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Lee Sobel--The Case for Faith

Objection 1: Since evil and suffering exist, a loving God cannot.

Suffering is God's way of helping us that we don't understand.

Definitely agree.

Objection 2: Since miracles contradict science, they cannot be true.

Miracles are "outside" of science.

Meaninglessly stated.

Objection 3: Evolution explains life, so God isn't needed.

All current theories on the origin of life have holes.

Agreed. Although I disagree with the question to begin with, and "God" is not a theory of life in the same sense as the ones the author pits it against.

Objection 4: God isn't worthy of worship if he kills innocent children.

God has the right to kill anybody he created, and he's saving the children from the possibility of corruption.

Weak question, weak argument.

Objection 5: It's offensive to claim Jesus is the only way to God.

It is the nature of Christianity that it excludes other possiblities, and accepting Jesus is more important than living morally.

He had to say this, but he doesn't do much to explain why.

Objection 6: A loving God would never torture people in hell

Hell is just existence without God, which is what those in Hell choose.

Not everyone agrees with this rather apologist explanation of Hell; at least C. S. Lewis has some guts about it.

Objection 7: Church history is littered with oppression and violence.

The oppressors were not acting in accordance with Christs' teachings.

Too easy. The real question should have been, if Christs' teachings are so easy to distort to such bad causes...? (And even C. S. Lewis can't disagree with this.)

From the introduction:

"I realized that I would need to do more than merely raise random objections in order to cripple Christianity; I would have to come up with a nontheistic scenario that would better accomodate all of the facts..."

"Better accomodate" is such a weak phrasing; I can come up with a dozen theories which don't have any of the holes of modern scientific ones, for the same reason Christianity doesn't; it's not disprovable. Accomodating all the facts isn't the problem, it's finding the best solution to accomodate the facts. The concept of "best" inherently implies change; since the definition is relative, there's always the chance you'll find something better and have a new best. Science counts on it, in fact.

My main complaint is, it is possible for humans to not see the truth. We don't have to declare some concept to be absolutely true right now; we can wait and see how things develop.