The Need for a New Apologetic that Responds to the Relativism
I began to engage in Internet apologetics back in the early 1990s and continued to engage skeptics multiple times weekly until the late 2000s. If you are like me, you may remember those days: it was the time of the rise of the New Atheism led by Dennett, Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins (two of whom have now died). Its proponents used harsh rhetoric against Christianity. These New Atheists believed that theism generally and Christian belief in particular deserved mockery. They argued that it was irrational for someone believe in the “big sky daddy,” and they somehow thought that the counter-example of the “flying spaghetti monster” somehow made Christian belief foolish. (Hint, it didn’t.) It was difficult and required both study and imagination to respond. But respond Christian did, and as we responded, it seemed to make no difference. Those who were adamant New Atheists clung to their non-belief. (Of course, they would say that those of us arguing for Christianity were the ones who clun...