Debating with atheists

[loro]

Recently, quite often I have had discussions about God and religion with my friends who are atheists. In most cases I was the only Christian at the table, and since I am a physics student, I’m often talking with many other people who are into science, so my “opponents” were usually very intelligent people.

The thing is that I’m proud of being a Christian, and feel a need to share my Faith. So whenever a conversation goes into the subject of religion or morality, I can’t remain silent. I just feel that I should try to explain to them, what they’ve misunderstood.

However recently these kind of debates don’t serve me well. Not that I’m anywhere near losing my Faith, but even though I have a good relationship with God, and have experienced the Charisms myself, the arguments and explainations that my debaters bring up, often seem to be really sensible, and often I just know too little to give a counter argument. Also they usually don’t tend to be that respectful, so I often get to hear epithets, and mocking remarks, which then stick in my head and disturb my joy of being a Christian. (I hope things I say about God, etc. don’t leave them alone either )

For example I’ve heard from them explainations for Resting in the Holy Spirit, that it might be a placebo effect, and the thing is that no matter how strong I believe that it’s really the Holy Spirit, I can’t just rule their explaination out with certainty - and that really does seriously spoil my joy, when I take part in charismatic worships.

Does any of you have or have had similar sentiments? How to deal with them? Should I try to approach the issue in a different way?

Maybe also I could take this opportunity to ask you for a prayer for helping me with fixing this problem.

 

[fermat]

I would recommend Fr. Barron’s video talking about St. Aquinas and the nature of God. It might give you some ideas.

youtu.be/_eyF0PiIY_o

 

[onjac]

I would recommend Fr. Barron’s video talking about St. Aquinas and the nature of God. It might give you some ideas.

youtu.be/_eyF0PiIY_o

I agree. Fr. Barron after all does respond back on YouTube and YouTube tends to attract the mist militant atheists. He has some good responses there and there are some thoughtful commentators there as well.

 

[lerapt78]

OP, why don’t you give us a few examples of the arguments they make, and we can start from there?

 

[prodigalson2011]

Recently, quite often I have had discussions about God and religion with my friends who are atheists. In most cases I was the only Christian at the table, and since I am a physics student, I’m often talking with many other people who are into science, so my “opponents” were usually very intelligent people.

The thing is that I’m proud of being a Christian, and feel a need to share my Faith. So whenever a conversation goes into the subject of religion or morality, I can’t remain silent. I just feel that I should try to explain to them, what they’ve misunderstood.

However recently these kind of debates don’t serve me well. Not that I’m anywhere near losing my Faith, but even though I have a good relationship with God, and have experienced the Charisms myself, the arguments and explainations that my debaters bring up, often seem to be really sensible, and often I just know too little to give a counter argument. Also they usually don’t tend to be that respectful, so I often get to hear epithets, and mocking remarks, which then stick in my head and disturb my joy of being a Christian. (I hope things I say about God, etc. don’t leave them alone either )

For example I’ve heard from them explainations for Resting in the Holy Spirit, that it might be a placebo effect, and the thing is that no matter how strong I believe that it’s really the Holy Spirit, I can’t just rule their explaination out with certainty - and that really does seriously spoil my joy, when I take part in charismatic worships.

Does any of you have or have had similar sentiments? How to deal with them? Should I try to approach the issue in a different way?

Maybe also I could take this opportunity to ask you for a prayer for helping me with fixing this problem.

You would do well to familiarize yourself with Christian philosophy. William Lane Craig’s reasonablefaith.org is an invaluable resource. Also, read anything by Ed Feser. Peter Kreeft is great as well. Craig, while not Catholic, delves more extensively into the world of science, though, which makes him a real force to be reckoned with. See any of his debates on You Tube and see for yourself. Atheists fear him. Sam Harris called him “the one Christian who seems to put the fear of God in my fellow atheists,” and that many of them begged him before their debate, “not to screw this up.” Point being, I think his work would be a real help to you in countering your friends’ arguments.

 

[lao_tzu]

These topics tend to be disappeared fairly quickly. Are you sure the OP is within the forum guidelines?

