers..’) and the majority of the book was essentially introductory philosophy. Also, the title is click bait. He only begins giving his ‘10 answers’ in the last 20 pages of the book.
December 13, 2025
Introduction
(I have posted a longer review (roughly twice the length) over on my website, since Goodreads limits how long a review can be here.)
I am an atheist. I have given this book a one-star rating because of my disappointment at not finding anything of substance. Given that the author has a masters degree in Christian Thought and Apologetics and was director of the Center for Christian Worldview and Apologetics, I thought there would be something that might challenge me.
In this book, the author has provided a loose outline of some reasons why people don’t believe in God, and has provided some responses to those reasons. He also gives a bare overview (a few paragraphs each) of the other major religions and belief systems.
It’s good that the author is trying to get people to think, even if he’s getting them to think things that are a bit silly. He encourages people to be reasonable, friendly, and not angry in their arguments. As he says early on, it is important for Christians to understand atheists in order to respond to them. He also mentions a few (very few) positive things about atheists. If more Christians read this book, debating with them would be more interesting and I wouldn’t have to educate them about their own religion. They would probably even be able to convert some wavering atheists.
The Origins of Life, the Universe, and Everything
Several times throughout the book, he puts forward the Cosmological argument which: “. . . claims that everything that has a beginning has a cause. Since the universe has a beginning, it must have had a cause. The best explanation of the cause is God.” It feels like a waste of my time to even respond to this, and yet somehow some people find it to be convincing. All this argument does is move that “uncaused cause” back one step. If everything needs a cause, then God also would need a cause. So who/what caused God? God’s big brother? And if you say that God did not have a beginning, so therefore did not need a cause, you could just as easily say that the universe did not have a beginning and so did not need a cause.
Alex McFarland’s The Meaning of Life
It is clear that the author believes that God gives life meaning. Many times throughout the book, he claims that because humans feel things instinctively or strongly, those feelings must have come from God, and he says that “Nihilism goes against all of humanity’s natural instincts [. . .] to find meaning.” I think we can agree there. Humans naturally seek meaning, in an ultimately meaningless universe. And just because we have an urge for something doesn’t mean it is truly good or useful for us. For example, the urge to consume sugar has led to many diseases. Humanity’s urges to have a bunch of stuff has led to terrible pollution and the extinction of thousands of species. We have many urges which we evolved for a different time that do not serve us well in all cases.
When talking about empiricism, he says that things like beauty and justice actually exist, even though they can’t be objectively touched and measured. I’m surprised that he thinks beauty exists outside of the human mind. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If there is no beholder, there is no beauty. As for justice, we know that this idea has been created by humans and has varied among societies through the centuries. Even within the same societies there is variance, like in the USA when some people think that a painful death is a just punishment, while others think that the death penalty is the height of injustice. It can be very uncomfortable to accept the idea that justice is not something concrete and objective, so instead some people turn and run in the other direction, saying that their idea of justice is the one, true, objective, transcendent justice.
Continuing on this topic, he quotes 17th century philosopher Pascal who says (paraphrased) that because we have a craving for happiness it means that we were once truly happy, and that the emptiness inside many people can be filled only with God. This is as absurd as saying, “I have a craving for chocolate, therefore I was once truly full of chocolate, and now only the god of Chocolate can satisfy me.” As it happens, I have been truly full of chocolate and feeling near-to-vomiting because of it. Even the God of Chocolate cannot save me. 😩
Later, he comes to the point of it: “Without God or any moral meaning, there’s no purpose to human existence. The result is a deep sense of despair and hopelessness.”
Maybe Mr. McFarland would feel despair or hopelessness without God. I can only say that I don’t feel despair or hopelessness. I feel pretty good. But even if I didn’t, that would not make Christianity a suitable alternative. If the truth causes despair, it is still true. Avoiding the truth for temporary happiness is like telling your child that their dead dog went to join the circus so you don’t have to see them cry.
Evolution or Design?
He gives us the argument from design; the argument that if you think things are designed by God, they must have been. I think the problem here is that you look at things which support your argument of design, but not anything which does not support it. My back hurts all the time. Can’t sit too much, can’t stand too much, can’t lay down too much, can’t walk too much. Our minds are susceptible to all kinds of logical fallacies - it takes a lot of work just to not be stupid. Wisdom teeth grow in and often just have to be taken out by a dentist anyway. We have a whole universe entirely devoid of life except for one tiny speck of a planet. Sometimes you bite the inside of your own mouth. People get depressed just by thinking. Even on the most suitable parts of Earth, we still get easily sunburned by our own star, which then causes cancer. I’m being facetious, but you can surely think of many things about the world and life which don’t seem designed that well.
