The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists

[InterestedAtheist]

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.

Well done to the Catholic Church for accepting evolution, but this idea of their of God suddenly placing a soul in a human being is, quite simply, just something they made up.

 

[Tom 1]

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.


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?


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


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?


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

1. 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.


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.


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


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.

Well, you can keep on chasing your own tail if you like, that's your prerogative. You don't need to believe in the bible to take it on its own terms, obviously if you think your own terms are somehow more relevant then keep at it. Clearly you don't understand the concept of questioning your own belief system, fair enough.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

If you look at the link in the OP, to the article it is based on, you'll see that the writer has been presenting Christians with this challenge (to provide evidence for their religion) for some years, but very few have been able to take him up on it. And the few who do can only answer with evasions, such as "How ridiculous of you, to ask me for evidence for my claims."

This is easily explained, since they have none.

 

[Tom 1]

If you look at the link in the OP, to the article it is based on, you'll see that the writer has been presenting Christians with this challenge (to provide evidence for their religion) for some years, but very few have been able to take him up on it. And the few who do can only answer with evasions, such as "How ridiculous of you, to ask me for evidence for my claims."

This is easily explained, since they have none.

It's a very basic reality. If I presented you with a box of cereals and claimed that it's contents had been designed to adapt to the physionomy of anyone who tasted it, making it the most amazing thing they had ever eaten, the rational thing to do would be to take a handful and eat it to see what the experience is like. You could instead, however, choose to embark on a long and meaningless quest to establish the veracity of the claims about 'the cereal' using some yardstick you feel is 'rational'. Were you to choose option 2, I'd still find you 10, 20, 50 years later still chasing your tail.
How can you expect to understand what the bible is without taking it on its own terms? You really need to think about that, to avoid wasting so much effort in pointless circular arguments.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

It's a very basic reality. If I presented you with a box of cereals and claimed that it's contents had been designed to adapt to the physionomy of anyone who tasted it, making it the most amazing thing they had ever eaten, the rational thing to do would be to take a handful and eat it to see what the experience is like. You could instead, however, choose to embark on a long and meaningless quest to establish the veracity of the claims about 'the cereal' using some yardstick you feel is 'rational'. Were you to choose option 2, I'd still find you 10, 20, 50 years later still chasing your tail.
How can you expect to understand what the bible is without taking it on its own terms? You really need to think about that, to avoid wasting so much effort in pointless circular arguments.

Hmm. First of all, I admire your daring in saying that "I'd like to see some evidence that your claims are true" is a pointless circular argument.

Now, moving on to your cereal example. When it comes to cereal, you're correct. I would simply try some. That's because all I have to do is open the box and try it. In contrast, if I want to try your religion, how long would it take to see if it's true? Five minutes? Two days? Fifty years? There are plenty of atheists who did try Christianity, for many years, and eventually realised there was nothing to it.

A better analogy goes like this: a man comes to you and tells you that he has a wonderful brand of cereal. He hands you a box and, when you open it, you find that it is empty. The man assures you that there is nothing to worry about. All you have to do is join his mailing list, and in due course you will become convinced that his cereal is indeed the most wonderful foodstuff.

If that sounds ridiculous, it is. And so is the idea of saying "just try Christianity and you'll see it's real." Following your reasoning, I take it that if a person from another religion came to you and said, "Your religion is false; my religion is true. You may think your religion is true, but if you try my religion, you will find that you were mistaken, and that mine is the true one," - presumably you would then convert to their religion, to see if they were right?
Of course you wouldn't.

Now put yourself in an atheist's shoes. You live in a world in which there are multiple religions, all claiming to be the correct one, and all claiming that the others are wrong. None of them have any proof, but all of them say that if you try their religion, you will see that it's true. You ask how long you need to try their religion for, and they all say "try it until you realise it's the truth."

See the problem?

 

[Tom 1]

Hmm. First of all, I admire your daring in saying that "I'd like to see some evidence that your claims are true" is a pointless circular argument.

