Anonymous asked:
What are your thoughts about Lee Strobel and the credibility of his books? And also about the fact that he claims to be a former atheist? Would it be too much if I asked you to read and critique a few of them (they are about 200-300 pages each)? Honestly, I am tired of my Christian friends claiming that if this atheist can find "overwhelming support" for the validity of Christianity, then all other atheists, including myself, have no excuse.
Though I have seen him speak a few times and I have copies of a few of his popular works I haven’t read them. I plan to read them because of their popularity but as I honestly don’t expect to gain any new insights from reading them. From hearing him summarize his points and browsing through them his works they appear to be nothing but the same regurgitated classic apologetics bolstered only by claiming to have been an atheist, a claim which I tend to take people at their word on. Frankly, I don’t really care whether he’s lying for the cause or was simply convinced by bad arguments as what matters is the arguments he touts are full of errors.
Like anyone arguing for the truth of Christianity one of Strobel’s main arguments is that the New Testament is historically reliable and if we have good reason to believe the tomb was empty then Jesus really was the Son of God. The list of problems with this reasoning is too lengthy to detail here so in brief I’ll just say miracles prove nothing and reports of miracles shouldn’t be believed anyway, anyone claiming the New Testament is reliable is kidding themselves or hasn’t critically examined it, the term ‘Son of God’ didn’t even refer to a literal son of god in Jewish tradition at the time of Jesus and even if all of this was true Christianity would still be false because the proposed god of Christianity is self-refuting in numerous ways.
As for your request I’m swamped with books at the moment, and will be for the next three or four weeks, so I can’t comply anytime soon but as I said I plan to read them just to see the details of his arguments which seem compelling to so many Christians. Still if you have read them or these Christian friends of yours present you with specific claims and you would like to hear my thoughts on a particular argument I’d be happy to respond.
Thanks for the question.
