Charity is not at all an irrelevant issue when voicing opinions which disagree with one another. Not only is it an essential requirement per the Forum’s rules, but it relates to civility in any discussion or debate.
Since no other holy book in the amount of evidence for their god or gods can hold a candle to the to Holy Bible in the amount of evidence for the God of “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and since the Bible says that only one God exists, then by default the gods of Zeus, Krishna, Thor, etc., do not exist, and cannot exist.
I think that there are better arguments for God’s existence than this. A lot of atheists tend to take this proposition as a circular argument.
I too take it as a circular argument. And I am a Catholic.
So God is not the loving Father who intervenes to create souls, heal the sick, give us the grace to resist temptation,to be present in the Holy Eucharist and other Sacraments, communicate with the saints, inspire poets, artists and musicians, answer our prayers, console the afflicted, prevent accidents and disasters, preserve life from extinction and ensure that development occurs in the face of overwhelming odds…
So true. I know of at least one person on this forum who was an atheist (not just agnostic!) who is now a full believer and devout Catholic. We should get him to tell us what did it for him. He must be one in a million though.
Yes that’s what I think, only an atheist can persuade themselves. and yes i would ask for a miracle. if my dog came back to life there is no way for science to explain that since she’s been dead for months. so if i heard a noise at the door and there she was, scratching at the door to come in, i think i would attribute that to a higher powerHow do I convince an Atheist that God exists?
You begin the long and arduous process by persuading him to ask himself is he really wants God to exist. If he says He would like to believe God exists, then ask him what it would take to persuade him.
A miracle?
Why a miracle, when he would simply explain the miracle away as something natural that could not be explained at the present time.
Etc. Etc.
You see, he really doesn’t want to believe in God, so why bother to try to persuade him?
I have come to the conclusion that only the atheist can persuade himself that God exists.
A tall order indeed!
I don’t see how atheism is only 300 years old. Surely there have always been people who don’t believe in deities! (I say god/gods is a human invention!) Maybe they just didn’t write about it bc they would have been persecuted or shunned or something. then again, science wasn’t as advanced then either, so maybe you’re right, maybe all people really did feel the need for religion to fill the gap in knowledge.Atheism, as it is usually defined is a “lack of belief”. It therefore follows that it is also a lack of knowledge. To “know something” in philosophy or to have “knowledge of” an object, in this case God, from an epistemological foundation, is to have a “justified, true, belief.”
One can deduce that Atheists do not have “knowledge” of God which implies that they lack justification and validation, since the only lacking implied in the definition of “atheism” is belief.
So they lack knowledge about God. The goal of the theist then logically would be to provide them with a “justified, true, belief”, or in other words, knowledge.
So in response to the question posed in this thread, “How do I convince an Atheist that God exists?” The answer: educate them.
Atheism is merely ignorance. The challenge for the theist is to not appear condescending, or injure the person’s pride, when attempting to educate someone about an obvious truth.
Keep in mind that Catholics have much more intellectual ammunition at their disposal. 2,000 years of thought. As opposed to “Atheism” which only really has since the enlightenment, maybe 300 years. We also have the gregorian calendar going for us. Which is universally accepted. The world has unknowingly decided to use the birth of Jesus Christ as a measure of the beginning of time.
Unless of course you happen to have one of those spooky pet cemeteries in the woods behind your house.
ah yes but they sent her body to a pathologist a few states away to determine her cause of death so she wouldve had a pretty miraculous journey to get here!
Plus I think they cremated her!
i deleted that post but since you guys responded first i guess that was pointless. just in one of those moods today :sad_yes: i loved my dog more than anything in the whole world even my relatives (well actually I’ve only had one relative die anyway, she was very old and sick and we weren’t that close)samiam
**Yes that’s what I think, only an atheist can persuade themselves. and yes i would ask for a miracle. if my dog came back to life there is no way for science to explain that since she’s been dead for months. so if i heard a noise at the door and there she was, scratching at the door to come in, i think i would attribute that to a higher power **
That’s your idea of a miracle?
Well, the apostles saw Jesus come back to life and appear among them and speak to them and console them. That was enough for them to become advocates and martyrs for Jesus. So your example is well taken … even if a dog only. But why not ask for a dead relative instead?
And if your dead relative didn’t come back, would that be proof to you that God does **not **exist?
It seems to me that atheists who seriously oppose the existence of God and devoutly advance their atheist agenda are not doing so with a “lack of belief” in God (lack of spiritual knowledge and understanding, perhaps). I think that atheists through their own words and by their own actions show that they have a definite belief in their head that God does not exist.