Now, moving on to your cereal example. When it comes to cereal, you're correct. I would simply try some. That's because all I have to do is open the box and try it. In contrast, if I want to try your religion, how long would it take to see if it's true? Five minutes? Two days? Fifty years? There are plenty of atheists who did try Christianity, for many years, and eventually realised there was nothing to it.

A better analogy goes like this: a man comes to you and tells you that he has a wonderful brand of cereal. He hands you a box and, when you open it, you find that it is empty. The man assures you that there is nothing to worry about. All you have to do is join his mailing list, and in due course you will become convinced that his cereal is indeed the most wonderful foodstuff.

If that sounds ridiculous, it is. And so is the idea of saying "just try Christianity and you'll see it's real." Following your reasoning, I take it that if a person from another religion came to you and said, "Your religion is false; my religion is true. You may think your religion is true, but if you try my religion, you will find that you were mistaken, and that mine is the true one," - presumably you would then convert to their religion, to see if they were right?
Of course you wouldn't.

Now put yourself in an atheist's shoes. You live in a world in which there are multiple religions, all claiming to be the correct one, and all claiming that the others are wrong. None of them have any proof, but all of them say that if you try their religion, you will see that it's true. You ask how long you need to try their religion for, and they all say "try it until you realise it's the truth."

See the problem?

You're overstating my point a little, I'll simplify it:

- cereals good? Eat, see. Those are the criteria.
- religion good? try, see. Those are the criteria.

That's the whole point. Whether or not you think that is practical doesn't actually make a difference, and like many other things, having a set of criteria does not of course guarantee any particular set of results. That does not change the fact that those are the criteria. If something makes claims about itself, and you choose to ignore that and try and determine what it means in some other way, you have created a circular argument for yourself which looks something like:

1) My criteria are the best criteria
2) Other criteria are, according to my criteria, not useful
3) Therefore, I will apply my criteria to everything. Anything that does not fit my criteria must be false.

And the whole thing just goes round and round. Many people choose to live in this bubble, fair enough, it's very popular. What your own particular understanding of what rational thinking means is very useful for a limited range of things. It's not difficult to see what happens when it is taken to be 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth' however. Betrand Russell is an interesting example - supremely rational in academic terms, gifted with a remarkable abiltity to process information and clearly express ideas. In the application of his thinking, however, as in his educational experiments, he quickly found himself wallowing out of his depth. Other people who think in a similar way would respond to this with some version of 'well he didn't succeed because he didn't follow this or that other idea' or something of the sort, all based on things they think, rather than any actual experience of seeing things work. The method itself, however, is rarely questioned. While this whole way of thinking can be useful, it is not universally so.

This whole approach - the idealisation of the mental life - is fairly new and obviously useful in a lot of ways, but adopting it as 'the' way to understand all things can only provide a limited view of the world. The biblical approach to establishing the truth of things - those things it is concerned with that is - differs. Whereas a lot of relatively modern philosophy is based in the notion of developing ideas and then applying them in some sense (often without much practical success), the biblical approach is more along the lines of developing character based on certain principles, acting out of that character and modifying your behaviour both with regard to the initial principles and the principle of learning through 'constant use' as the bible puts it, with some consideration to outcomes and circumstance. The bible is about living, trying to turn it into the inverse process of developing some abstract notions about it and trying to apply those to it is no different to the idea of trying to conceptualise the flavour of some univerally great cereal rather than just tasting it.

I do understand that it is extremely difficult to step out of a way of viewing and thinking about the world once you have internalised it, our brains like to hold onto patterns that provide an illusion of certainty, and to use this as a yardstick to evaluate anything that threatens that. The Catholic maxim 'give us a child to the age of 7, and he/she will be a Catholic for life' (paraphrased) holds true across all areas of life. Even an ex-Catholic atheist, as I've seen myself, will still use a catholic approach to argument.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

You're overstating my point a little, I'll simplify it:
- cereals good? Eat, see. Those are the criteria.
- religion good? try, see. Those are the criteria.

