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Convince and Convert an Atheist

Beanbag

Illuminator
Beanbag
Joined
Jun 7, 2003
Messages
3,468
This is an open invitation for Christians out there to open a discussion with a true, dedicated atheist. I want to hear and understand why I should become a Christian.

This IS NOT being done in an antagonistic fashion -- I'm not out to argue with you, or attempt to convert you to my way of thinking. I want to hear from your point of view without either of us raising our hackles and spitting at each other. TALK WITH ME. I will listen and reply, either with comments or questions.

I ask that we remain civilized here. Being an open forum, remember that others can see what's going on here. If anyone begins behaving badly, I'll Ignore you, and you'll lose the opportunity. The same goes for any "nonbelievers" -- I don't want this thread derailed and taken off too the wild blue whatever.

These are the starting conditions. I'll give you some information about my personal beliefs in the following post.

Regards;
Beanbag
 
Okay. I'm an atheist. I pretty much have never believed, though I was raised a Methodist. I've looked through the bible, suffered through years of parables and singing inane songs in Sunday school. I've looked at the inconsistencies in the world and not seen any rhyme or reason, no sense of a guiding hand. The current state of the world and universe appears to be adequately explained as the end result of a long chain of random events.

My personal opinion is that god is lacking in several fundamental skills that a good manager should have. Most particularly, god appears to lack the ability to communicate clearly. I can't make the jump of "believe, and it will be true." All it would take is one clear, incontrovertible act of a divine being to make me believe, but for some reason I can't find one.

What am I missing?

Beanbag
 
Beanbag said:
Okay. I'm an atheist. I pretty much have never believed, though I was raised a Methodist. I've looked through the bible, suffered through years of parables and singing inane songs in Sunday school.
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I think you're coming close to breaking your own rule. ;)

Beanbag said:
I ask that we remain civilized here. Being an open forum, remember that others can see what's going on here. If anyone begins behaving badly, I'll Ignore you, and you'll lose the opportunity.
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Sorry. The whole Sunday School experience is one long string of bad memories. I'll try to behave.

However, the songs were pretty inane.

Beanbag
 
If you're really interested in this, you should try some Christian forums. We don't get a lot of Christians here and they tend to fall into two categories: Either extremely... um... faithful, therefore unlikely to convince you, or thoughtful and rational, therefore unlikely to try to convince you.
 
Tricky said:
If you're really interested in this, you should try some Christian forums. We don't get a lot of Christians here and they tend to fall into two categories: Either extremely... um... faithful, therefore unlikely to convince you, or thoughtful and rational, therefore unlikely to try to convince you.
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Are these two groups not representative of the internet at large?
 
It's the thoughtful and rationals that interest me. Though I am interested in hearing from those who have a great deal of enthusiasm on the subject. As long as things remain on a civil level.

Beanbag
 
I'm very interested in this discussion, too. Anyone want to witness to me? It's one of Jesus' commandments, so let me help you out. Every few years I go round and round with a Christian, and I learn something new every time.

The problem is that being a Christian (or not) really depends so much on your worldview. I was raised as a fundie Christian in the South, and even though my critical mind had a lot of problems with the theology, I accepted it because in the culture of the Bible Belt, Good person = Christian and Bad person = lapsed Christian. It wasn't until I went to college and opened up my worldview that I saw you can be good and moral and not a Christian. And it wasn't until I studied a lot of science that I understood that the idea of the afterlife made no sense and that there was a lot of evidence to support evolution and the Big Bang (and hence no need for a theistic, creator God).

But that didn't happen over night for me... it took a long time, a lot of education, and a lot of thinking and breaking out of that worldview that I was brought up in. It's hard to get anywhere with an evangelical Christian who hasn't made that journey him or herself (and who doesn't want to).
 
Not a whole lot to say here other than it reminds me of CS Lewis who, after stating something that very much mirrored your comments.

He stopped for a second and pondered why he had reason to question why things appear to be "wrong" with the world, and realized that even in the asking of the question it pointed to a god. A man doesn't call a path crooked unless he has some idea of what a straight path looks like.

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning-- CS Lewis
 
Blutarsky said:
Not a whole lot to say here other than it reminds me of CS Lewis who, after stating something that very much mirrored your comments.

He stopped for a second and pondered why he had reason to question why things appear to be "wrong" with the world, and realized that even in the asking of the question it pointed to a god. A man doesn't call a path crooked unless he has some idea of what a straight path looks like.
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You are saying that God provides an absolute framework for morality. Morality is a complicated problem, but it's possible to say what is "good" and "bad" using plenty of principles (e.g. utilitarianism) that do not involve God. Even Christians do it.
 
Beanbag said:
It's the thoughtful and rationals that interest me. Though I am interested in hearing from those who have a great deal of enthusiasm on the subject. As long as things remain on a civil level.

