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No, it’s not “throwing my hands up” and saying “its magic!” It’s making a sound conclusion that there must be a first cause of the universe. If you say that its the multiverse, then there must be a first cause of that. If you say its a tier 2 multiverse then there must be a cause of that. If you say a teir 3 multiverse, then there must be a first cause of that ad infinitum. Eventually there must be some cause that itself has no beginning and therefor no cause of its own.

Although there may be an infinite number of unifying universes, eventually there must be something to cause them all. Although the conclusion that it is God is, admittedly, a non sequiter based on the premises, the conclusion that there is some being or object that itself has no cause is not. Therefore, by pure logic alone, such an entity must exist.

I thought the ideas of logic and reason were formulated so that facts, regardless of their presentation or method of revelation, were identified and accepted.

Isn’t it these same ideas of logic and reason that atheists pride themselves on being masters of? Why then would an atheist deny blatant facts and logical conclusions?

Your thought experiment contradicts your assertion that atheism is “merely lack of belief.” If God literally knocked on an atheists door and said hi, then there would be extremely strong evidence for the existence of God. However, despite this evidence, the atheist would continue to posit that there is no God. It isn’t a lack of belief, but instead a belief that there is no God.

What you describe isn’t atheism, its apatheism (ie. apathy toward the question of God and religion.)

Of course many of the things that religion does seem silly and even ridiculous, but in the end religion is largely meaningless. Its a convenient way to unify believers, but other than that it can never formulate or maintain a personal relationship with God (which is necessary for salvation.)

Further, even when the definition of faith is broadened, even atheists have faith that there is no God without any evidence to support this, an example of an argumentum e silentio fallacy.

If you wanted to exercise no or little faith, you’d be an agnostic and declare that you have no faith there is a God or there isn’t.

The idea of convincing them they’re agnostic is really ingenious for a number of reasons!

First, it is so easy since atheists main motivation for absolutely denying the existence of God is pride—the pride of being “awakened” to the “truth” when everybody else is mindlessly following God. This perceived intellectual superiority solidifies their faith of non belief. Yet when you simply explain why an agnostic is much more intellectually superior, since they practice very little faith at all, only relying on that which can be observed, then they will likely gradually lean towards weak atheism, and then agnosticism (moving towards theism) out of sheer need to feel intellectually superior to others (in this case, both atheists and theists.)

From this position of agnosticism, one can get the person to claim theism is possible, albeit unknowable. Simply admitting that theism is possibly correct is a huge step in helping them have faith in God.

Ultimately, this is the best tool to get them to admit the possibility that theism is correct. Thank you for sharing this!

It’s interesting you lean toward ignosticism since this is such a rare position to hold. However, there are some qualities about God that can be safely assumed even if a complete and concise definition of God doesn’t. Namely, that God is eternal.

Since God is eternal, one can conclude that he will always exist and always has (a priori.) Using this single attribute, a very strong argument can be made for God’s existence. Namely, the first cause argument.

Given the temporal geometry of the universe (ie. it has a beginning) then it makes sense the universe has a cause since all things that have beginnings have causes. One could argue that a sort of multiverse is responsible for our own universe, however, if there was a point in the multiverse before which our universe didn’t exist, and after which it did, then it is safe to assume the multiverse experiences time. This would mean that the multiverse has a beginning and therefore a cause in itself. Of course, you could continue with even more elaborate hierarchies of unifying universes ad infinitum, but it is much more logical to assume the existence of a being that caused the universe to exist without itself being created or having a beginning.

If you only assume this single attribute about God (something, by the way all monotheistic religions and most polytheistic ones maintain) a very strong argument about the mere existence of God can be made. Whether His other attributes follow those commonly thought must be decided with further logical investigation.

Thank you!

The idea is not absurd. If one assumes there is an eternal life past death and that it is predicated on the Christian faith (ie. Jesus Christ came to the world to forgive those who believed in Him and give them eternal life in Heaven) then it makes sense why two people who act in the same moral, ethical, and essentially kind way would end up in two different places.

Living a life of evil does not send a person to Hell, instead it is merely transgressing against God one time that does—something literally everybody has done whether it be lying, cheating, coveting or taking the Lord’s name in vain. Because of this disobedience all people will go to Hell when they die. You may reply with the “infinite punishment for finite transgression” is absurd, but this assumes the premise Hell was created for this purpose. It is not. It was created to punish Satan and his followers for trying to become more powerful than God. They deserved infinite punishment for such a horrible and direct transgression against God. It just so happens that we as humans are “caught in the crossfire” of this arrangement. When the first sin occurred, it was mandatory that disobedience to God be punished with Hell.

You know the rest of the story of Christ I’m sure, but in the end, only one of these two people sought God to make things right again. Only one of these two people sought God’s forgiveness and only that person will enter into Heaven.

If your actions alone sent you to your eternal fate then life would be absolutely horrendous since every person in the entire world would be damned to Hell for all eternity.

From a purely naturalistic point of view, the idea that consciousness can exist without the chemical and electrical energy in the brain is absurd. From the same point of view, when one dies the chemical and electrical gradients in the brain reach equilibrium, a state in which there is no more usable energy to be directed toward certain tasks (eg. to transmit signals between neurons which ultimately leads to perception of the world and consciousness.) Since there is no way for these neurons to continue to transmit messages, one is no longer conscious and the person slips into a state of non-being.

From a naturalistic point of view, it is absurd to assert there exists consciousness past life. However, if you continue to insist on this, please provide an example of how this is physically possible, given all brain activity eventually stops in the brain.