Can I say, I really like your cereal analogy. I tend to like Christian analogies in general. This is because when you try to compare Christianity to something in the real world, it highlights how much Christanity doesn't make sense.
Take a look at what you've said. a box of cereal? Yes, you can immediately see if it's there or not. You can't do that with your religion. You can taste the cereal, and immediately tell if you like it or not. But now we see your analogy breaks down, because we are not discussing whether we like Christianity, or even whether it works to produce results. We are discussing whether or not it is real.

Give me a box of cereal and I can immediately eat some and know at once if I like it or not.
But supposing I do pray to God and nothing happens. Will you admit that there is no God? Of course not. You'll tell me to pray harder. Read the Bible. Think about it. Sincerely open myself up to the Lord. Join a church. No, not that one this one. Keep praying. Not worked yet? You have to give it time! Do you think you're in charge of God? He'll come to you when you're ready. You're not trying properly! If you were really sincere, it'd work, you know. Three years already? Well, this is a matter of your eternal soul. Try harder!

Not quite like trying a taste of cereal, is it?

1) My criteria are the best criteria
2) Other criteria are, according to my criteria, not useful
3) Therefore, I will apply my criteria to everything. Anything that does not fit my criteria must be false.

You've failed to understand what I was saying.
The post says "these are things that I would accept as proof of God."
It doesn't say they're the only things I'd accept. You have something better? Bring it on. But if your argument is "you have to try our religion and keep trying it until it works, well -

Did you read what I read earlier?

Following your reasoning, I take it that if a person from another religion came to you and said, "Your religion is false; my religion is true. You may think your religion is true, but if you try my religion, you will find that you were mistaken, and that mine is the true one," - presumably you would then convert to their religion, to see if they were right?
Of course you wouldn't.

Now put yourself in an atheist's shoes. You live in a world in which there are multiple religions, all claiming to be the correct one, and all claiming that the others are wrong. None of them have any proof, but all of them say that if you try their religion, you will see that it's true. You ask how long you need to try their religion for, and they all say "try it until you realise it's the truth."

See the problem?

Betrand Russell is an interesting example - supremely rational in academic terms, gifted with a remarkable abiltity to process information and clearly express ideas. In the application of his thinking, however, as in his educational experiments, he quickly found himself wallowing out of his depth.

Bertrand Russell was one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. You are making elementary errors of logic on an amateur debating forum. I think I'll take your opinion of him with a grain of salt.

The bible is about living, trying to turn it into the inverse process of developing some abstract notions about it and trying to apply those to it is no different to the idea of trying to conceptualise the flavour of some univerally great cereal rather than just tasting it.

The Koran is about living, trying to turn it into the inverse process of developing some abstract notions about it and trying to apply those to it is no different to the idea of trying to conceptualise the flavour of some univerally great cereal rather than just tasting it.

I do understand that it is extremely difficult to step out of a way of viewing and thinking about the world once you have internalised it, our brains like to hold onto patterns that provide an illusion of certainty, and to use this as a yardstick to evaluate anything that threatens that.

Hmmm. Projection much?

 

[cloudyday2]

- cereals good? Eat, see. Those are the criteria.
- religion good? try, see. Those are the criteria.

John the Baptist and Jesus said "repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near." Jesus didn't say "give my teachings a try and you will see how they improve your life". That is what Buddha might have said but not what Jesus said.

In fairness, I have heard some Christians claim that the Holy Spirit shows Christians the truth of things that they did not see or understand before. Also I have heard many Christians claim that the Kingdom of Heaven is the Church.

 

[Tom 1]

Not quite like trying a taste of cereal, is it?

You're missing the point - taking the analogy too literally. Some issues can be approached from the inside out, beginning with abstracts, some can't.

