This is a good book and Frank Turek helped write it
I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist
Listen to Frank Turek, Ravi Zacharias, and I also love John Lennox.
Also I’d recommend reading the Bible. If God is real, do you want to know him? If so, in Matthew 6:6 the Bible says if you pray to God in the secret he’ll see you there and he’ll reward you openly. If you seek him with all your heart, you’ll find him. I did. He changed my life!
Two angles I can think of here:
1) She may believe now that her life would be worse if she lost faith, but after an adjustment she may become one of us who have gotten used to the idea and become/remained content anyway.
2) As has been said by many of the faithful visitors here: you can retain your faith in God without proof, which they'll tell you is why we call it 'faith'. If your girlfriend has/had a non-denominational faith in God, she probably doesn't need to let bible contradictions and such bother her. Believers can struggle with faith and bounce back into it, particularly if losing faith makes them fearful/uncomfortable. Maybe they drop the parts of it they can't reconcile and keep the rest.
I know you're asking for helpful materials for her to read but I'm afraid I'm little help there. My friend's wife has a copy of this annoyingly-titled book, so maybe give that a look? Best of luck to you both.
>It's strange how atheists are so religious about wanting to be called agnostics.
It's strange how when theists try to antagonize atheists they often frame their behavior as being religious, as if they think being religious or having faith is a bad thing.
But no, it's not religious or strange for agnostic atheists to want honest representation. It's a risky spot to be speculating about people's motives so I try to avoid doing it, but there seems to be an incredible bias by some against a perfectly reasonable position of not being convinced gods exist. Biased to the point where they don't simply think we are wrong, but that we shouldn't even be acknowledged to exist. Honestly what this communicates to me is fear. Fear that this position is too reasonable to be argued against and so must be hidden from people.
It's also a tacit acknowledgement that they have to come up with some sort of semi-scientific justification for Christianity due to scientific advancement of the past ~100 years or so (the power of prayer seems less potent when you have vaccines, chemotherapy, and antibiotics, for instance). So you have yahoos like these guys arguing that the laws of thermodynamics prove the existence of god (not sure if this book does it specifically, but one of the authors lectures about it).
> I just started reading and am eager to see what he says on the matter.
You're in for a treat, he's a very enigmatic writer. I don't have enough faith to be an atheist is great too, because it's all referenced and science based. That's the one that finally turned me over.
I applaud you on seeking out the truth and I would recommend:
>https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615
Here the author give logical evidence that is outside the Bible to answer the questions: 1. Does god exist 2. Is Jesus the one true religion.
To support his answers he uses scripture to build his case. He uses common views of science and reason/logic to answer these questions. His ultimate goal is to build a strong case for Jesus being God and show why atheism falls short. It's a good read and may give you the answers you are searching for. Good luck and God bless in finding the answer!
Do you mean I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, by Norman Geisler? Fairly standard apologetics, with the usual shifting of the burden. Nothing worth bothering about.
Frank Turek says "Think the church is full of hypocrites? Come in. We have room for one more."
People, in every sect, are hypocritical. That's just how we are. I don't think that's a compelling reason to believe God doesn't exist.
For those who don't get it, this is a criticism of a moderately famous book, which presents atheism as requiring more faith than Christianity. Not a directionless dig at having faith.
None of these are affiliate links, I just linked straight to amazon so you can get a description of the book and see the reviews.
A few of my favourites are I don't have enough faith to be an athiest (I've bought two copies!), and its sister Stealing from God.
I don't know how much time Frank Turek spends online, but what he writes is well sourced and footnoted, and seems to answer a lot of the objections that the keyboard warriors have.
The first book kept me up all night - I couldn't believe how he broke down complex philosophical principles so simply.
Keep in mind, apologetics won't bring a person to God. maybe it's the missing piece for some people, that was certainly the case with me, but it tends to be a more emotional problem that a philosophical problem. For conversations with other people, or just for your own edification, I recommend The Reason For God.. It talks about how a world with God is simply the best answer if it is true, then goes on to talk about compelling reasons to believe it is true. With talking to Atheists, although somewhat heavy and scholarly, it's the first resource I go to.
