How To Convince Atheists Of God's Existence

[loyal 0]

Taken from http://www.themodernreligion.com/

 

Religion and the Scientist...

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[WindAndWater 0]

I always find these persuasive arguments hard to credit. They're set up as a discussion between two contending forces, but in reality it's more of a carefully crafted stage, with one person controlling two puppets. It allows the conversation to move down a predetermined path with only token resistance. It allows the "right" side to offer forth proof, without it being actually attacked and disected by the opposition. Many of the points put forth in here are limited, and attackable as stemming from coincidence. When you take a text as long and as comprehensive as the Quraan, it's bound to have passages that overlap and coincide with the views held by mainstream science.I don't believe that you'll ever be able to convince someone to your religion unless you provide them with something directly tangable, and neigh irrefutable that they can believe in themselves. Any logic you use to try to convince them will always have a counter-argument.

[beeseven 0]

Don't try to convince atheists of the existance of one (or many) God(s), don't try to convince mono- or polytheists of the nonexistance of God(s), you'll just end up pissing off somebody.You can't convince anybody that what he or she believes in is wrong unless he or she has already started doubting it. No matter how good the evidence for one side is, the only thing you'll do is make the other side angry by telling them that they're wrong. Why do you think so many wars have been focused on religion? I don't remember who said it or what exactly he said, but there was a quote I heard that is something like "If you want to make someone angry, tell him that his belief system is wrong."Now from reading this response do you think that I'm religious? That I agree that atheism is wrong? I'm not religious at all, I just know what makes people angry, and this is a very good example of that.

[a_man 0]

No I am not religious, yes I believe that there is some kind of 'god' or higher being.. I was raised Catholic because I lived in a small town and it's the only school they had.My opinion is, you can convince, but you shouldn't. Everyone should have the right to believe what they want .. not to be forced to believe something. Sure, present them with your arguement but let them decide and if they decide not to choose your religion don't go and get angry at it.

[trace-uk 0]

The Modern Religion? Its obviously football...The way some football (soccer) holligans act they would be glad to kill or die to settle any argument about their football teams. Sad...

[truefusion 3]

I would have taken a different approach at this. (I came into this topic late, before a mod got here, so i'm not sure of what's going on). But, i would have made a topic title "answers for atheists and agnostics", and recommended a link. While telling them what to expect. (http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/answers.html)

[Brian Gillingham 0]

Here's a question that I always ask those god-believing pushers:

 

If god created all of this stuff, who created god?

 

What was here before god?

 

Did god have a god?

 

So, you really believe that god created the entire universe --- shortly after creating HIMSELF?! I mean, he couldn't exactly go about creating a universe if he didn't exist. I don't really care that if he created himself before there was a universe, he would have to be completely non-etheral... which I guess you already believe, but it leaves the question "who created god?".

 

Another question for "intelligent design" fans, why did he put the male's testes where they could be kicked? That's not intelligent at all - I would have come up with something MUCH better than < OUCH!> that.

[truefusion 3]

Here's a question that I always ask those god-believing pushers:

 

If god created all of this stuff, who created god?

 

What was here before god?

 

Did god have a god?

 

So, you really believe that god created the entire universe --- shortly after creating HIMSELF?! I mean, he couldn't exactly go about creating a universe if he didn't exist. I don't really care that if he created himself before there was a universe, he would have to be completely non-etheral... which I guess you already believe, but it leaves the question "who created god?".

 

[1]Another question for "intelligent design" fans, why did he put the male's testes where they could be kicked? That's not intelligent at all - I would have come up with something MUCH better than < OUCH!> that.

 

I'm sure you can find the questions with the smileys next to them in the link i provided.

 

[1]ROFL! Oh man, that's some joke. But, lol, to talk about such, it's wrong to kick a man there. God does not promote such a thing. It would be like kicking yourself there, if you're a man. But, tell me where would you have placed them at?

[Tyssen 0]

How to convince atheists of God's existence

Why do you feel a need to?

[moldboy 0]

First let me say

But, tell me where would you have placed them at?