How about the Müller-Lyer illusion?
Two parallel lines, one of which ends in outward-pointing arrows and the other which ends with inward-pointing arrows, appear to be different in length to human observers. Even when you know the lines are the same length, they look different. Our eyes can’t even reliably tell that two lines are the same length.
Let me also say that evolution does not disprove that there is a God or a Creator. It does go pretty firmly against a Christian God taken in the literal Biblical sense of creating humans in a day, but you can certainly believe in some kind of creator while also believing in evolution (theistic evolution).
Prophecy Schmophecy
He briefly talks about what he considers to be evidence from prophecies in the Bible. I was particularly interested to investigate this. An undeniable prophecy in the Bible is something that would really make me have to reconsider my atheism. So let’s have a look at the three prophecies listed. I assume he has led with the most believable and reliable prophecies.
He says that Daniel 2:37-42 foretold the governments of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, in order. What do the scriptures actually say?
“[. . .]He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. 39 But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40 And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. 41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.”
The writer of Daniel doesn’t mention any government or country by name. No mention of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, or Rome. You can interpret it that way—you could interpret it lots of ways. ‘The kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile’ i.e. like every kingdom that has ever existed. Like most prophecies, it’s vague and can suit your needs. This is not evidence.
Next, we move on to Isaiah 44:28-45:1: “That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;”
At first glance, it does make you feel a little funny. How could Isaiah know the name of king Cyrus from 200 years in the future, unless it was through divine power? But then you remember that you can just look this stuff up, and you find out that there is good reason to suspect that the latter parts of Isaiah were written by a different person. In other words, it’s not a prophecy, somebody just wrote it down after it had already happened.
And finally, he says that Psalm 22 describes crucifixion hundreds of years before it was invented. Let’s see the exact quote he has given: “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”
This does not describe crucifixion. There’s piercing of hands and feet, sure. Dogs surrounded you, evil men encircling you, being able to count your bones, those aren’t essential parts of a crucifixion, and the actual essential part, the tying/nailing to a cross is totally missing.
These so-called prophecies are just nonsense.
Here’s the sort of prophecy that a rational person would accept: “Barrack Obama will be president of the United States of America in 2009 A.D.” That would definitely make me believe in the supernatural and the possibility of prophecy. There is nothing to that level of specificity in the Bible, because it’s not possible.
On a similar theme, the author claims (by referencing Norman Geisler) that the Bible makes “statements that would reveal knowledge about the way things work beyond the knowledge of the day.” (I believe this implies scientific knowledge.) This is not true; there is no advanced knowledge in the Bible.
Black and White
Like the meaning of life, the author believes that morality also comes from God. He claims “We’re all aware of objective moral laws. These objective moral laws are beyond us. The best explanation of their source is a moral lawgiver–God.” We aren’t all aware of objective moral laws. Think back through history, you can find people with very different morals from you. How about the human sacrifices of the Aztec empire? How about the race-based slaveholding society of early 19th century USA? People at the time thought their behavior was perfectly moral, and in the latter case even justified it with their religion. Spiders eat their siblings as soon as they are hatched. That suits spiders. It wouldn’t suit humans, and we would call it immoral. We have found the things that suit us and our societies and called it morality.
The Passion of the Christ
In one of the Objections, he says “. . . atheists need to offer some reasonable explanation for Jesus and what He did.” It pains me to say so, since I admire many things that Jesus taught, but a plausible explanation is that he was mentally ill. There have been dozens and dozens of people that believed they were a special prophet or the Messiah or the Second Coming of Christ or even God, including David Koresh (of the Branch Davidians) and Haile Selassie (former emperor of Ethiopia).
When talking about the resurrection of Christ, he says the evidence is “staggering” and “extensive.” I want to particularly address the post-resurrection appearances of Christ, because here the author says Jesus appeared to 500+ people and cites I Corinthians 15:5-8: “5 . . . and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time . . .” This was written by Paul, that much we can agree on. Paul did not know Jesus. Paul did not see this supposed appearance to 500 people. Paul is only writing down something someone else told him–this is not reliable evidence.
