God's Not Dead: Evidence for God in an Age of Uncertainty Read Online Free PDF

song for those noble reasons and someone either denied you wrote the song or mistakenly gave credit to someone else for writing it instead of you? Would that bother you?”
    Looking like he knew I was going to make a bigger point, he agreed, “Yes, I would be upset if I didn’t get recognized as the author of the song I wrote.”
    I paused for just a moment. “What if you created a planet?”
    You could see the evidence of the connection between the two thoughts on his face.
    God deserves the recognition for all He has created. Knowing that a Creator exists changes everything in our outlook and worldview. It should inspire us to honor Him more than we would honor any woman or man for any human achievement. It should also cause us to seek Him, to earnestly desire a relationship with Him.
    The reality of God as Creator compels us to investigate the world He created with greater confidence and to understand His nature and character. All the beauty , grandeur, and provision on the planet should produce a gratitude that overwhelms us. This is the spirit of evangelism that sends us out with a message of love, hope, and reconciliation, not hate and division.
    S UMMARY
    When you hear “God is back,” that obviously doesn’t mean He actually went anywhere. Faith in God is back. Not a blind, unreasonable faith, but one that is well grounded in evidence. The grounded evidence is the basis to communicate that faith in a straightforward, clear manner. If nothing else, the writings of the new atheists have succeeded in awakening millions of Christians from their dogmatic slumbers.
    This book is one of the many works that have been inspired by the audacity and arrogance of some of these skeptical writers who have decided to take their personal battle and hatred of religion public. When I was doing my doctoral work at Fuller Theological Seminary , my mentor Dan Shaw would constantly advise me to keep my writing from sounding “preachy.” The goal was to produce a doctoral thesis based on empirical data and research with personal opinions and preachments at a minimum. While I still endeavor to present sound, rational arguments for the existence of God based on the best explanation of the evidence, I also want to offer the encouragement and hope that real faith in God produces. Let’s now turn to the reasons to believe in the existence of God—starting with reason itself.

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REAL FAITH ISN’T BLIND
    Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a commitment based on evidence. . . . It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule.
    —J OHN L ENNOX 1
    Reason is a tool to help us better understand and defend our faith; as Anselm put it, ours is a faith that seeks understanding.
    —W ILLIAM L ANE C RAIG , R EASONABLE F AITH 2
    IT’S SAFE TO SAY THAT THE MOST UNUSUAL CONFERENCE I’ve ever attended was the 2012 Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Australia, promoted as “A Celebration of Reason.” More than 3,500 delegates came to hear speakers such as evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. Very few if any Christians appeared to be in attendance.
    My goal in attending was simply to listen. I thought that ifatheists were gathering from around the world, then something earth-shaking would be said that I would want to hear firsthand—maybe some new discovery in science that demonstrated (in their minds) that God does not exist. Instead of the intellectual onslaught I was bracing for, the opening-night speakers were four professional comedians. Their profanity-laced rants were perhaps an attempt to demonstrate their disdain for any hint of morality that might be lingering from their admitted religious upbringings.
    The next day, rather than offer scientific or philosophical reasons for the nonexistence of God, speaker after speaker railed against religion and continued the tone set by the comedians on opening night. Again, mockery and ridicule