Let me know if you have any questions, I'm a bit of a bookworm ex-atheist, so I'm quite familiar with both sides and perhaps I'll be able to help you out.
There is a book called I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist
Absolutely, I'll answer any questions you may have.
The two most profound books were:
The last section really focuses on the culture of that time.
I love the chapter that breaks down if it were a conspiracy.
Two of the most persuasive videos:
This nearly convinced me alone.
This brought out some unique ideas that I found very interesting.
> In biblical times, according to the biblical time line the world is 4000 years old.
Again, false. How long did it take for God to create the world? It says 7 days, but a second to him is eons to us. 2 Peter 3:8—‘one day is like a thousand years’
But, more importantly, why do you believe that?
I mean, it would have taken a two second google search to disprove your point, yet you believe - and you have so much blind faith in it, that you propose it to me. Thinking I might be stumped by it.
The reason you believe it is because people like to believe what is pleasant, not what is true. Correct me if I'm wrong here - but look at the HUGE payoff if that 's true!
Every christian is wrong! You're smarter than all of them! You've found the loophole!
Oh, but why do they believe?
Simple. Not because of many well thought out, logical reasons. Because they have blind faith. What a pleasant thought. You, and you alone, understand the truth. The Christians are misled! You can debate them, and come up on top every time! A real testament to your brilliance.
Or.....
Or that's not the case.
But that'd be so humbling. Maybe it turns out all the evidence falls on the side of God existing. Maybe there's the same amount of evidence that God doesn't exist as the amount of evidence that the earth is flat.
Maybe you've been believing your superior intellect would never allow you to submit to a God. Changing your mind means you were wrong once. That's not a pleasant thought. Best not to believe it.
>Excuses, you mean theories. Because they are not facts, like I said.
Well, like we've been saying, nothing be proven absolutely. You can see all the evidence points to a God. There's lot of proofs that point to a God, same as there's lots of proofs that point to a round earth. If you live as if there's no God, you've treating it as a fact, but you can't prove it. Again, you're believing with blind faith there is no God. You're ignoring all the good reasons to believe in God, and going with blind faith and emotions in living as if there is no God.
As a Christian, blind faith just don't for me. That's the realm of atheism.
As a side note, I'd like you to know how much I'm enjoying the conversation. You have questions and doubts about your believe, otherwise you wouldn't be here. If you're wondering where these arguments come from, a lot of them are summarized in a book called "I don't have enough faith to be an athiest" - the author, a professor in theology, goes into quick answers, and longers answers for atheists.
Although he does state that you wouldn't want to read a book like that. It would bring to light a lot of unpleasant truths, and you seem to like to believe what is pleasant, not what is true.
But Again, now that we've established there's plenty of evidences that point to a God, are there any reasons why he couldn't exist? (in before ThAtS nOt ProoF!)
Or does all the evidence fall on the side of him existing?
Honestly, go look at the reviews for this book: "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist". This was one of the core pieces that really started to turn me around
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615
PART 2 of 2
> Because you don't use the correct terminology, you believe, you don't know.
Correct to who? You ? You don't even know God exists, which is like a blind man trying to give directions.
> The brain clearly store memories and think (this one is even more baffling).
Evidence please. I researched this for years when I was atheist, and it was a big part of what led me out of atheism.
Brain material is constantly changing and has no sign of storing memories or "thinking". If you don't believe me, believe the way that (atheist) Dr. David Chalmers described it in his TED talk. I met him at several of the conferences that I used to go to for consciousness studies :
>> If you can't explain consciousness in terms of the existing fundamentals — space, time, mass, charge — then as a matter of logic, you need to expand the list. The natural thing to do is to postulate consciousness itself as something fundamental, a fundamental building block of nature. This doesn't mean you suddenly can't do science with it. This opens up the way for you to do science with it. What we then need is to study the fundamental laws governing consciousness, the laws that connect consciousness to other fundamentals: space, time, mass, physical processes.
.
> When you can have a functioning mind, but a loss of memory, how do you explain that ? Another separate signal for memories ? And after that, a signal for every function the brain does ?
Apparently you didn't understand my example with the eye. Please slow down and try to think better. If you damage your eye, it will cause problems with your sight. That doesn't mean that the eye "sees". The eye is a medium that carries signals.
