What is the best argument to prove the existence of God to Atheists?

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In my opinion, being a good, faithful, and happy person is the most effective argument.

You can’t prove God’s existence. You can at best argue for the likelihood of God, but that is not proof. It’s better to model the love of God and let atheists be until they seek you out. There are plenty of anonymous Christians out there, and I believe God has a place for them in heaven too.
 
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Now we’re getting somewhere. Respected scholars also agree on Jesus’ empty tomb. Yet many bend over backwards trying to explain it away, and end up sounding like fools with their preposterous explanations. How do you explain Jesus’ empty tomb if he was not raised?
 
KJW5551 said:
How do you explain Jesus’ empty tomb if he was not raised?
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The most prevalent argument reflected in the NT is that his body was stolen. Most of the gospel writers directly oppose that assertion, so it must have been pretty prevalent at the time.

I believe in the resurrection, but I think that explanation has been the best one since the Resurrection.
 
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Sure, but each of the arguments in your link are assertions that argue for the likelihood of the resurrection. They do not offer proof in a scientific sense.

I am a Christian, and I believe in the resurrection. However, striving to convince atheists through intellectual discussions is futile. At best you will prove to them that you are not unreasonable. That could plant a seed. However, you really cannot prove the existence of God, nor can you prove the resurrection. Aside for the scriptures and the witness of the Christians, which I agree is compelling evidence, no objective physical evidence exists, which is what atheists require.
 
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KJW5551 said:
How do you explain Jesus’ empty tomb if he was not raised?
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Well, for starters, if someone found a tomb of a supposed buried person not in it, I know my first conclusion would not be “Oh, that person must have been raised from the dead!”
 
Alex337 said:
And how many converted? How many just said it was coincidence, reading things in after the facts, or the logic of a conspiracy theory?
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Here is another hint as to how effective this type of argument is. I target my ads to millennials, especially those in college. When I run ads for topics like the ones linked to above, the number of visitors to my website increases by 6,500%. My response is so good, that I end up paying 2 cents per click. Ask any advertiser and they will tell you that is an excellent response. It is not that I am a great marketer, it’s because these kinds of topics are of great interest to the younger generation. That means they are topics that can make a difference. Anyone in marketing will tell you that a certain percentage of those who respond are going to “convert” into a paying customer, so to speak.

I am certain that a percentage of those reading the articles will, at least, become more open to God and Christianity as a result of what they read. We only have to plant the seeds and the Holy Spirit will do the rest. At the very least, these people will know that there are two sides to the question of faith and reason, and the Christian side is strong.
 
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Mmmm, sure. Mine neither. But if I saw him on the road the next day, and then a bunch of my friends saw him, and then some other people saw him, and then he appeared to hundreds at the same time…
 
Maybe, it does depend on the ad. A lot of ads get clicked on by mistake after all. I used to work with an educational software group while I was doing my degree and I still remember how many people not only clicked on ads by mistake but had a negative impact.
 
KJW5551 said:
Mmmm, sure. Mine neither. But if I saw him on the road the next day, and then a bunch of my friends saw him, and then some other people saw him, and then he appeared to hundreds at the same time…
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Well now we are operating on scarce “evidence” The people who really did think they saw him probably had visions, it’s not really a rare occurrence historically. The “hundreds” is one of legend in my opinion.
 
The “visions hypothesis” is as absurd as any other. It really takes a lot of mental jumping jacks for the atheist to try to explain the empty tomb and post-resurrection appearances.

And I see no reason to doubt the appearance to the 500. Remember, Paul was writing a mere 3-5 years after Jesus’ death. It would be pretty ballsy to make a claim like that that could be easily refuted if not true. Also where is the Jewish response that says the appearances never happened? They don’t exist.
 
How about ask an atheist and find out why they are an atheist and what problems they still have with not being convinced that the supernatural exists?
As an atheist, here are a couple of things I believe that would be helpful for this conversation:
(These are my personal additions to this. There is no world view of Atheism with tenants, leaders, dogma, etc.)
1: Belief is not a choice. Given enough data that I accept as evidence for the proposition, I’ll be convinced of the idea regardless of how I feel about it. Until then I am not convinced. Example: sit in a chair and then choose to believe you are not sitting in a chair.
2: The level of the claim requires different levels of evidence for me to accept it.
Ex A: My neighbor claims to have a pet dog that I have never seen. I’ll accept that.
Ex B: My neighbor claims to have an invisible magical pet dragon. I don’t accept that.
3: There are varying degrees of belief and disbelief. Just like how I weakly do not believe that my friend in high school had a girlfriend in the next town over or how I strongly believe there is no difference between the idea of the supernatural and the idea of every other comic book superhero. Both with logically consistent back stories, both reference actual people, cities, historical events, etc. on earth. Both have a magical men that save everyone. But no evidence of those people actually having super powers. (The honest answer to how something works that we don’t have an answer to is , “We don’t know.”, not to make something up to make you feel better about not having an answer. How do you demonstrate the difference between an unknown natural event and a supernatural event? God of the Gaps)
3: You can be logically correct and still factually wrong because reality is what lets us demonstrate the truth of our claims. You can not define something into existence, but you can logically conclude where to narrow down the search for that thing and how to search for it. Example: Einstein logically/mathematically concluded that gravity waves should exist. However, we did not teach that they were part of reality until we actually detected them in reality in 2015. That is when we started teaching that they were part of reality.
 