I aggree entirly.
But now serously, I know this a good topic to get people talking, but why does every religion feel the need to force themselfs on other people. Kinda like the bee won't sting you if you don't bother it. Like it was mentioned, a very large number of wars were caused but one prson feeling they were right, and that the other needed to change.

[MaverickFang 0]

Fighting fighting fighting... always something about god exsist or he doesnt. If it isnt that its somebodies belief is wrong. So correct me if Im wrong.

God doesnt want you to force your opinion or beliefe upon somebody else.

God doesnt want you to tell a person their going to hell just because you dont believe in Christianity.

 

Also while we're on this subject, Does God want people to be happy? If your happying being homosexual... that is a big no no.

 

Lets go further into this, especialy with the dislike of pagens, jewish, and any other religeons. Christianity is a hodge-podge of religeons, The tree and fish were symbols of Pagens... Not Christians.

 

Heres on of the big ones though... and werfs do pay attention. There wouldn't be so much complication with the business of whos right and whos wrong, if you could consider for a moment that maybe YOU are wrong. Lets not forget that the Bible has been translated more than just a "few" times. There are many ways to translate it, and peices are missing. Being able to take into consideration might open new doors. But that would never be able to happen, because your to busy worried about that. And untill then, these God damned problems will never end... Some deity exists... you have to make what you want of it... It may be a he.... It may be a she... It might be an alien... Either way, the more you fight about it, the worse it will get...

 

"Save the world... hug a werf"

[Joshua 0]

Here's a question that I always ask those god-believing pushers:

 

If god created all of this stuff, who created god?

 

What was here before god?

 

Did god have a god?

 

So, you really believe that god created the entire universe --- shortly after creating HIMSELF?! I mean, he couldn't exactly go about creating a universe if he didn't exist. I don't really care that if he created himself before there was a universe, he would have to be completely non-etheral... which I guess you already believe, but it leaves the question "who created god?".

 

Another question for "intelligent design" fans, why did he put the male's testes where they could be kicked? That's not intelligent at all - I would have come up with something MUCH better than < OUCH!> that.

 

Alright, interesting questions.

 

1, 2, 3-Eventually you have to get down to the point where the most basic essential existed, your "god." Pasteur conclusively proved that one can't get something from nothing. The 2nd law of thermodynamics says you can't get life from non-life. And the Big Bang theory says before the Big Bang there was a singularity, where all the laws of science break down. So the only way for them to explain it is to say science didn't apply It would be a lot more honest of them to just say they don't know. Thus, you have to reach a point where nothing existed before. Some scientists have tried using theories like the Steady State Model to say time could be in a loop or bounce all different ways to say it went back far enough that they don't have to explain an original beginning, which means God must have existed. Problem is, there theories all keep getting proven false, and they're running out of escape holes. This has been going on for a thousand years or so, where they've been jumping at wilder and wilder possibilities to explain away the existence of God so we can exist.

 

As for the last question, just because God makes something good doesn't mean He intended it to be subject to wrong uses Kind of like sex, He made it a blessing to be had within the confines of marriage, not with ever tom, sue, and barney the talking rock that comes by. Just because we have been given the ability to do something doesn't mean God intended us to do it in other words. To have the potential to do great good we must have power and that means the potential to do evil as well.

 

 

Fighting fighting fighting... always something about god exsist or he doesnt. If it isnt that its somebodies belief is wrong. So correct me if Im wrong.

God doesnt want you to force your opinion or beliefe upon somebody else.

God doesnt want you to tell a person their going to hell just because you dont believe in Christianity.

 

Also while we're on this subject, Does God want people to be happy? If your happying being homosexual... that is a big no no.

 

Lets go further into this, especialy with the dislike of pagens, jewish, and any other religeons. Christianity is a hodge-podge of religeons, The tree and fish were symbols of Pagens... Not Christians.

