[Khepera]

We can summarize the points of my last post as follows:

1. First, we have discovered that humans have different belief options about God.

   Agnosticism - I do not know if God or gods exist.

   Atheism - I do know, God or gods do not exist.

   Theism - I do know, God or gods do exist.

   Polytheism - Many gods exist.

   Henotheism - The henotheist worships only one of the many gods who exist.

   Monotheism - Only one God exists.

   Pantheism - All things that exist are part of God. Therefore God is impersonal.

   Deism - The one God who exists is personal, yet He is not involved with humanity.

   Personal Theism - The one personal God is intimately involved with humanity.

   Unitarianism - God is only one person.

   Trinitarianism - The one God who exists, is, by nature, a Trinity - three distinct persons within the nature of the one God.

2. The Christian response in defending the faith is known as "apologetics." It has an offensive and defensive aspect to it.
3. Apologetics has the idea of defending the faith that has been once-and-for-all delivered to the saints. There is a body of truth that needs to be proclaimed and defended.
4. Apologetics is not the gospel, but defends and clarifies the biblical gospel.
5. Christians must not merely preach the gospel without offering a reasonable defense when the faith is attacked or questioned.
6. Honest questions deserve honest answers.

   We also discovered that:

7. All religions are not ultimately saying the same thing.
8. Christianity is unique among the world's religions.
9. Jesus demonstrated Himself to be different from any other religious figure.
10. Scripture teaches that truth is absolute, it does matter what you believe.
11. The Bible encourages people to think about these matters - to use their mind.
12. When all the facts are in, the evidence is sufficient to believe in Christ. Therefore, the Christian is not afraid of answering any question the doubter may ask.

[The_Expatriate]

I would take minor exception with your definition of atheism. Rather than "I do know God or gods do not exist," I would say "I do not know if God or gods exist, but in the absence of clear evidence of his/her/their existence, I choose not to believe in such existence." Atheists do not offer proof of God's non-existence (one cannot prove such a negative), but merely reject the hypothesis of a divine being as one not supported by sufficient evidence.

This may seem like quibbling but it really isn't. As an avid fan of Star Trek, let us say (for the sake of argument, of course) that I am firmly convinced in the existence of the planet Vulcan. Though you cannot prove the non-existence of Vulcan, you would naturally doubt its existence because of the absence of concrete evidence, and you certainly would not base your worldview or your actions on the assumption of its existence.

All I can say is, thank God I'm an atheist! :-)