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| The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity | 
 enlarge | Author: Lee Strobel
Publisher: Zondervan
Category: Book
List Price: $14.99
Buy Used: $1.55
You Save: $13.44 (90%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  220 reviews
Sales Rank: 4617
Media: Paperback
Edition: Supersaver
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0310234697
Dewey Decimal Number: 239
EAN: 9780310234692
Publication Date: October 1, 2000
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| Customer Reviews:
 The tough questions January 3, 2009
The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity by Lee Strobel tackles the big eight road blocks of faith. He asks questions like "Why is there so much suffering, why do innocent children die, why is there a hell, is Jesus the only way to heaven," and so on. He struggles with these questions with Christian community leaders and gives the reader a different slant on faith.
There is also a beautiful new book on Jesus and faith entitled "The Enlightenment, What God Told Me After One Million Prayers: A Message for Everyone," by John H. Eagan. I just finished it. It's really great and deals with Jesus' teachings and His Passion. It brought me to tears. I think the readers of Strobel's book will really enjoy The Enlightenment.
A REVIEW FROM LEO P. January 3, 2009
I have been reading "case for faith" for a month now, and I actually thought it is a very good book for me and other atheist. The book is clearly layout into 8 sections and each section discusses one objection which most atheists have. Out of the 8 objections, I am particularly interested in the objection number one of the book. Since my early 20s, I have spent countless hours pondering this very question -- if there is an all knowing, all powerful god, why there will be so much evil, pain and suffering. The title of this chapter is "SINCE EVIL AND SUFFERING EXIST, A LOVING GOD CANNOT". In the interview that addresses this topic, the author basically spells out the logic of the reasons why god allows suffering.
The reason number one is that there is a greater plan that god has for us. Even if there is pain and suffering now, it is a necessary piece of the whole divine plan. Since god's wisdom is infinite, it is impossible for human to understand this plan. In addition, through pain and suffering, there is always something good coming out from the ordeal.
The reason number two is that god created us and in this creation, god has also given us free will. This free will allows us to do both good and evil. When evil happens, it is the person who sins, not god. When evil and suffering happens, god weeps along with us.
The reason number three is that god is never unjust. Although people who committed great atrocity are not punished during their life time, they will be condemned to eternal hell. For the evil people who are living, during the second coming of Christ, they will be judge.
Anyways, the above explanations made me think about one time as I was researching the war crimes that were committed in the history of man, I came across a document that describes the atrocity that the Iraq national guards have done to their prisoners. These secret polices are known to torture people with dripping acid on a victim's skin, gouging out children's eyes in front of their parent, or raping killing women in front of their husbands. There are prisoners that were crucified, nails driven through their hands into the wall, beaten until their death. The torture and interrogations were often performed by trained medical personnel, and the goal was to inflict the maximum level of pain with minimum damage to the victim's body so that the pain and suffering can be prolong. [1]
One story had particularly trapped in my mind for years. It talked about how a guard demanded money from a family couple after the guard had tortured and kill the son of this couple. The remains of the boy were finally given back to the family in a big garbage bag and as the parents were going through the remains of their son, they discovered that their son's teeth, finger and toe nails were all pulled out, possibly one by one. Nose and ears were missing. Eye gouged out. His left foot was burn and melt by a blow torch of some sort. Besides the many-many holes on the boy's body, which was possibly drilled by an electric drill, their son was also castrated.
Sometime at night, I would wonder how many people are being tortured or dying at that very moment in the darkest corner of the world helplessly, as I was sleeping on my queen size mattress in my comfortable home alone. I wonder how many of these victim's death would be unknown to the world, such as people who are missing and in mass graves.
Or I would think about the kind of suffering that people had gone through during the last few thousand years -- generations after generations in terror regimes, documented and undocumented wars. I would think about what kind of plan it can be to justify this level of suffering. Or even as I am writing this letter to you now, I wonder how many people in Palestine are dying or going to die because of the Israel and Palestine conflict in the name of this very god. If the plan is to enlighten human being the horror of wars and the important of peace, it is definitely not working since killings and wars kept repeating itself every century since we have ability to record events. It pains me to know these things have happened in the past, are still happening, and is going to happen again --- and I can't help the situation even if I give every cent I make and do anything I can.
I think if a loving god exists, he would have shown up by now. As I was reading the old testament and comparing it to the documented human history in the last 2 thousand years, I felt it was so ironic that how the old testament describes the interaction and relationship between god and human as daily and almost on a first name bases (e.g. Cain and Abel, The Noahic Covenant, The tower of babel, The Abrahamic Covenant of Circumcision)
As I was reading the New Testament, I felt it was equally ironic that, miracles after miracles, the Jew and the soldiers at the time would still disbelieve the trinity god. Because let alone 2 thousand years ago, if there is a person who fly in the sky, walk on water, revives the death, and claims to be the god, no one will have any doubt, even in a relatively modern society like today.
