Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

Why so many mentions regarding Jesus from such a wide variety of sources (Pliny, Tacitus, Lucian, Josephus, to name a few)? Because Jesus of Nazareth was a man of history, who made a profound impact on history. There's no good reason to doubt that Jesus existed, or to think the real Jesus was completely different from the one depicted in the Story.

When God's children disobeyed their heavenly Father, they damaged everything. When Adam and Eve rebelled against the King of the universe, they broke the whole world. This is why there is evil and suffering. Bad things happen in a world that's broken.

An alternate explanation is not a refutation.

Some people suggest that a worldview is like a set of glasses that color the way you see the world around you. A Christian interprets the world one way, and an atheist interprets the same world a completely different way since he's looking through different worldview "glasses."

The word "Christian" means something in particular. The basic outline and general truths and doctrines central to Christianity have been hammered out over 2000 years of reflection on the teachings of Jesus and his apostles. If you disagree with these foundational concerns - the kinds of things I focus on in The Story of Reality - then you're simply not a Christian.

When we encounter new details of our world we fill in more of the spaces. When we discover details that don't seem to fit with our view of the world, we have a kind of "crisis of faith," even if our worldview is not especially religious. We're forced to redraw our "map" a bit.