How do I convince an Atheist that God exists?

[dostoyevskyfan]

I don’t see how atheism is only 300 years old.

That is not what I said at all. Sorry for the misunderstanding. At the time of Nero, in the first 300 years of Christianity when christians were persecuted and slaughtered for their belief, they were actually considered “atheists” because they did not recognize the emperor as a “god” or acknowledge the roman gods. What I meant to say is that published literature, argumentation, written thought, etc concerning the topic of “atheism” did not really appear until the enlightenment. Atheists did not “come out of the closet” so to speak until 300 years ago, the enlightenment, which means there is vastly more “catholic” philosophy available than “atheist” philosophy or explanatory worldviews.

Tell me more about this atheism is ignorance thing. For instance, say there is an isolated society out on some island or deep in the rain forest. For all we know, (or for the sake of argument) that society has not invented the concept of God. Would that be considered being ignorant/lacking knowledge? They would not be rejecting anything, they just never had the idea put in their head before. What’s your take on that?

There is no such society. In world history all societies were isolated and developed independently and irrespective of one another. All societies came up with a creation story that involves the concept of God, gods, divinity, souls, or transmigration of souls (reincarnation) and all these creation stories contain mention of a “great flood”. You should read the Mahabharata, or gilgamesh, or the epic of old mali. It’s actually quite fascinating. All religions contain “grains of truth” as quoted from the book “The Ratzinger Report” published before he became pope. These previous facts are actually quite problematic for an atheist.

Catholicism is the only “revealed religion” in that God became man, walked among us, and specificly clarified and dictated his doctrine. The other religions are not revealed, they are speculatory and shrouded in mysticism and poetic expression which means they are ambiguous and have no central authority or interpreter, unlike Catholicism which has had the Vatican for 2,000 years. The profound thing is all of similarities these faiths have with the Revealed Religion, Catholicism. So in summation, there are still societies today who lack knowledge about the Revealed, one, true faith, and yet they still have the moral codes imposed and written upon their hearts and consciousness by the true God who has remained hidden to them and will judge them based on their deeds.

Man is fundamentally a spiritually minded animal.

 

[samiam1611]

That is not what I said at all. Sorry for the misunderstanding. At the time of Nero, in the first 300 years of Christianity when christians were persecuted and slaughtered for their belief, they were actually considered “atheists” because they did not recognize the emperor as a “god” or acknowledge the roman gods. What I meant to say is that published literature, argumentation, written thought, etc concerning the topic of “atheism” did not really appear until the enlightenment. Atheists did not “come out of the closet” so to speak until 300 years ago, the enlightenment, which means there is vastly more “catholic” philosophy available than “atheist” philosophy or explanatory worldviews.

Ah okay, thanks for explaining that.

There is no such society.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples.

 

[dostoyevskyfan]

I’m an atheist. I read maybe half of the posts in response to the original question. I can tell you from my perspective that starting from the position that the atheist is just ignorant is a bad idea. In the U.S., where at least nominal belief is the norm (some 90 percent of Americans profess some sort of belief), the non-believer is more often than not someone who came out of a background of belief. One doesn’t just fall away, typically, and then call himself/herself an atheist. Instead, they typically grow critical, then objectively think about the evidence for the existence of a god, or the truth of the NT stories about Jesus, and the history of the church, they look at the so-called believers around them who profess that god is at work in their lives, and so on, and they conclude that it’s all unlikely to be true.

If you want to convince anyone of anything, you really need to start from a position of respect for that person. Be considerate of the fact that, just as you believe atheists lack some kind of knowledge and that that ignorance explains their atheism, your own religious beliefs are subject to exactly the same criticism (believers believe out of their ignorance).

There problem is there are around 40,000 denominations of Christianity and they don’t all teach the same thing. Some forms of Christianity are more rational and contain more rational people than other forms. Take for instance the people who believed the “rapture” would happen in May 2011. As a Catholic that made me sick to my stomach. Unfortunately the country in which I inhabit is populated by morons. I think atheism is more likely for someone who has a background and foundation in some spurious conception of christianity, some false sect. Most Catholics have strong foundations from their youth and are less likely to fall away…they are given the proper instruction and information.

