When I was younger, I considered myself a deist. Although I was never a member of any organized religion, and firmly rejected them even then, I still believed in the existence of a god who created the universe. This god may not necessarily have had that much interest in human affairs, but it was a god all the same.

For now, it is enough to say that a series of events in my life led me to question my belief in God. I ultimately decided that deism was not for me. Spiritually adrift, I traveled the Internet seeking something better, and happened to come across some webpages on atheism and secular humanism. (I do not even remember now which ones they were, though I believe they may possibly have been from the Freedom from Religion Foundation.) While reading these, I experienced a profound resonance, but I was not yet ready to commit my life to this new structure. As long as I was starting fresh, I decided, I might as well examine the available options.

For that reason, I sought out members of several major religious traditions (Muslim and Christian), explained my situation, and invited them to convert me. They tried and failed. Even knowing as little as I did, I could perceive the logical flaws in their arguments, and when I confronted them about these they became angry, defensive, and in one case broke off contact with me. It is little surprise that I ultimately chose to become an atheist.

Today, I like to consider myself, if not an expert debater, then at least an experienced amateur. I have been regularly sparring with Christian and other proselytizers ever since my deconversion, and I can say with confidence that there is no argument in their arsenal I have not heard or cannot deal with to my satisfaction. Nevertheless, I plan to continue debating them regularly for as long as I am an atheist, and answering whatever challenges they pose to me.

Why do I do this? It is because of one simple principle which I firmly hold to: The mark of an open mind is that it never cuts itself off from dissent. Only closed minds seek to avoid or shut out things that might prove upsetting to their beliefs. On the day I start dismissing any theist argument out of hand, no matter how many times I have heard it before, I will have no choice but to consider myself closed-minded, and no matter how justified it is, I do not want to think of myself that way. It is important to me that I can honestly say my mind has always remained open.

In that vein, I make an effort to regularly read books by apologists and others seeking to build a case for their faith, to evaluate their arguments and see how they hold up. While I don't expect to be convinced, one never knows. What follows, therefore, is a partial list of the books I have read from the "other side," along with some thoughts and brief reviews.

• Michael Behe. Darwin's Black Box. Extended review can be viewed here.

• John Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress. Extended review can be viewed here.

• C.S. Lewis. The Great Divorce. Extended review can be viewed here.

• C.S. Lewis. Miracles. Extended review can be viewed here (guest review by James Bradbury).

• C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity. Extended review can be viewed here.

• C.S. Lewis. The Problem of Pain. Extended review can be viewed here.

• C.S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letters. Extended review can be viewed here.

• John Milton. Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Extended review can be viewed here.

• J.P. Moreland. Scaling the Secular City. Extended review can be viewed here.

• Lee Strobel. The Case for Christ.
  Lee Strobel is without a doubt one of the most popular Christian apologists at work today, and his book The Case for Christ, which attempts to build a case for the historical accuracy of the account of the life, deeds, death and resurrection of Jesus as reported in the New Testament, is a polished and slickly packaged piece of work. Ostensibly retracing his own journey from atheism to faith, Strobel flies across the country interviewing some of the foremost Christian scholars in fields such as archaeology, theology and textual criticism, asking them the questions he claimed he asked himself during his conversion, and of course getting answers that support his own decision to become a Christian himself.

  To the reader who knows little or nothing about the historical background of Christianity (as I was the first time I read this book), Strobel's experts sound very convincing indeed. Yet such a reader will come away with a strong sense that potentially important details have been omitted, that facts have been glossed over, that there is another side to this story that is not being presented (as I did). Like watching a magician who dazzles his audience with smoke and mirrors and flashy sleight of hand, such a reader will inevitably conclude that a trick has been played on him, even if he isn't exactly sure how. Something about Strobel's book, even to the uninformed reader, gives this impression very strongly.

