How to respond to athiest

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101405, she said,
So, so far we’ve been able to list nature and nurture as determiners of the way someone turns
out as an adult… I still don’t see what the soul has to do with it.

This is what I see she is saying.
This is the denial of human freedom, to change/develope their own future. Man is locked into a
pattern of life which cannot be changed since man is already determined from the start.
Logically, if this is so, then we may bring this argument forward into adulthood, that nature,

nurture, circumstances, wheather, education, population, and whatever, determine us.

Man is hard wired to do what we will do and humans cannot do anything about that if we subscribe to this argument. The logical conclusion is that man is helpless to change himself and is without freedom.

Answer as I see it.
If man has no freedom, then there is no reason for law. Law is to protect freedoms which man
could not observe if he is predetermined by his hard wiring. And since there would be no law, then rape is not a violation but only a hard wired compulsion beyond man’s control and predetermined. Man would no longer have a choice, and so murder could no longer be called murder but predetermined death, and rape predetermined sex. There would be no ethics or morals. Man could not live in that type of social environment.

more to come.
 
fred_conty said:
101405, she said,
So, so far we’ve been able to list nature and nurture as determiners of the way someone turns
out as an adult… I still don’t see what the soul has to do with it.

This is what I see she is saying.
This is the denial of human freedom, to change/develope their own future. Man is locked into a
pattern of life which cannot be changed since man is already determined from the start.
Logically, if this is so, then we may bring this argument forward into adulthood, that nature,

nurture, circumstances, wheather, education, population, and whatever, determine us.

Man is hard wired to do what we will do and humans cannot do anything about that if we subscribe to this argument. The logical conclusion is that man is helpless to change himself and is without freedom.

Answer as I see it.
If man has no freedom, then there is no reason for law. Law is to protect freedoms which man
could not observe if he is predetermined by his hard wiring. And since there would be no law, then rape is not a violation but only a hard wired compulsion beyond man’s control and predetermined. Man would no longer have a choice, and so murder could no longer be called murder but predetermined death, and rape predetermined sex. There would be no ethics or morals. Man could not live in that type of social environment.

more to come.
Click to expand...
That’s an excellent very logical argument!
 
101405, she said,
I said they wear down. Things tend to do that, you know. Same with people. Why should a biological organism be able to regenerate itself forever?

Her objection was to a man having a soul, and dying because the soul left the body.
And she is saying simply that man physically wears out and dies, which has nothing to do with a soul leaving the body.

And we would say that what she said about the body wearing out is true. For when the body is no longer suitable for the soul, the body quits functioning, and the soul has to leave. So we can agree to a certain extent that the body does wear out and that has a great deal to do with death. So we could agree up to a point.

If we want to prove that man has a soul, we have to tackle it some other way.

An answer.
When man looks at things with his eyes, he not only sees them in their habitat, their movements, their size and other characteristics, but he can also know within himself their essence, what they are capable of, their value, their number. Man can figure them out and come to some logical conclusions by putting his observations together about them. He can grow in his knowledge internally as he continues to think of new ways of using them, and how adaptable they may be. Man can also rule this world by his thoughts and insights, and grows thru his studies, inventions, and science.

This would show at least he has a principle that sets him apart from other living things.

And if it would be argued, “show me a soul”, then that is the proof, that the principal of man is a spirit and cannot be seen. A live or dead man cannot be cut up to show his soul. I feel confident it has been tried.

And if the argument is that man is hard wired to do what he does and other creatures are not wired for this, then that means man has no freedom, and rape and murder are nothing but uncontrolled reactions to the hard wiring which leaves society at the mercy of lawlessness. Therefore man must have a principle of freedom to observe laws that set him apart from other living creatures.

more to come.
 
fred_conty said:
101405, she said,
I said they wear down. Things tend to do that, you know. Same with people. Why should a biological organism be able to regenerate itself forever?

Her objection was to a man having a soul, and dying because the soul left the body.
And she is saying simply that man physically wears out and dies, which has nothing to do with a soul leaving the body.

And we would say that what she said about the body wearing out is true. For when the body is no longer suitable for the soul, the body quits functioning, and the soul has to leave. So we can agree to a certain extent that the body does wear out and that has a great deal to do with death. So we could agree up to a point.

If we want to prove that man has a soul, we have to tackle it some other way.

An answer.
When man looks at things with his eyes, he not only sees them in their habitat, their movements, their size and other characteristics, but he can also know within himself their essence, what they are capable of, their value, their number. Man can figure them out and come to some logical conclusions by putting his observations together about them. He can grow in his knowledge internally as he continues to think of new ways of using them, and how adaptable they may be. Man can also rule this world by his thoughts and insights, and grows thru his studies, inventions, and science.

