There Is No Moral Compass Without God

This entry is in the series "Devotionals"
Devotionals
There Is No Moral Compass Without God
18 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. 19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. 20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. —1 John 5:18-21


Witnessing To Atheists

Treat people with dignity and listen carefully
  • An atheist is someone who believes there is no God.
  • Treat them with respect as men and women made in the image of God.
  • Offer hospitality and help.
  • Seek to understand them.
  • Our first responsibility is to listen. We need to listen to the culture — to what people are saying — and seek to understand where they are coming from.
Be willing to address people's defeater beliefs
  • We have no beliefs. We are just people who don’t believe in a God — but if you provided enough evidence, we would.
  • You Christians are unbelievers in Thor, Zeus, and all gods except one. We just go one God further.
  • We have science; you have faith — and faith, by definition, is blind.
  • People can be moral without God. Therefore, people have no need of God.
Recognize that atheists are believers
  • An atheist is someone who believes there is no God. Furthermore, they believe they have the ability to absolutely determine whether or not evidence is objective. In other words, many of them don’t recognize that they too have faith — they have faith that they don’t have faith! They have faith in the reliability of their rational powers and in the belief that they should only believe things they can prove.
  • Atheism is based upon a series of beliefs, most of which are unverifiable. For example, every atheist I’ve ever met believes in naturalism. It’s not that they have verifiable evidence that everything is material; they believe that everything is material.
  • They also believe there is no (and can be no) evidence for God’s existence. A simple way to respond to this is asking what evidence they would actually accept.
Pursue their hearts through their heads
  • While we shouldn’t be arrogant or belligerent, it isn’t loving to concede rational superiority to atheism — because it isn’t true.
  • Our goal is not to defeat atheists in a debate, but to show them the glory and beauty of Christ in the hopes that some may be saved.
  • We argue with atheists not to win the argument, but to have Christ win them.
References



There Is No Moral Compass Without God
Next entry in the series 'Devotionals': Names Of God
Previous entry in the series 'Devotionals': Christian Recreation And Unchristian Amusement

Blog entry information

Author
Pilgrim
Read time
3 min read
Views
1,325
Last update

More entries in Christian Forums

More entries from Pilgrim

Share this entry