I’m afraid your fourth choice of non action is the same as either the first choice: not reading the book with continuing non belief in God. You would have essentially convinced yourself that the work is bogus and erroneous despite its apparent conversion of many people to a theistic world view. Would you not even read the work? If only to prove it wrong?

Thank you for your point. I used the word faith to mean any belief held without proof or evidence of its truthfulness. Although it’s never directly related to a faith in God, the main purpose of the piece was to stop hard nosed atheists that pride themselves of “only believing what there is evidence for.” Perhaps this could be used to reason with agnostics as well? If you have any ideas how the argument or explanation could be reworked to be better at accomplishing the task of showing how all display faith to some degree I would greatly appreciate it!

Your belief that consciousness is not predicated on biologic life (although a common assertion between these two arguments) is a fallacy within the naturalist world view. If the universe is the only existence there is (ie. no supernatural interference within the world) and consciousness is simply a byproduct of various chemical reactions within the brain (medically verified) then it would logically follow that a person’s consciousness would cease to exist once brain metabolism has halted in a naturalistic universe.

In essence, a continuation of consciousness after death in a naturalistic universe must be impossible.

That's why this article was written--to show you that isn't necessarily the case. You even admit yourself you have faith (albeit, subtly.)

Everything else is Voodoo.

This implies that things which can not be directly or indirectly observed must not exist. This is despite the fact that there are many things which can never be observed by any human in any way, yet are most definitely true. For example, the paradox of other minds posits that it is impossible to be certain that other people are truly sentient and not simply complex robots that react appropriately (or for that matter, any other solipsism.) It is very much impossible to observe other minds, the passage of time, the existence of knowledge, or many other philosophic paradoxes including reality itself.

In the end, whether you believe you live in the Matrix, or that other people exist and reality is true, you exhibit some form of faith in unobservable phenomenon. For this reason, I would urge you to be a bit more open minded and critical instead of categorizing everything into a false dichotomy of either "observable" or "Voodoo."

This sort of situation has happened before—a minister of the Word treading lightly upon the toes of his congregation lest he offend one with the truth.

After all, Isaiah 30:10 which says “Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits” is pretty clear that when you speak only “smooth” things it is a deceit.

In the end, every man must give account unto God, and for leading others astray this man will be reprimanded. If only in truth this man would see that infanticide is murder!

Although God’s motives for what He does and His ultimate plan are far beyond our comprehension (eg explaining the nuances of nuclear fusion to an ant)I suspect the reason God does not reveal Himself with 100% certainty is because faith in Christ is necessary for salvation and blatant facts take no faith to believe. That’s basically the premise behind the “read the book and you’re damned” theme.

Perhaps God sees fit to reveal small portions of the greater plan to specific people (such as revealing Hell to an atheist and then reviving them) in order to aid people’s struggling faith? Whatever reason it is, I’m sure it’s much more complex and intricate than one could possibly understand.

Those who posit that there absolutely isn’t a God is an example of a strong atheist.

What you described could either be a weak atheist (one who asserts that there probably isn’t a God, but isn’t sure) an agnostic (one who asserts that there is no way to know for sure weather or not God exists) or an ignostic (one who asserts that the question of weather God exists is meaningless because a consistent definition of what God is cannot be known)

Personally I think atheism is much more like an operational nihilistic hedonism in which the person is centered on the self: self gratification (if not openly, then under the guise of enlightenment) with only the submission to societal morals, ethics and standards without any supernatural consequences.

Essentially, I think atheists act as if there is no greater purpose of life and all is ultimately meaningless (nihilism) while feeding ones hungers and urges (basic desires as well as the desire to have peace of mind, intellectual superiority, etc.

It is for this reason (basking in perceived intellectual ‘freedom’ and superiority) that I think many atheists are so vehemently opposed to the idea of God.

Of course, this is simply a conjecture.

Thank you very much for this thorough criticism!

But perhaps I should have went into more detail about what I meant in the article...I intended the reason for damnation after reading the book to be something along the lines of “blasphemy against the Holy Ghost” since this is the only “unforgivable sin” Jesus speaks of. The book would show (in addition to God’s existence) that since they distrusted the conviction of the Holy Ghost and instead had to resort to absolute evidence that God exists, then they must display no faith since its pretty clear (eg. If God revealed himself with 100% certainty, then it takes no faith to believe in God)

As for the mechanics of knowing the argument without reading the book...you could assume that someone who read the book previously told you the form of the argument. However, since a standard ontological argument can be refuted it doesn’t reveal God’s existence alone.

As for the proving of faith:

If they read the book, then they must be reasonably sure that there is no threat of Hell. After all, if there is the slightest chance that they could be eternally tortured then the risks are too great and the person either 1. incredibly stupid for continuing anyways given the gravity of the consequences or 2. convinced that the work is incorrect despite evidence to the contrary.

As for the number of atheists that read the work, suppose that enough atheists have read it to cover every school of atheistic, agnostic and ignostic thought and were all familiar with every refutation to all arguments for the existence of God.

May I ask if you have any suggestions for rectifying these mistakes?

That’s interesting...perhaps this argument is not for atheists but instead agnostics? Because after all, they are the ones that try to refrain from any strong opinion one way or the other (as does weak atheism)

I suppose the motivation for such foolishness in usually otherwise sane people is to avoid accountability and engage in a sort of operational nihilism-hedonism where only one’s base urges and desires are met.

Thank you for the feedback!

It really is, but just imagine if you could prove that even logic loving atheists must have faith. They may not lose the wrestling match, but it would at least pin one arm down!