 

Heres on of the big ones though... and werfs do pay attention. There wouldn't be so much complication with the business of whos right and whos wrong, if you could consider for a moment that maybe YOU are wrong. Lets not forget that the Bible has been translated more than just a "few" times. There are many ways to translate it, and peices are missing. Being able to take into consideration might open new doors. But that would never be able to happen, because your to busy worried about that. And untill then, these God damned problems will never end... Some deity exists... you have to make what you want of it... It may be a he.... It may be a she... It might be an alien... Either way, the more you fight about it, the worse it will get...

 

"Save the world... hug a werf"

Well, is simply engaging a willing participant in persuasive conversation "forcing" your opinions and beliefs on them? If you try to punish them for not accepting the beliefs then that would be forcing them, right? We are not to judge, and a judge pronounces a sentence or condemnation. Is simply telling someone good news that can change their eternal destiny pronouncing a sentence or condemnation on them?

 

Let me put it this way. If you care about your friend, and they're about to walk off a cliff while hypnotized, will you not say anything because you "care about them?" If you're really their friend, won't you at least bother to warn them? If they refuse to listen to you fine, out of respect you can simply walk away. But truly caring about someone implies taking action when it matters. If one never stands up for anything it's because they've never found anything worth standing up for. I guess that tells you in a sentence what I think of Unitarianism.

 

God does want people to be happy, but God is a holy God who does not tolerate evil and unrighteousness. Mankind chose to reject God's ways thousands of years ago and now they ask why there's evil and suffering in the world. God didn't make the world this way. He made it perfect. We chose to reject Him and His way, and He simply let us suffer the consequences of doing things "our way." It's His love that brought Him to send His only begotten Son so that we could have a way out from the just consequences of our wrongs done to Him and other people.

 

You say the Bible has been translated more then a few times. Tell me, just how many of those times have been in, say, the last 2 hundred years or so? And of past translations, how many of those translations do we have? You see, there is more manuscript authority for the New Testament alone then for any ancient literary work in history. Shakespeare's Iliad is 2nd with 640 something manuscripts (copies of the original) currently in our possession. We have over 20,000 manuscripts for the New Testament that agree nearly always word for word. Some are written less than a century after the events, having been dated even before the 2nd century A.D.! To give you an idea of how spectacular this is, any classical scholar would laugh if you were to question a given work of Shakespeare with just 5 reliable manuscripts, with the most recent written over a thousand years after the original. And there are works accepted as beyond suspicion based on exactly those requirements. A double standard is constantly applied to the Bible as opposed to other historical documents, and if you were to objectively evaluate it with the same 3 methods applied to other historical documents of internal evidence, external evidence, and bibliographical evidence you would be astounded at how shockingly, even embarrassingly greater a wealth of backing there is for the New Testament alone compared to any other ancient literary work in history! There is a book with over 10 million copies in print, readily available, a paperback that can be gotten for $5, called "More Than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell. In it he examines the reliability of the Bible and holds it up to scrutiny by just such methods, as well as many accusations made against it.

 

Ever since "The DaVinci Code" came out, a lot of people like to make that accusation about the Bible's translations. Tell me, what do you know about Dan Brown? Did you know his movie is being held up because of accusations of plagiarism by the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" who he cited as sources many times in his book? Did you know that while the Priory of Sion did exist, it was created by the same source the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" authors used? The group wasn't created hundreds of years ago, it was made in 1956 by convicted con artist Pierre Plantard, who in 1993 admitted under oath to planting a series of fictionalized documents "proving" the existence of a bloodline descending from Mary Magdalene? It is those same documents Brown quotes as there being 4 trunks full, and puts it in his "fact" section. There weren't even 4 trunks of them, either. Did you know the Catholic group Opus Dei (probably got the name slightly wrong) didn't even have an order of monks or a bishop as he suggests in his book? Brown made numerous crucial mistakes just in locations and common knowledge info.

[PIPER-4-HIRE 0]

Y must you ppl push your religions on other's. I'm happy with my belief's and and the next jehovah's witness that shows up at my door is gonna get beat down like Whitney Houston after she married Bobby.(no offense, but imean door to door religion is kinda sad...)