Similarly, the brain carries signals from the body, but science has no idea where to. Signals appear suddenly from no where. All evidence supports that we have an immaterial soul that is colocated with our bodies. There is no evidence of a material mind or material memories. There is only contrary evidence, such as medically documented anomalies like these :
This guy went to see a doctor because his leg was hurting. Nothing else was "wrong" with him. https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-lives-without-90-of-his-brain-is-challenging-our-understanding-of-consciousness
Girl recovers from half a brain: https://www.hearingreview.com/practice-building/practice-management/continuing-education/neuroscientists-marvel-people-can-half-brain
> I get the kind of fact you are talking about ...
Circular logic will get you nowhere. If you want to recognize God, you have to re-analyze your assumptions.
> We simply won't have the energy to do that even we imagine having the technology to do it.
Then try to focus on validating your faith of creating life from non-life. Or consciousness. My field is artificial intelligence, and my work on that made me realize how supernatural our consciousness and memories are. The problem with atheism is not skepticism. It's that they are not skeptical enough. If you apply half of your skepticism to your presumptions, you'll find that you've been believing in lies. You'll kick yourself eventually.
In the meantime, I find it funny/sad how you believe in material memories and consciousness. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic. I hope you wake up some day and realize that you are not a series of chemical accidents. In the meantime, I hope you see how it appears to me that you are trying to argue your position from the basis of being a mud-puddle or pond-scum.
> I'm not sure in what world you are living that computer models doesn't support evolution.
I've been doing computer models and evolutionary algorithms since the early 1990s. My work with them made made me realize how much more advanced molecular biology is, and out of reach of the mutation hypothesis.
Information science and the mutation hypothesis shows that you can't mutate the Cat-in-the-Hat into Hamlet by changing letters and word. The Hamlet story involves highly interdependent characters, sequences, places, relationships.
The following video summarizes one of the basic problems with the mutation hypothesis : https://youtu.be/W1_KEVaCyaA
> You should when it's a scientific consensus,
I believe in Science, not Scientists. It sounds like you don't know the history of science very well. There is a long list of misunderstandings by the popular crowd that were overturned.
> It's like you are ignoring decades of advancements, statistical analysis just to dismiss you don't like.
I'm not. Science actually affirms all my beliefs and everything that I know about God. Here's a talk from a biologist about many misconceptions that you seem to have : https://youtu.be/MZSk-uLnhwY
> That's why he is leaving telomeres and centromeres, literally stop codons inside the genes ?
There is decay and disorder in our bodies because of the fall from God.
> No I'm perfectly aware of that, but you are aware that new gene can mutate right ?
Sure, mutation is a design feature. What you don't seem to realize is what it takes to make new genes of hundreds or thousands of base pairs.
> I have a working knowledge of radioactivity half life
Then you know that you don't know the initial conditions or the rate of change, agreed ? I hope you know the difference between inferences, extrapolation and actual observation.
> You need actual research to substantiate that.
The video summarized evidence and you can look up those geologists to see their papers. Mainstream Geology is moving away from the gradualism hypothesis to the catastrophic model. The eruption of Mount Saint Helens showed how bedrock can be cut in one day and doesn't need millions of years to erode. The evidence is overwhelming for the global flood, even with fossils on the highest mountains. The sediment evidence at the mouth of rivers was most obvious to me that they are not as old as you've been told.
> Having tree that statically are unlikely to last longer than 5000 years doesn't mean the earth is that old.
Tree rings are one of the most reliable natural clocks in nature. It sounds like you don't appreciate how unlikely it is that a group of middle-eastern sheep-herders could get that number right, all over the world.
If you follow the work of those that I linked to, you'd see how dozens of other natural clocks affirm the biblical timeline.
> We have so many things that we unearth that are millions years old, hundreds of millions.
Sorry, I'm not willing to carry extrapolations that far. I've seen coal and gems created in labs in months, not requiring millions of years as was originally supposed. I believe such lab evidence over extrapolations, assumptions and inferences.
I don't know how old the Universe or Earth is, partly because i believe it is a flawed question, as relativity shows. In the meantime, I don't believe in pseudo-scientific guesswork either.
