It is reasonable to believe in the Christian god

Your quote initalics, my comments underneath in regular print.“Event X will happen is true”Thisargument is correct. I hold that the conclusion is true, we have nodisagreement. “God Knows event X will happen means X is trueGod gave us free will means event X isnot decided yet.” I bolded a statement which I disagree with. The firststatement under is simply restating your initial argument which I agree with.The bold statement however is simply a false definition of free will. Free willdoesn’t have to do with temporal relations. It has to do with the causal powerinvolved. Let’s assume that event X is an act of a personal agent. I agree that“Event X will happen is true.” However, this raises the question: “WHY doesevent X happen?” I can consistently maintain that the cause of event X is afree choice, one in which it is nothing but the agent’s decision which makes X to be the case and at the same time maintainthat God being outside of time knew that X would take place. Remember, God knowingdoes not mean God making it happen, God not only knows that X will happen, Heknows WHY it will happen. So your bold statement can be rewritten as “God gaveus free will means event X is decided by a rational choice as opposed tophysical necessity or chance.” Then the contradiction disappears. [1] “The Christian god is suppose to be loving and all powerful. This means theChristian God can stop evil and would stop evil. Yet, we do not see this we seethis God constantly allow children to starve and children to be raped.” This is the classical problem of evil stated with statisticsabout particular evils involving the death of children and so forth. Theproblem is this: The argument is certainly powerful and has force, but thatsaid, many philosophers throughout history have remained unconvinced. Thisalone should be EVIDENCE that it is not unreasonable to believe inChristianity, even if you regard it as ultimately false. There are solutionsput forward to the problem however [2]. The main idea is this: Any evil that happens in the world isultimately a result of man being separated from God (result of free choice).This need not be a direct evil act,it has to do more with man in general. In any case, God then has a choice, (1)eradicate the evil or (2) let the evil remain. It is possible however that inchoosing option 2, there is some greatergood that God can bring out of the evil by (not causing) but allowing the evil to remain. There is nological reason that this cannot bethe case. Hence some have abandon the “logical problem of evil” in favor ofother versions. Now, in order for your argument to work, there has to be noreason whatsoever that God could allow 2. This would mean that there inprinciple could not be a greater good which exists on account of the evil inthe world. There are a number of possibilities put forward by theologians forwhat goods God is looking at, but no one reason is necessarily right. The pointis that there is no way to know this is not the case unless we know the mind ofGod, the future, what happens after death, etc. all things which we cannot do.As a result, you may think that it works, but you can’t use it to argue thatthe other side is simply unreasonable. “3. Belief in the Theological Jesus is completely irrational and unreasonable.”“The theological Jesus is a myth. The key events that lead to the Christian goddid not happen. This ranges from the virgin birth, where we find there areinteresting reasons why the story says he was born of a virgin.” One scholar adds his interpretation to one Old Testamentpassage. This is all sketchy for a number of reasons. First of all, its onescholar, there are many others. Second of all, even if he is correct, Scripturescholars have long understood that passages have multiple meanings (so it couldbe both a woman in Isaiah’s time AND Jesus). “Yet, it is reallythe resurrection that is key, to maintain the Christian God…” This entirely misses the point of the Resurrection. If thiskind of thing regularly occurred, then it wouldn’t be a MIRACLE. If the resurrectiondid occur, we shouldn’t expect it to happen regularly OR in accordance withmodern science. The appeal to what we know “based on science” is a smokescreenthat makes it look like faith isunreasonable however is entirely irrelevant. No Christian ever would claim thatthe brain would be functional afterhours…as this is absurd and wouldrender Christ’s resurrection meaningless. The very point is that Christ wasreally dead, there are no records of resurrections, and yes, it would bePHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE were it not for the suspension of the laws of nature.This is why Christians appeal to the resurrection, it provides (if it didoccur) evidence for Divine power. “ The common retortto this is the resurrection is not unlikely with god…” There is no way to calculate the probability of Christrising. If God does not exist, it is absolutely impossible. If God does exist,it is certainly within His power…it is not some very difficult thing, it issomething God can do on the power of His will. There is no data being compiled making a resurrection unlikely,at least the data you reference makes no sense. The data you reference has todo with the likelihood of a resurrection according to the laws of nature, whichI agree, as any Christian would, is impossible. The point is that it issupposedly a miracle hence that dataonly reinforces the claim that if a resurrection happened, it was onaccount of Divine Power. “ As PhilosopherMatthew McCormick points out in his book” Simply because one philosopher says something, doesn’t meanmuch. Philosopher William Lane Craig argues in a popular article on the Resurrection[3]: “Even Gert L¸demann, the leading German criticof the resurrection, himself admits, “It may be taken as historically certainthat Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesusappeared to them as the risen Christ.” So this serves toshow that philosophers often disagree. Philosophers are reasonable people andhave different interpretations of events. Others have argued for thisconclusion as well [4]. As the link pointsout, there are actually good reasons to believe in the resurrection purelybecause of its historical consequences, not simply because of Gospel testimony. “4. The Lack of Evidence for God isEvidence of absence.” Prayer studies are notorious for having built in problems.There are hidden variables, for instance, the sincerity of prayers beingoffered and the prayers being offered by people not in the specified group. Howdo you ensure that someone is not prayed for? This is impossible. In any case,according to a Christian, prayer is to be offered like Christ did “let it beyour will not mine.” So Christians admit that the primary purpose of prayer isunion with God, not the specific blessing which God may or may not chose togive. 1http://www.carroll.edu...(just an example) 2 http://www.catholic.com... 3 http://www.reasonablefaith.org... 4 http://www.philvaz.com...for a list of articles