The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists

Tom 1 · Mar 8, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
If you have no evidence, then why should anyone believe what you say?

Why should you indeed? I don't see what it is you think I am claiming that would require the kind of proof you feel would be convincing, however.

The point I am making is that your questions are based on a number of assumptions that you seem to be unaware of, and about things you only have a rudimentary understanding of. That being the case, while your questions might be useful for confirming your own way of thinking, they don't actually address the intended topic. If you were able to respond convincingly to the points in my post then we would have a starting point for a discussion.

InterestedAtheist · Mar 8, 2020

Tom 1 said:
Why should you indeed? I don't see what it is you think I am claiming that would require the kind of proof you feel would be convincing, however.

The point I am making is that your questions are based on a number of assumptions that you seem to be unaware of, and about things you only have a rudimentary understanding of. That being the case, while your questions might be useful for confirming your own way of thinking, they don't actually address the intended topic. If you were able to respond convincingly to the points in my post then we would have a starting point for a discussion.

Well, there you are. Ducking a question because you can't answer it.

So here it is again. It's a yes or no question. Couldn't be simpler.

Can you say:
"We Christians do not have any proof or evidence that God exists."

If so, good for you, I applaud your honesty.

If not, then you think that you do have evidence for God's existence - well, good! Here we are in the debating forum. Let's see it.

(Just in case you'd forgotten, we're in the Christian Apologetics Debating Forum. The idea is for Christians to defend their beliefs with rational arguments).

InterestedAtheist · Mar 8, 2020

So, where are we?

I've posted about the kind of evidence that would convince me that God exists. Based on the Christian religion, most of these seem to be reasonable expectations. But apparently Christians cannot supply evidence of miracles, or of answered prayers, or of manifestations of the divine, or of reliable prophecy, or of any kind of evidence that their God is real.

Tom 1 · Mar 8, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
Well, there you are. Ducking a question because you can't answer it.

So here it is again. It's a yes or no question. Couldn't be simpler.

Can you say:
"We Christians do not have any proof or evidence that God exists."

If so, good for you, I applaud your honesty.

If not, then you think that you do have evidence for God's existence - well, good! Here we are in the debating forum. Let's see it.

(Just in case you'd forgotten, we're in the Christian Apologetics Debating Forum. The idea is for Christians to defend their beliefs with rational arguments).

What question? As you say, this is simple stuff. You are having a debate with yourself about some stuff you think. That isn’t a process of asking questions. To make this debate into anything that addresses something outside of the realm of your own notions about things you first need to define your starting point, offer some proofs for its validity and then go on to demonstrate why your ideas are applicable to the subject being questioned. Then, you might be able to call it a debate. As it is, there is nothing to answer.

InterestedAtheist · Mar 8, 2020

Tom 1 said:
What question? As you say, this is simple stuff. You are having a debate with yourself about some stuff you think. That isn’t a process of asking questions. To make this debate into anything that addresses something outside of the realm of your own notions about things you first need to define your starting point, offer some proofs for its validity and then go on to demonstrate why your ideas are applicable to the subject being questioned. Then, you might be able to call it a debate. As it is, there is nothing to answer.

Alright, then.
If you are unable to answer the question, I'm going to assume that your answer is:
"We Christians have no evidence that God exists."

If you think I am wrong about this - if you believe that you do, in fact, have evidence that God exists - I invite you to provide it.

If, on the other hand, you are unable to, perhaps you'd care to do the intellectually honest thing and say:
"Yes, you are right. We Christians have no evidence that God exists."

Tom 1 · Mar 9, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
the intellectually honest thing

You have to see the irony in that.

InterestedAtheist · Mar 9, 2020

Tom 1 said:
You have to see the irony in that.

As usual, you dodge the question on order to score cheap points.

Also, shame on you if you are implying that I am not being honest.

Tom 1 · Mar 9, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
As usual, you dodge the question on order to score cheap points.

Also, shame on you if you are implying that I am not being honest.

As you can see yourself I have answered your question, quite plainly.

One thing that has surprised me since first encountering Richard Dawkin's writings is the eyebrow raising lack of self-awareness, so perhaps that is a more charitable way of putting it. Your 'shame on you' comment is right out of the Dawkins playbook also - whereas Mr Dawkins feels he is fully entitled to accuse anyone with a different viewpoint to his own of mendacity, being as he is the guardian of ultimate truth, any suggestion that his own approach is not entirely honest is liable to send him into a huff. Likewise, as you are quite happy to throw around the term 'intellectual honesty' yourself, you shouldn't be surprised if it is thrown back at you.

