Lee Strobel made me an atheist

Suppose you were brought up believing that the Bible is the literal word of God--that it is literal historical truth and literal scientific truth.

Suppose you later found out that science paints a very different picture of the world than the Bible.

Suppose you later found out that Biblical figures like Moses or Jesus never existed--never walked the earth.

What would you think?

What would you do?

Would you still go on believing in Moses or Jesus (or both) anyway?

Maybe you think such beliefs give you comfort.

Or make you a better person.

Even so, does it make sense to believe in something you know is not true?

Or would you rather base your morality and comfort on something more real?

One day, I was at a friend's house. He had Christian television on. The show featured an interview with evangelist Lee Strobel. Mr. Strobel claimed to be an "ex-atheist." But he didn't talk like any atheists, ex or otherwise, who I've known. And I've had close relationships and friendships with some dozen or so atheists.

So, right off the bat, Strobel sounded fishy. He sounded like a Christian trying to show other Christians who'd never met an actual atheist that atheists can easily be converted to Christianity as long as you keep repeating the word "evidence" to them. He spent the entire interview bragging about how much evidence he had for the existence of Jesus without once opening the kimono and giving a peep at the goods.

"Hum," I thought, "Maybe he's just trying to sell books." So I went to his website--nope, no books on the historicity of Jesus. So I dug and wrangled and found contact information and e-mailed Mr. Strobel's staff to ask what evidence he had for the existence of Jesus. Had they found Quirinius's census? Or records of Herod's massacre of the innocents?

A very nice man wrote back, giving me a reading list of William Lane Craig and other Christian apologists. From these, I inferred the definition of Christian apologetics: "the use of logical fallacies to pretend to prove something for which there is no evidence."

Duh, if they had actual evidence for the existence of Jesus, all they would have to do is present it.

Clearly, Lee Strobel was lying for God.

He lied about having ever been an atheist (if you read the bio on his website, you'll see that he was never an atheist). He lied about having evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

What kind of weak God needs His followers to lie on His behalf?

So, that got me curious. What evidence is there for the existence of Jesus?

I started researching. Had anyone indeed found Quirinius's census? Or contemporary historical records of Herod's horrific slaughter of the innocents or Jesus' execution? What actual pieces of "original Bible" had ever been tracked down and translated? And from which original language(s)?

It turns out that the evidence--by which I do not mean apologetics--is pretty scant.

When you look to the Bible itself for evidence of Godly perfection and consistency--like reading the gospels side by side or even the first two chapters of Genesis side by side--the conflicting timelines and accounts make it impossible for any rational person to accept the book as literal history (not to mention all the miracles, which, oddly enough, don't happen now that we could actually record them). Similarly, when you read what passes for science in the Bible--the flat earth, the hard sky, outer space as water rather than vacuum, bats being birds (they're not--they're mammals), whales being fish (nope--whales are mammals, too), and rabbits chewing the cud (they don't)--it becomes even harder for a rational person to accept the Bible as literal scientific truth. It's not even close. It's not even wrong!

Couldn't a perfect, omnipotent deity take at least some control over the Book He supposedly wrote? If you want people to believe something, why make it impossible to believe? And don't throw me that "free will" canard--my free will would be better served by receiving clear, unambiguous information, not something indistinguishable from ancient fables. If I were Divine Parent, and my beloved children's immortal souls hung in the balance, I would be screaming and pointing to the right door, not playing spiritual hide-and-seek with them. And I would never have started off using reverse psychology about that fruit tree in the garden.

Or is God really that much worse of a person than I am?

(The Bible answers that question clearly: God is cool with slavery, sex trafficking, genocide, sexism, racism, and human sacrifice. I'm not.)

But back to my researches on the historicity of Jesus.

I had never in my life entertained even the foggiest notion that Jesus might never have existed in human form. I had sometimes wondered whether he was truly God or just some charismatic preacher. But the notion that he was pure myth? I was astonished that anyone could even think that.

But, apparently, some people do.

In the first video, Richard Carrier makes a remark that caught me like a slap in the face. I'll paraphrase: the evil and immoral behavior of God in the Bible proves there is no God because, if there were, He would never allow such reprehensible things to be written of Him--He would vaporize such books before they could ever be seen.

Excuse me while I go duct tape my head.