The author says that the resurrection of Christ must have happened, because “Why else would so many men and women be willing to give up their lives? Would they do it for a lie?” People would die for a lie they thought was true. People die for Hinduism. People die for Islam. That doesn’t mean their beliefs are true, it just means they believe it strongly.
Christians are very impressed by the crucifixion and resurrection, and Alex McFarland naturally likes those things too. “Isn’t that remarkable? [. . . ] The loving God of the universe cared so much for us that He came to us, reached out and did the unthinkable through Christ–He died for us.” This is not remarkable. People die for other people all the time (and they really die, they don’t come back three days later.) If I could ‘die’ and then come back after three days, and by doing so save billions of people now and in the future, I would. I think many people would do the same.
Archeology as a Source of Supernatural Truth?
But what about archeological evidence? There are many things which the Bible mentions which we know are true, they are verifiable. For example, the city of Jericho was real, King David was real, the Hittites were real–don’t make me list them all, just know that were dozens and dozens and dozens of real people and places listed in the Bible, which I think we can all agree on. This supports certain parts of the Bible as having been written by real people at a certain historical time, but the author goes even further and says that it’s evidence that everything in the Bible is really true and really trustworthy. The argument he presents is the same as someone saying this: “Richard Dawkins mentions Oxford University which is an undisputably real place, therefore the things he writes about evolution are true.” Joseph Smith really did verifiably live in New York and Ohio and makes reference to those places in his writings, but that doesn’t mean it’s true when he says an angel told him the location of golden plates covered in writing which he translated into the Book of Mormon. To be clear, just because Ezekiel wrote about Jerusalem (which is a real place, you can fact-check this!) doesn’t mean that he really was visited by angels that had wings and four heads (one eagle head, one human head, one cherub head, one lion head) and were covered in eyes from heads to toe.
Conclusion
I will leave you with this quote from the book, without comment:
(I have posted a longer review (roughly twice the length) over on my website, since Goodreads limits how long a review can be here.)
I am an atheist. I have given this book a one-star rating because of my disappointment at not finding anything of substance. Given that the author has a masters degree in Christian Thought and Apologetics and was director of the Center for Christian Worldview and Apologetics, I thought there would be something that might challenge me.
In this book, the author has provided a loose outline of some reasons why people don’t believe in God, and has provided some responses to those reasons. He also gives a bare overview (a few paragraphs each) of the other major religions and belief systems.
It’s good that the author is trying to get people to think, even if he’s getting them to think things that are a bit silly. He encourages people to be reasonable, friendly, and not angry in their arguments. As he says early on, it is important for Christians to understand atheists in order to respond to them. He also mentions a few (very few) positive things about atheists. If more Christians read this book, debating with them would be more interesting and I wouldn’t have to educate them about their own religion. They would probably even be able to convert some wavering atheists.
The Origins of Life, the Universe, and Everything
Several times throughout the book, he puts forward the Cosmological argument which: “. . . claims that everything that has a beginning has a cause. Since the universe has a beginning, it must have had a cause. The best explanation of the cause is God.” It feels like a waste of my time to even respond to this, and yet somehow some people find it to be convincing. All this argument does is move that “uncaused cause” back one step. If everything needs a cause, then God also would need a cause. So who/what caused God? God’s big brother? And if you say that God did not have a beginning, so therefore did not need a cause, you could just as easily say that the universe did not have a beginning and so did not need a cause.
Alex McFarland’s The Meaning of Life
It is clear that the author believes that God gives life meaning. Many times throughout the book, he claims that because humans feel things instinctively or strongly, those feelings must have come from God, and he says that “Nihilism goes against all of humanity’s natural instincts [. . .] to find meaning.” I think we can agree there. Humans naturally seek meaning, in an ultimately meaningless universe. And just because we have an urge for something doesn’t mean it is truly good or useful for us. For example, the urge to consume sugar has led to many diseases. Humanity’s urges to have a bunch of stuff has led to terrible pollution and the extinction of thousands of species. We have many urges which we evolved for a different time that do not serve us well in all cases.
When talking about empiricism, he says that things like beauty and justice actually exist, even though they can’t be objectively touched and measured. I’m surprised that he thinks beauty exists outside of the human mind. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If there is no beholder, there is no beauty. As for justice, we know that this idea has been created by humans and has varied among societies through the centuries. Even within the same societies there is variance, like in the USA when some people think that a painful death is a just punishment, while others think that the death penalty is the height of injustice. It can be very uncomfortable to accept the idea that justice is not something concrete and objective, so instead some people turn and run in the other direction, saying that their idea of justice is the one, true, objective, transcendent justice.