 

[Clizby WampusCat]

It's a very basic reality. If I presented you with a box of cereals and claimed that it's contents had been designed to adapt to the physionomy of anyone who tasted it, making it the most amazing thing they had ever eaten, the rational thing to do would be to take a handful and eat it to see what the experience is like. You could instead, however, choose to embark on a long and meaningless quest to establish the veracity of the claims about 'the cereal' using some yardstick you feel is 'rational'. Were you to choose option 2, I'd still find you 10, 20, 50 years later still chasing your tail.
How can you expect to understand what the bible is without taking it on its own terms? You really need to think about that, to avoid wasting so much effort in pointless circular arguments.

The problem is what is the correct way to try Christianity? I was a christian for 18 years and now do not believe. I have been told in many ways that I never really believed or that I was doing it wrong in different ways. When Christians present these analogies and tests they never take a negative result as final. They will always have some loophole so to speak so they can justify in their mind their belief is true and discount my experience.

How do you explain true believers such as myself that later became non believers? Could god have shown me enough to keep me as a believer?

 

[Tom 1]

John the Baptist and Jesus said "repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near." Jesus didn't say "give my teachings a try and you will see how they improve your life". That is what Buddha might have said but not what Jesus said.

In fairness, I have heard some Christians claim that the Holy Spirit shows Christians the truth of things that they did not see or understand before. Also I have heard many Christians claim that the Kingdom of Heaven is the Church.

The verse referred to is John 8:31 onwards - if you hold to my teachings, you will know the truth, the truth will set you free, and so on. The same idea is featured in different parts of the OT, the book of Esther is fundamentally about choices and outcomes, and the whole idea is repeated throughout the OT from Exodus on - if you obey, these will be your rewards, if you disobey, this is what will happen, and so on, as in the contrast between the wages of since/ the gift of God in Romans 6. It's a revolving theme - different actions have different consequences on a number of levels, including the affect on how we think.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

In fairness, I have heard some Christians claim that the Holy Spirit shows Christians the truth of things that they did not see or understand before.

The interesting thing thing is, religion should improve your life. Having access to an entity like God, being able to communicate with the loving, all-wise creator of the universe - you would think that kind of thing would show up in broad trends of data. But as far as we can tell, Christians live lives just like everyone else. Their prayers don't get answered any more than those of other religions. Their holy book and stories are full of miracles, but we never see them in real life.

It's almost as if the all-powerful, all-wise, all-loving entity they claim to be able to speak to doesn't exist...

 

[Tom 1]

Following your reasoning, I take it that if a person from another religion came to you and said, "Your religion is false; my religion is true. You may think your religion is true, but if you try my religion, you will find that you were mistaken, and that mine is the true one," - presumably you would then convert to their religion, to see if they were right?
Of course you wouldn't.

Now put yourself in an atheist's shoes. You live in a world in which there are multiple religions, all claiming to be the correct one, and all claiming that the others are wrong. None of them have any proof, but all of them say that if you try their religion, you will see that it's true. You ask how long you need to try their religion for, and they all say "try it until you realise it's the truth."

See the problem?

You keep inserting your own ideas in to my comments. Those are criteria for evaluation, not a straight line to a predetermined end. I think we can save time by skipping over such superficial notions and simplistic reasoning, I don't see what purpose it serves.

Bertrand Russell was one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. You are making elementary errors of logic on an amateur debating forum. I think I'll take your opinion of him with a grain of salt.

He was indeed a great thinker, not so great at the application of ideas though. Many if not all of the great modern philosophers lived in ways that were entirely inconsistent with their expressed ideals.

The Koran is about living, trying to turn it into the inverse process of developing some abstract notions about it and trying to apply those to it is no different to the idea of trying to conceptualise the flavour of some univerally great cereal rather than just tasting it.

Why do you insist on making statements about things you know nothing about? What is the point?

Hmmm. Projection much?

No, I'm quite familiar with your way of thinking. It's certainly useful for some things.

 

[Tom 1]

The problem is what is the correct way to try Christianity? I was a christian for 18 years and now do not believe. I have been told in many ways that I never really believed or that I was doing it wrong in different ways. When Christians present these analogies and tests they never take a negative result as final. They will always have some loophole so to speak so they can justify in their mind their belief is true and discount my experience.

