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    Answering Skeptics
    Answering Skeptics
    Answering Skeptics
    Ebook166 pages2 hours

    Answering Skeptics

    By Dr. Peter Hammond

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    About this ebook

    What About Hypocrites in the Church? How can a Good God Allow Evil? Why Does God Not Stop All the Suffering? How Do You Know There is a God? Isn’t Religion Just a Crutch for the Weak? But Aren’t All Religions the Same? How Can a Loving God Send Anyone to Hell? What about the Inquisition? These are just some of the subjects Dr. Peter Hammond covers in his new book.

    “We live in an age of skepticism, where there is a revival of the foolishness of atheism. The atheist creates a god from the characteristics he finds unattractive ‘The God of the Bible is a judgmental, homophobic, unloving, wrath-filled, merciless tyrant. If that’s your God of love, I want nothing to do with him!’ But the god he doesn’t believe in doesn’t exist! He is a figment of human imagination. Atheists try to hide from God. But not all skeptics are hardened atheists. Some are prepared to think and listen. It is to these that Peter Hammond writes.”
    From the Introduction by

    Ray Comfort of Way of the Master

    “Answering Skeptics may become another classic by Peter Hammond. A ‘must read’ for Christians. Skeptics, atheists and secular humanists are on the march with a new militancy. There are more godless groups in the world than ever before. Peter Hammond’s book is designed to meet these skeptics head-on.”

    From the Foreword by

    Rev. Erlo Stegen of KwaSizabantu Mission

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDr. Peter Hammond
    Release dateDec 7, 2011
    ISBN9780987016522
    Answering Skeptics
    Author

    Dr. Peter Hammond

    Dr. Peter Hammondpeter@frontline.org.zaP. O. Box 74 Newlands 7725 Cape Town South AfricaTel: 021-689-4480Academic:Baptist Theological College, Cape Town - Christian Missions Diploma (Cum Laude), 27 November 1984 (Baptist Theological College is now: Baptist Theological Seminary)Whitefield Theological Seminary, Lakeland, Florida, USA, Graduate School of Theology - Doctorate of Missiology in the Field of Applied Missions, 16 October 1998Antioch Bible College Institute and Seminary, Cartersville, Georgia, USA – Doctorate of Divinity, 22 May 2004Accomplishments:Founder and Director of Frontline Fellowship since 1982Founder and Director of Africa Christian Action since 1991Founder and Convenor of the Biblical Worldview Summit since 1991Founder and Chairman of Christian Liberty Books since 1995Founder and Convenor of Great Commission Camps and Courses since 1998Founder of Literature4Africa in 2003Founder and Chairman of The Reformation Society since 2005Founder and Chairman of Livingstone Fellowship since 2006Founder and Principal of William Carey Bible Institute since 2007Founder and Principal of the Henry Morton Stanley School of Christian Journalism since 2018.Author of:Answering Skeptics (also translated into Afrikaans)Frontline: Behind Enemy Lines for ChristBiblical Principles For Africa (also translated into Afrikaans and French)Biblical Worldview ManualChaplains HandbookCharacter Assassins - Dealing with Ecclesiastical Tyrants and TerroristsChristian History of Africa ManualChurch History ManualThe Discipleship HandbookDiscipleship Training ManualFaith Under Fire In Sudan (first published in 1996, expanded edition 1998 and third edition 2010)Holocaust In Rwanda (also translated in to French)In the Killing Fields of MozambiqueMake a Difference - A Christian Action Handbook For Southern Africa (co-authored with Miriam Cain and Philip Stott)New Testament Survey - Exploring the Central Messages of Every Book of the BibleOld Testament Survey – Exploring the Central Messages of Every Book of the BiblePower of Prayer HandbookPractical Discipleship (also translated into Afrikaans)Putting Feet To Your FaithReforming Our Families (co-authored with wife, Lenora Hammond)Security and Survival HandbookSketches from South African HistorySlavery, Terrorism and Islam - The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat (three editions)South Africa - Renaissance or Reformation?The Christian at War (also translated into Afrikaans, German and Spanish)The Great Commission Handbook (formally The Great Commission Manual in 9 editions)The Rise of the GayGB and the Pink Inquisition (co-authored with Christine McCafferty and Taryn Lourens)The Ten Commandments –God's Perfect Law of Liberty (also translated into Afrikaans) in two editionsVictorious Christians – Who Changed the World (also translated into Afrikaans)Editor of Frontline Fellowship News since 1982.Editor of Christian Action magazine since 1992.Contributing Editor of JOY! Magazine from 2006-2016Producer of weekly radio program Salt and Light on Radio Tygerberg from 1995-2016Editor of Gospel Defence League since 2016Weekly presenter of Christian Perspective on the News on Radio Cape Pulpit since 2018Initiator and Convenor of the 1995 and 1996 Christian Voice marches to Parliament.Initiator of the Calvin500 movement and conference in Geneva, Switzerland July 2009Initiator and Convenor of the Livingstone200 in 2013Initiator and Convenor of the Reformation500 culminating in Wittenberg, Germany, October 2017Initiator and Convenor of the ZwingliReformation500 culminating in 2019Chairman of Flame Lily Foundation – Cape of Good Hope since 2018.Chairman of the Cape Independence Forum since 2019.Missionary to Mozambique and Angola in the 1980s, to Zambia, Rwanda and Sudan in the 1990s.Initiator of the Boxes with Love and Bibles and Bikes Projects for evangelists. Have conducted over 18,000 meetings, church services, lectures, seminars, workshops, conferences, Bible studies and outreaches across 38 countries since conversion and call to Missions in 1977.Courses completed include: Evangelism Explosion 3, Cross Cultural Communication, Way of the Master, Muslim Evangelism and Child Evangelism. Received missionary training and worked in Scripture Union and Hospital Christian Fellowship.