 

I Think you ppl try to convince others that your god exists because you are actually trying to convince yourself.

 

RELIGION IS THE NUMBER 1 CAUSE OF WAR IN HUMAN HISTORY

Just leave it be, cause if try and convince ppl that your god is the one true god than dont get mad when one day someone proves you wrong....

 

Well, is simply engaging a willing participant in persuasive conversation "forcing" your opinions and beliefs on them? If you try to punish them for not accepting the beliefs then that would be forcing them, right? We are not to judge, and a judge pronounces a sentence or condemnation. Is simply telling someone good news that can change their eternal destiny pronouncing a sentence or condemnation on them?

I Beleive it says in the bible"Do Not Judge Lest Ye Be Judged..."

 

 

 

No I am not religious, yes I believe that there is some kind of 'god' or higher being.. I was raised Catholic because I lived in a small town and it's the only school they had.

 

My opinion is, you can convince, but you shouldn't. Everyone should have the right to believe what they want .. not to be forced to believe something. Sure, present them with your arguement but let them decide and if they decide not to choose your religion don't go and get angry at it.

 

????[/tab][tab]That's about how us Albertan's think, think what you want, but dont try and make us conform...

 

 

Long Live "King Ralph"

"Ralph for PM"

Edited April 24, 2006 by PIPER-4-HIRE (see edit history)

[loyal 0]

Oh great...warned...stupid quotes! Sigh...

 

I always find these persuasive arguments hard to credit. They're set up as a discussion between two contending forces, but in reality it's more of a carefully crafted stage, with one person controlling two puppets. It allows the conversation to move down a predetermined path with only token resistance. It allows the "right" side to offer forth proof, without it being actually attacked and disected by the opposition.

Many of the points put forth in here are limited, and attackable as stemming from coincidence. When you take a text as long and as comprehensive as the Quraan, it's bound to have passages that overlap and coincide with the views held by mainstream science.

I don't believe that you'll ever be able to convince someone to your religion unless you provide them with something directly tangable, and neigh irrefutable that they can believe in themselves. Any logic you use to try to convince them will always have a counter-argument.

"

 

 

Well they might be crafted...But the main purpose of the article was to convince the reader that the Qur'an has scientific miracles and therefore God exists. It is a bit boring reading through them all. And confusing. Instead the original author has presented them in a more readable fashion. Anyway please counter argue this article...if you can.

 

Don't try to convince atheists of the existance of one (or many) God(s), don't try to convince mono- or polytheists of the nonexistance of God(s), you'll just end up pissing off somebody.

 

You can't convince anybody that what he or she believes in is wrong unless he or she has already started doubting it. No matter how good the evidence for one side is, the only thing you'll do is make the other side angry by telling them that they're wrong. Why do you think so many wars have been focused on religion? I don't remember who said it or what exactly he said, but there was a quote I heard that is something like "If you want to make someone angry, tell him that his belief system is wrong."

 

Now from reading this response do you think that I'm religious? That I agree that atheism is wrong? I'm not religious at all, I just know what makes people angry, and this is a very good example of that.

 

I think that is true. You can cannot convince atheists that God exists because they do not want to.

 

No I am not religious, yes I believe that there is some kind of 'god' or higher being.. I was raised Catholic because I lived in a small town and it's the only school they had.

 

My opinion is, you can convince, but you shouldn't. Everyone should have the right to believe what they want .. not to be forced to believe something. Sure, present them with your arguement but let them decide and if they decide not to choose your religion don't go and get angry at it.

 

Yep. Never force someone. I won't. Thanks for advice.

 

I would have taken a different approach at this. (I came into this topic late, before a mod got here, so i'm not sure of what's going on). But, i would have made a topic title "answers for atheists and agnostics", and recommended a link. While telling them what to expect. (http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/answers.html)

 

 

There is a new link the mod posted.

 

I'm sure you can find the questions with the smileys next to them in the link i provided.