> It's common trope for religious troll to try to belittle atheism as faith, completely belittling their own religion in the process.
I'm not trying to belittle your faith. It is what it is, and I used to believe those same things. I recommend that you use some of your skepticism to try and verify your beliefs. In the meantime, I agree with Dr. Turek's book:
I don't have enough faith to be an atheist : https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615
PART 2 of 2
> Because you don't use the correct terminology, you believe, you don't know.
Correct to who? You ? You don't even know God exists, which is like a blind man trying to give directions.
> The brain clearly store memories and think (this one is even more baffling).
Evidence please. I researched this for years when I was atheist, and it was a big part of what led me out of atheism.
Brain material is constantly changing and has no sign of storing memories or "thinking". If you don't believe me, believe the way that (atheist) Dr. David Chalmers described it in his TED talk. I met him at several of the conferences that I used to go to for consciousness studies :
>> If you can't explain consciousness in terms of the existing fundamentals — space, time, mass, charge — then as a matter of logic, you need to expand the list. The natural thing to do is to postulate consciousness itself as something fundamental, a fundamental building block of nature. This doesn't mean you suddenly can't do science with it. This opens up the way for you to do science with it. What we then need is to study the fundamental laws governing consciousness, the laws that connect consciousness to other fundamentals: space, time, mass, physical processes.
.
> When you can have a functioning mind, but a loss of memory, how do you explain that ? Another separate signal for memories ? And after that, a signal for every function the brain does ?
Apparently you didn't understand my example with the eye. Please slow down and try to think better. If you damage your eye, it will cause problems with your sight. That doesn't mean that the eye "sees". The eye is a medium that carries signals.
Similarly, the brain carries signals from the body, but science has no idea where to. Signals appear suddenly from no where. All evidence supports that we have an immaterial soul that is colocated with our bodies. There is no evidence of a material mind or material memories. There is only contrary evidence, such as medically documented anomalies like these :
This guy went to see a doctor because his leg was hurting. Nothing else was "wrong" with him. https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-lives-without-90-of-his-brain-is-challenging-our-understanding-of-consciousness
Girl recovers from half a brain: https://www.hearingreview.com/practice-building/practice-management/continuing-education/neuroscientists-marvel-people-can-half-brain
> I get the kind of fact you are talking about ...
Circular logic will get you nowhere. If you want to recognize God, you have to re-analyze your assumptions.
> We simply won't have the energy to do that even we imagine having the technology to do it.
Then try to focus on validating your faith of creating life from non-life. Or consciousness. My field is artificial intelligence, and my work on that made me realize how supernatural our consciousness and memories are. The problem with atheism is not skepticism. It's that they are not skeptical enough. If you apply half of your skepticism to your presumptions, you'll find that you've been believing in lies. You'll kick yourself eventually.
In the meantime, I find it funny/sad how you believe in material memories and consciousness. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic. I hope you wake up some day and realize that you are not a series of chemical accidents. In the meantime, I hope you see how it appears to me that you are trying to argue your position from the basis of being a mud-puddle or pond-scum.
> I'm not sure in what world you are living that computer models doesn't support evolution.
I've been doing computer models and evolutionary algorithms since the early 1990s. My work with them made made me realize how much more advanced molecular biology is, and out of reach of the mutation hypothesis.
Information science and the mutation hypothesis shows that you can't mutate the Cat-in-the-Hat into Hamlet by changing letters and word. The Hamlet story involves highly interdependent characters, sequences, places, relationships.
The following video summarizes one of the basic problems with the mutation hypothesis : https://youtu.be/W1_KEVaCyaA
> You should when it's a scientific consensus,
I believe in Science, not Scientists. It sounds like you don't know the history of science very well. There is a long list of misunderstandings by the popular crowd that were overturned.
> It's like you are ignoring decades of advancements, statistical analysis just to dismiss you don't like.
I'm not. Science actually affirms all my beliefs and everything that I know about God. Here's a talk from a biologist about many misconceptions that you seem to have : https://youtu.be/MZSk-uLnhwY
> That's why he is leaving telomeres and centromeres, literally stop codons inside the genes ?
There is decay and disorder in our bodies because of the fall from God.
> No I'm perfectly aware of that, but you are aware that new gene can mutate right ?
