Richard Dawkins has a place on his website called Converts Corner. He states:
Please write in to Converts’ Corner if you have lost your religion (or have been encouraged to come out of the closet) as a result of reading The God Delusion or other Dawkins books.
If you read through the stories it seems there is an underlying common theme. People aren’t actually looking for a reason to believe in God, but for reason not to. If someone is buying a book that seeks to establish and encourage atheism to help convince themselves further, I propose they are already there and are merely strengthening their reasons not to believe. I don’t know that I’ll ever understand the desire to convince someone to not believe in what they don’t believe exists.
If one is truly struggling with their faith as a Christian they should seek counsel ultimately from their pastor(s) not from anti-Christian literature. Now, it may help if that pastor would go over your doubts with you in light of the anti-Christian literature. This gets back to where people really are in their beliefs about God. It’s about loving God not just doing pious activities. If you are loving God then turn to Him.
Let me give an analogy using marriage. If I were struggling with my wife and my claim was that I truly want to be with her I would start with her. I would not seek the company of other women in order to evaluate my marriage. I cannot imagine going to my wife and saying, “Honey, I’ve been struggling with our marriage so I decided to have some private meetings with woman a, b & c. And they’ve convinced me that I should be with them.” This makes no sense in this marriage analogy nor in any relationship. How much less sense does it make in light of our standing with Jesus Christ?
Again, this points to seeking to validate not believing. No matter what answer given to the convinced unbeliever it may not be good enough. It’s not that Christians don’t have answers. It’s that we don’t have the answers they want.
A better starting point for the Christian is the father in Mark 9 who said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”
Mark
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Great analogy!!!