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      Book preview

      Answering Skeptics - Dr. Peter Hammond

      ANSWERING

      SKEPTICS

      Peter Hammond

      Frontline Fellowship

      Cape Town

      ANSWERING

      SKEPTICS

      Peter Hammond

      Copyright © 2011 by Peter Hammond

      Smashwords Edition

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

      Permission is hereby granted to any church, mission,

      magazine or periodical to reprint, or quote from,

      any chapter of this book on condition that the

      passage is quoted in context, and that due

      acknowledgement of source be given.

      Please also mail a copy of any article to:

      Frontline Fellowship,

      P.O. Box 74, Newlands, 7725

      Cape Town, South Africa

      Scripture quotations are from the

      Holy Bible, New King James Version © used with permission

      Typesetting: Colin and Marion Newman

      Cover Design: Joshua Leach and John Clifford

      P.O. Box 358 Howard Place 7450 Cape Town South Africa

      Tel & Fax: (021) 689-7478

      admin@christianlibertybooks.co.za

      www.christianlibertybooks.co.za

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to

      Erin Georgiou

      the Editor of JOY! Magazine and a good friend.

      Thank you for inspiring these series of articles

      to answer the most frequently asked questions of skeptics.

      May God continue to multiply the tremendous impact of your

      dynamic media ministries for the strengthening and extending

      of God’s Kingdom throughout South Africa and Namibia

      and to the ends of the earth.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Foreword by Rev. Erlo Stegen

      Introduction by Ray Comfort

      Preface: Always Ready to Defend the Faith

      1. What Proof Do You Have that the Bible is the Word of God?

      2. How Can a Good God Allow Evil?

      3. Why Does God Not Stop All the Suffering?

      4. But Aren’t All Religions the Same?

      5. There is No God!

      6. How Do You Know There is a God?

      7. How Can a Loving God Condemn Anyone to Hell?

      8. How Do You Know that Jesus is Alive?

      9. How Can I Know that Jesus is the Messiah?

      10. Jesus on Trial.

      11. Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Really Taught in the Bible?

      12. What Every Christian Needs to Know about the Inquisition.

      13. What About Hypocrites in the Church?

      14. Isn't Religion Just a Crutch for the Weak?

      Bibliography and Recommended Books

      Other Resources Available

      About the Author

      FOREWORD

      by Rev. Erlo Stegen

      Answering Skeptics may become another classic by Peter Hammond. The content of Answering Skeptics seems bound to become a must read for Christians.

      Skeptics, atheists, secular humanists, or whatever name is given to godless philosophies, are on the march with a new militancy.

      Just in this year the following was reported by the secular press: At the World Humanist Congress in Oslo in August, delegates from India, Uganda, Nigeria, Argentina and Brazil — all countries where belief in a supreme deity or deities has a strong hold — reported mounting interest in their philosophy. Like their counterparts in Europe and North America, they argue that morality is based in human nature and does not need a father-figure god to back it up with punishment in an afterlife, in which they do not believe.