Sure, mutation is a design feature. What you don't seem to realize is what it takes to make new genes of hundreds or thousands of base pairs.
> I have a working knowledge of radioactivity half life
Then you know that you don't know the initial conditions or the rate of change, agreed ? I hope you know the difference between inferences, extrapolation and actual observation.
> You need actual research to substantiate that.
The video summarized evidence and you can look up those geologists to see their papers. Mainstream Geology is moving away from the gradualism hypothesis to the catastrophic model. The eruption of Mount Saint Helens showed how bedrock can be cut in one day and doesn't need millions of years to erode. The evidence is overwhelming for the global flood, even with fossils on the highest mountains. The sediment evidence at the mouth of rivers was most obvious to me that they are not as old as you've been told.
> Having tree that statically are unlikely to last longer than 5000 years doesn't mean the earth is that old.
Tree rings are one of the most reliable natural clocks in nature. It sounds like you don't appreciate how unlikely it is that a group of middle-eastern sheep-herders could get that number right, all over the world.
If you follow the work of those that I linked to, you'd see how dozens of other natural clocks affirm the biblical timeline.
> We have so many things that we unearth that are millions years old, hundreds of millions.
Sorry, I'm not willing to carry extrapolations that far. I've seen coal and gems created in labs in months, not requiring millions of years as was originally supposed. I believe such lab evidence over extrapolations, assumptions and inferences.
I don't know how old the Universe or Earth is, partly because i believe it is a flawed question, as relativity shows. In the meantime, I don't believe in pseudo-scientific guesswork either.
> It's common trope for religious troll to try to belittle atheism as faith, completely belittling their own religion in the process.
I'm not trying to belittle your faith. It is what it is, and I used to believe those same things. I recommend that you use some of your skepticism to try and verify your beliefs. In the meantime, I agree with Dr. Turek's book:
I don't have enough faith to be an atheist : https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615
Also read “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” by Frank Turek
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615
> If God will exist, I am already living by it.
It sounds like your standards are based on just yourself (circular logic).
God is an infinitely intelligent being that knows the optimal thing to do at each moment. Do you think that you are living a perfect life in charity and virtue ? Are you helping as many people as you possibly could ? The truth is that all have fallen short of God's grace. We are all sinners. The best that we can do is be thankful and repentant.
Saint Vincent Ferrer was probably the most holy person to walk the earth since the Apostles and He lamented at how sinful he was. If you don't realize your own sinfulness in the sight of God, then you don't know about God.
> Having a plan and not telling me about it.
The word "plan" is misleading when referring to God. He is outside of time and knows the future, but we are locked in this timeline. From God's perspective, things have already happened AND they are currently happening...so it's not quite a "plan".
From our perspective, all we need to worry about is that we have free will, and whether or not we're making the most of it.
> Having a plan and not telling me about it.
Unless you are blind and quadriplegic, God has given you great abilities and a sense to make the most of them. You will be accountable for what you did or didn't do with them. Choose wisely.
You'll know if you are doing the right thing if you have a sense of joy. ...Like rescuing children from Human trafficking, or helping homeless people get back on their feet.
For reference, Mother Teresa would clean up people who were dying in the open sewers of Calcutta. Most people would avoid there because of the terrible smell, yet it brought her great joy. I would guess that you have more physical abilities than she did as a 100 pound little woman.
> Not all gay sex is adultery,
The Christian definition of adultery is not definable by each person (circular logic). All Gay sex is abhorrent in the eyes of God because He gave us the gift of procreation to have children. The Bible says this in several places, but it is also possible to reason out theologically. Since God is your creator, Gay sex is like master-bating in front of your parents, while they are begging for you to have grandchildren. Gay sex only serves one's own physical lusts. Gay sex can not produce a child, or serve someone in charity (Love). The physical effects like AIDS was God's way of warning people not to do it. God also gives mankind dominion over the physical world, which is the only reason why AIDS hasn't been more destructive.
> and strait martial sex can give you stds.
It's not just a matter of gay versus straight. Lots of straight people commit adultery. e.g. Porn stars. However, two wrongs do not make a right.
Christianity's standard is monogamous marriage and abstinence before marriage. If people had followed that, then millions of innocent people would not have died of AIDS and other STDs.
