About a month and a half ago where I live⎯in a borough of New York City⎯we were overrun by snow. As a result, the urgent care where I was working was very slow, and during my shift, several of my coworkers began having a conversation about God, religion, and what happens after we die. I wasn’t directly part of the conversation, but I was able to hear bits and pieces. Now, in today’s post, I am going to respond to some of their speculations and objections to religion.
My goal here isn’t primarily to give a defense of Christianity. Yet, it must be said that one of my core missions in WCSK is to promote biblical literacy and to defend the sufficiency of Scripture. Thus, while not primarily aiming to defend biblical Christianity, I do hope to equip you with the means to expose the fraudulent thinking that many in the secular world claim is reasonable. You see, it’s one thing to tell someone, “You should move.” There is no sense of urgency. It’s another thing entirely when you reveal to them that the place they are already living in is built on a faulty foundation and at any moment may fall, crushing them, their loved ones, and all their valuables. That nudges them toward a heightened sense of urgency. Put simply, it is much easier to persuade someone about biblical Christianity’s truth claims when they first see the cracks in their own ideology’s foundation.
The final point I will make in the introduction is that I would never respond to a religious skeptic by saying, “Religion in general is preferable to either unbelief or religious skepticism.” The sad reality is that most of global religion is complete and total nonsense. Consequently, many of the objections skeptics raise are valid because they are raised against nonsense. Only biblical Christianity provides hope because it points us to the Son of God; it preaches the indisputable fact that Christ alone is the way to salvation. As Christ says in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
And thus, with that in mind, we now move on to answering seven objections that religious skeptics raise.
Objection One: “We all worship the same God, so I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.”
In the conversation, one of the participants mentioned that Allah was just another name for the God of the Bible, Yahweh. Their assertion was that Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have a common foundation of being Abrahamic religions, and since they all come from the same source, they all in essence worship the same deity.
To examine this assertion, I have a simple test for everyone to consider. It’s called the Jesus test. Do Jews regard Jesus as God? No. Do Muslims regard Jesus as God? No. Do biblical Christians regard Jesus as God? Yes! So, wait a minute: If we just think about Jesus, Jews and Muslims worship someone else, while biblical Christians worship Jesus as God. So, do we all worship the same God? Absolutely not!
Yes, Jews and Muslims do worship one God⎯as biblical Christians do⎯but their idea of god is unitarian, or one god in one person. The Bible, meanwhile, tells us that God is a Trinity, or one God in three Persons. To state the doctrine of the Trinity more formally, there is One God, yet God is three distinct Persons, each of whom is fully God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So we do not all worship the same God, and even more, our understanding of the nature and essence of God is radically different. In fact, as I have written and spoke about at the genesis of WCSK, the Trinity is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith—meaning without the Trinity, you don’t have biblical Christianity. And thus, any religion that rejects the Trinity rejects the God of the Bible. Allah is not just another name for God because Allah never was, is not, and never will be God. Only Yahweh is God. Allah is not another name for Yahweh because Yahweh is Yahweh, not Allah. When Moses in essence asked God, “What is your name?” (Exodus 3:13) God responded in the next verse and said, “Yahweh.”
Furthermore, the assertion that a common origin in Abraham suggests common ideology for the three major monotheistic religions would be like saying the nutritional value of every food item obtained from the same grocery store is about equal. Come again? Would you say that a Twinkie is basically the same as a head of lettuce because they were bought from the same place? Would you say that all doctors are equally skilled and competent because they trained at the same medical school? The only thing a common origin proves is that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have a common origin. Judaism is special, however, because biblical Judaism laid the foundation for Christianity. This is a point that must be made because modern Judaism looks back at Christ and rejects Him as the Messiah. In contrast, biblical Judaism and all of its prophets⎯like Abraham, Moses, and Elijah⎯looked forward in anticipation of Christ.
Ultimately, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t actually matter whom modern Judaism and Islam worship because they don’t proclaim faith in Christ. That means they are merely alternatives to your own eternal destruction. This leads me to the next objection.
Objection Two: “All religions are basically the same.”
This is a statement I can almost agree with. That is, with the exception of biblical Christianity, all other religions are basically the same because they are all false, are all based on works, and will lead you to damnation.
Let’s do another Jesus test. We already know that Jews, Christians, and Muslims do not worship the same God. But do they believe the same things? Well, let’s take a “big deal” issue like the Resurrection. Jews deny the Resurrection. Christians, of course, believe in the historical Resurrection, which is a central truth claim of the Christian faith. Muslims say Jesus did not die on the Cross. So you have three different religions all believing in three divergent ideas about the Resurrection. Basically the same? Absolutely not!
