Over the years, skeptics have built up a number of "Old Chestnuts," questions or statements that send Christians running to their Bibles or other books and usually are designed to either shake the Christian’s faith or at the very least shut them up. We have listed a few of those along with their biblical answers. If you disagree with any of these answers, have better ones, or even have new questions that you need answered, please contact us and let us know.

1. "More people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than in all the combined wars in history."

The late Walter Martin was once to be on a radio show to debate Madalyn Murray O’Hair. He had a feeling that this old chestnut might be brought up during the debate, so he had his Christian Research Institute do the research. After listing all the persecutions, conflicts, pogroms, purges, and wars for the last two thousand years in which the Church, Christianity, or a stated Christian purpose was one or more of the belligerents, the staff came up with the number of five million. In fact, this estimation is probably generous, in order to err on the side of the adversaries of the Church. It goes without saying that a single death in the name of Jesus is one too many. Jesus died to keep us from death, but some of His pseudo-followers have often committed atrocities in His name. It should be noted that, by definition, no true Christian would

ever raise his hand to another human being in a doctrinal dispute. That, without repentance, excludes one from consideration as a Christian. So the case might be made that no Christian ever hurt another person for doctrinal reasons because a real Christian would never do that. In any case, the number with which they came up was five million. And sure enough, O’Hair walked right into it. When she dropped this little rhetorical gem, Martin said, "Madalyn, how many people have been killed in Jesus’ name?" She replied, "Oh, you can’t count them all!" He shot back, "Oh, yes you can!" And he presented her with a list of the events, the numbers of casualties, and their total. After some debate and some fighting, she finally gave him the opening. He said, "Now let’s look at some human philosophy." He noted that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels came up with a philosophy known as dialectical materialism. We now know it as Communism. Between 1917, when the Soviet October Revolution took place, and 1991, when the Soviet state collapsed, it is estimated that the atheistic, Communist Soviet Union was responsible for the deaths of approximately fifty million people. Stalin killed ten million Baptists alone for no reason really other than that they were Christians. The Chinese Communist Party is certainly no better, being responsible for (conservatively) the deaths of another forty million of its own citizens during and after the bloody excesses of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, and the anti-Christian persecutions of the late 20^th century. Another human philosophy, based on Nietzsche’s philosophy of the Superman, led to the philosophy which came to be known in Germany as National Socialism, or Nazism. We need not go into the thousands of incidents of Nazi racial atrocities. Suffice it to say that best estimates indicate that fifty-five million people died during World War II. These three numbers alone total more than 155 million people. Actual human lives destroyed. This does not count the innumerable murders in the name of the state about which we’ll never know. We’ll just be generous and say 150 million people.

If, as Dr. Martin said, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating," two human philosophies–in less than 100 years–are guilty of the deaths of more than thirty times the deaths of which Christianity is accused in two thousand years. So when a skeptic says that Christianity is guilty of killing a lot of people in Jesus’ name, you can tell them, "Five million over two thousand years–one thirtieth of the number of people killed by human philosophy in one century. So which is better?"

2. "If God can do anything, can He make a stone so heavy He cannot lift it?"

It’s very easy for this question to degenerate to a "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" level. So let’s keep it simple. This moldy oldie is based on a misconception. God can’t do everything. The Scripture says that He cannot lie. He can’t sin. He can’t die. And we know from the Scripture that He doesn’t always get what He wants. He wants all to be saved, but not all will. Having said all this, God is always in control of the Universe. Begging the question that God doesn’t have a physical body and therefore can’t lift a rock anyway, let’s just speak of "controlling" the rock rather than "lifting" it.

Even though God does not get what He wants, this is because He won’t impose His will on humans who do not love Him back. However, He is always in control. Thus the answer to the question is a simple "No." This hypothetical rock is always in God’s control. He is so powerful that nothing can be made, even by Him, outside of His ability to control. He may decide not to control the rock, as He has done in the case of not overriding a human’s decision not to love Him; but He could control it if He desired. So again, the simple answer is "No."

3. "If God is so great, how come evil exists? Can’t God just wave His hand and do away with sin and evil?"

This is used to make God seem impotent in a world where evil seems to have free run of the place. However, just because God can do something doesn’t mean He should. Yes, He could wave His hand and all of us would be obedient and sinless. But none of it would be real. You can hypnotize someone and make them think they love you; but it’s not really love unless it comes from free choice. People have freely chosen evil. But that makes those who choose to follow the Lord all the sweeter. He enables them to come to Him, and then they come to Him or they don’t. Those who don’t are the creators of the evil, not God. And in His mercy He could wipe out all evil, but there would be no humans left at all. His gracious patience allows evil to have run of the world so that humans will have all the time they need to repent. Some will, some won’t. But evil isn’t God’s fault, it’s ours.

4. "If God created Satan, then isn’t God responsible for evil?"

This is similar to the above question. But any parent knows that just because you create something doesn’t mean you’re responsible for what it does. If that were true, the parents of every murderer would be in jail right alongside of him or her. God created Lucifer, the brightest and most beautiful of all angels. Lucifer became evil and rebelled against God. That’s not God’s fault, either. It’s Satan’s. He had free will and chose not to follow God. That’s no one’s responsibility but his own.

5. "Christians aren't supposed to argue; it's unloving."

We all have seen that ugly picture or been to that ugly service where a Christian is trying to share the Gospel with someone and it becomes a loud, acrimonious, almost physical slugfest. Tempers flare and goodwill is shattered. It is the theological equivalent of the stereotypical "Ugly American" travelling overseas. This is genuinely trying to argue someone into the Kingdom--the louder you yell and the angrier you get, the bigger the mansion in Heaven for both you and the person to whom you're witnessing. This is the mis-use of argumentation. It assumes that argument and love are mutually exclusive. You can love or you can argue; you can't do both. But Jesus did, and so did Paul. After all, Jesus was Incarnate Love, wasn't He? Never was there a more loving human being in the world, was there? Now listen to the words of Incarnate Love: You litter of vipers! How are you able to speak good when you're evil? Because the heart speaks out of the surplus of the mouth. (Matthew 12:34) Too bad for you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you travel wasteland and ocean just to make a single convert; and when he becomes one, you turn him into twice the Son of Hell you are! (M

6. I'm glad that being a Christian 'works' for you; but it doesn't for me. I have my own beliefs that are valid for me and probably not so valid for you. Your religion is your religion and mine is mine. (Matthew 12:34)

7. Christians shouldn't try and 'force their beliefs' on people. That's how so many people died in the Crusades disaster. As Kevin Costner's father, played by Brian Blessed, said in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, it is folly to try and force others to our religion. However, this axiom has been taken to an extreme at times. Just because a person should not force their beliefs on another does not mean that the Chistian is ffffffffff

7. This excludes them from, by definition, being Christians (?)

8. There are many paths to God