> homosexuality is not a choice. God made some people attracted to men, and his mad?
Human will is more complicated than that. By the time a child is 5, the child has had millions of impressions. I don't think that homosexuals are consciously deciding to be gay. It is more the product of malformation. For example, there are towns in Thailand where young boys are trained to be prostitutes for men. They are not "choosing".
I believe that God gives each of us the necessary graces to overcome our situations. There are tonnes of great testimonials of former homosexuals on www.couragerc.org.
> Not all parents are homophobes.
Not sure what you mean by that. If parents encourage homosexuality, they will have a very hard time facing God. Parents are supposed to teach their children to love God, not indulge in their physical lusts. For example, children also want to eat candy all day. Parents are supposed to teach responsible behavior.
God calls everyone to Heaven, but only the repentant can face Him, because He is Truth itself and shines like the sun. Those who can face the Truth are glorified by God's light. Those who have unrepentant sin are burned by His light. That's the basis of Heaven and Hell. They are both fueled by God's light.
> And if it's only bad if God is real, I call that blind faith.
Well, I was an atheist~agnostic for over 30 years and now understand that there is nothing blind about believing in Christianity. Quite the opposite. It is like openning one's eyes.
Ironically, believing in things like abiogenesis requires blind faith. There is ZERO proof of it, and it defies the laws of physics, like entropy.
I agree with Dr. Turek and his book title:
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615
Man, I'm really sorry to hear you feel like your faith is slipping. I have some resources that I think can really help you, but please first and foremost pray that God would strengthen your faith. Rely on your heavenly father in Christ, and ask Him to increase your faith.
If you'd like to have a conversation via discord I'd be happy to speak with you about this. You are not alone in this struggle, and I've been through some of this fairly recently.
Ultimately as Christians we believe that a man named Jesus lived, claimed to be God, and proved it by predicting and accomplishing His resurrection from the dead.
If this is true, then He is God and what He says is true - especially that He is the way to be reconciled to God.
I recommend checking out Frank Turek. Without using the bible, He covers the breadth of topics that you are concerned about, from the reasons to believe in God down to why the Christian God. If you enjoy reading, his book is a wonderful, thought provoking read. if you prefer video, I recommend watching his presentation at East TN Univerity
>It takes more faith to be an atheist than to be a Christian
Just reminded me of this book.
I'm reading this book right now. It's pretty one sided but it gives great evidence for a God
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615
This book is kinda what gave me the answer. The introduction is complete shit, but the book in a whole has really good information.
>Do you have anything beyond the Bible?
Absolutely. I don't just accept the Bible on mere blind faith. It's no simple process, but if you are interested in a brief overview of how I support this claim, this video by Norman Geisler should be informative. Keep in mind that it is a very brief overview. He goes into much more detail in this book. Sorry I can't do better than give you a few links at the moment, but I have a paper due soon so am a bit strapped for time. And anyway he can do a lot better job than of presenting it than I can.
>There are dozens of contradictions in the Bible, and often, I see Christians contradict themselves when trying to explain them.
Well if you are interested in hearing from an Christian scholar about how to best reconcile these supposed contradictions, this is the book to read. I've also heard that this one is quite good as well. Again, sorry I can't explain it to you in my own words right now.
>What it really boils down to is that Atheists and Christians simply disagree on whether or not the Bible is fiction. There's no reason for this to cause hate between the two unless the Christians are trying to put their beliefs into law.
Here is a little thought experiment: If Christians trying to put their beliefs into law is "cause for hate" by atheists, then by that same logic is not atheists trying to put their beliefs into law is "cause for hate" by Christians? Just seems like a bit of a double-standard to me.
It’s a common knowledge that atheism takes bigger faith than theism.
I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Athiest was an excellent read. I didn’t agree with everything in the book, but it did connect several dots for me.
> No you don't have logic on your side.
Well, give me a logical reason to believe God can't exist. So far, I've given you 8 pretty good ones he does exist, but there's, of course, a lot more.
