You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by frayenbow
The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
1.0
How to put it? I'm an occasionally questioning atheist who basically picked this book up because occasionally, I kind of regret I do find religion to be based on wish fulfillment rather than facts, and I was hoping he would offer some actual decent arguments. And I'd heard good things about this one, so what the hey.
But man, this is the worst Christian apologetic I've read since that one where they gave out appropriate Bible quotations to throw at any argument. (Hint for Christians: If they don't agree that the Bible is the word of God, then Bible quotations are not actually automatic win buttons. Isn't viewing Bible quotations as an automatic win button kind of disrespectful, anyway?) I wish Christians would divide their apologetics into "for Christians who want to defend their faith against people who don't actually know anything about Christianity" and "no really we're making an attempt at actually convincing people who don't already believe this time." I mean, I didn't like Mere Christianity, but I will give it this: CS Lewis was actually trying to construct an argument strong enough to convince people who didn't already believe. It didn't work (for me), but he tried, and he was honest about trying, and that is something I respect. Lee Strobel, on the other hand, is blatantly just using the appearance of being a skeptic to give his words added authority. It's the most disingenuous book I've ever read.
And in some respects, I would be fine with that? I've read feel good articles that I liked because they agreed with me and they told me more about topics I wanted to know about and yeah, the fact that I could tell they were biased bothered me, but...reading things that tell you more about the things you already agree with is fun and soothing and I'm not really going to criticize anyone for doing that in moderation. If it stripped out the investigative journalist nonsense, I'd disagree and go [citation needed] at certain claims, but there's plenty of books out there that
But come the fuck on, Lee Strobel in this is as much an investigative journalist as I am a devout Christian. He's presenting the claims of a particular strain of American Christianity. Fine, that's a valid topic for a book. I'd consider reading it, even. But don't lie about what the book actually is.
But man, this is the worst Christian apologetic I've read since that one where they gave out appropriate Bible quotations to throw at any argument. (Hint for Christians: If they don't agree that the Bible is the word of God, then Bible quotations are not actually automatic win buttons. Isn't viewing Bible quotations as an automatic win button kind of disrespectful, anyway?) I wish Christians would divide their apologetics into "for Christians who want to defend their faith against people who don't actually know anything about Christianity" and "no really we're making an attempt at actually convincing people who don't already believe this time." I mean, I didn't like Mere Christianity, but I will give it this: CS Lewis was actually trying to construct an argument strong enough to convince people who didn't already believe. It didn't work (for me), but he tried, and he was honest about trying, and that is something I respect. Lee Strobel, on the other hand, is blatantly just using the appearance of being a skeptic to give his words added authority. It's the most disingenuous book I've ever read.
And in some respects, I would be fine with that? I've read feel good articles that I liked because they agreed with me and they told me more about topics I wanted to know about and yeah, the fact that I could tell they were biased bothered me, but...reading things that tell you more about the things you already agree with is fun and soothing and I'm not really going to criticize anyone for doing that in moderation. If it stripped out the investigative journalist nonsense, I'd disagree and go [citation needed] at certain claims, but there's plenty of books out there that
But come the fuck on, Lee Strobel in this is as much an investigative journalist as I am a devout Christian. He's presenting the claims of a particular strain of American Christianity. Fine, that's a valid topic for a book. I'd consider reading it, even. But don't lie about what the book actually is.