      There are more godless groups in the world than ever before, Sonja Eggerickx, a Belgian schools inspector who is president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, told the Congress.

      US delegates, including a serving army major who has just established an organisation for atheists in the military, spoke of a surge of rejection of religion in all its forms among young Americans — a point some recent opinion surveys back up.

      In Manchester in May, British Humanists — one of the world’s oldest such groupings — were told of a sharp rise in humanist birth, marriage and death ceremonies, and strong growth in their association’s four-year-old student wing.

      In Ireland, a country where the influence of the Catholic Church was for decades dominant in all areas of life, including politics and government decision-making, an optimistic national humanist association met in Carlingford in late August.

      In Nigeria, where the openly non-religious face Christian preacher-inspired public opprobrium as immoral reprobates or Satanists and in the Islamic north are treated as apostates, the humanist movement held its Congress in Abuja in September.

      How is that for a taste of militant skepticism? Peter Hammond's book is designed to meet these skeptics head-on.

      May the Lord's blessing be upon this book. I pray that it would inspire Christians to trust more in the Book of books, the Bible. And above all, may our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified.

      Rev. Erlo Stegen

      Director of KwaSizabantu Mission

      INTRODUCTION

      by Ray Comfort

      God bless Peter Hammond for his deep commitment to the cause of the Great Commission. It was the father of science, Sir Isaac Newton, who once said, Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.

      If he was alive today, he may like to revise his last six words. We live in an age of skepticism, where there is a revival of the foolishness of atheism. But he certainly put his finger on the cause of atheism. Normally those guilty of the sin of idolatry pick and choose the attractive characteristics of the nature of God—My God is a God of love and mercy. He would never create hell. And they are right. He would never create Hell because he couldn’t. He doesn’t exist. He’s a figment of their over active imagination—the place of imagery. The nature of the Creator of the Universe, as revealed in Holy Scripture, is not only love and mercy, but also justice and truth, holiness and righteousness.

      The atheist, however, reverses idolatry and creates a god from the characteristics he finds unattractive—The God of the Bible is a judgmental, homophobic, unloving, wrath-filled, merciless tyrant. If that’s your ‘God of love,’ I want nothing to do with him! But the god he doesn’t believe in doesn’t exist! He is also a figment of the human imagination. The atheist is in truth the offspring of Adam, still imitating his first forefather, by trying to hide from God. And the best hiding place he can find is in atheism.

      But not all skeptics are hardened atheists. Some are prepared to think and listen. It is to these ears that Peter Hammond writes - and to the faithful Christian who wants to reach them.

      Ray Comfort

      Way of the Master

      PREFACE

      ALWAYS READY TO DEFEND THE FAITH

      But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. 1 Peter 3:15

      Be Prepared

      The motto of the Scouts is: Be prepared. Similarly, we as Christians must be prepared to answer those who would ask us to explain what we believe, and why we believe.

      We are exhorted to: … contend earnestly for the Faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Jude 3

      The apostle Paul declared that he had been appointed: for the defense of the Gospel.

      Philippians 1:17

      But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And the servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.

      2 Timothy 2:24-26

      Be Not Deceived

      In the book of Revelation we are told that an angel will be sent to cast satan into a bottomless pit where he will be shut up and sealed so that he should deceive the nations no more… Revelation 20:3We are constantly warned throughout Scripture not to be deceived. The Scriptures make clear that satan is deceiving the nations. We are commanded to study to show ourselves approved unto God (2 Timothy 2:15). To contend for the Faith, and to patiently teach and correct those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.

      The Battle for the Mind

      We are involved in a world war of worldviews. The battle for the mind is at the heart of this war. It is a battle for truth. We need to know God’s Word and God’s work so that we can give carefully reasoned answers to those who are challenging the Christian Faith. Some of them are honest skeptics who are genuinely looking for answers. We need to patiently answer them, remembering that we sometimes took many years to come to the convictions that we now hold.

      CHAPTER 1

      WHAT PROOF DO YOU HAVE THAT THE BIBLE

      IS THE WORD OF GOD?

      Some people see Christianity as some kind of intellectual suicide. A blind leap of faith.

      However, Christianity is a reasonable Faith. It is based on incontrovertible, historical facts. Christianity is not a blind leap into the dark. It is an intelligent step into the light. There is nothing virtuous about gullibility. We are not proclaiming faith in faith. It is all too possible to be sincerely wrong. Our faith needs to be in the facts that God has revealed in Scripture and in Creation.

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