Continuing on this topic, he quotes 17th century philosopher Pascal who says (paraphrased) that because we have a craving for happiness it means that we were once truly happy, and that the emptiness inside many people can be filled only with God. This is as absurd as saying, “I have a craving for chocolate, therefore I was once truly full of chocolate, and now only the god of Chocolate can satisfy me.” As it happens, I have been truly full of chocolate and feeling near-to-vomiting because of it. Even the God of Chocolate cannot save me. 😩
Later, he comes to the point of it: “Without God or any moral meaning, there’s no purpose to human existence. The result is a deep sense of despair and hopelessness.”
Maybe Mr. McFarland would feel despair or hopelessness without God. I can only say that I don’t feel despair or hopelessness. I feel pretty good. But even if I didn’t, that would not make Christianity a suitable alternative. If the truth causes despair, it is still true. Avoiding the truth for temporary happiness is like telling your child that their dead dog went to join the circus so you don’t have to see them cry.
Evolution or Design?
He gives us the argument from design; the argument that if you think things are designed by God, they must have been. I think the problem here is that you look at things which support your argument of design, but not anything which does not support it. My back hurts all the time. Can’t sit too much, can’t stand too much, can’t lay down too much, can’t walk too much. Our minds are susceptible to all kinds of logical fallacies - it takes a lot of work just to not be stupid. Wisdom teeth grow in and often just have to be taken out by a dentist anyway. We have a whole universe entirely devoid of life except for one tiny speck of a planet. Sometimes you bite the inside of your own mouth. People get depressed just by thinking. Even on the most suitable parts of Earth, we still get easily sunburned by our own star, which then causes cancer. I’m being facetious, but you can surely think of many things about the world and life which don’t seem designed that well.
How about the Müller-Lyer illusion?
Two parallel lines, one of which ends in outward-pointing arrows and the other which ends with inward-pointing arrows, appear to be different in length to human observers. Even when you know the lines are the same length, they look different. Our eyes can’t even reliably tell that two lines are the same length.
Let me also say that evolution does not disprove that there is a God or a Creator. It does go pretty firmly against a Christian God taken in the literal Biblical sense of creating humans in a day, but you can certainly believe in some kind of creator while also believing in evolution (theistic evolution).
Prophecy Schmophecy
He briefly talks about what he considers to be evidence from prophecies in the Bible. I was particularly interested to investigate this. An undeniable prophecy in the Bible is something that would really make me have to reconsider my atheism. So let’s have a look at the three prophecies listed. I assume he has led with the most believable and reliable prophecies.
He says that Daniel 2:37-42 foretold the governments of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, in order. What do the scriptures actually say?
“[. . .]He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. 39 But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40 And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. 41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.”
The writer of Daniel doesn’t mention any government or country by name. No mention of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, or Rome. You can interpret it that way—you could interpret it lots of ways. ‘The kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile’ i.e. like every kingdom that has ever existed. Like most prophecies, it’s vague and can suit your needs. This is not evidence.
Next, we move on to Isaiah 44:28-45:1: “That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;”
At first glance, it does make you feel a little funny. How could Isaiah know the name of king Cyrus from 200 years in the future, unless it was through divine power? But then you remember that you can just look this stuff up, and you find out that there is good reason to suspect that the latter parts of Isaiah were written by a different person. In other words, it’s not a prophecy, somebody just wrote it down after it had already happened.
And finally, he says that Psalm 22 describes crucifixion hundreds of years before it was invented. Let’s see the exact quote he has given: “Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”
This does not describe crucifixion. There’s piercing of hands and feet, sure. Dogs surrounded you, evil men encircling you, being able to count your bones, those aren’t essential parts of a crucifixion, and the actual essential part, the tying/nailing to a cross is totally missing.
These so-called prophecies are just nonsense.
Here’s the sort of prophecy that a rational person would accept: “Barrack Obama will be president of the United States of America in 2009 A.D.” That would definitely make me believe in the supernatural and the possibility of prophecy. There is nothing to that level of specificity in the Bible, because it’s not possible.
On a similar theme, the author claims (by referencing Norman Geisler) that the Bible makes “statements that would reveal knowledge about the way things work beyond the knowledge of the day.” (I believe this implies scientific knowledge.) This is not true; there is no advanced knowledge in the Bible.