 

[Delaine75]

This is why I don’t waste time debating religion with atheists. From my own personal experience, it doesn’t matter how respectful you are toward them; the majority I’ve dealt with have been rude, condescending and, at times, downright disrespectful. There is nothing wrong with sharing your faith and letting others see the Light that shines in you, but I’d suggest not wasting time getting into debates with people such as this, but rather, pray for them instead.

 

[starsmurf]

Just as you wouldn’t go into a debate about two ideas in physics (such as Dark Matter vs MOND) without studying both, don’t start debates about God until you’ve done some reading. While you may want to share and defend your Faith, you are not helping them come to God if you’re not able to explain or back up your points. You could browse the shop here for some books that might help you.

To be able to debate and defend the Catholic faith, you need to study apologetics. It will take time and requires a good knowledge of the Bible that can only come from reading the Bible right through, again and again. Always remember the old physics standby, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. Just as you wouldn’t expect a particle physicist to be able to explain the details of relativistic astrophysics in merging neutron stars, you can’t explain everything about the Catholic faith to your listeners. There is no shame in saying “I’m not entirely sure, I need to read up on that”. It’s better than saying something that is actually incorrect and giving your listeners the wrong idea about the Church.

As for things like “Resting in the Spirit”, I wouldn’t give that as evidence of the existence of the Holy Spirit, as it could be a placebo effect. However, if you experience it, just keep praying to the Holy Spirit, don’t start analysing the experience. Always remember that the saints have long taught that “feelings” are not the best guide to God. They are a gift to be enjoyed certainly, but we must not stop at that level just so that we can enjoy them. I’d suggest reading about St John of the Cross’s ‘Dark Night of the Senses’ and ‘Dark Night of the Soul’. They are terms used to describe experiences during our spiritual growth, we loses the ability to “feel” God. No more nice, floaty feelings. It is in this way that we grow spiritually. That’s the road to God, not expecting that prayer should be “rewarded” with a nice feeling at the end.

I hope and pray that you’ll be able to explain the Catholic Faith to your friends. Perhaps in years to come something you said will lead them to explore the Faith for themselves.

 

[mymamamary]

Fr. barron has excellent points to make on Yotube, so I highly recommend his videos, also, speaking from expierence, I actually enjoy going on Facebook with random atheists and a few of my atheist friends at school and “rocking the boat” I enjoy debating atheists so I could suggest a few pointers:

1. Our LORD cannot be denied or explained merely on the scientific level. Tell them that honestly, if they want to continue a serious debate with you, you need to aruge them on a philosophical field.
2. St. Thomas aquinas and his first cause arguement is highly unbeatable. I would need to see an Atheist pull that arguement apart without looking like a complete fool.
3. Tell them that to have everything created randomly and for no cause is HIGHLY childish. They think my Religion is childish, listen to the rote coming from dawkins and hawkings and the late hitchens. Pure rubbish. Childish rubbish. Now thats a story that I would tell my kids at night “The universe happened out of nothing and for no good reason”
4. Atheism leads to murderous regimes and injustice. Look at the communist regimes, the number of innocent people dying in them are no where near what the “big bad inquistion” or “crusades” or “witch hunts” ever did.
5. Give them some Miracles as a trump card, tell them the truth, that Science has NOT BEEN able to explain these miralcles:

Our Lady of Guadelupes tilma (No, its not a painting)

The Shroud of Turin (The idiot scientists mistook the carbon dating, and no, its not a painting either)

The Holy Veil of Manopello (The Ressurection shroud, once you merge the two faces, they are exactly the same)

Catholic Christianity has survived the MOST dangerous persecutions and is growing, while the most rest of the world religions are starting to become “dying breeds” (No disrespect intended)

Where does our Morality originate from? (Dont take physcology or evolution for an aswer, because they dont adress the root of the issue?

Are there moral absolutes? (There has to be otherwise, if I feel like it, I can kill someone, or rob, etc.)

The Church has done THE MOST humanitarian work of any other nation or organization IN THE WORLD!!

Why are atheists the LEAST happiest people?? Why is it that their subjective morality allows them everything and yet they are the LEAST happiest people??

