How would you respond to this common argument from atheist?

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DaddyGirl said:
I think many Atheists would respond…:

What scientific results of “the first eucharist miracle”?

Hoyle rejected the Big Bang theory…but I don’t recall him producing any scientific results that proved a god existed. Did he? If he did, please post.

There isn’t any definitive evidence for NDEs that supports the existence of a god or gods that many of us aware of. If you know of any, please post.

Stoner’s '58 book and his calculations…fall apart at the very first prophecy he lists–Jesus being born in Bethlehem. Many biblical scholars would debate that point heartily since the evidence is unreliable…and the census that took Joseph and Mary there doesn’t seem to have existed.
Other examples on his list of mathematical odds don’t fare well either, because he is basing them on information that has not been proven.

In other words, I don’t think your list would do an iota of convincing with Atheists, so I wouldn’t suggest the OP use them in his/her argument.

The limiting of one’s freedom…that’s something completely different. First of all, I don’t see how believing in a god limits one’s freedom. Perhaps attempting to follow a specific religion seemingly does to some…but a Theist doesn’t have to follow a religion to be a Theist. And if the person believes in the god, they wouldn’t perceive the religion as being “limiting” but the opposite, non?

That part of your question doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t know any Atheists who don’t believe in a god because it “limits their freedom”.
It just…doesn’t…make…sense.
An Atheist has actually said this to you?

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Firstly, you must be the only “Prayer Warrior” that lists their religion as “may the force be with you”. To whom are you praying? Darth Vader perhaps?
You also must be the only “Prayer Warrior” that spells “Big Bang” and “Atheist” with capitals and in the same post spells God with the offensive lower case “g”.
Prayer Warrior? Very strange.

Secondly, you say: “I don’t think your list would do an iota of convincing with Atheists”, but my post wasn’t to convince atheists of the existence of God. I’ll let Aquinas do that with his 5 ways.
My post was to answer the question" How would I respond to: “I am not religious because there is no evidence for it and it’s completely unreasonable. It also limits my freedom.” As I said, I would respond by asking atheists how they would respond to findings of experts in the fields of science, medicine and mathematics in recent times.
You say: “I think many Atheists would respond…”, so if you suggest you know how atheists would respond, we can go through the list of 5 one at a time.
For example, how do atheists respond to the Miracle Of Our Lady Of Guadalupe, given that NASA can’t?
 
I would say that even without any organized religion at all the American Indians recognized the Great Spirit and were full of thanks, praise and awe for God and all his creation. People who do not recognize God are spiritually empty and blind.
 
Reepicheep said:
My response would be to ask for the reasons they find religion unreasonable.
Then I would actually* listen.* Not just wait for them to be done. Can’t refute someone if you don’t understand them to begin with.
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I absolutely agree. The original statement is wide open. You need to get the person to provide specifics. Then you can have a meaningful discussion. A key part of a good discussion is really trying to understand what the other person is saying.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
I would say that even without any organized religion at all the American Indians recognized the Great Spirit and were full of thanks, praise and awe for God and all his creation. People who do not recognize God are spiritually empty and blind.
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This is the sort of thing that really grates me. I try not to consider people who believe in God as somehow being inferior and blind, and yet certain people seem quite happy to go around saying “I think atheists are damaged ignoramuses.” Christians here spend a good deal of time going on about how they’re mistreated by non-believers, how they’re put upon and insulted, but then immediately turn around and say the most patronizing and demeaning things in return.
 
aclausen said:
I always enjoy Christians telling me I have a problem… It just makes me feel so very open-minded to know that many of faith believe I’m broken in some way.

And this predisposes that atheists are automatically ignorant of arguments for the existence of God. Certainly some are, perhaps more now than in the past. But certainly that does not apply to all atheists, and I think it’s fairly patronizing to just assume that if someone is an atheist, they haven’t explored other world views.
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Answer the point instead of being snarky. 🤷
 
aclausen said:
This is the sort of thing that really grates me. I try not to consider people who believe in God as somehow being inferior and blind, and yet certain people seem quite happy to go around saying “I think atheists are damaged ignoramuses.” Christians here spend a good deal of time going on about how they’re mistreated by non-believers, how they’re put upon and insulted, but then immediately turn around and say the most patronizing and demeaning things in return.
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Sorry, but you have to live with the consequences of visiting a Catholic forum. We don’t have to agree with you and affirm that you are just fine and your future is rosy because you are an atheist. You need to learn to live with that. If you find it painful to hear what you call demeaning remarks, why are you here? You certainly don’t want to be here to rejoice in your salvation. Are you here only to irritate Christians by telling them that they are broken because they believe you are broken. If that is your mission, fine, but don’t try to tell us that our mission is to accept atheism as a decent and respectable philosophy of life.