I don't see how your whole line of questioning could be considered honest, in the sense of a genuine wish to understand the topic you are ostensibly addressing. The bible provides it's criteria for 'proof', although that whole concept as you are using it is lifted from an entirely different way of thinking. As you say, you don't have time/interest in dealing with the bible on its own terms, so you could just leave it there. However for some reason you have decided that some other set of terms is a valid substitute - ? What you need to get your head around if you want to follow an honest line of enquiry is the need to first demonstrate that your terms have some sort of relevance. If someone on the other end of the fundamentalist scale were to ask you to prove evolution by living underwater until you developed gills, then, given that information about ToE is freely avaialable, presumably you would not consider that to be an honest or valid standard for testing the theory. And yet you have somehow convinced yourself that your own arbitrary standards have something to do with whether or not a god exists - why?

You bring out the same old tired 'the burden of proof is on you' dodge to get around asking yourself this question - is that dishonesty, or simply a lack of awareness? Your questions are rooted in a fundamental belief that you are 'right' in some sense, that your worldview is simply true, and right. Without that assumption your questions make no sense - do you see that? So the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that this is the case, that you are indeed simply 'right' that the things you believe represent absolute truth and therefore you can go on to prove that 'everything' should and will fit into the same criteria used to establish this absolute truth. Once you can demonstrate that, demonstrating your intellectual honesty in an examination of your own beliefs at the same time, then you will have provided some evidence that your seemingly arbitrary questions are in fact germane to the topic.

InterestedAtheist · Mar 9, 2020

Tom 1 said:
As you can see yourself I have answered your question, quite plainly.

One thing that has surprised me since first encountering Richard Dawkin's writings is the eyebrow raising lack of self-awareness, so perhaps that is a more charitable way of putting it. Your 'shame on you' comment is right out of the Dawkins playbook also - whereas Mr Dawkins feels he is fully entitled to accuse anyone with a different viewpoint to his own of mendacity, being as he is the guardian of ultimate truth, any suggestion that his own approach is not entirely honest is liable to send him into a huff. Likewise, as you are quite happy to throw around the term 'intellectual honesty' yourself, you shouldn't be surprised if it is thrown back at you.

I don't see how your whole line of questioning could be considered honest, in the sense of a genuine wish to understand the topic you are ostensibly addressing. The bible provides it's criteria for 'proof', although that whole concept as you are using it is lifted from an entirely different way of thinking. As you say, you don't have time/interest in dealing with the bible on its own terms, so you could just leave it there. However for some reason you have decided that some other set of terms is a valid substitute - ? What you need to get your head around if you want to follow an honest line of enquiry is the need to first demonstrate that your terms have some sort of relevance. If someone on the other end of the fundamentalist scale were to ask you to prove evolution by living underwater until you developed gills, then, given that information about ToE is freely avaialable, presumably you would not consider that to be an honest or valid standard for testing the theory. And yet you have somehow convinced yourself that your own arbitrary standards have something to do with whether or not a god exists - why?

You bring out the same old tired 'the burden of proof is on you' dodge to get around asking yourself this question - is that dishonesty, or simply a lack of awareness? Your questions are rooted in a fundamental belief that you are 'right' in some sense, that your worldview is simply true, and right. Without that assumption your questions make no sense - do you see that? So the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that this is the case, that you are indeed simply 'right' that the things you believe represent absolute truth and therefore you can go on to prove that 'everything' should and will fit into the same criteria used to establish this absolute truth. Once you can demonstrate that, demonstrating your intellectual honesty in an examination of your own beliefs at the same time, then you will have provided some evidence that your seemingly arbitrary questions are in fact germane to the topic.

Hmmm. I see I've touched a nerve. Long on insults and rhetoric, short on content and arguments.
Most of your answer doesn't really mean anything at all, so let's focus on the important part.
You said that you had answered the question I asked. This is false. The reason it is false is because there are only two answers you can give.
The first answer is "No, I have no evidence in support of my claims that God exist."
The second answer is "Yes, I do have evidence in support of my claims that God exists."

The fact that there are only two possible answers to the question doesn't mean you'll pick one. I'm betting you'll pick the option of claiming that you don't have to answer the question at all. In which case, I'll just remind you that you are on the Christian Apologetics forum, where Christians are supposed to back up their claims with reasoned arguments and evidence. You don't have to, of course. But then you lose.