Black and White
Like the meaning of life, the author believes that morality also comes from God. He claims “We’re all aware of objective moral laws. These objective moral laws are beyond us. The best explanation of their source is a moral lawgiver–God.” We aren’t all aware of objective moral laws. Think back through history, you can find people with very different morals from you. How about the human sacrifices of the Aztec empire? How about the race-based slaveholding society of early 19th century USA? People at the time thought their behavior was perfectly moral, and in the latter case even justified it with their religion. Spiders eat their siblings as soon as they are hatched. That suits spiders. It wouldn’t suit humans, and we would call it immoral. We have found the things that suit us and our societies and called it morality.
The Passion of the Christ
In one of the Objections, he says “. . . atheists need to offer some reasonable explanation for Jesus and what He did.” It pains me to say so, since I admire many things that Jesus taught, but a plausible explanation is that he was mentally ill. There have been dozens and dozens of people that believed they were a special prophet or the Messiah or the Second Coming of Christ or even God, including David Koresh (of the Branch Davidians) and Haile Selassie (former emperor of Ethiopia).
When talking about the resurrection of Christ, he says the evidence is “staggering” and “extensive.” I want to particularly address the post-resurrection appearances of Christ, because here the author says Jesus appeared to 500+ people and cites I Corinthians 15:5-8: “5 . . . and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time . . .” This was written by Paul, that much we can agree on. Paul did not know Jesus. Paul did not see this supposed appearance to 500 people. Paul is only writing down something someone else told him–this is not reliable evidence.
The author says that the resurrection of Christ must have happened, because “Why else would so many men and women be willing to give up their lives? Would they do it for a lie?” People would die for a lie they thought was true. People die for Hinduism. People die for Islam. That doesn’t mean their beliefs are true, it just means they believe it strongly.
Christians are very impressed by the crucifixion and resurrection, and Alex McFarland naturally likes those things too. “Isn’t that remarkable? [. . . ] The loving God of the universe cared so much for us that He came to us, reached out and did the unthinkable through Christ–He died for us.” This is not remarkable. People die for other people all the time (and they really die, they don’t come back three days later.) If I could ‘die’ and then come back after three days, and by doing so save billions of people now and in the future, I would. I think many people would do the same.
Archeology as a Source of Supernatural Truth?
But what about archeological evidence? There are many things which the Bible mentions which we know are true, they are verifiable. For example, the city of Jericho was real, King David was real, the Hittites were real–don’t make me list them all, just know that were dozens and dozens and dozens of real people and places listed in the Bible, which I think we can all agree on. This supports certain parts of the Bible as having been written by real people at a certain historical time, but the author goes even further and says that it’s evidence that everything in the Bible is really true and really trustworthy. The argument he presents is the same as someone saying this: “Richard Dawkins mentions Oxford University which is an undisputably real place, therefore the things he writes about evolution are true.” Joseph Smith really did verifiably live in New York and Ohio and makes reference to those places in his writings, but that doesn’t mean it’s true when he says an angel told him the location of golden plates covered in writing which he translated into the Book of Mormon. To be clear, just because Ezekiel wrote about Jerusalem (which is a real place, you can fact-check this!) doesn’t mean that he really was visited by angels that had wings and four heads (one eagle head, one human head, one cherub head, one lion head) and were covered in eyes from heads to toe.
Conclusion
I will leave you with this quote from the book, without comment:
“Some people come to hold false beliefs, not as a result of an investigation of the evidence, but often for deeper, perhaps psychological reasons.”