“Fools say in their heart, ‘There is no God.’” Psalms 14:1

I guess that is one way of saying up front that the atheist is indeed a “damaged ignoramus.” I prefer to think of it as a way of saying that the atheist has fooled no one but himself.

This is not offered to demean you. This is a teaching of our faith, and you have no right call that a form of mistreatment because it is a way of correcting you, not putting you down. God knows (and you should certainly know if you have lived long enough to have it drilled into you over and over again like the rest of us) that the truth is not always pleasant to hear, and even less so when it challenges your conviction that you are infallibly right that there is no God. 🤷
 
thephilosopher6 said:
“I am not religious because there is no evidence for it and it’s completely unreasonable. It also limits my freedom.”

How would you respond? I have my own response and I’ll post it after I see a couple of peoples.

Also, sorry if this is in the wrong area. 😊
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The response is very simple. Ask the Atheist, "How do you decide whether a claim (like “God exists”) is true or false?

The Atheist will respond,

“All claims that lack empirical evidence are false”,
or
"All claims that lack empirical evidence should be doubted. "

Then you respond:

“*This *claim has no empirical evidence to support it. There is no scientific experiment or scientific observation that can prove this claim. It is a purely theological/philosophical statement. Hence, like all claims that lack evidence, **it too should be doubted.”
**

This Atheist position is called the “Verification Principle” and was used by such renowned Atheists as Bertrand Russell. The problem is that the principle is self-contradicting. It demands empirical evidence as its standard for accepting a claim; but it does not meet that standard itself. This is the best way to philosophically undermine the argument in my opinion.
 
aclausen said:
This is the sort of thing that really grates me. I try not to consider people who believe in God as somehow being inferior and blind, and yet certain people seem quite happy to go around saying “I think atheists are damaged ignoramuses.” Christians here spend a good deal of time going on about how they’re mistreated by non-believers, how they’re put upon and insulted, but then immediately turn around and say the most patronizing and demeaning things in return.
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Personally, I respect the world view of others. When others, in turn, respect my world view, we have had some fruitful discussions about topics which interest both of us. 👍

The human person is worthy of profound respect.
 
thephilosopher6 said:
No, I wouldn’t. The resurrection of Christ is the proof Christianity is true.
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I’ll repeat what I said: Leaving Christianity out it for the moment, there’s no evidence that any of the religions that are in existence and have existed in past times are actually true.

Again, I’m sure you would agree with that.
 
aclausen said:
This is the sort of thing that really grates me. I try not to consider people who believe in God as somehow being inferior and blind, and yet certain people seem quite happy to go around saying “I think atheists are damaged ignoramuses.” Christians here spend a good deal of time going on about how they’re mistreated by non-believers, how they’re put upon and insulted, but then immediately turn around and say the most patronizing and demeaning things in return.
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The actual quote is: "People who do not recognize God are spiritually empty and blind.
You, on purpose or otherwise, omitted the word “spiritually”.
Please see post #23.
It makes a bit of a difference.
 
DaddyGirl said:
The problem here is that since Genesis was written and since ancient times…we have come to know about psychology, biology, and the senses. We know that with one tiny tweak of the brain chemistry, people will hallucinate and hear voices.
People will believe many things when under great duress:
Thirsty in the desert, people will see mirages. Kidnapped, people will “fall in love with” their captors. In mourning for a lost love, people will see them standing at the foot of their bed.

So how do we know if it is something “other than themselves”…or actually, really, just themselves.

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According to post 14, the answer to the question –
So how do we know if it is something “other than themselves”…or actually, really, just themselves? – is this statement applied to illusions and to many things sensed under great duress.
From post 14

“This does not mean that all humans correctly recognized the super-natural, for example, human sacrifice. The point is that humans had the intellectual capability, for what it was worth at the beginning of human time, to sense the super-natural. Sense of something does not always mean complete and accurate knowledge, for example, the Greek and Roman gods.”