  After reading The Case for Christ, I set out on a quest to examine the historical background of the Christian faith for myself, just as Strobel claims he did. Not surprisingly, I came to a very different conclusion. The more I learned, the more apparent it became that there were indeed crucial facts that this book did its best to gloss over, put a spin on, or outright deny. (An example: In part 6 of chapter 2, Dr. Craig Blomberg says that we can know the gospels are reliable because they do not leave out information that would be difficult or embarrassing: "You can explain why Jesus, who was without sin, allowed himself to be baptized, but why not make things easier by leaving it out altogether?" - and neglects to mention that the Gospel of John does in fact leave it out.) As more evidence turned up, Strobel's smoke was blown away, his mirrors were shattered, and the curtain was torn away to reveal the machinery behind it all - cleverly constructed, but trickery all the same.

  On my second reading, this time armed with knowledge, the gaps in Strobel's case became apparent to me. I noticed, for example, that the "hard-nosed" questions he claims to have asked were in fact carefully chosen and crafted to allow his experts to knock them down easily - in short, they were questions about Christianity not as a skeptic would ask them, but as a Christian would. His pretense of honestly examining all the evidence faded away when I realized that he asked a converted Jew and an avowed opponent of the Jesus Seminar about their beliefs, but never once gave an actual Jewish rabbi or a member of the Jesus Seminar a chance to explain or defend their position. Again, he was only allowing the questions that could be easily answered to be posed, and veering away from the more difficult and substantial ones. He spends considerable time answering objections to Christianity that relatively few, if any, skeptics make, but failed to answer some much more serious ones that I am not aware of any apologist source addressing (for example, why do the gospels proclaim that Jesus "fulfilled" Old Testament verses that are clearly not messianic or prophetic in nature, such as Hosea 11:1?)

  I do not doubt that The Case for Christ is the best that modern Christian apologia has to offer, and that speaks volumes about the weakness of their case. An inexperienced skeptic will be knocked off-balance by this book, but a skilled one can pick it apart with little difficulty. (Rebuttals exist on the Internet, but for a truly detailed and comprehensive response, I highly recommend Earl Doherty's Challenging the Verdict; I have found none better.) Under the light of critical examination, Strobel's attempts to conceal inconvenient facts, conjure up illusory evidence, and hide behind inconsistent, circular or just plain fallacious arguments on the part of his "experts" are plain as day. (Doherty's response, in particular, catches William Lane Craig in an absolutely outrageous circular argument over the veracity of the guards-at-the-tomb scene in the Gospel of Matthew.) Make no mistake, Strobel does his level best to defend Christianity, and his ultimate failure to do so convincingly is not due to any lack of skill or eloquence on his part. Indeed, the book is well-written, moves quickly, and is broadly accessible despite the technical and at times obscure nature of its subject matter. Rather, Strobel's case collapses because the evidence to support it simply is not there. Christianity is ultimately coasting on shadows and vapors, and has been doing so for the last 2,000 years. Nevertheless, if an atheist is looking for an apologetics book to read, this is the one to get - both because it has become something of a cornerstone in Christian circles, and because it is an unintentional capsule summary of just how thin the historical grounding of this religion is. Dissecting it piece by piece is, in the end, an illuminating experience.

• Josh McDowell. More than a Carpenter.
  The back of this book (little more than a pamphlet, actually) proclaims that it is a "hard-headed book for people who are skeptical about Jesus' deity, his resurrection, his claims on their lives," but in my opinion, the only nonbelievers that could be convinced by its claims are the softest-headed ones of all. McDowell makes no attempt here to defend the historical veracity of any of the events recorded in the New Testament - instead, he simply assumes the entire New Testament to be settled truth confirmed beyond dispute, and blithely quotes Bible verses in defense of his arguments as if they were notarized eyewitness accounts. On top of this flimsy foundation he piles a great heap of arguments from authority, quoting scholar after scholar who solemnly declares that yes, of course the Bible is true, and no, there's really no good reason to reject anything it says, just trust us on this. Of course, all these eminent "experts" are fundamentalist Christians like McDowell, but the idea that there might possibly be just a little bit of bias there seems never even to enter his mind. The thought that any atheist or agnostic might be converted by this book is laughable - it is clearly aimed, not at knowledgeable unbelievers, but at faithful members of the flock who simply want to read a book that tells them what they want to hear. (I wonder how many of the "More than 10,000,000 in print worldwide!" the book's cover crows about were bought by Christians, for Christians.) No one who did not already believe in the truth of the Bible would be persuaded by this book, and of course, people who already believe in the truth of the Bible have no need to read it. As scholarship, this is one small step up from a Chick Tract - I know from experience that there are apologists out there who can do much better.

