Resources on Answering Atheism?

[Igakusei]

Wells is easily the least intellectually honest of the ID guys. Let me put it this way: I know several very pro-ID biologists who got their Ph.Ds at Loma Linda, and not a single one of them respects Jonathan Wells. He seems to have absolutely zero qualms about dishonestly distorting evolutionary theory in order to make his own arguments sound better.

[CoAspen]

Distorting the beliefs of others to bolster our own simply moves us to the bottom of the pile. If one can not have integrity with in their own system of beliefs, they are to me just another political commercial!!!! Not worth my time wading through all the excrement!

[fccool]

Quote:

that sounds more like an agnostic, rather than an atheist..

Agnostic is not a distinct category from belief or atheism. That's where most Christians are confused, because they claim "knowledge"... but if they did have knowledge, then belief and faith wouldn't be necessary.

Agnostic describes both Christians and Atheists as far as concrete knowledge of either position. Christians don't really KNOW (factually) that God exists. They believe, and that's why they are called believers. Atheists are the opposite of that. There's not middle-ground of belief which is called "agnosticism". You either believe, or you don't. If you say you don't know, it's a cop-out by stating obvious position that either side holds.

You can of-course say "well, I'm still on the fence, until better evidence comes in", but it's essentially the same as saying "I don't currently believe", since belief in God is a positive claim.

On the other hand... Atheism is a pending position that a person holds until adequate evidence is provided to justify such belief. Atheists don't hold that they know that there is no God. They hold that they don't know, and don't believe due to lack of evidence for the contrary. Thus the world appears to them "godless" based on all of the evidence they observe, but if they did find the evidence for contrary they'd change their mind.

Gail (perhaps someone else) said something akin "Well, I don't have to prove that God exists... God can do that", and that's exactly the point with Atheists. God knows what evidence each person requires, based on healthy degree of skepticism deriving from our every-day observation how things work... but that doesn't happen. So, Christian requirement is a somewhat nonsensical in that respect - you believe first, and then God reveals Himself to you through Holy Spirit, of which there's not "external validation" as to how to tell a person who has the Holy Spirit, and a well-behaved atheist.

[fccool]

First of all, I think that the premise and requirement of the thread is misrepresenting what's going on with Atheism, mainly because there's misunderstanding as to what Atheism is and what it isn't.

Quote:

I am looking for some information on Atheism and how their arguments are countered by Christians and perhaps in this case by SDA apologists.

This requirement confuses as to what Atheism is. It's not a positive claim with arguments of its own. It's a claim that says "Please provide reasonable justifications for God without jumping to assumption that God exists to support your claim", which then rejects these justifications as invalid on bases of insufficient evidence or appeals to pressupositions as support for the arguments.

For example - Appeal to Bible presupposes that God exists and then appealing to presupposed consequences. Appeal to "initial cause" is presupposing a belief that God exists and than appealing to it.

For most atheists, in present state of being (You don't see people re-growing limbs, or frogs falling from the sky or rivers turning to blood)... you'd have to demonstrate as how the hypothesis: God exists, would match the reality that we live in, based on what we know about reality.

You'd have to explain as to why God is playing hide-and-seek with people who earnestly seek him. You'd have to explain as to why you'd see exactly the things in religious literature as if God didn't exist...

For example, Bible doesn't really reveal any useful information beyond the cultural knowledge of the writers. Childhood mortality in Biblical times was nearly half of all newborn children... and the numbers could be dramatically decreased by basic sanitation practices that we have today - washing hands, having mosquito nets, boiling milk before giving it to babies... avoid making wine in carvings in the rocks. Tons of stuff that we simply take for granted, would kill off half of the newborn. We had to wait for recent science to finally shed some light on what's really going on. When an Atheist looks at something like that, the question is asked... which presupposition does it fit better? God exists? Or if He doesn't. Now, we can certainly jump to explanations like "sin", free will, bet with Satan, test of faith and etc... but it wouldn't make sense in direct context of this observation. If ad-hoc explanations have to be invented to explain the obvious, then the simplest explanation usually holds up.