This should make them think, I havent been beat yet at debates because I play these cards or at least most or some of these cards, particularly the “Miracles” card. (I dont recall anyway:thumbsup

 

[cornbread_r2]

You would do well to familiarize yourself with Christian philosophy. William Lane Craig’s reasonablefaith.org is an invaluable resource. Also, read anything by Ed Feser. Peter Kreeft is great as well. Craig, while not Catholic, delves more extensively into the world of science, though, which makes him a real force to be reckoned with. See any of his debates on You Tube and see for yourself. Atheists fear him. Sam Harris called him “the one Christian who seems to put the fear of God in my fellow atheists,” and that many of them begged him before their debate, “not to screw this up.” Point being, I think his work would be a real help to you in countering your friends’ arguments.

If the OP is going to emulate Craig, I suggest he/she copy his tactics as well as his arguments. Those tactics include:

#1: Insist on going first debating a topic of your choice. Insist on a time-limited, live debate in front of a friendly audience and without a functional referee.

#2: In your opening statement make as many assertions as possible even if they aren’t accurate. In the format described it #1, your opponents will spend most of their time correcting your mistakes and won’t have time to make the own points.

#3; In your rebuttal point out that your opponents haven’t disputed all of your points and declare victory.

If anyone doubts that these tactics aren’t crucial to Craig’s success, I suggest they view Craig’s debates with Shelly Kagen, Stephen Law and Sam Harris’s most recent one. All of these debates departed from Craig’s preferred format and in them he didn’t do so bueno. (I don’t know how Craig would do in an open-ended, written debate since, to the best of my knowledge, he’s never agreed to participate in one.)

 

[DarkLight]

A word of advice: Most philosophically inclined atheists are not moral relativists. Don’t try to pull the “you don’t have morality/you can’t ground morality” line. Look up utilitarianism and naturalistic virtue ethics.

That said - please consider, if they aren’t being very respectful, don’t engage. And give them the reason - you don’t want to engage because they aren’t being polite.

In all seriousness - Craig is ok, but he doesn’t know his science terribly well. Probably the top of the philosophical game is Plantinga, though he might be a bit inaccessible to the layperson. His evolutionary argument is probably the easiest to get; his necessity argument is the best but is quite difficult if you lack training in formal logic.

 

[mymamamary]

A word of advice: Most philosophically inclined atheists are not moral relativists. Don’t try to pull the “you don’t have morality/you can’t ground morality” line. Look up utilitarianism and naturalistic virtue ethics.

That said - please consider, if they aren’t being very respectful, don’t engage. And give them the reason - you don’t want to engage because they aren’t being polite.

In all seriousness - Craig is ok, but he doesn’t know his science terribly well. Probably the top of the philosophical game is Plantinga, though he might be a bit inaccessible to the layperson. His evolutionary argument is probably the easiest to get; his necessity argument is the best but is quite difficult if you lack training in formal logic.

but their morality is very shallow, from the people I have debated. They seem to get their morality from “Science” and “Physcology” (Which frankly I dont get, as these things are two different ball games ). Also, I have engaged an Atheist when he was mad. He made a rude comment, so I “punched” back intellectually. Step on me, fine, step on my personal life etc., fine, but atheists, dont you DARE step on my Faith, otherwise, you are going to get a Catholic Intellectual beatdown. A Serious Catholic intellectual beatdown. Muhhamad Ali style! :

 

[DarkLight]

but their morality is very shallow, from the people I have debated. They seem to get their morality from “Science” and “Physcology” (Which frankly I dont get, as these things are two different ball games ). Also, I have engaged an Atheist when he was mad. He made a rude comment, so I “punched” back intellectually. Step on me, fine, step on my personal life etc., fine, but atheists, dont you DARE step on my Faith, otherwise, you are going to get a Catholic Intellectual beatdown. A Serious Catholic intellectual beatdown. Muhhamad Ali style! :

I could say the same thing for most of the Christians I debated as an atheist. They seemed to have very circular view of morality (God tells us what is good because God is good, which we know because what he tells us is good), and tended to run to ad hominem attacks about how I “must just be in rebellion” when challenged.