• Bruce Feiler. Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths.
  While not exactly an apologetics book, Bruce Feiler's biography of the man who purportedly stands at the foundation of the three major monotheistic faiths came recommended to me, and so I decided to offer an atheist's perspective. The patriarch Abraham is held as a seminal figure in the histories of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and Feiler stated that his investigation of him hoped to shed light on the causes of the division between these faiths.

  Though his effort is an ultimate failure (see below), the book is not without its merits. I did learn some interesting things regarding Jewish beliefs on the deification of Abraham and the death and resurrection of Isaac, as well as Muslim perspectives on Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son. I did notice that Feiler takes the existence of Abraham essentially for granted without providing any real evidence, and as far as I could tell he never once questions the morality of a God who would demand that a man slaughter his only son as proof of his faith in him. (As an atheist, I would have admired Abraham if he had rejected this vicious deity's demand. I do not, however, admire someone who would blindly obey the most evil of decrees in the name of God. This episode is unintentionally revealing of the difference in outlook between atheism and theism.) Still, considering that the book is about Abraham, the first is somewhat understandable and excusable, though the second less so. Feiler does provide some commendable statements that show how far Biblical scholarship has come since casting off the shackles of fundamentalist confessional presumption (he describes God as a "butcher of genocidal fury", says that the Bible would fail hands-down as a history book, and notes that the tradition of death and resurrection after three days long predates Christianity and was a commonplace among Mesopotamian savior gods).

  Another thing I noticed is that the book is very short and is almost always a fast and light read - there's not a whole lot of meaty substance to be found in it. However, this is not a problem with the book as much as it is a problem with the subject material, or scarcity thereof. Abraham's entire life and deeds are described in only a scant few lines in the canonical writings of all three traditions combined, with detail essentially non-existent, so I cannot fault Feiler for that. What I can and do fault him for is a fundamental problem I noticed while reading the book - a serious omission that in my opinion made the entire thing pointless.

  In his quest to find the "real" Abraham, Feiler interviewed scholars and experts from all three religions to ask what they believed about Abraham and to see if there was any common ground between the traditions. However, he only interviewed liberal and progressive members of these religions - enlightened and educated believers who were all quick to conclude, yes, Abraham is the link between our beliefs, and if we all just joined hands and rallied around him singing "Kumbaya," then there wouldn't be all this animosity and bloodshed.

  But the liberal believers are not the ones causing the bloodshed! It is the fundamentalist believers - extremist Jewish Zionists who believe Israel should occupy the entire Fertile Crescent, millennialist Christian evangelicals who oppose peace in the Mideast because they eagerly view war as a sign of the coming Armageddon, fiery Wahhabi Islamists who preach suicide bombings and terrorism against the West - who are pressing on each other and who are responsible for the never-ending hatred and strife in the so-called Holy Land, and yet, with only one exception Feiler does not speak to any of these people. The lone exception was an unexpectedly radical Muslim cleric who denounced Judaism and Christianity and viewed acts of terrorism as God's justice, but rather than speak to him in detail Feiler seemed eager to conclude the interview as quickly as possible and hurry out into the night, letting us know how disgusted he was and how he wanted to shower after speaking to this man. What good does this do?

  How can Feiler hope to get to the root of clashes between the monotheistic religions if he is unwilling to plunge into their differences? What good is his research if he is only willing to listen to the tolerant and gentle believers who are not the cause of the violence and who have no control over it? Jotting down endless cliched platitudes about harmony and reconciliation is not going to reveal the source of intolerance or suggest ways to end it. In fact, it is precisely this unwillingness to listen to differing views that is causing so many problems. Feiler ends the book envisioning a new image of Abraham who will contribute to the cause of peace, but he himself has taken no real steps in that direction, and his vision is just another fruitless, insubstantial dream in a world of all-too-real and tangible religious hatred, horror, and atrocity.