I guess my problem with evangelists who use the threat of hell as a tool for evangelism has always been that these people cannot be absolutely sure that such an implausible place actually exists let alone that any kind of afterlife is even possible for biological organisms that are related to all other life on the planet. Many times the subject of hell only comes up when a Christian evangelist has seen all their arguments refuted. This last ditch attempt at conversion is predictable and annoying and to me anyway, it seems insincere because I have a hard time believing the Christian really believes what they are saying. Now people like Ray Comfort and Kurt Cameron start right off with the subject of hell in their conversion attempts. Perhaps people who do this are genuinely concerned for other people’s eternal destinies. Always the skeptic I think Ray Comfort and others like him think they’re stacking up rewards for themselves in heaven for saving many lost souls. One particular annoying but still kind of funny approach many Christians use is the question: “What if you’re wrong?” as in if there is a God and a judgment upon death or some future resurrection based on buying into the right religion. I always point out that the Christians are in just as much danger of going to the Muslim hell for rejecting Allah as anyone else is going to the Christian hell for not believing in Jesus. If Christians could only understand why they are willing to risk not following Allah then they would understand why other people do not fear the Christian hell.

Doug,
Before you make the claim that something miraculous happened and prophecies made in the Old Testament were fulfilled in the New Testament you must disprove the more plausible account that the NT writers wrote fictional stories to conform to earlier prophecies. If you ask any rabbi they'll gladly tell you that is indeed what occurred and that these OT prophecies were fulfilled in the OT itself.

I've always been an atheist but I have made a very diligent and honest search into whether such a person as the Jesus of the Gospels ever really existed. I can find no evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed. The thing is, neither can you.

The answer to this question is likely the result of many influences such as...
...inadequate conviction about sharing our faith
...lack of understanding how to share our faith
...being too busy and focused on what we need to do that we don't see what God has called us to do
...no idea as to what it may actually look like
...fear of offense
...uncertainty how to answer questions (why so much pain in the world? how can i know God exists? what about the other religions in the world? etc...)
...no experience!

I have heard it said that the desire to do evangelism is more 'caught' than 'taught'. I can see that as being true. Even though I grew up in a solid bible-believing church, I don't recall there being much emphasis on sharing my faith with others. I would do it on the rarest of occasions for much of my several decades on the planet -- goaded by the Spirit until I opened my mouth -- but I rarely witnessed truth evangelism in action.

I think that not seeing others engaged in the practice lead to it being a much more ominous and awkward encounter than it should be. In recent months, I've seen myself growing in this area because God placed a gentleman in my life who shares His faith whenever possible (following the leading of the Spirit). By going out and observing him (to see it in practice), learning a gameplan (so I didn't get lost on a rabbit trail), and then trying it out myself (school of hard knocks), I learned that sharing your faith requires knowledge and experience -- the experience of actually doing it. We now plan on going out once a month for a couple hours to talk to strangers. This simple action opened my eyes to all other opportunities that God has placed before me.

In Ephesians 2:10, we read "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Yes, a familiar verse, but did you catch the part about "which God prepared beforehand"? It turns out that God has divinely appointed many encounters before we ever get there in our everyday life. Our job is merely to recognize when the Holy Spirit is leading us to a spiritual discussion. Of course, I have spoken for hours with people in the past, feeling pretty good when I was done, only to realize that I never actually shared the Gospel, and this is where the preparation/training comes in.

I spent a small amount of time reviewing the training at http://www.wayofthemaster.com and learned an easy way to share my faith. By easy, I don't mean that I do it perfectly. In fact, it is far from it. Just like a small child struggling with the pedals trying to learn to ride a bike, I found myself making mistakes -- sometimes feeling I did more damage than good.

Before you start accusing me of doing things on my own strength, this was actually a step of faith to try and do something we are all called to do and an opportunity for God's strength to be made perfect in my weakness (see 2 Cor. 12:9). By reflecting on each encounter, I would let the Holy Spirit reveal mistakes I made and to fill me with resolve to do better the next time.