Come, now. Have some intellectual honesty. Put your money where your mouth is. Presumably you believe in God for some reason? Presumably you think your reasons are sound?

No?

Tom 1 · Mar 9, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
Hmmm. I see I've touched a nerve. Long on insults and rhetoric, short on content and arguments.
Most of your answer doesn't really mean anything at all, so let's focus on the important part.
You said that you had answered the question I asked. This is false. The reason it is false is because there are only two answers you can give.
The first answer is "No, I have no evidence in support of my claims that God exist."
The second answer is "Yes, I do have evidence in support of my claims that God exists."

The fact that there are only two possible answers to the question doesn't mean you'll pick one. I'm betting you'll pick the option of claiming that you don't have to answer the question at all. In which case, I'll just remind you that you are on the Christian Apologetics forum, where Christians are supposed to back up their claims with reasoned arguments and evidence. You don't have to, of course. But then you lose.

Come, now. Have some intellectual honesty. Put your money where your mouth is. Presumably you believe in God for some reason? Presumably you think your reasons are sound?

No?

What is your objection to my answer in post 81?

You could try coming out of your box, it's up to you.

Tom 1 · Mar 9, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
insults

?

Tom 1 · Mar 9, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
Hmmm. I see I've touched a nerve. Long on insults and rhetoric, short on content and arguments.
Most of your answer doesn't really mean anything at all, so let's focus on the important part.
You said that you had answered the question I asked. This is false. The reason it is false is because there are only two answers you can give.
The first answer is "No, I have no evidence in support of my claims that God exist."
The second answer is "Yes, I do have evidence in support of my claims that God exists."

The fact that there are only two possible answers to the question doesn't mean you'll pick one. I'm betting you'll pick the option of claiming that you don't have to answer the question at all. In which case, I'll just remind you that you are on the Christian Apologetics forum, where Christians are supposed to back up their claims with reasoned arguments and evidence. You don't have to, of course. But then you lose.

Come, now. Have some intellectual honesty. Put your money where your mouth is. Presumably you believe in God for some reason? Presumably you think your reasons are sound?

No?

Are you honestly going to tell me you are not able to see this 'Without that assumption your questions make no sense'?

I've answered your question directly, although it is more of a hokey and rather transparent set up than a question.

You can answer mine, there are two options:

1) the assumptions behind your questions are 'true' in some absolute, provable sense, and you can prove them (please do)
2) they are not, hence your questions have no relevance.

InterestedAtheist · Mar 9, 2020

Tom 1 said:
Are you honestly going to tell me you are not able to see this 'Without that assumption your questions make no sense'?

I told you: I'm still waiting for you to answer my question. I'd like to hear what you have to say. You say you've answered it already? I'd like to see that.

Tom 1 said:
I've answered your question directly, although it is more of a hokey and rather transparent set up than a question.

Only a person who can't back up his beliefs would call asking "Why do you believe what you believe" a setup. Any rational person would say, "Yes, I do have reasons for my belief, and here they are."
You say you've answered my question already? I must have missed it.
Tell me, did you say you had evidence for your beliefs, or that you didn't? I'm betting you're not going to answer with either of these.

Tom 1 said:
You can answer mine, there are two options:
1) the assumptions behind your questions are 'true' in some absolute, provable sense, and you can prove them (please do)
2) they are not, hence your questions have no relevance.

Of course I can answer your questions. They're trivially easy.
My assumption is that we live in the physical world. Trees, stars, buildings, other people, etc.
Now, it may be that my assumption is false. It may be that everything I believe is untrue. Maybe I'm dreaming, hallucinating or mad. But, if so, how would I be able to tell? So, I assume that the world I live in is real. Anything else leads to solipsism.
So when you say "What do atheists believe" the answer is, we believe the same as you. That we all live in the real world.

Now, here you come and say that there exists this being called "God". And I say, "Really? Why should I believe you?"

And you say...

Tom 1 · Mar 9, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
Now, it may be that my assumption is false. It may be that everything I believe is untrue. Maybe I'm dreaming, hallucinating or mad. But, if so, how would I be able to tell?

There you go, that's the question you need to start with. It begins with using the appropriate criteria. If you start from a point where you only believe that the only valid criteria are those that make sense to you, then what you are doing is looking for confirmation of your own ideas. That may make sense in some contexts; because it makes sense in some contexts does not mean that it makes sense in all contexts.