So, I can't really tell you good resources to talk to Atheists, but I probably would tell you to avoid Adventist ones, if you want to avoid embarrassment.

There isn't a really good rock-solid argument for God's existence outside of appealing to the problematic state of reality. If I debated an atheist, I would:

1) Avoid making positive claims that were continually refuted for the past 200 years, beginning with Russel, and ending with Richard Carrier. You will only run yourself into a corner of "Well, I believe it because it's faith and I see it in my life", to which an easy counter is - "how can you tell that you are not delusional, and by which standards would you answer that question?"... to which you once again have to circle back to your presupposition, which is a nature of delusional mindset - self-referencing to provide validation to yourself and ignore external evidence.

2) Admit that you don't know, just like person who has the opposing view. There's a fallacious appeal to "angels believe", which is not true. Angels would KNOW in this epistemological context. I doubt you've seen God, or heard His voice. I doubt you've seen anything supernatural outside of interpreting your experience of certain events as such. Essentially, you can can start by leveling the ground with honesty, which very few Christians do... and say that you don't know. At that point, in the very least you'll be taken somewhat seriously.

3) Explain that given our present knowledge about existence, the possibilities of self-guiding matter is highly problematic. Not because it's absolutely impossible, but because you have to normalize the time, precise cosmological variables, and specified complexity of organic matter to make everything happen smoothly. Of itself, it's not a direct proof of God, as we can postulate multiverse of possibilities, in which our reality clicks, but in similar way it's appealing to a multi-verse hypothesis, which is essentially very God-like when it comes to sheer scale of possibilities, which become realized in a single instance of matter. Thus, you have to bridge a lot of gaps, including the evolutionary ones, prior to arriving to specified complexity of a human brain. Not that it's impossible, but you have to apply the same scale of probability as you'd apply in case of a directed instance. It's an inductive guess, since you don't really know either, but you can test by granting either being true.

4) To which you generally get a statement of "Well, the better answer is ... we don't know yet". And here's where you can agree to disagree, in your case. It's a loose example, but faith has pragmatic necessity in our lives... and that's why it exists in the first place. You don't have to wait until we figure out a cure for every genetic disease or miscarriages prior to having children. You sort of have to trust the odds and make a decision. The same goes with business decisions, or marriage. You can wait until there is a world with every wife being faithful, or you can trust your wife for pragmatic reasons.

I don't think it's unreasonable to believe in God out of sheer pragmatic appeal. The problem is reconciling the reality of science, history and the Bible itself... which becomes very problematic as to:

1) Conflicting picture of God that the Bible paints

2) Obvious progressive development of Biblical narrative, which rules it out as "inerrant divine work", and sort of leaves you hanging to "inspired by" as in "these people had limited understanding of what God is, and took plentiful cultural liberties describing God in context of their tribal understanding of the world"

As far as legitimate Adventist apologetics... Biblical literalism is dead, and so will every church that fails to see that it is in the next 10-15 years... especially since Adventist Papacy and US predictions will very likely to fail yet again, and we'll end up with a rather different picture of the world. It will not stop Adventist leaders to claim again that it's in the future, and God giving the world more time... but they'll be so old, no one most-likely will care to listen. I could be wrong, but I highly doubt it.

[JoeMo]

Hey fc,

Those were a couple of great posts. I'm a pretty sold-out believer; but I was thinking that, based on the distinctions made in this thread, the best sold out believer would just be at the far end of theistic agnosticism. I have seen and experienced things that I can only explain as divine manifestations; but how do I "know" that they were from God? I truly believe they are

I was also thinking that atheists are at the far end of atheistic agnosticism; because they don't know, either. I have nothing to suggest when talking to atheist except to consider the conversation an educational exchange of information rather than a Christian obligation. Until God is consistently and reliably working unexplainable creative miracles though us (which He could do someday); we have nothing to offer as explicit proof of the divine.

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)

Makes perfect sense to a Christian living on faith; but makes no sense at all to those who live solely in the rational.