 

[mymamamary]

Im not thinking about ad hominem. Most Christians arent me.

I have debated not a few atheists and have personal expiernce. I have yet to lose (from what I remember )

 

[prodigalson2011]

If the OP is going to emulate Craig, I suggest he/she copy his tactics as well as his arguments. Those tactics include:

#1: Insist on going first debating a topic of your choice. Insist on a time-limited, live debate in front of a friendly audience and without a functional referee.

This is a popular myth among Craig’s critics. He does not insist on going first. It is common practice in debates for the affirmative argument to be made first. As most of these debates are on the existence of God, Craig goes first as he argues in the affirmative.

#2: In your opening statement make as many assertions as possible even if they aren’t accurate. In the format described it #1, your opponents will spend most of their time correcting your mistakes and won’t have time to make the own points.

Manifestly untrue. Both debaters are given equal time to present a prepared opening case. Rebuttals come in the second round.

#3; In your rebuttal point out that your opponents haven’t disputed all of your points and declare victory.

Both parties are given equal time and Craig spends more time deconstructing his opponents arguments than they do his, so you really don’t have a leg to stand on. Your accusations ring empty.

The simple fact is Craig presents solid, detached arguments that stick to the facts while his opponents almost always resort to emotional rhetoric, and that’s why they lose. This modern crop of atheists are highly unphilosophical; that they can’t seem to debate without making appeals to emotion is not Craig’s fault.

 

[mymamamary]

This is a popular myth among Craig’s critics. He does not insist on going first. It is common practice in debates for the affirmative argument to be made first. As most of these debates are on the existence of God, Craig goes first as he argues in the affirmative.

Manifestly untrue. Both debaters are given equal time to present a prepared opening case. Rebuttals come in the second round.

Both parties are given equal time and Craig spends more time deconstructing his opponents arguments than they do his, so you really don’t have a leg to stand on. Your accusations ring empty.

The simple fact is Craig presents solid, detached arguments that stick to the facts while his opponents almost always resort to emotional rhetoric, and that’s why they lose. This modern crop of atheists are highly unphilosophical; that they can’t seem to debate without making appeals to emotion is not Craig’s fault.

True, ALOT of atheists are ignorant of philosophicval principles and are unversed in Philosophy. That is their undoing because science alone cannot prove or disprove. Making a lot of attempts at a logical fallacy is also something they will do

 

[loro]

Thank you for all the valuable responses!

These topics tend to be disappeared fairly quickly. Are you sure the OP is within the forum guidelines?

First of all I’m sorry if it’s not an appropriate place to discuss this. To me the issue seemed to fit into Evagelisation, but now I see it’s going off on a different tangent. So if it’s not appropriate, please move it where it should be.

Just in case I wasn’t clear - when I said “debates” I just meant regular conversations - that sometimes go into these topics, and while I absolutely take the point that I should educate myself, and definitely will look at all these resources that you gave me, I think just the fact that I’m standing up in defence, gives a testimony to the listeners, and might stick in their heads.

here is no shame in saying “I’m not entirely sure, I need to read up on that”.

This is definitely something I tend to forget about…

As for things like "Resting in the Spirit (…)

This is definitely a valuable point. Surely I don’t think that nice floaty feelings are a central thing in Christianty, but the thing is that when I first experienced the Charisms, I actually started believing for real, and my life has really been transformed since then. That is something I’m sharing with people, even though it surely doesn’t constitute a proof. It’s more something that convinced me, and a suggestion for them. But clearly I shouldn’t stop there.

Now regarding your arguments, I do understand them, and I also do understand the position of atheists on them:

Why is there something rather than nothing? - We don’t know yet, but science is there to find out.

Science doesn’t adress the question of the existence of God - But it has explained a lot of things, that used to be explained by God - e.g. the motion of the planets, the existence of humans, etc. (Personally I see no problem in connecting the two explainations together, but because of this the existence of God appears to them to be unnecessary towards explaining anything in this world)

Atheism leads to murderous regimes and injustice - That is certainly true, but even though on a different scale - religious fanatism does too, or as mentioned below: crusades and inquisition.