This would show at least he has a principle that sets him apart from other living things.

And if it would be argued, “show me a soul”, then that is the proof, that the principal of man is a spirit and cannot be seen. A live or dead man cannot be cut up to show his soul. I feel confident it has been tried.

And if the argument is that man is hard wired to do what he does and other creatures are not wired for this, then that means man has no freedom, and rape and murder are nothing but uncontrolled reactions to the hard wiring which leaves society at the mercy of lawlessness. Therefore man must have a principle of freedom to observe laws that set him apart from other living creatures.

more to come.
Click to expand...
But how does showing that we are separate from animals show that we have souls? Animals have souls too, they’re just not eternal souls.
 
101405, she said,
I don’t care one bit that my future spouse may have already had sex with someone. It literally does not bother me.

I am not sure in what context this was brought up, but there are other more important topics that might be addressed about atheism. This dosen’t strike me as something for the front burner. I’m not saying the topic is unimportant, but at this stage, maybe an eraser would be good to consider.

Another point she brought up was the money. The figures she presented on the website can’t be verified, the website said that themselves. So this would be flying on faith from an atheistic website which might be considered a conflict of interest. But the church does spend considerable amount of money on many projects of charity all over the world irrespective of nationality, religion, or age. Did she give any figures on the atheist organization’s amount of contribution to all people all over the world? As far as the 3.3 billion spent, it is well spent to make amends to those who were affected with our deepest regrets.

The earliest hospitals and leaning institutions in this country had their start from the Catholic church. The hospitals were staffed with nuns and sisters, who volunteered full time, to help the sick when there were no facilities provided by anyone else. As a matter of fact, one of the prisoner of war camps to house the confederates during the civil war became infected with a disease. Noone would go into that camp to help them except the sisters, ignoring the risk to their own health. Boys town and Father Flannigan is well noted for helping young boys.

This is the last post unless I’ve missed something,in which case just let me know.
 
fred_conty said:
101405, she said,
I don’t care one bit that my future spouse may have already had sex with someone. It literally does not bother me.

I am not sure in what context this was brought up, but there are other more important topics that might be addressed about atheism. This dosen’t strike me as something for the front burner. I’m not saying the topic is unimportant, but at this stage, maybe an eraser would be good to consider.

Another point she brought up was the money. The figures she presented on the website can’t be verified, the website said that themselves. So this would be flying on faith from an atheistic website which might be considered a conflict of interest. But the church does spend considerable amount of money on many projects of charity all over the world irrespective of nationality, religion, or age. Did she give any figures on the atheist organization’s amount of contribution to all people all over the world? As far as the 3.3 billion spent, it is well spent to make amends to those who were affected with our deepest regrets.

The earliest hospitals and leaning institutions in this country had their start from the Catholic church. The hospitals were staffed with nuns and sisters, who volunteered full time, to help the sick when there were no facilities provided by anyone else. As a matter of fact, one of the prisoner of war camps to house the confederates during the civil war became infected with a disease. Noone would go into that camp to help them except the sisters, ignoring the risk to their own health. Boys town and Father Flannigan is well noted for helping young boys.

This is the last post unless I’ve missed something,in which case just let me know.
Click to expand...
Thanks for all your help! You’re a very good apologist. :)👍
 
the best way to deal with anyone is ask yourself how would you like them to deal with you. would youw ant to be converted or left to your own beliefs. perhaps you should respect his views seeing as he does have a human right to believe whatever he so chooses, and agree to disagree
 
lozo said:
the best way to deal with anyone is ask yourself how would you like them to deal with you. would youw ant to be converted or left to your own beliefs. perhaps you should respect his views seeing as he does have a human right to believe whatever he so chooses, and agree to disagree
Click to expand...
People do not have a right to believe anything they want, and as Catholics we are obligated to spread the truth.
 
101405,

If souls of animals are brought up, it just adds to the confusion at this point. She dosen’t
believe in souls anyway, so best not to bring it up. She probably may not bring it up since
it may not occur to her. Animal soul is a discussion is for another time and place.

How does showing that we are separate from animals show that we have souls?
man has something an animal dosen’t have but invisible and spirit.
If it is spirit, it is incorruptible. But this last statement you let them arrive at on their own.

Here is a way to approach it.

For now I would prefer the term principle rather than soul. And I would avoid the use of principle of “life”. Principle is the word to use. Man has a principle that other life forms do not have. And this was demonstrated by man’s self reflection, logic, philosophy, studies,
discussions, science, by which man control’s the world, which other life forms do not have.
There must be something in man, a principle, which makes man different to be able to do this.

