His latest radio show is awesome as usual. We need to get used to talking to atheists, and this will help you because he’s taking calls on that question – “if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?”.

The MP3 file is here. (54 minutes, not ad-free – skip ahead 3 minutes at breaks)

Topics from opening monologue and then callers:

• if Christianity were true, would atheists necessarily become Christians?
• does God force people to believe in him against their will?
• how important is evidence to persuading someone?
• what are some reasons to believe that God exists?
• what are some reasons to accept the resurrection of Jesus?
• what does the Bible mean by the word “faith”?
• what should you do with someone who needs reasons to believe?
• what should you do with someone who wouldn’t believe even with reasons?
• what about Christians who think the Earth is only thousands of years old?
• was their death and suffering before the Fall?
• what about evolution? haven’t we been able to observe evolution in action?
• what about the origin of life – the origin of biological information?
• what about the fossil record – especially the hominid fossil record?
• what about theistic evolution?

This is a great podcast, especially for beginners.

Frank Turek is a former naval aviator. He flew military aircraft. If you’ve seen the movie Top Gun, he’s Maverick. And he’s talking to you about apologetics, with all the benefit of his experience debating and conducting open forums on college campuses. Fun, fun, fun! (And not the bad kind of fun that Mary likes) Sometimes I wonder why I have to sit at a keyboard all day and slave over a hot computer*, when I would much rather be doing what Frank Turek is doing. Oh well. At least I get to listen and tell you about it, too.

By the way, the right answer to his question for an atheist is “yes, but where is the evidence?”. That’s what atheists should say in response to the question, and then they should listen to the evidence. Also, they should have reasons for believing that there is no God, or they are just exercising blind faith. And if they ask you, “would believe there were no God if atheism were true?” then you have to answer yes, because if atheism is true then you are rationally obligated to believe it. But then, they have to have evidence before you actually have to believe it! Being open to being proved wrong means a lot to people who don’t agree with you. For example, I used to be a young-earther and I changed my mind.

By the way – that question he’s asking? – “if Christianity were true, would you become a follower of Jesus?” – he stole that from my 13-question quiz for atheists. But I won’t be bitter if you go to this page, print out my 13 questions, find an atheist of your very own, and ask them the questions yourself. Don’t let them know why you are asking or what the right answers are. Just ask your atheist the questions and then report back to me here.

Frank’s web site is called Cross Examined.

* I stole this from Brian Auten.