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A while back Hunter Avallone became an official apostate. He did another recent video mocking himself from years back for being a “Jesus freak”. He thinks that being a shallow atheist is better.
He begins the video by talking about his past and he stated how he was raised a Christian. I am not addressing everything he says because most of it is irrelevant. He is the video continues to lay out his personal experiences. He tells a story about how his old pastor gave the old “If you doubt, then you aren’t Christian” line. Which shows he came from a rather shallow background. Doubt is natural and we learn through sanctification how to deal with our doubts. His pastor seems to have blundered there and by default his parents.

He also never seems to have understood what “faith” and “believing” truly is. He seems to think that faith was having a kind of “feeling”. That ignores the way theologians discuss the issue. Theologians recognize that it rather goes into the domains of the object of the person’s faith and their loyalty to God.

At about 6 minutes he claims that he has had time for about a year to “look critically” at Christianity. He thinks that “Really? Really?” asked twice is a serious question. Just because you ask the question in a skeptical voice doesn’t make your question a good one. He goes on to complain about his reactions from his Christians that have watched his show. They were having problems with some of the statements he said and yet he can’t actually show that he didn’t say anything wrong or provide their statements. He even has the gall to mock the charge of being “unchristlike”. I actually deal with the charge that are brought against me. I don’t snobbishly mock my critics. Hunter should have actually argued that his behavior is compatible with Christ and the Biblical commands provided in the text of the Old and New Testaments. He simply doesn’t care about the criticisms because he doesn’t understand Christianity and seems to lack the ability to do so.

He goes on to say he is a “logic-based person” and we have yet to see that. If picking on people that are confused about their gender is the comparison, then you are a logical person. That is a really low view of what makes something rational. I won’t be declaring him Quine or Copi anytime soon. He only sounds like a narcissistic village atheist that lacks any familiarity with the subjects he speaks about in this video. It is quite sad that individuals on the left and the right have become so prominent. That goes to show how critical thinking has been abandoned by both parties and this culture.

Here is his first objection. He cannot “understand how an all-knowing spirit that came out of nothing created the earth and can hear the prayers in your mind”. That is a cute strawman, but Christians don’t think God came out of a substance called nothingness. We believe God is eternal and uncreated. Hunter shows that he is “rational” enough to not know much of anything about the religion he claimed to be raised in. I still don’t know why anyone watches him. For conservatives like me, Hunter sunk his credibility on his shallow gross treatment of Christianity in his video. It is also important to know that God already knows your prayers and has even predestined you to make them. He isn’t “listening” as you are conceiving the non-verbal thoughts in your head. That doesn’t make sense because listening usually requires verbal statements. God doesn’t have sensory organs. God transcends both space and time. It isn’t like God is listening with his ears by your bed at night. God created a dynamic evolving creation that includes and incorporates change. So, he answers prayer via his eternal decree. God causes a change in our situations. I still am perplexed as to why people listen to conservatives that aren’t great representatives. That is the fault of himself and his fans being shallow to the worldview that they are speaking about. They really haven’t thought very deeply about their worldviews to be able to think through the critical issues. Hunter has 250k+ subscribers that trust his analysis of Muslims and Liberals, but he can’t even explain the religion he was raised in. Hunter thinks that God floats through our world like some kind of divine balloon. That goes to show he doesn’t understand classical theism or anthropomorphic language. The God of the Bible is a spirit. He isn’t a spatial being. So, it is nonsense to speak of him floating. Hunter in his wisdom thinks that just calling it “crazy” is an argument against a position.

Hunter, at about 9 minutes goes to criticize Christianity on the basis of the worldwide flood. I do hold to that, but he now has the burden of proving it was universal. Let’s grant him that it was, does he go and respond to creationist literature? No. Is it rational to discuss things you haven’t actually studied? Yes, but 250k+ followers hopefully will hold you accountable for your utterly bad arguments. Hunter assumes a realist view of science and needs to not beg the question and argue for his philosophy of science. He simply takes for granted the relationship between appearance and reality. He goes on to talk about these “facts” that are indisputable and unquestionable. In philosophy, it is long debated whether the external world even exists and yet he thinks he has found something undisputable is a cute and sad illusion. That extends from science to time as well. What is his view of time? Some think it is an illusion of human consciousness and others hold to temporalism. He is just a simple-minded kind that hasn’t dealt with these serious question and is better at dealing with people that can’t figure out their gender.

He mentions the starlight problem and how these objects(stars) are very distant. So, it is impossible for the light to reach the earth in 6,000 years. Hunter thinks this is a knockdown criticism. It is good to show that Hunter is operating on a naive view of science. Hunter assumes a view of science that I reject and don’t endorse, but even Creationists have models attempting to show the Earth could receive distant light (ex: Dr. Russell Humphreys). To simply call things “facts” and say they were “proven” is to beg the question and assert the consequent.

Hunter goes on to charge Christians with circular reasoning in an immature way. This is a cute misconception that atheists use, but it has been already been discussed and debunked. I wish not to repeat myself here.

He states that God is real to us because we are manipulating ourselves to think God is real. We are deceiving ourselves and that our perception doesn’t correspond to reality. He thinks these shallow statements are clever, but I can say he is really self-deceived. He needs to fight against God as a hater of God(Romans 1:18-32). His psychoanalysis is cute, but he ought to stick to what he knows.

Hunter obviously has never actually studied apologetics. I have endured 12 minutes of his nonsense and it is just the illogical rant of an immature thinker whining about things that he doesn’t understand. He states that God is an “unfalsifiable hypothesis”. That means to him that “since you can’t prove he doesn’t exist, he must exist”. Well, that isn’t an argument endorsed by myself or by almost all professional apologists. It is rather bad. Hunter is guilty of not dealing with the best case for Christianity. He takes this shallow version and critiques it. That is nice and all but I prefer my opponents best case and not his worse.

Hunter jumps on his moral high-horse and presents a shallow version of the problem of evil. He asks if whether the attacks on the United States on 9-11 were part of God’s plan. The answer is of course it was. We posit that God has a morally sufficient reason for letting this occur. He must not be aware that Christians are aware of the “Problem of Evil”. Where has Hunter been for 2,000 years? Hunter goes on to attack the idea that evil events can bring about secondary goods. That God can save the same agent without evil. That is rather simplistic. That would require an entirely different timeline and would have entirely different people. It is the case without certain evil certain people wouldn’t exist. Suppose for a moment that God did that. A world in which Adam and Eve didn’t fall. The issue is that many people are the byproducts of adultery, incest, etc. How would they exist in a world that didn’t fall? The answer is they wouldn’t. So, Hunter is once again operating on a false assumption.
How does Hunter ground his ethic and by what standard does he determine the Christian God is wrong? If Hunter is correct in his worldview, then his attacks on Islamic terrorists are just his opinions. The terrorists are neither right or wrong.

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2018/01/18/problem-of-evil/

Conclusion:

I believe politics is idolatry if you aren’t Christian. You are just bringing more wrath upon yourself and the futility of your idolatry is seen in that you have no basis to make any of the political judgments that you make if you reject Christianity. That he has a following shows the desperate state the world is in. Hunter is a spoiled self-absorbed kid that didn’t do his research. He and anyone else that agrees with him ought to repent and believe the Gospel.