I would have shared my faith more often with others previously, but I often ran into another problem -- not knowing how to answer many of the 'hard' questions that people throw out to challenge the Christian message. I would end up feeling like I didn't know the answer and for a long time was not even sure where to find the answers. In listening to Podcasts from Ravi Zacharias (http://www.rzim.org) and William Lane Craig (http://www.reasonablefaith.org), I learned that there were good answers to the challenges.

Being able to anticipate some of the questions and challenges, and being prepared to answer gave me more confidence in facing friends & colleagues. Coupled with the example that my friend shared, the knowledge of an approach how to do it that focuses on the heart, and trying it out myself utterly changed the way in which I feel and act with respect to sharing my faith. I am certainly no expert, but evaluating encounters where I made mistakes provided opportunity for growth.

If you want to do anything, you need to get past the awkward stage of learning how to get to the place where it feels more natural. Look at the websites mentioned above for ideas, and then find someone who you can go out with. Remember that mistakes are just opportunities for improvement, and God has promised in Isaiah 55:11 that his Word would not return void.

To borrow from a certain well-known T.V. ad... "Just Do It". Prepare, to be sure, but do it. You will be amazed at how God can teach you as long as you have a willing and humble heart. Check out the resources mentioned above and find a friend that will go out with you. You'll be glad you did.

The fact that Jesus actually existed can be easily
established by the reference to Jesus in the writing of
Josephus. Josephus writes that the high priest Ananias took
advantage of the death of Festus to have James, brother of
Jesus who is called the Christ and others stoned. Other
Jewish sources referred to Jesus as a sorcerer.
Boris says: The “golden
paragraph” in the works of Josephus is known to be a
forgery done by church propagandist and liar Eusebius. Early
church fathers like Origen and others wrote that there were
no mentions of Jesus in the works of Josephus. Had there
been they would have gladly used them to argue against
pagans who claimed Christianity was just another mystery
religion, which it was. What Jewish rabbis
would tell you is that the Old Testament promised a coming
Messiah. To say that the Messianic prophecies were already
fulfilled in the Old Testament is to suggest that the
Messiah has already come.

Boris says: I’ll use an analogy I saw
on the Internet once that describes how people are fooled by
the prophecy hoaxers. A traveler sees an archer in the woods
and notices five arrows in five trees each one right dead
center in the middle of a white circle. The traveler
approaches the archer and asks, “How did you ever become
such a great shot? How did you get all those arrows so
perfectly in the middle of those circles?” “Easy,”
said the archer, ‘”First I shot the arrows and then I
painted the circles around them.” Now most of us know this is how the
Bible was written. I think it’s really pathetic that there
are grown people who can be duped so easily by such a
bvious hoax. And there you have it. The entire hoax about
rophecy and with it the Bible debunked in one neat little
package.

All of Lee
> Strobel’s work had been soundly refuted by skeptics and
> critics: I review Lee Strobel's The Case
> for Christ. I conclude that "Strobel did not
> interview any critics of Evangelical apologetics. He
> sometimes refutes at great length objections not made by the
> critics (e.g., the claim that Jesus was mentally insane);
> more often, he doesn't address objections the critics
> do make (e.g., the unreliability of human memory,
> that non-Christian historians do not provide any independent
> confirmation for the deity of Jesus, etc.) Perhaps this will
> be a welcome feature to people who already believe
> Christianity but have no idea why they believe it.
> For those of us who are primarily interested in the
> truth, however, we want to hear both sides of the
> story." The
> Rest of the Story (1999) by Jeffery
> Jay Lowder The intentions test (was the
> intent of the author to write accurately?) Luke states his
> goal was to set down an orderly account, John said that he
> wrote that his readers would believe Jesus is the Christ,
> the Son of God. Matthew and Mark are similar in style
> implying intent. They are all written in a matter of fact
> way without dramatic hyperbole while including seemingly
> inconsequential details. Boris says: Historical narratives do not
> contain word for word dialog between people speaking in
> complete sentences. Only fictive narratives contain dialog.