Beanbag
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Exactly-- I don't want to go down to Bible study again at the local church, because I've heard it all before and never found it convincing, and the person trying to convert me eventually gives up and prays that some day God will open my heart.

I did make contact with a guy in the molecular biology department here who recently wrote an article for the student paper about why he is an evangelical Christian. We're going to meet for coffee periodically, and I'm looking forward to it.
 
I've come to the conclusion that the defining quality of being a "good" or humane person is empathy. I look at situations and either know from hard experience or through logical reasoning what it would feel like to be in that situation. It has nothing to do with any divine guidance or commandments. I look at something and make a judgment as to whether it is "good" or "evil" based on the level of harm it would do to others. I've seen so much of what I don't want to be, had a lot of things done to me that I wouldn't do or wish on others. It's a moral compass, if you will, that I let guide my decisions. It isn't based on a threat of divine retribution or eternal torment if I choose to do certain things.

One often-quoted anti-atheist saw is that atheists are "dangerous" because they have nothing restraining their actions. My compass is based on what I think is right and wrong. It has nothing to do with an afterlife, because I truly believe that the afterlife doesn't exist. I think whatever "immortality" one has is in the memories of others and the consequences of the actions one made while alive. Alexander Flemming, for example, discovered penicillin and antibiotics, a momentous discovery that sent ripples throughout the future that affect almost everyone. That, my friends, is immortality.

Beanbag
 
Blutarsky said:
Not a whole lot to say here other than it reminds me of CS Lewis who, after stating something that very much mirrored your comments.

He stopped for a second and pondered why he had reason to question why things appear to be "wrong" with the world, and realized that even in the asking of the question it pointed to a god. A man doesn't call a path crooked unless he has some idea of what a straight path looks like.
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I find that very unconvincing, if I remark that horses do not have horns on their heads this does not imply the existence of unicorns.

Why does right deserve this special status that makes it points towards god and suggest his existence?
 
The CS Lewis argument is silly. Of course a fish feels 'wet' if given the same opportunity for comparison that man is in and out of water. Lewis has a concept of 'just' and 'unjust' because he has experienced both of those things personally and uses empathy to figure out how others feel in a given situation, then makes moral judgements based on those feelings. For example, when he was a kid and his older brother took his sweets away by force and ate them, he was deprived of the enjoyment of the sweets and struck by the imbalance of the situation (which is that his brother could deprive him of the enjoyment of the sweets and also get to enjoy them himself). Now imagine him as the head of a family whose survival depends on the animal he just killed. The head of another group comes and takes it by force to feed his own family. That is simple survival, 'just' and 'unjust' are the modern labels we put the exact same feelings but without the context.

Lewis is just a product of his instincts, that's all. I daresay he might have found that boorish.

Oh, I should also point out the inherent fallacy in assuming that just because a person is a fabulous writer of literature, it does not make him an authority on the existence of God. Argumentum Ad Celebrity :)
 
Not to take over your thread, but I'll check back here to see if any compelling arguments might convince me to become a Christian as well.

Problem is, I've never felt that deep abiding conviction that really is the essence of Christian faith. Not that I didn't spend at least two decades of my life lying to myself about it.
 
Beanbag, if your interest is genuine, then feel free to PM me and we can have a discussion via that route.
 
Jekyll said:
I find that very unconvincing, if I remark that horses do not have horns on their heads this does not imply the existence of unicorns.
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If that is what you think it says, you are misunderstanding the argument entirely.
 
RationalReverend said:
Beanbag, if your interest is genuine, then feel free to PM me and we can have a discussion via that route.
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Can't we have it here? Many of us would be interested in the discussion.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I think we could have a rational discussion without resorting to insults. Many people here are in the same boat, as far as growing up in a Christian household goes.
 
tkingdoll said:
The CS Lewis argument is silly. Of course a fish feels 'wet' if given the same opportunity for comparison that man is in and out of water. Lewis has a concept of 'just' and 'unjust' because he has experienced both of those things personally and uses empathy to figure out how others feel in a given situation, then makes moral judgements based on those feelings. For example, when he was a kid and his older brother took his sweets away by force and ate them, he was deprived of the enjoyment of the sweets and struck by the imbalance of the situation (which is that his brother could deprive him of the enjoyment of the sweets and also get to enjoy them himself). Now imagine him as the head of a family whose survival depends on the animal he just killed. The head of another group comes and takes it by force to feed his own family. That is simple survival, 'just' and 'unjust' are the modern labels we put the exact same feelings but without the context.
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Of course this assumes that we have, with some certainty, concluded that morality is entirely subjective and depending from empathy (sazai loves this one). It's fascinating, but far from proven. People overstate the current scholarship regarding objective/subjective ethics quite regularly around here. If there were such incontrovertable evidence about the subject my former jurisprudence professor in law school would be out of a job...:)
 
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