June 3, 2024
THE POPULAR AUTHOR CONTINUES HIS APOLOGETICS SERIES
Alex McFarland is director of the Center for Christian Worldview and Apologetics at North Greenville University.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 2012 book, “atheist authors proclaim that religion is harmful, that God does not exist, that the best solution to the world’s problems is to toss away belief in God, and more… Evil and suffering, they add, either proves that God does not exist or makes His existence very unlikely. How can we respond to these and other atheist claims? We can begin by giving good answers to their questions….. We can also add the very fact of the universe itself. Where did everything come from? Why is there something instead of nothing?... If the universe began to exist, as is the scientific consensus, then it must have had a cause. But when we look at explanations for the cause, they all fall short except for the explanation that points to a Creator.” (Pg. 14-15)
He then defines ten types of atheists: 1. The Angry Atheist; 2. The Scientific Atheist; 3. The Injured Atheist; 4. The Resident Contrarian Atheist; 5. The Worldly-Wise Atheist; 6. The Reflective Atheist; 7. The Antinomian Atheist; 8. The Activist Atheist; 9. The Bible -Scholar Atheist; and 10. The Hasty-Generalization Atheist. (Pg. 20-29)
Against Hume’s argument against miracles, he suggests, “[Hume] left out one important factor of this anti-miracles equation: God. If the theistic God exists, as posited by Christianity then it is certainly possible for God to intervene at times in order to cause a miracle. This would not be a violation of natural laws but an intervention or temporary suspension of natural laws by their very Creator. God would not do this every day, as His miracles always serve a greater purpose.” (Pg. 42)
He acknowledges, “atheists, like Christians, are open to interpreting and making sense of reality… atheists on the whole seem to do good in the world. The motto of the American Humanist Association, for instance, is ‘Good without God.’ Typically, atheists aren’t malicious people out to do harm in the world. They want to make a difference in the world, just like many other people want to do.” (Pg. 56)
He points out, “why is it the case that our particular universe is fine-tuned? [Richard] Dawkins has no good answer… More surprisingly, Dawkins ignores other good arguments for God, such as the cosmological argument… Maybe this is one reason why he doesn’t want to debate William Lane Craig… He rejects design arguments, claiming that naturalistic explanations can explain our universe, but he really doesn’t seem to grasp the implications of specified complexity. Interestingly, in the 2008 documentary ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,’ Dawkins admits to host Ben Stein that he favors the view that if we can’t reasonably explain life’s origins on earth, we must turn to intelligent life in outer space that seeded the rise of life on our planet… To what lengths will atheists like Dawkins go to deny the Creator? It’s almost as though these atheists just don’t want to believe, despite good evidence to the contrary.” (Pg. 71)
He admits, “this is not to say that there’s nothing good about agnostics and agnosticism. As I stated earlier, there are some positive points to consider in these belief systems… agnosticism can also assist us in reigning in our intellectual pride---after all, we don’t know everything. Agnosticism also contributes to a healthy sense of discernment. We don’t want to be gullible and swallow every story we come across… Unfortunately… [agnosticism] fails to live up to the standards of a coherent worldview.” (Pg. 82-83)
He observes, “The biggest problem for religious pluralism is the fact that major religions teach many different and conflicting things about God, human beings, salvation, the Bible, and more. Trying to make them all true or make them all equal paths to God is impossible… It’s sort of a nice idea that just can’t handle the facts of reality. God can’t be one, many, personal or impersonal at the same time and in the same way. In short, religious pluralism implodes on its own ideas.” (Pg. 119)
He says of the Problem of Evil, “Doesn’t it make sense for God to stop all evil? Couldn’t He make a world without evil? There are different religious responses to this aspect of the question. One approach argues that in order for God to truly grant His human creatures freedom, the possibility of evil had to come with it. Since most of the evil we see involves people hurting one another, this explanation appears to resolve most pain and suffering involving what is called moral evil. Natural evil, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, could be part of the Fall, which caused all creation to drastically change for the worse.” (Pg. 166)
Of Hell, he says, “First… hell is real… Second, we know that God is holy and just. This means that our sins are an affront to a perfectly holy god. Third, God is not an evil cosmic torturer who enjoys sending people to hell for all eternity. Instead, God respects the choices people make. He won’t force anyone to love Him, so He gives those who reject Him what they want---ultimate separation from Him. Fourth, God has graciously provided us the way to avoid hell through our acceptance of Jesus Christ.” (Pg. 175)
He concludes, “For atheists reading this book, I respectfully urge you to consider the compelling evidence I have presented for Christianity that has been amassed by scholars past and present… The evidence for faith is THERE, and it continues to grow. The questions have substantive answers. Each of us owes it to ourselves, to personally examine the God question. While good information is important… remember that KNOWING God is not the same as merely knowing ABOUT God… It takes more than just intellectual content to enact the life change that all of us need and even crave.” (Pg. 185-186)
This book will be of great interest to those seriously studying Christian Apologetics.
