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How to Debate an Atheist
PJ Media ^ | September 22, 2017 | Edward Watson

Posted on 09/23/2017 8:21:17 AM PDT by Raymond Pamintuan

Atheism, the rejection of the possibility that “God” exists, has become the dominant thought amongst intellectuals in the past century and has been around longer than most people think. For over 2000 years, it was based on philosophical arguments that can roughly be summed up as the atheist saying, “I don’t know how ‘X’ came to be, but you can’t prove it came from God.” This mindset has been highly effective because it places the burden of proof on the theist to prove the positive of God’s existence, which, superficially, is impossible to do – because no evidence exists that provides “proof” that can be independently verified and repeated at a five-sigma (5σ) confidence level and above that God is real.

During the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, atheists were no longer content to use philosophical arguments and started using positive claims that basically said, “‘X’ proves God does not exist.”

Most recently, the highly influential New Atheism spearheaded by Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens has modified the positive arguments, but reinforced and justified a dangerous trend that started in the late 20th century that roughly states, “Because you do not accept that “X” proves God does not exist, you are not credible and must not be allowed to be in a position of influence over others.”

The New Atheism mindset has had an enormous effect among atheists in positions of power in academia: For the “thought crime” of believing God exists, theist scientists have actually been blocked from jobs and tenure, they have been prevented from getting their works funded or published, and many have actually been terminated from their jobs. One now sees university campuses where openly theist professors are becoming rarer by the year,

(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: atheism; christianity; edwardwatson; faith; theist; wrongforum
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To: TalBlack
The believer in a moral God must account for one thing, unjust suffering

Oh?

Just to WHOM must this 'moral' GOD account?

101 posted on 09/24/2017 4:53:58 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ronniesgal
I find ignoring him is the worst i can do to him, as he wants the confrontation.

His soul is crying; "Give me Something to believe in!!"

102 posted on 09/24/2017 4:55:25 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

You sound like you were a very good mother. Which makes for lucky children.


103 posted on 09/24/2017 4:58:43 PM PDT by mairdie
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To: Elsie; A_perfect_lady

>> APL: I don’t have a belief system

Atheism is the presumptuous rejection of another’s intimate faith, not the absence of a personal belief system. The agnostic makes the best argument in this regard.


104 posted on 09/24/2017 5:02:32 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: A_perfect_lady
The assumption that “someone must have created this” comes from the idea that nothing can exist without having been created.
This leads to the question “Then who or what created God?”


The assumption that “this stuff has always been here” comes from the idea that a GOD does NOT exist.
This leads to the question “How long has it been here?"

105 posted on 09/24/2017 5:02:55 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: daniel1212
One demon said, "I have found much success in telling them that the Bible is full of contradictions, and how science explains the origin of the Universe, so that they cannot even believe its warning about us" (to some cackles of laughter).


Been there; done that.

We all know that E=mc2 thingy.

We also know it can be rearranged to read

m=E/c2 (Poof! the Big Bang!!)

Now the question that forms is:

Where'd the energy come from?

106 posted on 09/24/2017 5:08:32 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: daniel1212

I’m here because I’m a conservative. That really isn’t synonymous with Christian (as the Catholic church and various left wing religious organizations daily prove.)


107 posted on 09/24/2017 5:09:54 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: Gene Eric
Atheism is the presumptuous rejection of another’s intimate faith, not the absence of a personal belief system.

I'm afraid you don't quite know what you're talking about there, but you've often come across that way over the years here at FR.

108 posted on 09/24/2017 5:11:35 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: Elsie
I'll accept that you have no belief system; if you can explain it to me.

There's nothing to explain. I have no belief system. That's... kind of it.

109 posted on 09/24/2017 5:12:38 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: A_perfect_lady
It serves no purpose to allow for a god, other than to end the debate and send the searcher off on a scavenger hunt for “what, then, does this god want?”

Well; mine wants all to admit being a sinner.

After that he/she/it wants to let them know that they are Loved.

When that all finally sinks in; He wants all to know that in the future, there will be a really neat place to live in!

And all He asks is, "Believeth thou this?"

110 posted on 09/24/2017 5:12:58 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: A_perfect_lady
Then you have an UN-belief system.

Cool!

111 posted on 09/24/2017 5:15:46 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

Exactly :)


112 posted on 09/24/2017 6:16:40 PM PDT by Chicory (S)
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To: A_perfect_lady

I’m just going to disagree and leave it at that. No sense going on with this.


113 posted on 09/24/2017 6:59:04 PM PDT by IronJack (sh)
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To: IronJack

I don’t blame you. If you can’t categorize every observation, surmise, hypothesis, or contemplation as a “belief,” it becomes difficult to reduce every world view to a “belief system.”


114 posted on 09/24/2017 7:28:54 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: A_perfect_lady

>> I’m afraid you don’t quite know what you’re talking about there

The atheist’s axiom.


115 posted on 09/24/2017 8:53:18 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: A_perfect_lady

ib4 “There are no atheists in foxholes” ::-)


116 posted on 09/24/2017 9:08:22 PM PDT by CJ Wolf (Still a mother loving Trumper deplorable.)
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To: Raymond Pamintuan; daniel1212

I found the easiest way to debate an atheist is to simply ask them if 1) they believe that life could exist elsewhere in the universe, and 2) if they believe other dimensions could exist apart from our own. I have yet to encounter an atheist who would deny those idea. If so, the next logical question is why is it so difficult to believe in angels, demons, or God etc. existing as life in another dimension alongside of us? Invariably that stops the conversation.


117 posted on 09/25/2017 5:01:57 AM PDT by HarleyD ("There are very few shades of grey."-Dr. Eckleburg)
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To: CJ Wolf

It’s not true anyway. 15 months ago I had a near-death experience and all that went through my mind was “so this is it.” Nothing about religion occurred to me till later when I told my Mom about it and ... well, she’s religious, so she started talking about it.


118 posted on 09/25/2017 6:07:43 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: HarleyD
I found the easiest way to debate an atheist is to simply ask them if 1) they believe that life could exist elsewhere in the universe, and 2) if they believe other dimensions could exist apart from our own. I have yet to encounter an atheist who would deny those idea. If so, the next logical question is why is it so difficult to believe in angels, demons, or God etc. existing as life in another dimension alongside of us? Invariably that stops the conversation.

Indeed, for ETs are not seen as making moral demands, apart from things like liberal causes, nor threaten eternal punishments, apart from things like liberal causes. More people have suffered and died due to fornication, primary sodomic, than from nuclear bombs, which threat was the reason for


119 posted on 09/25/2017 6:59:05 AM PDT by daniel1212 (rust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + folllow Him)
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To: A_perfect_lady
I’m here because I’m a conservative. That really isn’t synonymous with Christian (as the Catholic church and various left wing religious organizations daily prove.)

One can be a conservative without being a Christian, but one cannot be a Christian without being a social conservative, but being a Catholic really is not necessarily synonymous with being a Christian and a conservative.

However, both Christians and Catholics have their respective supreme transcendent standards for faith and morals to which they can be compared to, while for the atheist what seems "reasonable" to each one is the supreme standard, however divergent.

But it is good to see that you support a pro-God forum and America, regardless of seeing proof of God as useless.

120 posted on 09/25/2017 7:09:26 AM PDT by daniel1212 (rust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + folllow Him)
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