Where does our Morality originate from? - From the culture being “spoiled” by Christian rules, from the common sense, from a fear of being punished by law.

Miracles - I haven’t tried it (I should!) but I guess they’d more probably question the quality of the scientific analysis, that they’ve been subjected to, rather than whether they were actually true or not.

OP, why don’t you give us a few examples of the arguments they make, and we can start from there?

Ok here’s one I had yesterday: A person started talking about how the fact that medicine has improved over the last century, has lead to the increase of the human population, which then leads to exhaustion of the Earth’s resources such as petroleum or carbon, which is going to cause big problems for the next generations - perhaps starvations, and energy crisis. Then knowing that I’m a Christian, he said that it’s a contradiction in our moral Law (he just says that, and doesn’t propose an alternative), because our culture is saturated by attitudes in favour of protecting lives, and that removes the mechanisms of natural selection.
He also gave an example from nature: how at some point in Australia the population of dingo dogs was so big, that they ate nearly all the rabbits, so humans decided to protect the rabbits by killing the dingo dogs, and they’ve killed so many of them, that the population of rabbits has grown so drastically, that they’ve eaten nealy all of the grass, and now are on extinction again. The suggestion is that a similar thing is happening with humans. (Even if the example is exaggerated, it is sensible)
And surely it seems to be a terrible thing for us to think about, but that is only because we are brought up by the Christian culture. It is for this person too, but he is aware that this is cultural - E.g. In the ancient Sparta people had no problems with throwing away an unwanted child, but in our culture it is objectively wrong.

My first thought was that ok, the process is plausible, but obeying the God’s Law never leads to bad fruits - so either the population dynamics won’t work out that way, or God has got a plan for us - but I couldn’t say that, because it’s not a valid argument for an atheist. I ended up saying that even if it’s so, there is more to the good, than just the good of a population. There is a good of an individual, and there is a good in the light of the the Ethernal Life (meaning that death is not the worst thing that can happen - going to hell is). And also the world is not perfect, but I believe (even though I can’t prove that it is so) that the Christian system is the best possible.

Then he started arguing that I’m a fanatic because I think that my system is the only righteous one.

 

[cornbread_r2]

This is a popular myth among Craig’s critics. He does not insist on going first. It is common practice in debates for the affirmative argument to be made first. As most of these debates are on the existence of God, Craig goes first as he argues in the affirmative.

Revised #1: Insist on debating a topic of your choice; one that ensures that you make the first opening statement. Insist on a time-limited, live debate in front of a friendly audience and without a functional referee.

Manifestly untrue. Both debaters are given equal time to present a prepared opening case. Rebuttals come in the second round.

Revised #2: In your opening statement make as many assertions as possible, whether true or not, preferably including complicated scientific concepts (e.g. the nature of cosmological time, the putative Big Bang singularity) that require much more time and effort to correct than will be available in your timed debate. If your opponents aren’t as skilled as yourself, your opponents will take the bait and spend most of the time allotted for their opening statement attempting to rebut your mistakes and won’t have time to make their own points.

Both parties are given equal time and Craig spends more time deconstructing his opponents arguments than they do his, so you really don’t have a leg to stand on. Your accusations ring empty.

Revised #3: In your rebuttal point out that your opponents haven’t disputed all of your points (see #2) and declare victory.

The simple fact is Craig presents solid, detached arguments that stick to the facts while his opponents almost always resort to emotional rhetoric, and that’s why they lose. This modern crop of atheists are highly unphilosophical; that they can’t seem to debate without making appeals to emotion is not Craig’s fault.

Based on my observations, Craig abuses scientific concepts to his tactical advantage. IMO, most philosophical arguments are largely fact-free, semantic exercises – which is why they’re the preferred choice of theists arguing for the existence of deities. As previously noted, when Craig’s debates deviate from his preferred format he doesn’t seem to do nearly as well.