A person whose birth is announced by angels (I don’t
> believe in angels), has a conversation with Satan when no
> one was around to record it (I don’t believe in Satan),
> casts out demons to cure diseases (I don’t believe in
> demons), works many miracles (I don’t believe in
> supernatural miracles) cannot possibly be a historical
> figure but only a figure in story. The
> ability test (is the author capable of recording events
> accurately?) Accuracy in verifiable details provides
> evidence of accuracy in unverifiable portions. Archaeology
> supports the biblical accounts. Also, the retelling of
> stories in oral tradition often left room for some
> interpretation as long as key facts were shared.
> Boris says: Archaeology does
> not support any biblical accounts. If it did we would never
> hear the end of it from Christian apologists. Almost all
> fiction mentions historical places and people and is placed
> in a historical setting. The fact that the gospels do this
> only proves they are fictions. The character
> test (were the authors trustworthy?) There is nothing that
> leads us to doubt their integrity. Boris says: Are you kidding me? A story
> about dead people coming back to life, climbing out of their
> graves and appearing to many other people definitely leads
> any thinking person to doubt the integrity of whoever told
> that whopper. That story is not true because if it was there
> would be another account of it somewhere. But even the other
> gospel writers either never heard that story or more likely
> did not believe it. The consistency test (is
> the account consistent with other accounts?)It would be less
> plausible if the gospels were too much alike. Small
> differences are expected from the different
> perspectives. Boris says:
> Small differences? When was Jesus crucified? Before or after
> the Passover meals was eaten? The Bible says both.
> I would also like to make a few comments
> about the reliability of the Bible in its current form. The
> proximity between the writing and first known copies is
> shorter for the Bible than any other by far, and there are
> at least 5,000 New Testament copies in the original Greek.
> Boris
> says: Just because the church mass-produced copies of the
> gospels doesn’t make them true. These copies were made
> centuries after the originals disappeared.

Boris email is: bullwinklefred56@yahoo.com

...doesn't make it any less true, but the truth won't be completely revealed until the end at which point it will be too late.

In that day, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess to God and give an account (Romans 14:11-12), and Jesus will reward those believe but will cast out those who reject him (Matt 25:31-46).

It's frustrating isn't it? The very same threats of violence and torture that convinced you to try to believe the unbelievable and become a Bible believer are rejected by everyone else you try to pass them on to. It never fails. Whenever a Bible believer sees all their arguments shot down in flames and then mocked, ridiculed and rejected as the nonsense the truly are the Christian invariably resorts to threats of unimaginable violence for rejecting their foolish claims. Never fails. You people are all alike. Frightened little children and shameless liars. That's what you all are. And you people are the laughingstock of the rest of the world as all Bible believers have always been and always will be.

Boris,

You haven't shot down any arguments. It is natural to require less evidence for those claims that align with your own beliefs and to require much more evidence for claims that contradict that. The only difference is, I am willing to acknowledge the faith necessary for my own truth claims but you insist on refusing to acknowledge the faith necessary for those truth claims you present.

With regards to quoting scripture, Christians quote scripture because (a) they know it to be true, and (b) it holds far power than our own claims (or yours for that matter). We don't really need to defend the Bible. It's like trying to put an armed guard on a caged lion in your home. The lion is quite capable of defending itself if you let it out of the cage.

1 Pet 1:24-25 24 For, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 25 but the word of the Lord stands forever."

No one knows the Bible is true because it isn't. The earth isn't flat and immovable like the Bible claims. So Doug, why do you think the earth is round and obits the sun? Where is your scriptural evidence that the earth moves? Don't avoid this question like you do all the other ones that trap you in your own dogma and nonsense. Answer up Doug.

