willow dressel | sherryrossman

Good Morning friends,

We aren’t alone in our crafts, right? There is a huge community of writers/thinkers out there and I want to start hosting some of them on my blog. Today, we’ll begin a series on some of the concepts presented in the movie, God’s Not Dead. Please feel encouraged to comment and share.

Hi everyone,

Let me introduce myself; my name is Willow Dressel and I am a creation scientist, wildlife biologist, author, and friend of Sherry Rossman. How many of you have come across people that want to challenge your faith in Jesus and/or the Bible or the science/history of the Bible? A great example of that can be found in the movie “God’s Not Dead”. If you haven’t already watched the movie I highly recommend it. The movie went over some critical issue Christians face today. It is about a young freshman college student who stood up to his philosophy professor, and really the rest of the class too, to pronounce that God is not dead. The professor is a doubting, angry skeptic and many arguments ensued from the professor that the student had to refute. I will not disclose any more details for the sake of those who haven’t yet viewed the movie.

Sherry and I both have watched the movie (an amazing movie, by the way) and she thought that it would help all of you if we delved into some of the Professor’s–who is an atheist–objections to God a little deeper.

In the case of the movie, the professor started out with scientific objections, but the real cause was moral objections because he had suffered a great deal of pain. What am I speaking about?
A skeptic is someone who doubts/has objections with anything that has to do with the Creator God. Often a skeptic tries to dissuade you from defending the Bible or your faith. There are four basic positions of “attacks” he/she can take; spiritual, moral, scientific, and biblical.

But behind each of these positions is a root idea. Each root idea can be brought into the light when you ask a probing question. Then you will have a good sense of where the skeptic is coming from and what he is really asking…and how you can help them understand the truth.

You have encountered a spiritual skeptic when the topic centers around gods, heaven, meditation, the afterlife, the supernatural, karma, other religions, questioning God, etc. The root idea behind most spiritual objections is: “Good works get you to heaven.” So the Probing Question to ask is: “How good is good enough (to get you to heaven)?” From there you can answer other questions they may have. Keep in mind the root idea and if the person keeps rephrases the question, lead them back to the probing question.

You have encountered a science skeptic when the central topic is evolution, the Big-Bang, mutation, natural selection, ape to man, etc. The Root Idea behind most scientific objections is: “The natural world is all that there is.” So the Probing Question to ask is: “How much faith is required for that belief?” This is one of the attacks the Professor in the movie used. Scientific skeptics are usually highly educated and can ask probing questions themselves. An example is “What scientific basis do we have that indicates an intelligence may have created or caused life to arise.” The answer lies in reason, something the scientific skeptic doesn’t believe can be connected to faith (more about this later). But “complex, meaningful information does not arise by chance, and it cannot be reduced to physical causes. Therefore, it is no blind leap of faith to conclude that living things containing the voluminous code of DNA demand and intelligent cause.” All of our answers lie in information.

Facing the scientific skeptic is one area were we may have to brush up on facts. If the answers don’t come to you right away it’s fine to let them know you will get back to them with an answer.

The moral skeptic has a worldview that has been couched in a very diplomatic (politically correct) sounding yet undermining Root Idea of “People should decide for themselves what is right or wrong.” The probing question then becomes “What is your standard for right and wrong.” The central topics for them are peace, fairness, justice, sex, art, intolerance, good, evil, self-rule, etc.

Finally, there is the biblical skeptic. Almost always some personal issues play a major role in their unbelief. Often people see suffering in the world and think God either no longer cares or never cared to begin with. Because God doesn’t fit their idea of Him, they reject the Bible. The root idea behind the biblical skeptic is; The Bible is man-made (they question the Bible’s relevance, reliability and authority). The Probing Question is: “If God really gave us a book, how would we know it came from Him?”