Is Accepting Christian Evidence Special Pleading?

[Whateverist]

Does anything really ride on the strength of the case you put together?  I mean for you.  For those who want to believe or start off already believing I think it must really just be about making the case for the plausibility of God existing.  You just need to smooth over the rough parts and preserve as much common sense and intellectual rigor as you can .. under the circumstances.  You have my sympathy on that.  Can't be easy.  For what it's worth, I think you do a better job than most.

That's a good question. I was raised in a Christian home. My father is still a pastor of a small evangelical protestant country church (not the one I attend). I have a brother who sounds a lot like the the angrier of the bunch on AF. He has rejected Christianity. Growing up. we got the same classic fundamentalist super-conservative evangelical version of Christianity. I spent years discovering philosophy of religion, apologetics, doctrinal differences, historical thought, atheist arguments and their rebuttals, and satisfied myself that the Christian belief system was well-reasoned. My beliefs are different than my parents. 

My brother did not take these steps and rejected whatever his understanding was of Christianity from his childhood. He thinks Dawkins is a great thinker and the science will prevail. His view of Christianity and it's teachings are a weird mix of evangelical fundamentalism and the straw men that Dawkins and other erect to sell books. His arguments against Christianity are all over the place and often nonsensical. 

So, to answer your question, yes. The cumulative case for Christianity is so much more convincing than the classic evangelical fundamentalism I came from. The more I understand the details of systematic theology, doctrine, natural theology, how we should live, historical Jesus, and questions of morality, purpose, meaning, and eschatology, the more convinced I am that God is real.

Thank you for that.  Nice to connect with the man behind the arguments.

I suspect most people who want to talk religion are working out with strangers what they can't (my now deceased father) or couldn't (one of my younger brothers) with a relative or friend.  I only really pushed my father when he pushed me.  He'd painted himself into a corner as a believer.  He didn't really have many interests outside of his belief.  I never tried to take that away from him.

My younger brother (who lived near my father) attended the same church as him and was much closer to him than I was.  He used to initiate debate with me and I kind of enjoyed it.  But then he stopped and resisted engaging that way anymore.  I realized my points were painful and unwelcome.  And I didn't even go after God belief itself.  I just argued that his god should have been able to make use of big bangs and evolution if he wanted, and whatever happened to Christian humility about His mysterious ways?  But he doesn't really have a good head for subtlety.  So to admit a crack was to threaten everything.  We don't talk religion any longer.  I'm a lot older, live pretty far away and we have very little in common.  So we're not close.  Frankly, he doesn't look very happy.  If enjoys musing on his afterlife I have nothing to say about that - to him anyhow.

Here I sometimes feel put out by the condescension of some apologists.  You're not so bad, good bedside manner.  But people struggle sometimes with finding any happiness at all.  Really, do what you need to do.