This principle is found in man, but not found in animals. If we dissect man, dead or alive,
we won’t find it, which means that this principle must be spirit since it cannot be seen.
If this principle is said to be “hard wired” and not an invisible unknown like spirit,
then man does not have freedom because of this hard wiring, which would eleminate freedom. If man does not have freedom, then we cannot say there is rape or murder but only physical forces within man driving man to act in a predetermined way. But man does have freedom, since we know that society can only exist because man is able to make, enforce,observe laws which preserve man’s freedoms. So there is a freedom principle which makes us different than other animals. This is something man has that animals do not have, a principle.

If this principle is not a material element, freedom being opposite to hard wiring, then it must be something of spirit nature, invisible yet real.

From this we have a principle of inner reflection, and a principle of freedom, which we can show to be something not material. Therefore both principles, reflection and freedom, are invisible or spirit, as contast to visible or material.

Now the objection to all of this is, that science one day will reveal all of this and we need to wait for that developement. That is not an acceptable logical argument. Just as atheists do not accept a christian’s argument that God will reveal all of the reasons for suffering someday and we just have to wait. It might also be argued from this type of statement that science will show some day the opposite, that is, that the christian’s logic was correct. In fact it is showing us this currently from what we know.

Calling these two principles a soul will not help your argument. They already have a pre-bent rejection of the familiar word “soul”. I believe the word principle(s) would be more acceptable. At this point, no atheist would accept this argument, but it may give them pause to think. That is all you can hope for. Maybe sometime in the future they will make the connection after using the principle of reflection.

Just some thoughts.
 
Lozo,
I would agree with you if it would do more harm than good, or that it would be fruitless to pursue the discussion.

But everyone deserves to know the truth, and St. Paul did say that we should give an accounting of our faith to anyone who asks us. It is important to hear the truth. It may not have immediate results, but it is like Jesus said, the sower went out to sow some seed.
Some seed fell on good ground and produced fruit. We never know what we say may not have good results down the road. Even if we don’t sow anything else but the seed of kindness which shows by our caring.

Just some thoughts.
 
101405 said:
I actually have that CD, and many of their others. However it is about mainly the existence of God. Not the existence of the soul, or chastity, or Sacred Scripture. Do you know of any other talks about talking to atheists about these things?
Click to expand...
Start with these sources
If you already know most of the information there then I recommend practically any book by Peter Kreeft
Or Edward Feser (his blog is quite excellent too!)

Hope this helps
Shalom
God bless
 
fred_conty said:
101405,

If souls of animals are brought up, it just adds to the confusion at this point. She dosen’t
believe in souls anyway, so best not to bring it up. She probably may not bring it up since
it may not occur to her. Animal soul is a discussion is for another time and place.

How does showing that we are separate from animals show that we have souls?
man has something an animal dosen’t have but invisible and spirit.
If it is spirit, it is incorruptible. But this last statement you let them arrive at on their own.

Here is a way to approach it.

For now I would prefer the term principle rather than soul. And I would avoid the use of principle of “life”. Principle is the word to use. Man has a principle that other life forms do not have. And this was demonstrated by man’s self reflection, logic, philosophy, studies,
discussions, science, by which man control’s the world, which other life forms do not have.
There must be something in man, a principle, which makes man different to be able to do this.

This principle is found in man, but not found in animals. If we dissect man, dead or alive,
we won’t find it, which means that this principle must be spirit since it cannot be seen.
If this principle is said to be “hard wired” and not an invisible unknown like spirit,
then man does not have freedom because of this hard wiring, which would eleminate freedom. If man does not have freedom, then we cannot say there is rape or murder but only physical forces within man driving man to act in a predetermined way. But man does have freedom, since we know that society can only exist because man is able to make, enforce,observe laws which preserve man’s freedoms. So there is a freedom principle which makes us different than other animals. This is something man has that animals do not have, a principle.

If this principle is not a material element, freedom being opposite to hard wiring, then it must be something of spirit nature, invisible yet real.

From this we have a principle of inner reflection, and a principle of freedom, which we can show to be something not material. Therefore both principles, reflection and freedom, are invisible or spirit, as contast to visible or material.

Now the objection to all of this is, that science one day will reveal all of this and we need to wait for that developement. That is not an acceptable logical argument. Just as atheists do not accept a christian’s argument that God will reveal all of the reasons for suffering someday and we just have to wait. It might also be argued from this type of statement that science will show some day the opposite, that is, that the christian’s logic was correct. In fact it is showing us this currently from what we know.

Calling these two principles a soul will not help your argument. They already have a pre-bent rejection of the familiar word “soul”. I believe the word principle(s) would be more acceptable. At this point, no atheist would accept this argument, but it may give them pause to think. That is all you can hope for. Maybe sometime in the future they will make the connection after using the principle of reflection.

Just some thoughts.
Click to expand...
I already brought it up. I told her that all living things have souls.
 
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