The first thing an anti-God, anti-Christ activist must do to unsettle a shallow-rooted Christian is to establish the rules of engagement.
Among these is to get the correspondent to accept the presupposition that God is a hypothesis, i.e. he constructs a strawman "god" to debunk. More importantly, by doing this he puts the shallow-rooted Christian in his own shoes, he gets him to see things through an atheist/agnostic lens.
From that observer perspective he can amplify any doubts that linger in the mind of a shallow-rooted Christian.
Another rule of engagement is the language itself, what the words shall mean and what words are to be allowed.
Chief among these words are the Names of God, e.g. I AM, for the hypothetical strawman "god" must not be personified in any sense. He must reduce the "Who is God" to a "What is 'god'."
And among the terms he must control are reality and objective truth. Both must be discernible by naturalist means, i.e. sensory perception and reasoning. If it cannot be discerned that way, under his rules of engagement, it goes into the "only knuckle-draggers swallow this" side of the table.
He demands that all words in the debate be universal in significance, meaning and usage. Anyone - whether atheist/agnostic or Christian - must receive the same words the same way, i.e. no difference between the words of a hypothetical "god" and the words of men and no difference between Christian and agnostic/atheist.
Anything that cannot be proven by empirical test or observation or logic is sorted to the knuckle-draggers side of the table. And of course spiritual discernment is not allowed at all.
By doing this, he makes his strawman "god" into a hypothetical man. He anthropomorphizes God into a small "god" a mortal can comprehend.
But naturalist means will not do.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
Where [is] the wise? where [is] the scribe? where [is] the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. - I Corinthians 1:18-25
Doubting Thomas was an Apostle, too.
But I will not play by the anti-Christ's rules of engagement because God is not a hypothesis. He lives. His Name is I AM. I've known Him for a half century and counting.
Excellent post, Sister Alamo.
There have been those skeptical of the Christian message from the beginning, but in these latter days, they have refined their rejection into sneers. I read recently about some sports announcers who run big-name sports talk programs. The writer had had a chance to sit in on one of their studio sessions in which they fielded questions over the phone. He was amazed he said that these announcers joked off mike about the stupidity of each and every caller. None were as smart as them. It was worse than that. All were cretins by their approach. The same with modern skeptics. Behind the scenes they don't just reject our message. The sneer at our God and at His Son. They hate us for our acceptance of this you write about, our "foolishness". Yet they engage us in debate realizing not that it is the Spirit of Christ giving them one more telling of the Gospel that His sacrifice, burial, and resurrection prove God has offered them the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ His Son. One more telling and once more. For some of them "almost but lost." For others He opens their hearts and they are saved.
Paranoia will destroya...as they say. There is no strategy and no anti-Christ (except in some people's convoluted minds). It's just that some rational people will not sit idly and let others portay their fantastic stories, supsertitions, fanatsies, hallucinations, and what not as "facts"without a challenge to prove them as facts.
They just call their bluff.
To postulate God as an hypothesis is the first critical mistake the anti-Christ activist makes. (Though from his point of view, it is necessary.) The "shallow-rooted Christian" would probably not notice the activist is postulating God as if He were just another phenomenon of nature, just another entity in space and time, thus fully accessible to human observation, reason, and judgment in the first place.
Yet God is not subject to human reason. God created human reason. He also created space and time and matter. The master is not slave to that which he created. The categorical difference between the divine and the human is absolutely unbridgeable. All of human reason cannot bridge it.
Dearest sister in Christ, certainly you have aptly described the mentality of the anti-Christ position, and the techniques it uses to prevail in human discourse. But these "rules of engagement" are entirely false from the get-go. And I imagine that the person using such techniques is above all false to himself. That is, he does not grasp the essential point that he was made by God, in God's image.... And received the great divine gifts of reason and free will from God alone — which he then turns against his sublime benefactor....
So much of gratitude there!
I don't "hate" such people. I just find they aren't worth listening to. Beyond that, I pray God to fix whatever problem they have in their souls.... For the problem seems to be emanating from a soul that has lost its mooring in divine truth. For whatever reason.
JMHO FWIW
Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your penetrating and astute observations!