The word ignorance has negative connotations. When I say atheism is “just ignorance” I do not mean that they are stupid people or idiots, rather, I just mean that they have not received the proper instruction, information, and doctrine.

At the end of the day, I find it inconceivable that a true atheist would be convinced by anything short of a true miracle that the individual could not explain away.

Given that we are on a philosophy forum, I think you may know that there are people, radical skeptics, who honestly believe that other people do not exist and there is nothing anyone can do or say to prove it to them. For this reason even a “true miracle” would be insufficient.

Belief in the Catholic God, ultimately, is a matter of the heart, not of the intellect.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Belief in the Catholic God, ultimately, is a matter of the heart, not of the intellect.

Or not just of the intellect. Without intellectual conviction I could not believe.

 

[dostoyevskyfan]

Ah okay, thanks for explaining that.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples.

Ok let me clarify again. All societies were isolated at one point in history. There is no such society that has been isolated and were not spiritually minded. By that I mean belief in God, gods, souls, the spirit of the buffalo, reincarnation, voodoo, witchdoctors, whatever. You haven’t given me a specific instance of an isolated group who were entirely atheists.

If they worship nature, then they are pantheists, not atheists.

 

[Pieman333272]

By providing shocking evidences that an intelligent design exists, the next step is proving this intelligent design is the Catholic one, after that try to prove that this god is just and fair considering the existence of pain in the world, if you want to talk about free will, then try to explain it the best way you can do, because there is lots of things in our lives where free will is not an enough answer for them. also try to give evidence to dismiss his scientific, historical or logical reasons for not believing… Can you? Well best for you…

Strawman. Evolution and the Church are fully compatible, there are much better proofs of God than ID.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Strawman. Evolution and the Church are fully compatible, there are much better proofs of God than ID.

Yup, no atheist will be interested in ID, nor should s/he.

(At least, when it comes to intelligent design as in the ID of biological “irreducible complexity”.)

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Jocko

**At the end of the day, I find it inconceivable that a true atheist would be convinced by anything short of a true miracle that the individual could not explain away. **

Inconceivable to you, perhaps. I think a true miracle could be explained away by any true atheist if he is fanatical enough in his disbelief. That is to say, he could doubt his own sanity … or even commit suicide to escape the truth … anything … anything but God!!!

 

[estesbob]

I think for people of faith its comes down to the following’

“You dont have to understand to understand”

 

[meltzerboy]

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.

I don’t think atheism is necessarily synonymous with a lack of knowledge or ignorance of G-d. It may be that an atheist has studied religion(s) and concluded from their studies that G-d does not exist. Or, given the large number of organized religions, sects, and cults in the world, they may have reached the conclusion that the only thing they all have in common is what Freud calls wishful thinking. On the other hand, they may have once been a believer and, due to personal misfortune or a consideration of the problem of evil and suffering in the world, become an atheist. Just as there are many paths to G-d (or gods), there are many paths to becoming an atheist.

 

[tonyrey]

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.

A rebuttal of “Evolution proceeds smoothly as divinely established by God to be a system that can self-propagate” - as if God takes no further part in the proceedings.

…preserve life from extinction and ensure that development occurs in the face of overwhelming odds…

Evolution takes care of that.

Indeed but not blind evolution…

 

[RainbowNight]

Strawman. Evolution and the Church are fully compatible, there are much better proofs of God than ID.

Not everything is about evolution Pieman, there are atheists who don’t consider evolution to be true, even base their atheism on endless reasons other than evolution

 

[meltzerboy]

I’m an atheist. I read maybe half of the posts in response to the original question. I can tell you from my perspective that starting from the position that the atheist is just ignorant is a bad idea. In the U.S., where at least nominal belief is the norm (some 90 percent of Americans profess some sort of belief), the non-believer is more often than not someone who came out of a background of belief. One doesn’t just fall away, typically, and then call himself/herself an atheist. Instead, they typically grow critical, then objectively think about the evidence for the existence of a god, or the truth of the NT stories about Jesus, and the history of the church, they look at the so-called believers around them who profess that god is at work in their lives, and so on, and they conclude that it’s all unlikely to be true.