Tom 1 · Mar 9, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
Only a person who can't back up his beliefs would call asking "Why do you believe what you believe" a setup. Any rational person would say, "Yes, I do have reasons for my belief, and here they are."
You say you've answered my question already? I must have missed it.
Tell me, did you say you had evidence for your beliefs, or that you didn't? I'm betting you're not going to answer with either of these.

Sure, as I've said several times, when it comes to the bible you can study it, live it, try it and see what that leads to. Those are the criteria the bible makes for itself to be judged by, as it were. You can diddle about trying to apply some other set of criteria, but you can't expect to get anything useful from that unless you ask better questions. 'Rational' does not mean 'rational according to one set of criteria'. The process of learning what the bible is, what it's content means, what happens when you try to live by it is a rational set of criteria for understanding the bible. Trying to lever the whole question into a set of superficial and poorly examined questions is not rational, it's rationale is faulty - it's the attempt to make something you don't understand fit into a set of criteria you do understand, albeit imperfectly, the proverbial square peg in the round hole.

Tom 1 · Mar 9, 2020

InterestedAtheist said:
My assumption is that we live in the physical world. Trees, stars, buildings, other people, etc.

You are assuming rather more than that, you are assuming that your questions are somehow relevant to the subject. You could learn a lot about your own thinking by really asking yourself why your questions have anything to do with whether or not there is a god.

cvanwey · Mar 9, 2020

cloudyday2 said:
A physicist could believe that macro evolution requires God's hidden hand, and there would be no problem for him/her, because physicists are concerned with other areas of science.

Thank you for this

I feel this may polarize my prior point... I forgot to further mention, that the 'street epistemologist' asked the Christian if he applied the same amount of scrutiny to macro evolution, as he does for the provided 'evidence' for truth in Christianity. This was when they soon parted ways, because the student had to 'get to class'.

As you demonstrated above, I doubt this hypothetical physicist would continue to accept macro evolution, if it had the same number of 'gaps' as Genesis, for instance. (i.e.)...

Yes, the theist could argue that God uses macro evolution, etc etc... But, how do you account for 'Adam and Eve? Did the Bible mean that 'Adam and Eve' were the first classified homo sapiens? And if so, why would God of had to 'create' Eve from Adam's rib? The theist then has to start 'filling in the blanks' to rationalize 'Genesis' as a whole. Or, just state that Genesis was not literal. At which point, the question becomes, why is ANY of it literal? Maybe the resurrection was also not literal?

In retrospect, if the physicist believes in macro evolution, because he/she took biology courses, I doubt the physicist would continue to believe in macro evolution if he/she had to practice the same amount of 'mental gymnastics', as he/she does for Genesis.

The physicist could then argue... "Well, the Bible was never intended to be a science book.'' Even if this is true, one still has many stories to either 'ignore', 'side-step', 'rationalize', etc... In which case, I doubt they would lend the SAME effort for macro evolution?

cvanwey · Mar 9, 2020

bling said:
Evidence is in the eyes of the beholder,

For this statement, I would agree. We all harbor our own criteria for belief in anything. Honestly, I personally do not know what would compel me that a postmortem Jesus exists? But God sure does. Further, God seems to be pretty confidence that, at some point in human history, 'every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.' For which I ask, why wait? We could still reject His request, like Satan and many others. Why remain 'hidden'? We would still have a choice to reject the request.

bling said:
how can you explain life coming from an apparent dead seed, so a tree becomes evidence for a god if you only accept it as evidence.

I can't. But if I was able to produce an answer, outside of 'god did it', would it even matter?

Most likely, no. You would just stop asking this particular question, and move onto other yet unanswered questions. Or, if we were never able to answer this question, is the only conclusion not only god, but YOUR specific flavor of God? If so, how do you know?

bling said:
The OP offered what he would accept as evidence, but that is not to “believe”, but have knowledge of God’s existence.

As stated above, if we all had fundamental knowledge of God's existence, we could either emulate "Satan" in a way, by ultimately rejecting Him. Or, accept His presented gift and follow Him. But thus far, we have yet to even establish God's mere existence. Can you at least facilitate this request?

bling said:
the non-Christian needs faith to help him/her fulfill their earthly objective, so they do not have a guarantee until after becoming a Christian.