Alex McFarland is director of the Center for Christian Worldview and Apologetics at North Greenville University.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 2012 book, “atheist authors proclaim that religion is harmful, that God does not exist, that the best solution to the world’s problems is to toss away belief in God, and more… Evil and suffering, they add, either proves that God does not exist or makes His existence very unlikely. How can we respond to these and other atheist claims? We can begin by giving good answers to their questions….. We can also add the very fact of the universe itself. Where did everything come from? Why is there something instead of nothing?... If the universe began to exist, as is the scientific consensus, then it must have had a cause. But when we look at explanations for the cause, they all fall short except for the explanation that points to a Creator.” (Pg. 14-15)
He then defines ten types of atheists: 1. The Angry Atheist; 2. The Scientific Atheist; 3. The Injured Atheist; 4. The Resident Contrarian Atheist; 5. The Worldly-Wise Atheist; 6. The Reflective Atheist; 7. The Antinomian Atheist; 8. The Activist Atheist; 9. The Bible -Scholar Atheist; and 10. The Hasty-Generalization Atheist. (Pg. 20-29)
Against Hume’s argument against miracles, he suggests, “[Hume] left out one important factor of this anti-miracles equation: God. If the theistic God exists, as posited by Christianity then it is certainly possible for God to intervene at times in order to cause a miracle. This would not be a violation of natural laws but an intervention or temporary suspension of natural laws by their very Creator. God would not do this every day, as His miracles always serve a greater purpose.” (Pg. 42)
He acknowledges, “atheists, like Christians, are open to interpreting and making sense of reality… atheists on the whole seem to do good in the world. The motto of the American Humanist Association, for instance, is ‘Good without God.’ Typically, atheists aren’t malicious people out to do harm in the world. They want to make a difference in the world, just like many other people want to do.” (Pg. 56)
He points out, “why is it the case that our particular universe is fine-tuned? [Richard] Dawkins has no good answer… More surprisingly, Dawkins ignores other good arguments for God, such as the cosmological argument… Maybe this is one reason why he doesn’t want to debate William Lane Craig… He rejects design arguments, claiming that naturalistic explanations can explain our universe, but he really doesn’t seem to grasp the implications of specified complexity. Interestingly, in the 2008 documentary ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,’ Dawkins admits to host Ben Stein that he favors the view that if we can’t reasonably explain life’s origins on earth, we must turn to intelligent life in outer space that seeded the rise of life on our planet… To what lengths will atheists like Dawkins go to deny the Creator? It’s almost as though these atheists just don’t want to believe, despite good evidence to the contrary.” (Pg. 71)
He admits, “this is not to say that there’s nothing good about agnostics and agnosticism. As I stated earlier, there are some positive points to consider in these belief systems… agnosticism can also assist us in reigning in our intellectual pride---after all, we don’t know everything. Agnosticism also contributes to a healthy sense of discernment. We don’t want to be gullible and swallow every story we come across… Unfortunately… [agnosticism] fails to live up to the standards of a coherent worldview.” (Pg. 82-83)
He observes, “The biggest problem for religious pluralism is the fact that major religions teach many different and conflicting things about God, human beings, salvation, the Bible, and more. Trying to make them all true or make them all equal paths to God is impossible… It’s sort of a nice idea that just can’t handle the facts of reality. God can’t be one, many, personal or impersonal at the same time and in the same way. In short, religious pluralism implodes on its own ideas.” (Pg. 119)
He says of the Problem of Evil, “Doesn’t it make sense for God to stop all evil? Couldn’t He make a world without evil? There are different religious responses to this aspect of the question. One approach argues that in order for God to truly grant His human creatures freedom, the possibility of evil had to come with it. Since most of the evil we see involves people hurting one another, this explanation appears to resolve most pain and suffering involving what is called moral evil. Natural evil, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, could be part of the Fall, which caused all creation to drastically change for the worse.” (Pg. 166)
Of Hell, he says, “First… hell is real… Second, we know that God is holy and just. This means that our sins are an affront to a perfectly holy god. Third, God is not an evil cosmic torturer who enjoys sending people to hell for all eternity. Instead, God respects the choices people make. He won’t force anyone to love Him, so He gives those who reject Him what they want---ultimate separation from Him. Fourth, God has graciously provided us the way to avoid hell through our acceptance of Jesus Christ.” (Pg. 175)
He concludes, “For atheists reading this book, I respectfully urge you to consider the compelling evidence I have presented for Christianity that has been amassed by scholars past and present… The evidence for faith is THERE, and it continues to grow. The questions have substantive answers. Each of us owes it to ourselves, to personally examine the God question. While good information is important… remember that KNOWING God is not the same as merely knowing ABOUT God… It takes more than just intellectual content to enact the life change that all of us need and even crave.” (Pg. 185-186)
This book will be of great interest to those seriously studying Christian Apologetics.
