Reddit reviews The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

"The Reason for God" Tim Keller.

I'm going to highly (with emphasis) recommend "The Reason for God" by Tim Keller.
It's worth buying it. There are some ideas that you will want to re-read. He has spent years as a pastor of a church in New York city answering some of the core reasonable questions that the skeptics ask. Even if you don't become a believer, I think this will provide you some ways of viewing the questions you are asking, and it will probably provide a few questions for Christianity that you haven't thought about yet and then provide a reasonable argument.
Would love to hear your thoughts on the book while you're going through it.

As far as 'Christianity's views on atheists' views,' I would recommend a book called The Reason for God. This book isn't super deep, so if you want intense logical argument it may not be the best, but it is super clear in discussing a lot of objections people have against theism and the Christian God.

For a website discussing history, ideas, beliefs, etc, one good resource I can think of off the top of my head is Monergism

Honestly, the best book that I've seen is The Reason for God

Also, The Case for Christ is really good.

Not trying to convert you. But I've been reading this book to research christianity and get past some of the inflated and possibly incorrect bs bout it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0525950494 it basic analyzes the bible like we're back in English class. It describes things in a logic and open minded way and is a good read, whether or not you believe it in the end.

If you're interested in his books, I recently finished reading Prodigal God and have a copy of Reason for God sitting atop my "todo pile" at home.

Prodigal God was a short read, but it was just enough to expound upon the familiar parable with a new insight. The crux of his argument was that "prodigal" is a more fitting description for God's own love for us (and the father in the story) rather than the lost son that we all associate with the word. He seems to have a knack for presenting fresh perspectives on things.

If you get a chance, I'd recommend either, although Reason for God is going to be the more substantial of the two.

Perhaps the "Big Questions" Series from this church is kind of what you're looking for?

This isn't an audio sermon, but it's a decent book I'm just about finished reading through.

Mere Christianity is available in audio for free.

You are doing great. This is a great book that addresses much of the "new atheist" evangelism. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller

>the name of the messiah prophesised was not Jesus.

Correct, I don't believe there was a name attached to prophesy, I didn't claim that they were waiting around for a guy named Jesus. Sorry if I came across that way.

>study != divinity

Not directly no, but it's a portion of it.

>is he god?

No. As far as I know, the people of North Korea do not have a prophesy list that Kim Jong Il fulfilled.

>How?

First, I don't know about the brainwashing abilities of the people in the first century. I would guess that if there were any of them, they weren't that developed, and the effects of it would most likely fall away without constant application.

There's a book that does a much better job of explaining these things than I do. it's called The Reason for God. It's a relatively short read. I'll even buy it for you if you can't get it from a library or another place.

No, those are good questions and not naive at all in my opinion. In fact, im still working through the implications of theistic evolution and the variety therewithin (non-athiestic evolution ideas mostly). Here is an article by a pastor named Tim Keller that discusses most of the questions you asked. Don't know if you've heard of him or not, but he's a fairly popular teaching pastor in the evangelical world from New York area, as well as the author of A Reason for God, which i own, but havent read yet. Anyways, that first link is an article he posted in response to people wondering how he can believe in God and evolutions. In a word, he claims that there is a literal Adam and Eve (brought up through evolution), but original sin didnt necessarily come through them (he breaks it down further). He also gives ulterior models for a thiestic bases evolution.

Like i said, im still working through what he talks about, as well responses to his articles by other Christians, so i dont have a clearly defined side on this issue, but its something that i like to think about.

There's lots, on all different levels. So it depends what you're looking for and what questions are important to you. You might consider:

• Reason for God by Timothy Keller - from Amazon.
  
  If you want to understand the philosophical arguments for God you could try:
  
  
• Reasonable faith or the book with the same name, which sets out some pretty standard arguments.
  
  
• Stand to Reason
  
  
• Unbelievable is a podcast where it's pretty evenly debated.
  
  Specifically on Jesus, you might try,
  
  
• The case for the resurrection of Jesus
  
  
• The resurrection of the Son of God
  
  And one last one which I haven't read, but I hear is good
  
  
• Jesus and the Eyewitnesses
  
  But honestly, simply reading the Bible, praying and earnestly seeking is the best start.

Things that might make you wonder (not saying they would make you sure):

1. Physical constants, such as the strong and weak gravitational constants, gravity, etc. are all within a narrow range which allow life to exist.
   
2. Humans seem to possess an innate sense of right and wrong, which leads one to think people were given a moral compass.
   
3. The existence of the world and its highly complex and well working systems casts doubt on the idea of its creation coming about purely through chance, just as one would not look at a skyscraper and think, "ah, certain materials bonded together through chance and formed this impressive structure--it would be silly to think it was created through design."
   
4. More specific to Christianity: the Old Testament, which was scrupulously copied by Jewish scribes throughout history and written 400 years or more before the life of Jesus, contains literally hundreds of prophesies, many highly specific ones, about his life. A peer-reviewed study by a statistician found that the probably of even sixteen such specific prophesies being fulfilled in the life of one man by chance was equivalent to filling the state of Texas two feet deep with quarters, then picking one marked quarter by chance out of the bunch. I might print off a list of them some time for fun and see how they strike you.
   
   Your cavalier dismissal of a proposition that you have no conclusive evidence to refute seems unchallenged by your own introspection (that is, the proposition that it is possible that God exists). I humbly suggest that, if you read the above points and have dismissed them all already without any more thought, your denial of God is as much a faith position (or more) than many who do believe in God.
   
   Should you be interested in a scholar who presents these arguments more completely than I, I would suggest The Reason for God by Tim Keller.

I would add this.