Firstly, I am an atheist. I was raised Roman Catholic, and after over 40 years of examining religions, and religious beliefs, I can to my own personal conclusion that god does not exist, especially the god of all organized western religions.

Now, I'm not saying that I know the truth, and that the truth is that god does not exist. I'm saying that, in my mind and throughout my life, I have not seen the evidence I require to believe in god.

I should qualify what I mean by the term "god". Common western beliefs about god that I cannot believe in include the following:

• god is a loving god
• god is a personal god that interacts with humans from time to time
• god answers prayers
• god sends good believers to heaven and evil sinners to hell (for that matter, I don't believe in heaven or hell or angels or demons or the devil)
• god is required for moral guidance
• god wrote the holy bible through humans
• Jesus was the son of god (neither was Buddha or Mohamed)

The universe was created somehow. I don't know how, but the creation was through some mechanism that is unknown to us at this time. Others may choose to call this force "god", but I don't. To me this is a currently unknown force.

Ok, I could go on for pages and pages, but I just wanted to give you some basic background of my beliefs because I will be giving my feedback to the book "The Case For Faith", by Lee Strobel. Mr. Strobel is a firm believer in god and he uses this book to put forth common and compelling arguments to the belief in god and then propose solutions to them, allowing those who may have doubts to become believers.

Now, I will not be dissecting every line and word from the book to show you where he is wrong. Rather, I will try to summarize the main points that he makes in the book and the arguments he uses and discuss how I related to them as an atheist.

Introduction: The Challenge of Faith

In the introduction, Lee tells the story of Charles Templeton, friend to Billy Graham, who was once an evangelist, but had lost his faith. Charles is the author of the book "Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith". Lee Strobel interviewed Templeton, probing him for details of why he lost his faith.

Lee breaks this interview down into what he calls "The Big Eight" arguments for the Christian belief in Jesus and a loving god. He addresses each of these in the chapters of the book. The big eight includes (paraphrased by me)

1. A loving god would not allow the amount of evil we see in the world.
2. Miracles that contradict science cannot be believed
3. The theory of evolution and its evidence directly opposes the view of creation put forth by the bible.
4. If god is pure, how can he allow the slaughter of innocent children as is stated in the Old Testament?
5. If Jesus is the only way to heaven, does that mean the billions of morally good people of other faiths are going to hell?
6. How can god be a loving god if he send so many to hell for not believing in Jesus.
7. If god is good, why has he allowed such corruption in his churches.
8. Can a person with doubts still be a good Christian and go to heaven?

I will start with chapter 1 in the next blog post.