>You don't have any REAL proofs
I do. Again, The Reasonable Faith Animated Videos really broke it down for me, and seeing people like John Lennox eviscerate atheists with scientific fact and logic was a nail in the coffin of wishful thinking. Books like I don't have enough faith to be an atheist made me realize that evidence is required to have a rational worldview, atheism just is ignorance at best.
>I saw the animation video ande the other links and there was not ONE single real proof
You're right, there were five in the reasonable faith videos. Those are the leading arguments. As you can see from the debate, it's easy to use those proofs to defeat any atheist - that's because atheism comes from a place where logic and proof must be ignored.
But hey, I'm open minded. Convince me atheism is true. Be compelling. I mean, I've given you mountains of iron clad proofs from the greatest minds humanity has known, along with debates where Atheists like Hitchens are annihilated. Give me some iron clad proofs God couldn't exist.
Again, The Reasonable Faith Animated Videos really broke it down for me, and seeing people like John Lennox eviscerate atheists with scientific fact and logic was a nail in the coffin of wishful thinking. Books like I don't have enough faith to be an atheist made me realize that evidence is required to have a rational worldview, atheism just is ignorance at best.
And why would I watch you destroy anything? Watching William Lane Craig, Frank Turek, John Lennox among others completely destroy what passes for logic from an atheist viewpoint is far more productive. William Lane Craig vs Hitchens is one of my favourites. At best, they don't know the proofs of God. At worst, they do, but they make sure cognitive dissonance is strong - atheism is the most fragile world view of them all.
I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norm Geliser would be an good fit for your situation. The way he addresses the topic is relevant to the questions you brought up.
You don't have to buy it. Click on "Look inside" and there's a large portion of it available for free as a sample. The table of contents has a section called "Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?" which you can click on and read through the chapter. The points range from proving that Jesus absolutely did die, the reliability of the NT account, and eye witness accounts not connected with, and sometimes opposed to, Christianity.
It's from this http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615
The reviews are entertaining and I actually might read it just to see what they have to say. I just hope it isn't Ray Comfort bad.
Totally. The Reasonable Faith Animated Videos really broke it down for me, and seeing people like John Lennox eviscerate atheists with scientific fact and logic was a nail in the coffin of wishful thinking. Books like I don't have enough faith to be an atheist made me realize that evidence is required to have a rational worldview, atheism just is ignorance at best.
Again, The Reasonable Faith Animated Videos goes through the top five proofs of God, without consulting the scripture or miracles even once. Watching John Lennox eviscerate atheists with scientific fact and logic is a nail in the coffin of wishful thinking. Books like I don't have enough faith to be an atheist made you realize that evidence is required to have a rational worldview. Bottom line, Atheism just is ignorance at best.
> .It is ignorant to say that all atheists are blind to evidence, when most are actually more then opened minded. However I find it kinda stupid that all the evidence most religious people have is 1.”miracles” 2. Holy Scripture 3. Personal accounts with no photo, video, or physical evidence and 4. “my religion is real because I think so”
THAT'S ignorant.
The Reasonable Faith Animated Videos proves God is real, without consulting the scripture or miracles even once. John Lennox eviscerate atheists with scientific fact and logic is a nail in the coffin of wishful thinking. Books like I don't have enough faith to be an atheist made you realize that evidence is required to have a rational worldview, atheism just is ignorance at best.
Miracles and scriptures to prove God exists. Yeesh. That's not even 1% of the proof.
> Over two thousand and if you believe in the wrong one you are going straight to hell. Atheists just believe in one god less then you, that's all there is to it.
Dude, do YOU realize how many word views there are? Atheists tend to believe there is no God, theists tend to believe the opposite. Who has evidence and logic on their side? Theists. Who has wishful thinking and literally no compelling evidence on their side? Atheists.
Telling me you believe in one less God than me is the opposite of compelling. People who don't believe Australia exists tell me they believe in one less continent than me. Also the opposite of compelling. Why you would think that would be even remotely convincing is beyond me.
>If your world view is so reliable then show me yourself and give your own arguments
Sure. Again, The Reasonable Faith Animated Videos really broke it down for me, and seeing people like John Lennox eviscerate atheists with scientific fact and logic was a nail in the coffin of wishful thinking. Books like I don't have enough faith to be an atheist made me realize that evidence is required to have a rational worldview, atheism just is ignorance at best.