How do you explain true believers such as myself that later became non believers? Could god have shown me enough to keep me as a believer?

Means are one thing, ends are another. The reasons why your ideas have changed I can't really comment on, I don't know what they are.

What I think of as the correct way to understand the bible is to take it on its own terms, in its respective parts, find out what it meant at the time and what the purposes of the writers were. Given that a lot of ancient texts continue to be dug up the context for understanding that continues to expand. Understanding what the bible is and what it has to say is a first step in figuring out how to 'do' Christianity, as to how you might go about that I think that is down to the personal understanding you arrive at. A lot of ideas that float around about the bible are not much more than the result of numerous layers of later thinking applied to re-interpret what was originally meant, but there are of course parts of the bible you don't really need to know the deeper meaning of to apply them. The only real answer as far as I am concerned is that if you want to figure it out, you have to take the bible on its own terms and work it out yourself.

 

[Tom 1]

But as far as we can tell, Christians live lives just like everyone else.

Who is the 'we' here? The over 1000 studies and hundreds of subsequent reviews do in fact show a correlation between a practising faith and numerous health benefits.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Who is the 'we' here? The over 1000 studies and hundreds of subsequent reviews do in fact show a correlation between a practising faith and numerous health benefits.

I'm sure they do. Thinking that you are in contact with God can make you feel wonderful, and happiness and peace of mind, combined with the placebo effect can certainly be beneficial to your health. Not to mention the whole structure of church and the ways it may discourage drunkenness, drugs, etc.
Please note that when I spoke above I only included things which could come about by actually being in contact with a God that really existed.

Reminds me of a quote:

 

[Tom 1]

I'm sure they do. Thinking that you are in contact with God can make you feel wonderful, and happiness and peace of mind, combined with the placebo effect can certainly be beneficial to your health. Not to mention the whole structure of church and the ways it may discourage drunkenness, drugs, etc.
Please note that when I spoke above I only included things which could come about by actually being in contact with a God that really existed.

Reminds me of a quote: View attachment 273002

Hmm, for a purported skeptic you have an unusually regular habit of making random unverified comments on things you know little about. Your faith in your ideas about things you have only a few superficial notions about seems far more credulous to me than my belief in God.

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Hmm, for a purported skeptic you have an unusually regular habit of making random unverified comments on things you know little about. Your faith in your ideas about things you have only a few superficial notions about seems far more credulous to me than my belief in God.

Not at all. You, however, have a habit of projecting your own mistakes on to others.
There's nothing at all unusual about the placebo effect. It's a well-understood phenomenon .
We can see plenty of effects in Christians of their belief in God, and all of them can be accounted for without needing to postulate that a God.actually exists.
You may have heard the old story of man who went to Lourdes, famous for its miraculous healings. Looking about, and seeing all the discarded crutches, he said: "Hmmm. And where are all the wooden legs?"

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Hmm, for a purported skeptic you have an unusually regular habit of making random unverified comments on things you know little about. Your faith in your ideas about things you have only a few superficial notions about seems far more credulous to me than my belief in God.

Not at all. You, however, have a habit of projecting your own mistakes in to others.
There's nothing at all unusual about the placebo effect. It's a well-understood phenomenon .
We can see plenty of effects in Christians of their belief in God, and all of them can be accounted for without needing to postulate that a God.actually exists.
You may have heard the old story of man who went to Lourdes, famous for its miraculous healings. Looking about, and seeing all the discarded crutches, he said: "Hmmm. And where are all the wooden legs?"

 

[InterestedAtheist]

Hmm, for a purported skeptic you have an unusually regular habit of making random unverified comments on things you know little about. Your faith in your ideas about things you have only a few superficial notions about seems far more credulous to me than my belief in God.

But perhaps you do have something to show after all? Actual credible answers to prayers, or miracles?

No? I thought not.