If you want to convince anyone of anything, you really need to start from a position of respect for that person. Be considerate of the fact that, just as you believe atheists lack some kind of knowledge and that that ignorance explains their atheism, your own religious beliefs are subject to exactly the same criticism (believers believe out of their ignorance).

At the end of the day, I find it inconceivable that a true atheist would be convinced by anything short of a true miracle that the individual could not explain away.

I totally agree. Both the theist and atheist must treat each other with respect for their intellect and their belief or non-belief in G-d. Then they are in a much better position to discuss the issues and point out the inconsistencies of one another’s claims. Each party, of course, must try to show that the bulk of the evidence supports their view. One cannot browbeat another into believing what one does, since that method reduces their receptivity and open-mindedness to your argument.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

meltzerboy

**… there are many paths to becoming an atheist. **

In the end the main path is the desire to be God, rather than to let God be God.

 

[meltzerboy]

meltzerboy

**… there are many paths to becoming an atheist. **

In the end the main path is the desire to be God, rather than to let God be God.

This sounds interesting; but I’m not sure I understand exactly what you mean. Do atheists have such big egos? Do they believe they are totally in control of their lives? I think atheists are as diverse as theists.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

meltzerboy

**This sounds interesting; but I’m not sure I understand exactly what you mean. Do atheists have such big egos? Do they believe they are totally in control of their lives? I think atheists are as diverse as theists. **

Every person by nature desires to know God. This desire is planted in us by God. When we decide to deny God, we have supplanted the intended object of our desire with ourselves. Our own will becomes supreme. Our own intelligence becomes supreme. Our own imagination becomes supreme. Neither will, nor intellect, nor art will bend themselves to God, but rather to the perverse supremacy of … you used the word … our own EGO.

Why has the modern world become so subjective in its values? Because people have turned to themselves, rather than to God, for their values. Psychologists ought to notice this better than anyone. Even the psychological community is largely atheistic. Do you explain it as agreeing with Freud’s insight that the belief in God is merely wishful thinking? Why couldn’t it be just as easily explained that the desire to kill God is wishful thinking … so that one can become a god of one’s own making … bending to no will but one’s own in all things … at least to the extent humanly possible?.

 

[RainbowNight]

This sounds interesting; but I’m not sure I understand exactly what you mean. Do atheists have such big egos? Do they believe they are totally in control of their lives? I think atheists are as diverse as theists.

It all depends on the person, we can’t generalize, many atheists give their best for others and don’t consider humans to be the measure of all things, unlike some religions that are being stuck in Anthropocentrism.

 

[tonyrey]

So I want to know the origin of God, my question was not necessary about time.

If you were told the origin of A and were told B you would want to know the origin of B.

If you were told the origin of B and were told C you would want to know the origin of C…

ad infinitum!

An infinite regress is generally considered to be an unreasonable explanation - or an absence of explanation.

 

[Prophesy]

I too take it as a circular argument. And I am a Catholic.

Yeah, same here. Hence my bringing that up.

-Prophesy

 

[Prophesy]

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…

You’ll note that I didn’t mention the spiritual life in any of these listings. I was only describing the means of creation in each and it’s an uncharitable thing to pretend I did otherwise.

Theistic evolution by definition includes theism. And since it appears that I must wholly define anything or risk being “misunderstood”:

Theism – The belief that God is a personal God who has the power to interact with the world, especially through miracles (which through definition are rare (for if they were not rare they would not be miracles)). Miracles include the creation of the soul in our first parents, the miraculous healing of the sick, communication with saints, prevent disasters (presumably the same as extinction).

Then in the Catholic branch of theism we see a God who works with grace in ways such as the Sacraments (which the Eucharist is part of), as well as answering prayers in ways better than the asker has asked, including the consolation of the afflicted.

And it is from God’s nature of divine miracles and His graciousness (particularly His love) that He inspires poets, musicians, etc.

But

This does not necessitate that God went poof and humans rode around the garden on velociraptors, nor that God went poof and made the first cell and went poof again and turned it into multiple cells and went poof again and turned it into a fish, etc.

I will also concede that it doesn’t necessitate the belief in God divinely crafting the process of evolution in a way for Him to implant the spiritual life in a pair of naked apes; since the Church has not condemned any of these beliefs aside from the atheistic evolution.

-Prophesy