If the god shows up at this very moment or even 100 years ago, kind of like what happened in the Old Testament, he will be well documented (on video) and that will settle this question once and for all. This will literally wipe out sins, evil, wars and religious conflicts, in Middle East or elsewhere forever. People won't commit murder and atrocity like I have mentioned, because they know there will be justice. All we need is merely one minute of his time, fly down from heaven to the New York time square in broad day light and tell us that 1.) he exists and, 2.) Stop the nonsense.
Although the reasons given in "case for faith" seems to be possible, but in many ways, I really think his explanations cheapen what countless victims have gone through in the past, present and future. There are so many instances that the Yale trained professor describe pain and suffer that man had suffered as "little" comparing to what Christ has suffered. It is like a cop is telling a murder victim that he can help the victim any time he want, but he won't because 1.) there is a bigger plan, 2.) the murder has freewill to commit murder, and 3.) the murder will be punished after he is dead, 4.) but I will weep when he is murdering you.
Three years ago, at the start of my mental transformation, I have determined that the purpose of my life is to be as good of a human being as I possibly can and be as happy as I possibly can. Along with setting my purpose to be that, I have also set a few other goals for myself. One of them is to actively seek god and read the bible from cover to cover. To be honest, I have not even finished the first 5 books of genesis, but the more I studied the bible and other materials (e.g. case of faith, case for Christ), the more my beliefs as an atheist was strengthened.
Base on the human history, one thing that I am sure of, is that we do have "free will", to do good and evil. In that case, to me, an "all knowing god" can not exist. It is because if god already has "a plan" and knows what we are going to do (prophecy), there can not be "free will" and we should not be accountable for what we are doing and what we are going to do.
 Not convinced! (Case for BS...!) December 7, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read this book and I am not at all moved by Lee Strobel's arguments (especially the ridiculous one where he justifies why good would send good people to hell). Strobel hides his fundamentalistic bible thumping Christianity in a so called scholarly way and tries his best to convice the read that the valid objections to the Christian faith can be overcome. He just made a greater skeptic out of me. I gave it 2 stars because at least it was presented in a scholarly manner and it convinces many christians and people who believe Jesus is the way to God. They all gave 5 star reviews.
I am going to sell this book to a Christan bookstore and at least get some money back. It definitely wasn't worth my time. Lee Strobel needs to find a better way to spend his time rather than argue about the objections to Christianity. Why doesn't he volunteer at a local youth group. In closing I do NOT recommend this fallacious book!
Great Introduction to Apologetics December 4, 2008
This book answers 8 of the most important questions about Christianity in a rather small book. These include questions like why does evil exist?, why does hell exist?, why is there evil in church history?, and other similar questions that people bring up when debating religion. For each question, the author interviews a renowned scholar whose speciality is in the particular question that's being asked. So, basically this book is a collection of some of the best ideas from 8 of the best defenders of the Christian faith.
All of the questions had very good responses, but a few of them could have been better. For example, in the chapter about why hell exists only one of several of the mainstream views on hell is presented. And the chapter about evolution was kinda biased, but not too bad. But, other than that the answers were amazing! I have never seen such a good argument about why evil exists. And I never knew about how historically accurate the Bible is until I read this book. In fact, I was so amazed by the answers in the book that I decided to write a 30 page summary of the book while I was reading it to help me remember and more fully understand the content.
Of course, there are many negative reviews about this book on Amazon, but I'm not too surprised because this book has a very wide audience: Christians, other religions, agnostics, atheists, pretty much anyone. This is because many people recommend this book to non-Christians, which is because it covers pretty much all the basic points in Christianity. So, with many atheists reading the book it's natural to have many negative reviews. Also, this book only covers the basics; it doesn't give long answers to all the questions (like some other, larger apologetics books do), so many people will come up counter-arguments. And, the book is in an interview format, so the interviewees might have forgotten a few arguments when being interviewed.
But, the point of this book is not to cover every possible counter-argument to Christianity. It covers many, but not all. If you want more evidence for Christianity then Strobel has many other amazing books, and at the end of each chapter in this book he gives lots of references.
And of course, the main thing to do when reading a book about religion (or any other controversial topic) is to not be biased! If you're biased or have a preconceived position on the topic then no matter how much evidence you are given, chances are that you will not be swayed. It's really too bad how much our emotions or bias get in the way of important issues like religion.
 Deep disappointment November 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I wanted CD's and received cassette tapes. The order placement wasn't clear enough to say I would be receiving cassettes and I felt deceived when the product arrived. It happened on two orders placed at the same time. I followed the steps to do a return but the system didn't recognize me and I couldn't return the tapes to the senders. I don't know how the system didn't recognize me for the return but recognized me to request this review. I'm very frustrated with this experience and don't have the courage at the moment to use Amazon again. If you could take the cassette tapes back and refund my money I would be most appreciative. I've obtained the CD's but feel stuck with the cassettes. Thanks. Ann
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