How to convince an Athiest God exists?

[annad347]

I saw it and read it a LONG LONG time ago… I can watch it again on Sunday when I’m off and tell you about it if you want?

I remember he was basically researching the existence of Jesus and he spoke to some doctor &/or scientist about some parts of the bible… what exactly they were I’d have to watch the movie again.

 

[Freddy]

I saw it and read it a LONG LONG time ago… I can watch it again on Sunday when I’m off and tell you about it if you want?

I remember he was basically researching the existence of Jesus and he spoke to some doctor &/or scientist about some parts of the bible… what exactly they were I’d have to watch the movie again.

Nah, it’s ok. Don’t want you to spend time watching it again. If you can remember any of the evidence (and scientific evidence that Jesus was the Son of God I thought might have been memorable) then go for it. But otherwise…

 

[Freddy]

It’s way more far fetched to say a bunch of molecules randomly formed together.

Even if you take a watch and put all it’s components into a paper bag and shake it for a thousand years, you’ll never have these components randomly hit each other and become a functioning watch with the correct time and working. Never mind that someone had to get the metal from a mine, and design it and also come up with the concept of time according to the rotation of the planet.

Evolution isn’t random. And doesn’t work anything like your analogy. If it did, then we wouldn’t be here. And if we were then I’d be a Christian.

 

[annad347]

Nah, it’s ok. Don’t want you to spend time watching it again. If you can remember any of the evidence (and scientific evidence that Jesus was the Son of God I thought might have been memorable) then go for it. But otherwise…

Sorry I have the memory of a gold fish… someone told me once a gold fish memory is so bad by the time it swims around the bowl once it forgot everything it did or saw… true or not no clue… but my memory is very very bad.

I do remember he spoke to a scientist about how Jesus was crucified, his resurrection, and I can’t remember but I think the shall that wiped Jesus’s face was mention but I think I might be mixing that up with another show I saw.

Basically, all the research couldn’t defuse the existence of Jesus Christ which open Lee Strobel mind and heart. He really wanted to know, so he got his answers.

He was an atheist… it might not change anyone’s mind… might just give them more questions, but if a person really wants to know, they can start there.

 

[Pai_Nosso]

I think it’s almost impossible to convince someone of God when their mind is already made up. The best you can do is to make him realize that there is a possibility that God exists as science hasn’t got all the answers.

 

[do_justly_love_mercy]

I don’t believe you will ever convince an atheist of the existence of God through rational argument alone. None of the philosophical arguments for the existence of God actually work. They provide a philosophical rationale for believing in God for people who already believe in God, but I have never known of somebody changing their mind about the existence of God just because they heard a philosophical argument. If the arguments for the existence of God worked the way they are supposed to, everyone who has ever heard even one of them would now believe in God.

In my honest opinion, the best way of convincing somebody of the existence of God is to show them what believing in God has done for you in your life.

 

[Shakuhachi]

It comes down to one question: is all life and consciousness and expression of a foundational life and consciousness or a non conscious mechanical foundation?

Isn’t that where we have some choice as to which direction our beliefs will go. And it seems to me that evidence suggests the former.

 

[Neithan]

Thomas Aquinas did it best, 800 years ago: the Five Ways. If someone is an atheist today, they either don’t care, are a radical skeptic, have an ideological commitment, or don’t understand the arguments.

As for being a Christian, or Catholic, that requires faith, and that’s a decision someone makes once they realize the gospel story is credible history.

 

[Gingersnaps4]

In cases where a person is atheist due to “science” or “being rational”, then the unbelief is rooted in pride, in my opinion. So this person would need to become convinced that we don’t and can’t know everything, before anything else.

There is a difference between a person saying well, I have no proof of God so I don’t know if He exists, and one who says “there is no proof of God so I am an atheist, I think one doesn’t exist”.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

And you want us to believe a story from the 16th century?

Not the story, but the miracles surrounding it, specifically surrounding the tilma of Juan Diego.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Put a rose in his hand and ask him to make one.

???

I can make a rose, from paper or thread or clay or wood or leather or stone.

I can make an organic rose by taking that rose you put in my hand as a cutting and propagating a new rose bush.

This is maybe a nice poetic “only God can make a rose” comment, but, in actual honest debate, it does not fit.

 

[TheLittleLady]

The only way anyone comes to faith is the working of the Holy Spirit and a willing spirit on the individuals part.

The Church teaches otherwise. The Church is clear that one can come to know God thorough human reason. CCC ""Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason."11 Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God’s revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created “in the image of God”."

The Catechism goes on to tell how it is difficult to come to this knowledge through reason alone, however, it is possible.

 

[Wannano]

Wannano:

Put a rose in his hand and ask him to make one.