I disagree. I was a Christian for decades. I believed it was true, but fell away due to lack in contact, finding conflict in logic, etc etc etc... So unless you are going to accuse me of the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy, like I said, what you state above appears incorrect.

InterestedAtheist · Mar 9, 2020

Tom 1 said:
There you go, that's the question you need to start with. It begins with using the appropriate criteria.

So what? I'm always open to being proved wrong. All you have to do is supply evidence.
When you say I don't question my beliefs you are, of course, quite mistaken. Of course I think that I'm right, otherwise I'd think something else. but the fact that I don't believe God exists doesn't at all mean that I'm not open to the idea that He might. Of course, since Christians such as yourself never, ever, ever have anything to back up their claims, I regard the chance that God might exist as vanishingly small, but I am completely open to changing my beliefs on this matter if I find reason to.

But of course, you have no reason for me to change my beliefs, do you.

Tom 1 said:
If you start from a point where you only believe that the only valid criteria are those that make sense to you, then what you are doing is looking for confirmation of your own ideas.

What a ridiculous thing to say. Why on earth should I believe something that doesn't make sense to me? Why should anyone?
Of course, if you can provide any evidence, arguments or proof to justify your Christian beliefs, then they will make sense to me.

Can you?

Tom 1 said:
Sure, as I've said several times, when it comes to the bible you can study it, live it, try it and see what that leads to. Those are the criteria the bible makes for itself to be judged by, as it were.

Uh-huh. You've still got nothing, eh?

Tom 1 said:
You can diddle about trying to apply some other set of criteria, but you can't expect to get anything useful from that unless you ask better questions.

You can diddle about playing word games, but it doesn't distract from the key issue: why should anyone believe what you say if you have no reason for them to believe?

Tom 1 said:
'Rational' does not mean 'rational according to one set of criteria'.

Of course it does. If you're having difficulty with the word, use a dictionary.
rational
[ˈraSH(ə)n(ə)l]
ADJECTIVE

based on or in accordance with reason or logic.

If you had evidence that Christianity was real then I, being a rational person, would believe in it. Don't blame me for you not having anything to back up your arguments.

Tom 1 said:
The process of learning what the bible is, what it's content means, what happens when you try to live by it is a rational set of criteria for understanding the bible.

Of course it is. I do understand the Bible, thank you very much.
If, on the other hand, you mean that you find proof of God's existence by first believing in God, you're putting the cart before the horse. And, by the way, you shouldn't be on a debating forum.

Tom 1 said:
Trying to lever the whole question into a set of superficial and poorly examined questions is not rational, it's rationale is faulty
it's the attempt to make something you don't understand fit into a set of criteria you do understand, albeit imperfectly, the proverbial square peg in the round hole.

See? Just more empty claims, since you can't back up anything you say.

Tom 1 said:
You are assuming rather more than that, you are assuming that your questions are somehow relevant to the subject. You could learn a lot about your own thinking by really asking yourself why your questions have anything to do with whether or not there is a god.

You could learn a lot about your own religion by looking at it and asking yourself if you actually have any rational justifications for the things you believe.

cloudyday2 · Mar 9, 2020

cvanwey said:
Yes, the theist could argue that God uses macro evolution, etc etc... But, how do you account for 'Adam and Eve? Did the Bible mean that 'Adam and Eve' were the first classified homo sapiens? And if so, why would God of had to 'create' Eve from Adam's rib? The theist then has to start 'filling in the blanks' to rationalize 'Genesis' as a whole. Or, just state that Genesis was not literal. At which point, the question becomes, why is ANY of it literal? Maybe the resurrection was also not literal?

I found an interesting solution to that problem on one of the Catholic websites. They posit that although the human genome evolved gradually there was a moment in time when a single hominid (among the many other hominids alive at that time) suddenly became capable of asking questions like "what is the meaning of life?", "how did the universe come to exist?", etc. That change, they claim, was not gradual but sudden. This hominid was only slightly different genetically from all the other hominids, but he was dramatically different in his ability to relate to God. Of course that was Adam.

Eve coming from the rib? Hmmmm. I don't know how the Catholics make that believable, but I suppose they probably have something. I have been very impressed with the Catholic efforts to tie-up all the loose ends in Christian theology.

By the way, I discovered a Sumerian story that may have been the inspiration for the Jewish story of Adam and Eve. A brother and sister god travel to a tree where they are given a fruit that teaches them about sex. I'm having difficulty finding the link now unfortunately.

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