Now let’s look at the sacred texts. Jews will agree with Christians that our Old Testament is a sacred text, but Jews reject the New Testament. Muslims regard the Quran as a holy book. Christians regard the Quran as printed words on paper but not the “breathed-out” Word of God. Why? Because only the Bible⎯the Old and New Testaments⎯are the Word of God. So are all religions basically the same? Absolutely not!
All religions are not the same because the central idea behind the biblical gospel is “done.” That is, Christ has already done what is required for salvation, which is why the means of you getting right with God is to simply trust the Son. As Christ Himself says in John 3:16,
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Consequently, the central idea behind all other religions is “do.” That is, you have to earn your way to heaven, or paradise, or whatever other place the fairy tale tells you. Your getting right with god⎯or whomever⎯depends on your performance. In other words, since god isn’t in charge of your salvation, you are.
This is why I am firmly persuaded that anyone who compares biblical Christianity to other religions and claims, “It’s all the same,” either is ignorant, is misinformed, or doesn’t understand biblical Christianity. Again, that is because the central message of biblical Christianity is not that we are saved based on who we are or what we do; rather, we are saved based on what Christ has done. We are saved based on grace alone through faith in Christ alone. As Hebrews 11:6 says,
And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Objection Three: “I’m just going to be a good person.”
Toward the end of the conversation⎯in which everyone was reenforcing their own baseless ideas⎯one of my coworkers said, “I’m just going to try and be a good person, and I don’t see what’s so wrong with that.”
Well, there are a couple of things wrong with this assertion.
Firstly, if a person assumes that their goodness will make them “okay” in the end⎯whatever they interpret okay to mean⎯by what scale are they being measured? If they are the ultimate barometer of their own goodness, the scales are not reliable because they are biased. What’s intriguing is that the person who raised this objection works in a medical office, and all day long we measure people based on universal, objective, external measurements, like temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate. A person, for example, may “feel” like their blood pressure is low, but it doesn’t matter what their feelings are: What matters is what their blood pressure actually is. A person can feel hot, but if their temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, they don’t have a fever. You see, medically speaking, in order to discern if someone is high, low, or normal, we have to measure based on an objective, external scale. Thus, relying on your own subjective assessment of your own goodness will invariably yield unreliable results.
Well, you may say, “Okay, I see your point, but I’m not as bad as that guy or those people.” Anyone in reality can think of a really bad “bad guy” and say, “Clearly, anyone with a basic moral compass can see that they are the bad ones, while many others are just normal, decent people.” To this statement, I simply ask, “If you have become the judge of those people, then who will judge you?”
For the so-called good person trying to be good, even if they don’t believe in God, they have to admit that they are not the ones who birthed the concept of good. We were all born into a world in which a basic sense of good and bad were built into the fabric of reality. And so, if you are neither the creator of good or the ultimate standard by which it is measured, then how can you individually determine how good you are? And how can you be sure that whatever amount of good you think you have will be good enough? Just as everyone can think about someone who is worse than them, they can also think about someone who is better than them. Here’s the catch: If they are better than you, who is to say that they will be okay and you won’t? If your faith is in your own goodness, then what saves you is your own moral performance; thus, the only way you can be totally sure of your salvation is if you are the best person there is. Good luck with that.
The final thing I will say on morality-based salvation is to ask that person, “Even if your good works are sufficient in the end, how did you determine that your goodness is the only thing that counts?” After all, if we weigh you based upon what you have done, then we have to count the good and the bad. What if the negative bears a far greater penalty than the good bears a benefit? What if there are negatives you aren’t aware of that will count against you in ways you haven’t yet considered? What if all your outward good is tainted by inner evil?
Objection Four: “Religious people are hypocrites.”
This fourth objection is a stereotype, and unfortunately, it’s a stereotype that’s true. After all, stereotypes only persist because they’re at least partially based on truth. Otherwise, they wouldn’t endure as stereotypes.
Religious people⎯and I include myself in that group⎯are hypocrites because human beings are hypocrites. In fact, as Charles Spurgeon once famously said (I’ll paraphrase), “If you ever do find a church with no hypocrites, then don’t join; you’ll ruin their reputation.”
To the person who raises the objection of religious hypocrites, I must ask, “If the absence of hypocrites is your criteria for an ideology to be valid, do you think you’ll ever find an ideology whose subscribers are all perfect?” Good luck with that.