???

I can make a rose, from paper or thread or clay or wood or leather or stone.

I can make an organic rose by taking that rose you put in my hand as a cutting and propagating a new rose bush.

This is maybe a nice poetic “only God can make a rose” comment, but, in actual honest debate, it does not fit.

If you can make a rose from paper or thread etc. and it becomes an actual rose complete with all its characteristics you should market it.

If you need the rose I put in your hand to reproduce the rose, surely you know you did not make your rose.

You can poo-poo what I presented as you wish. It is not original with me. I was taking a seminar taught by a man who I guess was agnostic. He emphatically stated that he does not believe in that “Jesus” stuff but when his atheist associates say there is no God, he gives them a rose or any flower and asks them to make one. It impressed me for he was a quite vulgar man, but in my mind it showed he had some truth and belief.

 

[Dan_Defender]

As you said ‘in the big picture’. We don’t consider the big picture in the way we live our lives. Nobody wonders about what will happen in a million years (and that is a VERY short time when one considers ‘the big picture’).

So why be moral in the here and now? Well, I guess someone could try it and see what happens. But I doubt if it would end well…

Who is ‘we’? In any case, I take it you choose to be moral, but the choice made by Nietzsche, essentially advocating anarchy, is an equally valid atheistic choice.

 

[Freddy]

Thomas Aquinas did it best, 800 years ago: the Five Ways. If someone is an atheist today, they either don’t care, are a radical skeptic, have an ideological commitment, or don’t understand the arguments.

As for being a Christian, or Catholic, that requires faith, and that’s a decision someone makes once they realize the gospel story is credible history.

So I have to choose between being indifferent, being a radical, an ideologist or just plain dumb. Or maybe just too proud for my own good.

As I see it, the five ways isn’t an exercise in looking for an answer. It starts with the answer and develops ways to confirm it for those who already believe. It’s not the disinterested musings of someone searching for the truth. It’s the case for the defence.

 

[Neithan]

So I have to choose between being indifferent, being a radical, an ideologist or just plain dumb. Or maybe just too proud for my own good.

Not dumb; the arguments are not easy to grasp.

The way you see it, is incorrect.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

So I have to choose between being indifferent, being a radical, an ideologist or just plain dumb. Or maybe just too proud for my own good.

Not dumb; the arguments are not easy to grasp.

The way you see it, is incorrect.

So you are implying that if I say that the arguments are not convincing (and could only lead to deism in any case) then you’d suggest that I don’t really understand them. Will you allow for the fact that I do understand them but disagree with them? In which case you could add that to the list: Not convincing for some people.

And note that I don’t intend entering into a discussion of the five ways here. There ate threads in plenty where that can be done.

 

[annad347]

Nah, it’s ok. Don’t want you to spend time watching it again.

I FF through it. The author Lee Stobel was an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

As an investigator he relied on facts… so to prove believing in Jesus was ridiculous he researched it.

He didnt just ask church goers or priest cause he thought they were delusional. They were trying to steal his wife’s loyalty and love… he had to save her.

So to prove Christins were crazy, he went to top historians, archeologists, doctors, psychiatrists, scientist… with his questions.

The scientific research I was refering to was based on the authenticity of the dates of the manuscript that were found, the information written in them… and the shroud of Turin which, was or is, being tested on, for what other scientist clames it is the shroud that covered Jesus in the tomb.

He also asked doctors about weather or not Jesus was really dead when He was take off the cross…he asked if Jesus death was mistaken or was faked.

There are archeologist, scientist historians looking for to prove or to disprove the existence Jesus… so if someone who needs/wants the scientific evidence that Jesus did exist they can find it.

I personally believe they neither will ever be successful.

 

[Neithan]

So you are implying that if I say that the arguments are not convincing (and could only lead to deism in any case) then you’d suggest that I don’t really understand them. Will you allow for the fact that I do understand them but disagree with them? In which case you could add that to the list: Not convincing for some people.

They could lead to deism, yes. They are not arguments for faith, but metaphysics. And if they are not convincing, it’s for one of the reasons mentioned. That’s my certain opinion, but I’m not a PhD.

And note that I don’t intend entering into a discussion of the five ways here. There ate threads in plenty where that can be done.

Agreed.

 

[JSRG]

Some people deny that planes flew into the buildings on 9/11.

Do they? I know there’s a lot of conspiracies, but I don’t think anyone claimed the planes didn’t fly into it. I know a common conspiracy claim is that the planes didn’t actually cause the destruction. The argument is that a plane crashing into the building wouldn’t have caused it to collapse the way it did, and thus the building must have been rigged (e.g. with explosives) and the plane crash was just a cover. But in those cases they still assert that the planes crashed.