How to convince an Athiest God exists?

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Brisingr

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I was trying to convince an Athiest God exists. He was very deeply rooted in science, and says that, “Scientific evidence says exorcists, demons, and God are all mental illness or human invention.” I also tried using “Thomas Aquinas’s reasons why God exists” Mainly the one that something, must come from something else. Am I going about this wrong way?
 
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I think you need to tell us more about why he says he’s an atheist, because every atheist is different, just like every Christian or Jew or Muslim is a different, just as the Christian Jew or Muslim has his or her different reasons for believing in God , the atheists have different reasons from one another For not doing so.
 
Pray for them. Let the Holy Spirit soften their hearts. Good example helps. Direct confrontation is unlikely to bear fruit unless you’re a first class Apologist.

Welcome to the forum.
 
Well, I’m not a first class Apologist. Thanks for your advice on this subject. Thank you also for the welcome.
 
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This is so True!
I think it is much useful than a debate.
 
Brisingr said:
“Scientific evidence says exorcists, demons, and God are all mental illness or human invention.”
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He’s delusional. There’s pretty much nothing you can do for someone who so firmly believes a lie like this.
 
Your own conviction/belief will do more to help him open his mind rather than giving him an irrefutable argument or unanswerable question.
Include him in your prayers and answer him as best you can if he asks any questions. Don’t hound him on it though.
 
Can’t be done with ‘arguments’ in my experience. Pray and be the best example you can be. Be there for them when no one else will, listen to them, don’t judge them. That sort of thing. Be openly Catholic
 
Brisingr said:
“Scientific evidence says exorcists, demons, and God are all mental illness or human invention.”
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This is known as the “Big foot” theory and easily refutable

Science = confined to natural world
God = transcends natural world

So Science cannot detect evidence of God since God is outside realm of Science. If Science could detect God, he wouldn’t be God.

Its like a blind man saying he has no evidence of the color yellow and thus its “human invention”
 
As an agnostic I can say that most (not all) agnostic/atheists will not accept anything that isn’t verifiable evidence and this has failed for most apologetics. They seldom use evidential evidence anymore as it doesn’t work. Next is the philosophical evidence which has its own problems. Many philosophical arguments tend to make assumptions at some point that the atheist doesn’t accept.

Presuppositionalists become entangles in circular reasoning…even though they will not admit it and atheists just find that argument arrogant. In order to argue for the faith, one needs to know not just the arguments from your side but also the arguments from theirs. That’s a lot of reading and understanding.

And no, it is not a mental illness. That was an unkind and untrue statement. It should not have been made. Most atheists do believe it is a man made idea but I would agree that most of mankind has made it…thus, that’s why it can’t be a mental illness. Most of humanity has held to God or gods of some type. I hardly think we can claim all of humanity is mentally ill!
 
I share your pain. Most, if not all of my closest friends are atheists. From my experience, don’t force them to believe in God, when the opportunity arises itself, be prepared to answer their questions (dogmatically and LOVINGLY), and set the example yourself of why they should become Christian. Praying for you and for them.
 
Brisingr said:
I was trying to convince an Athiest God exists. He was very deeply rooted in science, and says that, “Scientific evidence says exorcists, demons, and God are all mental illness or human invention.” I also tried using “Thomas Aquinas’s reasons why God exists” Mainly the one that something, must come from something else. Am I going about this wrong way?
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Put a rose in his hand and ask him to make one.
 
Unfortunately no argument will convince true atheists.
Only thing that might make them reflect on their choice (in my experience, others may have different ones): the logical end to their belief should be a complete meaningless existence, in the big picture there is no purpose, no reason for morality, everything comes to cosmic dust so no matter what you do or not do in this life the end is the same. This is not just me saying it, Nietzsche said it best. So ask them, why be moral then? there must be something else something that makes them want to transcend. therefore a soul must exist.
 
If they honestly dismiss all the occurrences which have been thoroughly proven to be impossible by natural occurrence as natural, then they’re delusional. I’m sorry, but you cannot straight up deny the truth and expect to be called anything but that.
 
It’s usually not possible to convince them of anything.
 
The short answer is; you can’t. The only way anyone comes to faith is the working of the Holy Spirit and a willing spirit on the individuals part. You may be used to move the person toward faith but it’s never our own doing.

That said what you can do is pray for them. Be ready to talk to them but don’t force anything or focus on convincing or outsmarting them. Just be honest and most of all let God move you in your interactions.
 
As much as we want to convince someone it is hard because it’s change of heart, not the mind. . .

But to start, i would go like this:
  1. ask him the name of those scientists and the exact proofs they have for tho beliefs. Often times they have just read bunch of . . . articles online with no real studies, names etc. So if there is evidence than there also must some study too? Ask him about that. If he cannot find any then he will realize that his “evidence” is one very shaky legs.
  2. Tell him that the Church is the first one very much skeptic when it comes to devil possessions and that Church first consults PSYCHIATRISTS , DOCTORS and other experts of SCIENCE before they conclude anything supernatural is going on. That way he will know that we are not just bunch of hocus pocus sheep he thinks we are.
  3. There are stories about psychiatrist who were also very skeptical about exorcism until they experience it in live and simply could not explain in any way other than supernatural. Try to find. That way he will have somebody of his kind on our side. That way he will feel more secure to go deeper.
Hopefully that would . . . change . . . his mind perception a little bit and open a way to further curiosity and maybe soften his heart a little bit. At least on subject of exorcism.
 
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