3a: making pronouncements about reality when there was no justified reason to believe that pronouncement was correct and then that pronouncement later is verified to be correct is not how you come to understand reality. That is just throwing ideas at a wall and keeping the ones that were found to be true later on after the hard work was done to justify that conclusion. All other claims before that hard work was done were not justified to be believed as true. (prophesy arguments are no different than my waiter bringing my order to me when I prophesied that I would get a medium rare steak for dinner.)
4: claims made without evidence are dismissed without evidence.
5: not having a reality you would prefer does not make that reality owe you a moral reference point you would prefer. AKA: without god there is no moral compass. Since I don’t want to live in a world without a deity as a moral compass, therefore I must believe a god exists. Sorry but reality does not owe you a reality you would prefer.
6: Nonreligious based governments may or may not be secular. You can still have nonreligious based government systems that are also not secular. (This has nothing to do with the existence of a deity, but this point always inevitably comes up.)
 
@sevenswords,
i have done all of the above,
so where do i go from there,
most Atheist would, at present times, seeing they use the most recent scientific arguments, still go back to one of Stephan Hawking’s concept of the beginning or the exsistance of time, (which makes no sense, seeing scientist say the earth is a billion years old, and time was only discovered in the 1500’s BC)

"When people ask me if a God created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the Big Bang, so there is no time for God to make the universe in. It’s like asking directions to the edge of the earth; The Earth is a sphere; it doesn’t have an edge; so looking for it is a futile exercise.”
this it self makes no sense seeing that Hawking himself says 'there is no time for God to make the universe in" and that they say that Dinosaurs existed over 16m years ago.
God said to Moses ‘I Am’ which means He existed outside of time, He has No Beggining and No End,
Christ the Beginning and the End, The Alpha and the Omega, All time Belongs to Him
 
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In Fatima there was 70’000 people witness a great miracle it was reported in the secular news papers as witnessed by Atheist reporters there to witness the hysteria of the common folk who knew no better, yet there you have their report a Great Miracle happened. Of Course If I was on an agenda I would dismiss everyone and everything that contradicts my belief system, but as it happens I tend to have more faith in people who are sound of mind. As for Miracles that I believe in these are investigated rigorously and many by secular doctors etc, so your claim is ill founded and it is you that believes fairy tales like evolution as I said it has no proof not one single proof only theory assumption and ignorance of the facts. there is no obvious fact of relationships of descent, if you want you can show me your evidence for it and I will show you it is false?
But as is now obvious again I don’t believe you looked at anything I gave you as proof most probably because you come from the school of Dawkins and that fool is laughable.
So clearly appealing to your reason and common sense is not going to work the only hope left for you is Confession followed up by prayer, if you can humble your pride to do this then God has promised he will reveal himself to you just as he has done for all of us that believe. Try the Divine mercy chaplet if you want to let go of your unforgiveness and have your senses restored.
 
You should not put so much faith in science as they for the most part belong to the enlightenment movement and only report on secular beliefs that try to hold up old dead theories like evolution.
God is outside of time because he created time, along with all things visible and invisible.
If you believe everything came to be out of nothing then you are right but that nothing had a cause. it is like having a bank account with nothing in it, there is nothing in the account yet the account exists! it is the same with the beginning there was nothing yet that nothing was something. as the account is something yet in it is nothing , so by depositing something you create money in your account. so when we say nothing we don’t be a void, there was something or how about if you bought a computer and got it home, switched it on and presto it starts up, you upload you down load and soon you find your computer loaded with stuff that previously did not exist on your computer but you uploaded from other sites etc, so outside of your computer there is stuff that exists but until you uploaded downloaded on your computer nothing existed. does that make sense to you?
We are limited in our understanding of whats outside of us, but God has not left us in the dark he has told us about stuff we can’t see like angels and demons and he has told us how we should live our lives and he has promised to have a relationship with us when you follow his plan hence we have and have always had great people follow the Church, we have had mystics giant minds and poor humble everyday people all believe the same thing simply because we have trusted God and have a relationship with him and everyone that has a relationship with God knows him a little better everyday and some have full blown conversations and some are gently guided to the truth, none the less we all have faith and work hard to be better people who build rather than take down.
If you are serious about wanting to better your life then you should pray and repent and be baptised if your not and then you will see God like everyone else does. he has set conditions for us and not adhering to them and then claiming you don’t believe is ridiculous and the same as sticking your head in the sand and saying the world disappeared.
If you want to know God then here is a great place to start

 
What are you offended against?
That Atheists are not open to proof? 20 years of debating is why I say this
is it because I think you need God to have a better life given that nearly half a million people kill themselves in America in a year?
I think that it is darkness and the effects of evil in peoples lives that cause this so appealing to you with love seems a fair way to help people who do not know there is a far better way of life, hence Jesus saying he was the Way the Truth and the life and outside of him there was no life only death.
The enlightenment movement is secular?
Hostility comes from pride and in the fact that you hold yourself higher than others who think and believe differently, I reject your belief system because I lived that belief for 30 years and grace took me out of it and opened my mind, my eyes and my senses and the anger left I now try to live a life of love and that is to help others to teach others that their lives are not right until they learn that love is the answer to all things and God is the source of Love. I only fight and argue out of hope that soem will change but as I said 20 years of debating and no one has ever looked at the evidence with an open heart so no need for hostility.
 
I would say the ‘fine tuning’ argument is. It is the idea the complexity of the universe which we live in could not have been created by mere chance but by a a being; God.
Christopher Hitchens even said that the fine tuning argument was the “most powerful argument for the other side”; make of that what you will.
Also, you find this video interesting;
 
Yes. Irrelevant. It’s estimated that something like 25-33% of Jerusalem had converted to Christianity just years after Jesus’ death. This was obviously a major threat to the Jewish leaders, and it stands to reason that if they had evidence against the Gospels they would have presented it. Yet…all we see is them saying that the disciples stole the body, and years later them saying Jesus “practiced sorcery” (a de facto concession of his miracles).
 
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