[Sojourner]

I came across this great article on a man who turned from Militant Atheism to Christianity, interesting stuff that I am sure several in here may enjoy! 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/09/15/author-and-former-militant-atheist-reveals-what-led-him-to-christianity/ 

[LifeHiscost]

I came across this great article on a man who turned from Militant Atheism to Christianity, interesting stuff that I am sure several in here may enjoy! 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/09/15/author-and-former-militant-atheist-reveals-what-led-him-to-christianity/ 

I clicked on the URL and got an OOps! And when I put in search (Militant Atheism to Christianity) it turned up zero results. When I searched for Atheist to Christianity it turned up 5 pages of results.  Any special heading besides the URL given?

 

God is Love! Jesus saves!

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

here's the link:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/09/15/author-and-former-militant-atheist-reveals-what-led-him-to-christianity/

 

(if you click on the link Sojourner gave, then type in "militant atheist" in the search bar, you'll get a page of results)

[fccool]

Hey fc,

Those were a couple of great posts. I'm a pretty sold-out believer; but I was thinking that, based on the distinctions made in this thread, the best sold out believer would just be at the far end of theistic agnosticism. I have seen and experienced things that I can only explain as divine manifestations; but how do I "know" that they were from God? I truly believe they are

I was also thinking that atheists are at the far end of atheistic agnosticism; because they don't know, either. I have nothing to suggest when talking to atheist except to consider the conversation an educational exchange of information rather than a Christian obligation. Until God is consistently and reliably working unexplainable creative miracles though us (which He could do someday); we have nothing to offer as explicit proof of the divine.

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)

Makes perfect sense to a Christian living on faith; but makes no sense at all to those who live solely in the rational.

 

 

Either way, I think you should be honest about your presentation of knows.   It irritates me what preachers stand up and talk about "the truth" that people reject as though that's what really is happening with Atheism or creationism... etc.

 

For someone to reject truth, one has to be presented with a convincing and accurate presentation of truth. 

 

The question would be... why would Paul get a Damascus road experience, and the rest of us have to hold on to a claim and conjecture?   Why would E.G.White get visions, and the rest of us should be in a position to either doubt or believe her claims?   Are these unreasonable claims when it comes to getting over certain edge of uncertainty?   Why would believing without seeing considered to be a virtue, when it's considered gullibility in any other context?  

 

If God exists, and Christianity is true, I don't think that the issue of "proper belief" would cut it.   Likewise, why would God bank on belief in mysterious and hidden, and questionable history... as something that should be of paramount importance?

 

I mean, most of the Christian efforts these days seem to revolve around debating dogma .   I think the link that's referenced above does carry some pragmatic validity, because explaining the existential values via dogma is absurd IMO.   Christianity in an existential sense, is only effective as an "unspoken" way of life worthy of imitation.   Dogma cheapens and dilutes it.  

 

So what if you think that the Sabbath and 10 commandments should be kept today as a proper dogma?  How does it look in reality?  Is that the point of this existence... to walk in the confines of legal framework.   It's a rather narrow view of what Christianity is IMO, from historical perspective.   If you want to convert Atheists... then stop speaking, and start acting as though God is real, and so all of your beliefs you claim to uphold.

 

But, what difference would it make if one merely holds a claim that has no existential value or evidence?   When we examine the budget of the Adventist church as a whole, does it reflect Christian ideals and priorities?   Does it?    Or does it reflect ideals of corporation with people who work for salaries, like anyone else in this world would?  What's the existential difference?   Is it in dogma?   What difference does the dogma makes when  on one continent people are starving, while on the other there's a celebration of "Adventist unity" via a $6,000,000 conference party ?

[CoAspen]

>  Christianity in an existential sense, is only effective as an "unspoken" way of life worthy of imitation.   Dogma cheapens and dilutes it.<

 

> If you want to convert Atheists... then stop speaking, and start acting as though God is real, and so all of your beliefs you claim to uphold.<

 

Two very good thoughts.