June 8, 2015
This is a good book, but will likely leave you wanting more. It is very much a "pop" book, often quoting more serious works.
There are 10 chapters, but each chapter does not address one of the 10 answer for atheists. Instead, all 10 questions are answered in chapter 9. As you would expect, the answers are brief and very high-level.
If you are new to the faith, have questions about your faith, then this book will likely be a blessing.
If you are new to apologetics and want a good foundation in how to intelligently defend the faith, this book will rock.
Likewise, if you want to discuss apologetics with "Reddit/Tumblr" atheists, this book will be good.
However, if you are an atheist or want to have deep conversations with "real" atheists, then I would suggest you read the more scholarly works of Norman Geisler (often quoted in this book).
There are 10 chapters, but each chapter does not address one of the 10 answer for atheists. Instead, all 10 questions are answered in chapter 9. As you would expect, the answers are brief and very high-level.
If you are new to the faith, have questions about your faith, then this book will likely be a blessing.
If you are new to apologetics and want a good foundation in how to intelligently defend the faith, this book will rock.
Likewise, if you want to discuss apologetics with "Reddit/Tumblr" atheists, this book will be good.
However, if you are an atheist or want to have deep conversations with "real" atheists, then I would suggest you read the more scholarly works of Norman Geisler (often quoted in this book).
September 16, 2023
A great introduction to 10 of the most common issues Atheists (and others) have with the Christian faith and some of the ways to respond. Bit of a slow start but worth a read no matter where you fall on the "God Question". I look forward to exploring more books in this, and general Apologetics, vein.
June 13, 2024
My first read through on apologetics - information overload! Might be a book to re-read in a few months to feel more confident in the answers a Christian can give in defending why they believe in God.
February 10, 2017
McFarland’s “10 Answers…” would be a good “quick reference” or introduction for many of the issues a Christian apologist would face. If you are looking for an in-depth study you would need to look elsewhere.
July 21, 2013
Ok, a lot of solid useful content, but it felt a bit like recycled material from other authors. Could use some more illustrational / situational content. Organization of the content could also have been a bit more thought through, and the title is a bit misguiding as the majority of the book is not the 10 answers.
January 5, 2016
Most important topic of all time!
We all must take a side - believe or not, then live as we believe. The world is getting more evil and it is my fault and others like me who don't study and properly prepare themselves to oppose and help the nonbelievers. God put us here to help others and make our world better. It's time we took our job seriously.
We all must take a side - believe or not, then live as we believe. The world is getting more evil and it is my fault and others like me who don't study and properly prepare themselves to oppose and help the nonbelievers. God put us here to help others and make our world better. It's time we took our job seriously.
November 16, 2015
I found this a good and quick read. This is more of an entry level look into the existence of God and answering atheists arguments. I would highly suggest this book for anyone who is wanting to learn some basics of apologetics. At the end of the book McFarland gives many additional resources for further study.
October 14, 2015
Very interesting but maybe a little falsely advertised. It should be called 'how to witness to the 10 different kinds of atheists'. There is some actual Q and A in two places, but it makes up the minority of the book. I wanted something more meaty.
December 8, 2015
This was a good resource for anyone who may deal with people who do not believe in God. It presented a clear and simple understanding of some of the more common questions and comments made towards Christianity. It also provides some foundation and depth to a Christian's beliefs.
January 3, 2016
This book focuses on arguments made by atheists, agnostics and non-Christian religions against Christianity. Primarily an overview of the subject but does include additional resources for further studies, including apps that can be downloaded. A good introductory book on the subject.
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January 21, 2016This book was a little dry for my taste on a topic that I could find interesting and helpful. Another problem with it was the fonts that you could use to read the book were so small. There were only minimal fonts and they were small fonts which I had difficulty reading with my glasses.
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October 20, 2015Very well constructed and thorough. Logical arguments carefully presented. Good read for anyone interested in apologetics.
May 25, 2024
Simple yet profound
This book is simply written and yet adequately deals with a profound topic. It is practical and thought-provoking. I highly recommend it.
This book is simply written and yet adequately deals with a profound topic. It is practical and thought-provoking. I highly recommend it.
January 19, 2022
I liked how easy and practical this was to understand.
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