Regarding the information gained by modern psychology, biology, and the senses, there is no problem because the science of “psychology, biology and the senses” can be applied to human nature per se regardless of the century. Granted that it is more difficult to go back to the dawn of human origin. But that inconvenience does not have the power to change human nature per se.

The human person, regardless of the century, is worthy of profound respect.
 
grannymh said:
Personally, I respect the world view of others. When others, in turn, respect my world view, we have had some fruitful discussions about topics which interest both of us. 👍

The human person is worthy of profound respect.
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Would you, for instance, consider the statement “Atheists are more prone to evil” to be a demonstration of respect?
 
JMartyr73340 said:
The response is very simple. Ask the Atheist, "How do you decide whether a claim (like “God exists”) is true or false?

The Atheist will respond,

“All claims that lack empirical evidence are false”,
or
"All claims that lack empirical evidence should be doubted. "

Then you respond:

“*This *claim has no empirical evidence to support it. There is no scientific experiment or scientific observation that can prove this claim. It is a purely theological/philosophical statement. Hence, like all claims that lack evidence, **it too should be doubted.”
**

This Atheist position is called the “Verification Principle” and was used by such renowned Atheists as Bertrand Russell. The problem is that the principle is self-contradicting. It demands empirical evidence as its standard for accepting a claim; but it does not meet that standard itself. This is the best way to philosophically undermine the argument in my opinion.
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Do you reject empiricism for all claims, or just for ones you feel particularly attached to?

And I would never say “All claims that there is no evidence for are false.” I might say they were provisionally false, in that I won’t accept them based solely on someone’s say-so, but an open mind requires that I leave them on the desk, so to say, until some evidence does falsify them. But since something like a claim that God does not exist could never be falsified, I don’t think you could ever put it in the “proven wrong” category.
 
DaddyGirl said:
If you look up the definition of prayer, you will see that it does not mean only prayer to a god, but also, simply, “an earnest request or wish.”
Besides, why do you assume I don’t pray to a god?

As a journalist, I have worked at various publications that have different rules for capping. The Big Bang theory is sometimes capped, and I’m used to that. I don’t know how capitalizing that has anything to do with prayer–how are you possibly linking the two?
I know many people who both pray* and *capitalize Big Bang.

If you check the dictionary and the Chicago Manual of Style, it is correct to capitalize “god” when you are referring to a specific god.…but when you are being unspecific, it is correct to put it in lower case.
Usually here, I try to cap it anyway because I know people prefer it. Sometimes, I am typing so fast, I forget.
It would be unfortunate if someone was offended simply if I was being grammatically correct.
Were you offended?

Yes, that’s what I was answering as well. And I was advising the OP that if I were he/she, I would not use the points you listed in their response.

I’ll check this one for you and post again.

(But my first thought is to ask you…what does an Aeronautics and Space Administration have to do with the image of a religious figure? And what do you mean they *can’t *respond?)

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So, are you saying you are a Prayer Warrior, as Catholic Answers Forum defines a Prayer Warrior???
Because you have labelled yourself as such in bright blue colours. You have gone out of your way to tell everyone you are a Prayer Warrior.
Once again, all references to God in this post were lower case, and yes it is offensive. Also, strange how you forgot to capitalise God but capitalised “Atheist” in your previous post? Don’t you think? My point is, it isn’t strange to do that if you are an atheist, but it is very strange given that you call yourself a Prayer Warrior.
Anyway, too much said about that. That is not the major issue here. I will move on. Apologies if I am off the mark.

Your first thought about NASA regarding the Miracle of Our Lady Of Guadalupe, by the way, is way off the mark. That is a major issue as I hope you find out.
 
chris62 said:
Too difficult for you?
If I was an atheist, I wouldn’t read it either.
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It’s really pretty simple. Your article was full of claims with about as much gravity as “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams.” Only a special kind of person would want to try to learn something from that kind of content, and only an extra-special kind of person would read an article like that uncritically.
 
chris62 said:
Too difficult for you?
If I was an atheist, I wouldn’t read it either.
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Why do you think it was too difficult. My English is pretty good, even if I say so myself. And why wouldn’t you read it if you were an atheist? One can hardly discount something as abject nonsense without having first read it.

By the way, I loved the bit about people seeing groups of figures reflected in the eyes. I wonder if anything like that has happened before…
 
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