 

[cornbread_r2]

True, ALOT of atheists are ignorant of philosophicval principles and are unversed in Philosophy. That is their undoing because science alone cannot prove or disprove. Making a lot of attempts at a logical fallacy is also something they will do

In Stephen Law’s recent debate with William Lane Craig, Law used Craig’s premises arguing for the existence of a benevolent god and, I think, successfully demonstrated that they could just as easily be used to demonstrate the existence of a malevolent god. Given the choice between empiricism and philosophy argument in establishing the truth of propositions that have effects in the real world, I’ll go with empiricism every time.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Revised #1: Insist on debating a topic of your choice; one that ensures that you make the first opening statement. Insist on a time-limited, live debate in front of a friendly audience and without a functional referee.

a) his opponents agree to debate on the topic. The topic is almost consistently does God exist and is held between a Christian philosopher and an atheist philosopher. What would you have them debate about? The effects of Marxism on global politics?

b) This is how debates are staged. Stating this as though these practices are idiosyncratic to Craig and, moreover, some kind of ploy to give him an edge is absurd.

Revised #2: In your opening statement make as many assertions as possible, whether true or not, preferably including complicated scientific concepts (e.g. the nature of cosmological time, the putative Big Bang singularity) that require much more time and effort to correct than will be available in your timed debate. If your opponents aren’t as skilled as yourself, your opponents will take the bait and spend most of the time allotted for their opening statement attempting to rebut your mistakes and won’t have time to make their own points.

a) This doesn’t happen. Not only do numerous of his atheist contemporaries (Christopher Hitchens, David Came, Quentin Smith, Peter Millican) take him very seriously as a “very rigorous, very scholarly, very formidable*” intellect and one of the leading philosophers of time, I defy you to present one scientific claim that Craig has employed that has been false or outside of the general scientific consensus.

• • Christopher Hitchens

b) I have yet to see any of his opponents spend most of their time correcting Craig. In fact, I more often see Craig correcting his opponents when they make the leap from science to metaphysics, as any debate about God must, and become illogical. This happens most often when he debates scientists (Harris, etc.), because these scientists are schooled in practical sciences, which is not the same as logic. Even when he debates atheist philosophers, though, they demonstrate a great lack of understanding of theistic philosophy.

Nor have I seen any of his opponents not present a prepared opening case. I think you’re dreaming this stuff up.

Revised #3: In your rebuttal point out that your opponents haven’t disputed all of your points (see #2) and declare victory.

If by “declaring victory”, you mean he points out the very true fact that his opponents most often fail to refute his arguments, while he has refuted a good many, if not all, of theirs, then yes, you can say he “declares victory.” It is not an empty claim though. His logic is solid; his opponents’ quite often is not. Again, Craig does not resort to appeals to emotion, which is a fallacious form of argument. His opponents by and large do.

Based on my observations, Craig abuses scientific concepts to his tactical advantage. IMO, most philosophical arguments are largely fact-free, semantic exercises – which is why they’re the preferred choice of theists arguing for the existence of deities. As previously noted, when Craig’s debates deviate from his preferred format he doesn’t seem to do nearly as well.

a) This just demonstrates your lack of understanding of philosophy (without which, science could not exist by the way.)

b) Your opinion doesn’t matter. What matters is whether the philosophical arguments ARE based on facts. That you think atheistic scientists avoid philosophy is laughable. Any time you draw a metaphysical conclusion from strictly physical data (i.e. asserting “there probably is no God”, etc.) you are engaging in philosophy. If you do not understand how philosophy works (i.e. understanding of logical fallacies, syllogisms, etc.) then you are prone to make logical errors. Knowing how to do science does not mean you also know how to draw logical metaphysical conclusions.

c) Philosophy is not a “preferred choice of theists” when arguing for the existence of a deity. It is the only possible method of doing so. The existence of God is not a scientific question. Science can only study the natural world. God is, by definition, outside of nature. A great example of this fallacious scientistic thinking is Stephen Hawking’s statement that “because a law like gravity exists, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing.” He assumes this is a knockdown argument for atheistic creation. But can you spot the fallacy? Hawking is begging the question. You’ve just moved the goalposts. Where did the law of gravity come from?