Boris,

You continue to make wild claims without providing so much as a shred of evidence. You quote Jewish Rabbis who believe Jesus actually lived when it suits you (he is discussed in their Talmud as someone who did wonders) and then turn around and claim their is no evidence. You throw at analogies as proof when analogies prove nothing -- they only explain your outrageous claims. And in the midst of arguing that Jesus didn't fulfill prophecy (using your archer in the woods analogy) which implies he existed, you turn around and argue that Jesus didn't even exist. You are arguing in circles.

You now said that the Bible claims the Earth is flat and immovable. It is well known that the early church misinterpreted scripture to say that, but that was a misinterpretation. Galileo said himself in supporting Copernican science (sun as the center of the solar system) that "He [Copernicus] did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scripture when they were rightly understood". So I ask you, where does it say in the Bible that the earth is flat and immovable when properly interpreted? For more information, go to

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/galileo.html

Most of your claims that you stated such as.... (a) I don’t believe in angels (b) I don’t believe in Satan (c) I don’t believe in demons (d) I don’t believe in supernatural miracles (e) A story about dead people coming back to life, climbing out of their graves and appearing to many other people definitely leads any thinking person to doubt the integrity of whoever told that whopper....are extensions of the fact you don't believe in the existence of God.

You then make the claims that...
(i) The Bible claims the earth is flat and immovable -- I ask you what passage you are referring to?
(ii) Lee Strobel's work was soundly refuted -- I ask you who refuted it since he was quoting world class scientists. Did you find someone who refuted each of them? If so, where?
(iii) The documents supporting the accuracy of the Biblical text is so much more extensive than any other book that you have to use something with far less support to refute it, not to mention that acknowledging that there were many copies is not an attack on their authenticity.
(iv) You ask when was Jesus crucified? Before or after the Passover meals was eaten? The Bible says both. --- I ask you what passages that demonstrate this (when interpreted correctly)?
(v) Archaeology does not support biblical accounts -- I ask you where is your evidence of a discovery that refutes the Bible? There were early claims that were refuted by later archaeology, so it would be helpful if you could provide a source.

Most of the the rest of your arguments are angry condescending mocking remarks that only serve to undermine your point. If you really had confidence in your case, you would state it with the evidence rather than resorting to mockery and name-calling. Can you make an argument on the merits of your case without claiming victory having never offered a shred of proof?

Most of your claims that you stated such as.... (a) I don’t believe in angels (b) I don’t believe in Satan (c) I don’t believe in demons (d) I don’t believe in supernatural miracles (e) A story about dead people coming back to life, climbing out of their graves and appearing to many other people definitely leads any thinking person to doubt the integrity of whoever told that whopper....are extensions of the fact you don't believe in the existence of God.

Boris says: It’s not the idea of a God that is so unbelievable. It’s the angels, Satan, demons, miracles, dead people coming back to life that make the Christian God unbelievable. It’s all the mind-numbing dogma and doctrine that a person has to buy into that makes Christianity such an obvious hoax. Unless one has bought into it.

You then make the claims that...
(i) The Bible claims the earth is flat and immovable -- I ask you what passage you are referring to?

Boris says: “The world also shall be stable that it be not moved” (1 Chronicles 16:30), “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4), “And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath” (Jeremiah 31:37), “And ye strong foundations of the earth” (Micah 6:2). In addition, Psalms twice mentions that the earth has foundations (18:15 and 82:5) and twice mentions that God established the earth so that it cannot be moved (93:1 and 96:10). Furthermore, Psalms also binds the ideas of a foundation and motionlessness: “Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever” (104:5). Isaiah describes how God will, “maketh the earth empty, turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof” (Isaiah 24:1). No matter how the spherical earth is situated, however, part of it will always be “upside-down” relative to another. Daniel also commits the same error recorded by Isaiah. He speaks of his dream about a tree so tall that “the height thereof reached unto heaven and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth” (Daniel 4:11). The book of Job curiously refers to the earth as “long” and having a “strong” sky with the appearance of “glass” (11:9 and 37:18). In the New Testament, Matthew and Luke record a fantastic tale in which the Devil whisks Jesus to an exceedingly tall mountain in order to show him all the kingdoms of the world (4:8 and 4:5, respectively).