 

[1]ROFL! laugh.gif Oh man, that's some joke. But, lol, to talk about such, it's wrong to kick a man there. God does not promote such a thing. It would be like kicking yourself there, if you're a man. But, tell me where would you have placed them at?

Why do you feel a need to?

First let me say

 

I aggree entirly.

 

But now serously, I know this a good topic to get people talking, but why does every religion feel the need to force themselfs on other people. Kinda like the bee won't sting you if you don't bother it. Like it was mentioned, a very large number of wars were caused but one prson feeling they were right, and that the other needed to change.

 

Not every religion. I am not Christian but many times in the Bible when Jesus preached but the other person did not want to become his pupil, Jesus did not go after him and say "hey hey! i am the salvation! You gotta believe, man!" Usually people just make other people believe forcefully.

 

Fighting fighting fighting... always something about god exsist or he doesnt. If it isnt that its somebodies belief is wrong. So correct me if Im wrong.

God doesnt want you to force your opinion or beliefe upon somebody else.

God doesnt want you to tell a person their going to hell just because you dont believe in Christianity.

 

Also while we're on this subject, Does God want people to be happy? If your happying being homosexual... that is a big no no.

 

Lets go further into this, especialy with the dislike of pagens, jewish, and any other religeons. Christianity is a hodge-podge of religeons, The tree and fish were symbols of Pagens... Not Christians.

 

Heres on of the big ones though... and werfs do pay attention. There wouldn't be so much complication with the business of whos right and whos wrong, if you could consider for a moment that maybe YOU are wrong. Lets not forget that the Bible has been translated more than just a "few" times. There are many ways to translate it, and peices are missing. Being able to take into consideration might open new doors. But that would never be able to happen, because your to busy worried about that. And untill then, these God damned problems will never end... Some deity exists... you have to make what you want of it... It may be a he.... It may be a she... It might be an alien... Either way, the more you fight about it, the worse it will get...

 

"Save the world... hug a werf"

 

Lol if you had even bothered to read anything about my post you would have realised i am not Christian. I know about the translating issue and so on. Interesting beliefs you have there.

 

 

 

Alright, interesting questions.

 

1, 2, 3-Eventually you have to get down to the point where the most basic essential existed, your "god." Pasteur conclusively proved that one can't get something from nothing. The 2nd law of thermodynamics says you can't get life from non-life. And the Big Bang theory says before the Big Bang there was a singularity, where all the laws of science break down. So the only way for them to explain it is to say science didn't apply It would be a lot more honest of them to just say they don't know. Thus, you have to reach a point where nothing existed before. Some scientists have tried using theories like the Steady State Model to say time could be in a loop or bounce all different ways to say it went back far enough that they don't have to explain an original beginning, which means God must have existed. Problem is, there theories all keep getting proven false, and they're running out of escape holes. This has been going on for a thousand years or so, where they've been jumping at wilder and wilder possibilities to explain away the existence of God so we can exist.

 

As for the last question, just because God makes something good doesn't mean He intended it to be subject to wrong uses Kind of like sex, He made it a blessing to be had within the confines of marriage, not with ever tom, sue, and barney the talking rock that comes by. Just because we have been given the ability to do something doesn't mean God intended us to do it in other words. To have the potential to do great good we must have power and that means the potential to do evil as well.

 

 

 

 

Well, is simply engaging a willing participant in persuasive conversation "forcing" your opinions and beliefs on them? If you try to punish them for not accepting the beliefs then that would be forcing them, right? We are not to judge, and a judge pronounces a sentence or condemnation. Is simply telling someone good news that can change their eternal destiny pronouncing a sentence or condemnation on them?

 

Let me put it this way. If you care about your friend, and they're about to walk off a cliff while hypnotized, will you not say anything because you "care about them?" If you're really their friend, won't you at least bother to warn them? If they refuse to listen to you fine, out of respect you can simply walk away. But truly caring about someone implies taking action when it matters. If one never stands up for anything it's because they've never found anything worth standing up for. I guess that tells you in a sentence what I think of Unitarianism.