Also, let us not conflate the veracity of truth claims with the bad actors who state they believe in them. The truth will always be such regardless of the people who ascribe to that truth. Yes, they may live out that truth in hypocritical, inconsistent, and regrettably unkind ways, but does that speak more to the truth or to the character flaws of the individual? If there is a core truth claim that biblical Christianity makes crystal clear, it is that we are all bad actors and that we all fall short: That’s precisely why we need an external Savior whom we trust based on His works, not ours.
In the end, I’ve always regarded the assertion that “religious folks are hypocrites” as more of an excuse than a legitimate criticism of religion. What do those hypocrites have to do with you? Unless your fate is contingent on their performance, then you have bigger things to worry about.
Objection Five: “What do all those ancient people have to do with me?”
The precise way one person phrased this question sounded something like this: “When I’ve read parts of the Old Testament that talked about Abraham, the Israelites, and all the other -ites and ‑bites, I just couldn’t stop asking myself, ‘What do all of them have to do with me?’”
My first response to this objection is never conflate ignorance with importance. That is, just because you may not know how something is relevant to you doesn’t mean it’s not important. After all, you may have just been the victim of poor explanations in the past and thus never connected the dots between ancient history and your modern experience.
And, speaking of history, does the person asking the question think history in general is relevant? Much of what happened in the Old Testament is a historical narrative. History never tells anyone where they are going, but it does tell them where they came from and what happened in times past. The only person who can dismiss history is the one who already has the present figured out and knows what will happen in the future. Since this is impossible, the past is always relevant, or else we would have nothing to look back on for guidance. Whenever presented with a challenge right now, we never have to start from scratch and figure things out from nothing. We can always look back into history and ask, “Has this happened before, how did they respond, and what was the result?”
My second response to the objection to religion based on historical relevance recognizes that a person may lack a proper clarification for why the past matters. Consequently, I’ll give you a specific example of being the victim of a poor explanation. For the longest time, I regarded genealogies in the Bible as a waste of space. I thought to myself, “What’s this got to do with me?” For example, in Genesis 5:1–32, it gives a genealogy that starts with Adam, the first man, and it ends with Noah 10 generations later. For instance, Genesis 5:1–5 recounts Adam’s life as follows:
This is the book of the generations of Adam. On the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them “mankind” on the day when they were created.
When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. Then the days of Adam after he fathered Seth were eight hundred years, and he fathered other sons and daughters. So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.
It then continues down the line for another twenty or so verses. Then Genesis 5:28–32 covers Lamech, Noah, and Noah’s sons:
Now Lamech lived 182 years, and fathered a son. And he named him Noah, saying, “This one will give us comfort from our work and from the hard labor of our hands caused by the ground which the Lord has cursed.” Then Lamech lived 595 years after he fathered Noah, and he fathered other sons and daughters. So all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.
Now after Noah was five hundred years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Pretty dry, right? Well, it certainly seems like that, but when you dig deeper into the text, the beauty is magnificent.
First, that genealogy demonstrates proof that God was working through people and time to fulfill a promise that He made to Adam and Eve. What promise was that? That one day, her seed would defeat the serpent. That promise happens two chapters earlier in Genesis 3. Subsequently, as the Scriptures reveal to us, Adam leads to Noah, Noah leads to Abraham, Abraham leads to David, and David leads to Jesus. So why the genealogy? To prove that God fulfilled His promise by genealogically showing the reader that Eve’s biological descendant was Jesus.
Second, Hebrew is a very poetic language, and names often mean something beyond simply naming a person. So, when we look sequentially at the meaning of all the names of the men named in the genealogy in Genesis 5, does that communicate a message to us? Yes. If we take the names of all men in Genesis 5 and then sequentially line then up, a message appears. That message is “Man is appointed mortal sorrow; but the Blessed God shall come down teaching that His death shall bring the despairing rest.” The point? The genealogy you thought not worthwhile was communicating⎯thousands of years before it happened⎯that Jesus would come to die on a Cross in order to save humankind from the sorrow of sin.
Third, the Bible quickly runs through generations and then stops and accentuates one person, telling many details about their life. So why does the genealogy stop at Noah? To tell the story of the earth’s corruptions and God’s deliverance through the Ark. That, then, is a story worth investigating. The genealogies pause, and then the text describes events around a particular person to highlight what’s really important.
Objection Six: “How can you explain God with all the evil in the world?”