(ii) Lee Strobel's work was soundly refuted -- I ask you who refuted it since he was quoting world class scientists. Did you find someone who refuted each of them? If so, where?

Boris says: The Rest of the Story (1999) by Jeffery Jay Lowder - I review Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ. I conclude that "Strobel did not interview any critics of Evangelical apologetics. He sometimes refutes at great length objections not made by the critics (e.g., the claim that Jesus was mentally insane); more often, he doesn't address objections the critics do make (e.g., the unreliability of human memory, that non-Christian historians do not provide any independent confirmation for the deity of Jesus, etc.) Perhaps this will be a welcome feature to people who already believe Christianity but have no idea why they believe it. For those of us who are primarily interested in the truth, however, we want to hear both sides of the story."

The Case Against Faith: A Critical Look at Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith (4th ed., 2006) by Paul Doland - Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith aims to answer the "toughest objections to Christianity" through interviews with well-known Christian apologists. In the introduction, Strobel lists what he calls Christianity's "Big Eight Conundrums"--including many of the questions that I continually asked myself when I was still a Christian. Though Strobel generally does a good job of explaining the objections, the more I contemplated his interviewees' responses, the less satisfying I found those responses to be. This point-by-point critique aims to explain why I found each of these responses to be weak at best or preposterous at worst, and I am consequently forced to conclude that Strobel may have actually produced a case against faith.

(iii) The documents supporting the accuracy of the Biblical text is so much more extensive than any other book that you have to use something with far less support to refute it, not to mention that acknowledging that there were many copies is not an attack on their authenticity.

Boris says: There isn’t anything that could support all the scientific and historical inaccuracies in the Bible. Apologists seize on the fact that there are historical places and people mentioned in the Bible. But just about all fiction is and was placed in a historical setting and mentions some historical people. There exists no extra-biblical evidence for events like the Passover event or the 40 year wandering in the desert, the Conquest or things like the Davidic dynasty or Solomon’s Temple, or people like Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, Solomon or any of the other 40 kings, any of the prophets including John and Jesus.

(iv) You ask when was Jesus crucified? Before or after the Passover meals was eaten? The Bible says both. --- I ask you what passages that demonstrate this (when interpreted correctly)?

Boris says: Mark 14:12; 15:25: Jesus was crucified the day after the Passover meal was eaten
John 19:14, 31 Jesus died the day before the Passover meal was eaten

(v) Archaeology does not support biblical accounts -- I ask you where is your evidence of a discovery that refutes the Bible? There were early claims that were refuted by later archaeology, so it would be helpful if you could provide a source.

Boris says: “Archaeological data have now definitely confirmed that the empire of David and Solomon never existed.” – Biblical Archaeological Review 31, no. 1 (Jan/Feb 2005): 16-17.

The hypothesis of a God who selected out a small desert tribe as his chosen people and communicated the law to them while they wandered the Sinai Desert is falsified by the absence of evidence required by that hypothesis. – Victor Stenger

Most of the the rest of your arguments are angry condescending mocking remarks that only serve to undermine your point. If you really had confidence in your case, you would state it with the evidence rather than resorting to mockery and name-calling. Can you make an argument on the merits of your case without claiming victory having never offered a shred of proof?

Boris says: Can you point out exactly where I’ve made angry condescending mocking remarks, resorted to name calling or claimed victory on this blog? I have plenty of confidence in whatever case I make and always make it with a presentation of evidence. So far all you’ve presented is arguments, argument from design, argument from morality, First Cause argument, this argument, that argument. Arguments are NOT evidence.