 

God does want people to be happy, but God is a holy God who does not tolerate evil and unrighteousness. Mankind chose to reject God's ways thousands of years ago and now they ask why there's evil and suffering in the world. God didn't make the world this way. He made it perfect. We chose to reject Him and His way, and He simply let us suffer the consequences of doing things "our way." It's His love that brought Him to send His only begotten Son so that we could have a way out from the just consequences of our wrongs done to Him and other people.

 

You say the Bible has been translated more then a few times. Tell me, just how many of those times have been in, say, the last 2 hundred years or so? And of past translations, how many of those translations do we have? You see, there is more manuscript authority for the New Testament alone then for any ancient literary work in history. Shakespeare's Iliad is 2nd with 640 something manuscripts (copies of the original) currently in our possession. We have over 20,000 manuscripts for the New Testament that agree nearly always word for word. Some are written less than a century after the events, having been dated even before the 2nd century A.D.! To give you an idea of how spectacular this is, any classical scholar would laugh if you were to question a given work of Shakespeare with just 5 reliable manuscripts, with the most recent written over a thousand years after the original. And there are works accepted as beyond suspicion based on exactly those requirements. A double standard is constantly applied to the Bible as opposed to other historical documents, and if you were to objectively evaluate it with the same 3 methods applied to other historical documents of internal evidence, external evidence, and bibliographical evidence you would be astounded at how shockingly, even embarrassingly greater a wealth of backing there is for the New Testament alone compared to any other ancient literary work in history! There is a book with over 10 million copies in print, readily available, a paperback that can be gotten for $5, called "More Than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell. In it he examines the reliability of the Bible and holds it up to scrutiny by just such methods, as well as many accusations made against it.

 

Ever since "The DaVinci Code" came out, a lot of people like to make that accusation about the Bible's translations. Tell me, what do you know about Dan Brown? Did you know his movie is being held up because of accusations of plagiarism by the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" who he cited as sources many times in his book? Did you know that while the Priory of Sion did exist, it was created by the same source the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" authors used? The group wasn't created hundreds of years ago, it was made in 1956 by convicted con artist Pierre Plantard, who in 1993 admitted under oath to planting a series of fictionalized documents "proving" the existence of a bloodline descending from Mary Magdalene? It is those same documents Brown quotes as there being 4 trunks full, and puts it in his "fact" section. There weren't even 4 trunks of them, either. Did you know the Catholic group Opus Dei (probably got the name slightly wrong) didn't even have an order of monks or a bishop as he suggests in his book? Brown made numerous crucial mistakes just in locations and common knowledge info.

 

Hey i loved what you wrote.

 

 

Y must you ppl push your religions on other's. I'm happy with my belief's and and the next jehovah's witness that shows up at my door is gonna get beat down like Whitney Houston after she married Bobby.(no offense, but imean door to door religion is kinda sad...)

 

I Think you ppl try to convince others that your god exists because you are actually trying to convince yourself.

 

RELIGION IS THE NUMBER 1 CAUSE OF WAR IN HUMAN HISTORY

Just leave it be, cause if try and convince ppl that your god is the one true god than dont get mad when one day someone proves you wrong....

 

 

 

I Beleive it says in the bible"Do Not Judge Lest Ye Be Judged..."

 

 

 

 

 

????[/tab][tab]That's about how us Albertan's think, think what you want, but dont try and make us conform...

 

War is not the cause from religion. What about hitler? What about communism in russia? What about atomic bomb? This are just some examples which are not part of religion. Religions like Christianity preach forgiveness. Where is the war in that? Islam says you should never attack except in self defence. Where is the war in that? Buddhism says peace and no harm to living things. Where is the harm in that?

[truefusion 3]

I find it funny that whenever someone talks about God, another person comes in and creates havoc. I dont think any of us forced anyone to click on the link for this topic, or any other topic relating to religion. This could have very well been advice for other religious people, saying on how this is one way to go about doing something. No where in the link provided in loyal's first post in this topic does it say anything about wars. It was all scientific.