On Facebook a fellow by the name of Matthew Thomason listed 5 specific go-to talking points contemporary atheist usually give. Having done apologetics for decades myself I can confirm he's right about the 5 points he lists.
To my fellow Christians, almost all atheists you will interact these days will have 5 specific go-to talking points, but there are plenty of simple responses to them (the ones offered below are simplifications, as I'm resisting my usual impulse to be as detailed and exhaustive as possible):
1. The Problem of Evil - How can God allow all of the terrible evil and suffering we see in the world?
a) The argument assumes that there cannot be any possible morally sufficient reasons for God to allow for the suffering we have seen in the world. This is far from clear, and the burden of proof is on them here.
b) The core message of Christianity places more weight on the need for us to be redeemed and to embrace reconciliation to God in an uncoerced capacity and therefore in the context of a free pursuit of God that may itself require a world suffused with uncertainty and varying degrees of hardship.
c) Our capacity for moral and spiritual growth is informed by uncertainty and unpredictable suffering, both that of others and our own.
d) The world we live in consists of an infinitely complex tapestry, for which the far-reaching consequences of senseless tragedies, especially those farther removed from our immediate circumstances, are increasingly impossible for us to lock in with anything approaching certainty. As such, the confidence of any skeptic who wants to insist that it is obvious that there could be no justification for God to allow observed suffering is seriously strained. Of course, this argument only works when we factor in the prescribed priorities of God as revealed by the Christian metanarrative.
2. Difficult Old Testament Passages - Are we really to think that these rough practices described in the Old Testament are the moral ideal and that these are universal prescriptions a good God wants us to follow?
a) A holistic reading of the biblical corpus reveals that there is a redemptive movement hermeneutic at play, which pushes against the notion that institutional practices described in the OT are being conveyed as universal societal prescriptions or as moral ideals. In fact, there are hints throughout that God's people are being nudged away from standard human practices and gradually towards the moral ideal embodied in Christ.
b) Scholars across the ideological spectrum have noted that ancient Israel, while having the same institutional practices as the rest of the world, nevertheless were surprisingly humanitarian in comparison to their ancient Near Eastern counterparts. This reflects the aforementioned redemptive trajectory already being in play in the Old Testament throughout. This does not mean the practices the ancient Israelites were allowed to continue in were morally ideal.
c) There is a strong argument -- from sociology, psychology, history, and common sense -- to be made that it is unrealistic to think ancient Israel, or any society, could have been completely morally reformed overnight or within just a few generations. In fact, it's plausible that any society would be subject to considerable risk of destabilizing under these expectations being relentlessly imposed.
d) In many instances, when skeptics cite "difficult passages", it becomes evident that they have failed to distinguish between descriptions and prescriptions.
e) In many instances, when skeptics cite "difficult passages", it becomes evident that they have failed to note the distinction between apodictic laws and casuistic laws, that "legal codes" of the ancient Near East are increasingly thought by scholars not to be literal codes, and that surrounding precedents in the text inform a more flexible view of the actual practices and punitive enforcements that actually would have been routinely carried out in ancient Israel.
3. The Irrationality of Belief in God - There is no evidence for the existence of God.
a) This reflects a profound lack of knowledge in matters of epistemology. Evidence is trivially easy to come across, and merely amounts to data that rationally would be more expected or less surprising given a hypothesis (such as "God exists").
b) This objection is typically motivated by an adherence, conscious or not, to an outdated epistemology known as logical positivism, which is both plagued with internal contradictions and is massively too restrictive.
c) Even science itself doesn't operate on verificationism, but on abductive reasoning, theory-choice, coherence, explanatory scope, and probabilistic support relations understood through the lens of the expectation/surprising principle.
d) Theism, and even Christianity in particular, has a rather rich philosophical heritage. Desperate caricatures aside, internet atheists never really give legitimate reasons for why a mind-first ontology is something "silly" or "dumb" for someone to hold to. They typically just coast off of some sense that atheism is the "intelligent" position because it has become trendy for people to say that in certain circles of insufferable troglodytes. Rest assured, there are actually plenty of atheists out there who cringe at atheists of this particular ilk.
4. Bad Moral Fruits - Christians are deeply immoral. Just look at MAGA!
a) This doesn't entail nor does it probabilify the nonexistence of God or the falsehood of propositions such as "Jesus is God" or "Jesus was raised from the dead as a vindication of his claims to divine authority, status, and title".
b) Yes, there are plenty of Christians doing terrible things. That's because they are people, humanity is messy, and there isn't some cosmic filter that prevents people from draping themselves in a Christian label and doing whatever they like.
c) In terms of historical episodes that skeptics often point to, their analysis is often superficial and amounts to simplistic bivariate comparisons. They completely overlook the complexities that accompany the psychology of human group dynamics and their inferences often amount to "People who were Christian did bad thing X - > therefore, Christianity caused them to do X". Serious historians and sociologists are not going to take this inference seriously.
d) Even atheist historians are coming around to acknowledge that Christianity actually paved the way to profound moral reform over time. The rights of women and children, sexual norms, altruism, prosocial behaviors that transcend tribalism, and the notion of human dignity were being reinforced by core Christian doctrines. Occasional bad conduct from some Christians in history does not undercut broad societal trend in places where Christianity became the dominant influence.
e) Multivariate analysis actually shows that intrinsic Christian religiosity predicts greater prosocial behaviors and better mental health outcomes, as well higher rates of adoption and more generous charitable giving. Multiple metrics of individual prosperity that are fairly unobjectionable show this positive trend.
f) MAGA itself, speaking as someone outside of that camp, is far more nuanced than is often depicted. I talk to countless people who voted for Trump consistently who don't like the man personally, don't favor all of his positions, but simply thought he was less of an existential threat and was more favorable to their personal interests and the interests of society. There is a whole other can of worms to consider when getting into how often people simplify and speculate on the motives for people's positions on markets and borders. I won't get it to that here.
5. Argument from So Many Denominations - Christianity cannot be true, because Christians have so many disagreements.
a) Again, this doesn't entail nor does it probabilify the nonexistence of God or the falsehood of Christianity.
b) Christians need not assume epistemic parity or equal importance across all theological questions on the table. In fact, no Christian I know of does.
c) Worldviews, models, explanatory frameworks and so on always have variegated issues that are either unclear, left unresolved, or invite diversity of viewpoints, despite people subscribing to the broader framework agreeing on the core contentions. This occurs in science, history, and countless other mediums of inquiry. Not sure why it isn't allowed in theology, but, then again, neither do internet atheists. They just mindlessly parrot this talking point.
Anyway, there it is. There is much I left out, and I barely scratched the surface, but it's a good starting point.