For years, this has been one of the hardest questions I have had to wrestle with in defending my faith. Many similar questions stem from this one. Examples include “Why do bad things happen to good people?” and “Why do young children get terminal cancer?” I won’t pretend to have the answers to these questions for specific people in specific circumstances. That is above my spiritual pay grade. Neither do I want to gloss over or minimize the genuine pain and hurt people have experienced. And so in what follows I will speak in general terms, but I must mention that bad is bad, evil is evil, and real life hurts. Truly we live in a broken world, but in the grand scheme of things, God has a plan to deal with the darkness.
Over time what I came to see is that questions like “If God, why evil?” are all based on the same assumption: that the greatest good exists in the absence of evil. Hence, if God is good, then evil should not exist or ought to be minimized. Yet, there is a problem with this assumption. You see, biblically speaking, the greatest good does not exist in the absence of evil but rather because of it; more specifically, the greatest good exists when it overwhelms and conquers evil.
Think about it. Where does the greater good exist: in a world where everyone is kind to one another or a world where many are unkind to their neighbors but some repay evil with good in spite of their neighbor’s sin? Where does genuine hope and the greater good exist: in a world where there is no forgiveness and all evil acts are justly dealt with or a world in which evil is still real and palpable but just forgiveness is equally real?
You see, the example of the Cross teaches us that the greatest evil ever committed⎯the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ⎯was permitted by God, because He is good, in order to enable the greatest good for man: the just forgiveness and salvation of those who didn’t deserve it (you and me). As II Corinthians 5:18–19 says,
God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
The greatest good would not have been to circumvent the Crucifixion; instead, God allowed Himself to be crucified so that⎯because of His willing sacrifice⎯He can justly forgive sinners. Now, there are lots of people who may hear that and then brush it off as inconsequential, which then will prompt you to ask them a question: What is their explanation for evil? Because, you see, in order to know what evil is, you must first know what good is. So the first inquiry is “Where does good come from in your worldview?” The second question is “What is your explanation for why evil exists?” The third and final question is “In your worldview, how do you deal with evil while being cognizant that you can’t escape it?” Criticism is not content. So, even if a person doesn’t like your explanation for why evil is here to stay, the question then becomes whether they can provide a better option. In my experience, in trying to answer this question, this is where people either get very quiet or begin talking much but say nothing at all.
Objection Seven: “I don’t like it when people are so sure.”
Finally, one of the participants in this conversation said they were repulsed by all those “religious zealots” who were confident and sure about their convictions, so sure that they could tell them what to do with their life. Granted, I agree with this person to the extent that having confidence in a belief does not equate with being confident in the truth. But then again, when something is true, why would you want someone not to be confidently sure?
Let’s use a real-life example about something that is important: your life. Imagine you come to see me one day and say, “Dr. Sadaphal, I have this pain in the right upper part of my belly. It’s weird, because when I don’t eat, I’m okay. But when I do eat, that’s when I feel the pain. Oh, and by the way, my right shoulder hurts, but I think that’s just because I’ve been doing a lot of work around the house.”
I then proceed to examine you. I do some blood tests and then take some pictures of your belly. Now, you are the patient, and your health and well-being is at stake. Tell me in which of the following scenarios you would feel more comfortable.
Scenario A: I tell you, “I am confident I know what the problem is. You have stones in a pouch in your belly called a gallbladder. At this moment, you may feel fine, but this can become a major problem. So what I want to do is take you to surgery and remove your gallbladder, definitively fixing the problem so that you can go on about your life. I know you may be concerned, but I’ve seen and treated this many times before. I am sure both about what you have and about what we need to do.”
Scenario B: I tell you, “To be honest, I am not really sure what the problem is. You may have bad gas, heartburn, a liver problem, or cancer. I feel like you’re going to be okay, but I can’t be totally sure. I’m not confident about what to do right now, so I’m going to send you for some more blood work and more tests. Perhaps you’ll need to see some specialists. Maybe then we can figure this out. I know you’re very concerned, but since I’m a doctor, I hope you trust me and together we can figure this out.”
Which doctor would you trust? The one in scenario A or scenario B? In concrete certainty or feathery ambiguity? And, if eternal spiritual matters are more important than temporal, physical ones, why would anyone prefer an evangelist who is uncertain over one who is sure? After all, if they are not convinced, then why should you be?
In the end, if something is true, it is exclusive of everything that is not true. If something is true, and someone is not sure, that indicates the weakness of their faith, not the veracity of the truth claim.
As always, I hope all that helped. God willing, I will speak to everyone next on the first Wednesday of April 2026. Until then.
Dr. C. H. E. Sadaphal