4 Weird Questions That Should Not Make You an Atheist

Drew (Genetically Modified Skeptic) offered his "4 Weird Questions That Might Make You an Atheist" we've heard him out and thought it through and want to explain how these 4 questions shouldn't make you an atheist. In fact, if you work through them carefully you'll see that they actually give us more reason to believe in God.

[gkoymnbxykfb]

1:52 Why did God communicate through literature?
19:48 Shouldn't you worship the cruelest God imaginable? (Pascal's wager)
40:27 Why did God create animals with the ability to feel pain?
1:00:43 Why does God create people who would not choose to follow him and therefore end up in hell?

[hugopalomares]

There’s like a power ranger color scheme here with the backgrounds that I’m really enjoying 👌

[marknagy]

Thank you so much for making this video! I’m a youth pastor and I randomly stumbled across this about an hour before our youth group got together for our weekly Bible study. After we wrapped things up, one student came up to me with the last question you guys answered. He asked it essentially verbatim. We continued our conversation, trying to tackle the doubt he had of “If God, why evil?” for nearly two hours and I was able to draw on every answer you guys gave in this video to respond to every question he had. Please know that the time you took to make this video reached a young person striving to seek truth and I hope that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, he is one step closer.

[samanthajeffers]

Thank you guys for being so respectful towards Drew, even if he is an atheist. It’s so easy to see somebody with a different worldview and attack them as a person. But, you guys handle it with Grace

[eugenechoi]

43:00 regarding pain receptors. I have a disability and can't feel pain or temperature on my left side. I didn't know the pain actually protect us from any harm. The fact that I can't feel if I have a sprained ankle or cut skin, it makes me more anxious. Yes, from my experience, pain helps us to protect ourselves.

[MexicanChocolate]

Can we just admire what mike said “Questions make you an atheist, but answers make you a Christian.”

[whaddoyoumeme]

Thanks for having us on, brotha! Love you, bro!

[emmetthervey]

Thoughts on the last argument (why didn’t God create us in heaven and forego suffering):

I think most people would agree that children are pure, right? They’re innocent, sweet (for the most part), and carefree. Parents (assuming they’re loving) want to protect children from the darker truths of the world, but it is also the parent’s job to teach them. In other words, we want children to grow, and mature.

Now let’s suppose there was a way of stopping children from growing, preserving that innocence. You could think, “Hmm, I could stop my children from experiencing hardship like I do, by keeping them in a state of childlike pureness.” But that seems wrong, right?
Let’s say this could even lead to immortality, by keeping a child from growing, they never have to grow old and die, but they will never understand why. That would still be wrong, because you are not letting the child mature into someone who could make their own decisions.
Most people still want to have children, and to let them mature, even knowing that they could possibly grow up to be bad people and knowing for sure that they will grow old and die. But it still seems right to let them grow.
But that’s just physical/mental growth.

If it’s wrong to stop a child from maturing, to keep them pure, then it would be wrong for God to create, and keep, us pure from the start. This would make us incapable of maturing spiritually.
I think God wants us to be pure, and mature (which isn’t probable if he just made us one-sidedly good from the start). The problem is maturity comes through life experience. Making mistakes and learning from them is how we grow. But mistakes come with consequences, which is sin, suffering, and death. And our sins are paid for by Jesus dying to take those consequences, cleanse us, and give us a chance to be pure again.

Purity without understanding is empty. God wants us to choose him, to be right with him, but also to know and understand why. I see this as loving.

[HP-jzjd]

Looking like blue, yellow, grey, and pink power rangers with the backgrounds! Lol

[stuartofblyth]

"Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, *he has spoken to us through his Son*".

[stephentuck]

It's like Drew is saying in summary "If God was real He would have made His Revelation/His Scripture clearer so as to minimise the suffering (and confusion) that comes with wrong interpretation. But consider the greatest Revelation of God ever, which is the Incarnation of God in the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, being born into our world as a human, as one of us. Even this Revelation wasn't made so clear that people couldn't miss who Jesus was. Also, Jesus taught in Parables where His intention seems to be that only those who are truly seeking after God and after Truth are going to get His meaning.

[thesneekione]

"Questions might make you an atheist, but answers will make you a Christian." That is so poignant. That is an awesome quote. I'm using that, and you can't stop me.

[sethspitzer]

Using a worldly example of the first question: think about how often you say “the book was so much better than the movie.” Literature has always been able to touch people and connect with people much more than any other form of communication. The room for interpretation I think is a beautiful thing because God can use that to speak to you very specifically, especially when re-reading verses you read before and they speak differently to you because you’re going through a different stage in life. Excellent video guys

[beYOUtifulbyjulieta]

Please keep putting videos like this out. I love listening to them, because it helps me not only understand my faith better, but also defend it! Thank you for this!

[Draezeth]

"Questions may make you an atheist, but answers will make you a Christian."

[livewireOrourke]

God doesn't "just communicate to us through literature". He lived physically among us, taught cus, fed us, gave us hope and rest when we needed it. He didn't just drop a book down to us but actually spent time and lived among us.

[jarednel]

Great video, gentlemen! I love seeing Christian brothers working together! 😀

Four awesome gentlemen with one unified purpose - to share the truth of the Gospel. Now if only other Christians and churches could do this wholesale, there would be worldwide revival!!! ⚡🔥

Well done, gentlemen. You give me hope! 💛👑🙂

[johnpriceprice]

When I hear atheist bring up suffering in the world and why God allows it, I always think about how in the grand scheme of things, this life on earth isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to eternity.

[labsquadmedia]

For Q2, there's a useful pragmatic approach: "What sort of Divinity is worth worshipping? " Similar to what Mike says at 32:09.
Assume for a moment (against all logic, but for the sake of the thought experiment), that all known deities exist. Which deitiy/deities have the qualities with the most pragmatic benefit? By setting up a table of opposite characteristics, you can quickly whittle down the playing field.

For example: personal or impersonal? An impersonal divinity (like the "Force" in Star Wars) can't know or be known. If it can't know, it can't evaluate if you've done good (to reward) or evil (to punish). There's no benefit pragmatically to worshipping an impersonal divinity. "Personal" wins so add it to your pool of necessary qualities. Then subtract all impersonal divinities from your "divine candidates" list.

Yahweh is so distinct, that His personal features are a fantastic source for building a list of contrasts. Here are just a few that reduce the "competition very quickly:
1) Transcendent vs Imminent
2) Ultimate vs Created
3) Relational vs. Self-absorbed
4) Benevolent vs. Malicious
5) Immutable vs Changeable
6) Unrivaled vs. Pantheon
7) Self-disclosing vs Silent
8) Loyal vs. Capricious

A fun game: find the fewest characteristics that will reduce the options most quickly.

[janiceekarr]

Just had a thought (maybe this came up in the video and I missed it as I skipped around a bit)... GMS objects to the revelation of God being literature... does he not know that much of the New Testament is letters? We're literally reading someone else's mail. So yeah, it was written down because... it was a letter!