Um, @r_speir, were you just not paying attention closely?
Let me know if you’re up for answering my question in comment 19!
If we are going to allow people as caustic as you on the boards, then I think you won’t be surprised to have conversations with the occasional Atheist. Nice work. You systematically engaged in discussion with an Atheist and made the grand discovery that he is … (wait for it …)… an Atheist.
I can hardly wait for your next performance.
Now this bit where you imply that everyone else here is somehow not authentic for not claiming to be Atheists… I think you are going to make yourself pretty unwelcome if you continue that approach.
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I should point out that when discussing Evolution with a YEC, there is no position or refutation that “works”. Unless they adopted their position sometime in the last 24 hours, they have prepped their responses to all the truthful answers.
So when you say that “God can use Evolution didn’t work as an answer”, I think your expectations are just way too high.
You can tell him that You believe God uses Evolution as a tool, just like God uses Evaporation as a tool to make rain. And when he laughs, just shrug your shoulders and say you aren’t surprised that he doesn’t get it.
There is no magic answer here … because he has already rejected the truthful answers.
You may be right, and I don’t necessarily disagree with you. But most atheists that I know would never be so convinced. I doubt this observation would be convincing to Narnian’s brother. They believe their ability to say “cogito ergo sum” is a most fortuitous result of the various factors that caused our brains to evolve a certain way, and consciousness, no less than love, courage, compassion, or any other uniquely human faculty.
For that matter, the biologos position, as I understand it, would similarly not allow “consciousness” to be “off-limits” to scientific inquiry. It, like all things within this cosmos, must in principle be able to be explained by natural phenomena, no more directly guided or caused by God than anything else we see in a lab today. “we do not see scientific or biblical reasons to give up on pursuing natural explanations for how God governs natural phenomena.”
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Hmm… this is exactly how I don’t mean it.
Science will never be able to explain consciousness completely. It’s really as mysterious as God is.
The riddle of reality will always be just on the other side of consciousness… where the only person we can be absolutely sure about in reference to consciousness is ourselves alone.
The ultimate riddle: Solipsism.
But science will make a good effort. But right now, the effort simply makes consciousness even more elusive. Tests show that humans can make decisions a full second or two before they are actually conscious of their decision. These kinds of results show that what makes a person think doesn’t necessarily equate to awareness!
Sure, but I can imagine my atheist friends praising the wonders of quantum physics, wherein observation somehow effects the outcome, and wherein what you currently believe as “science will never explain this” is simply a “God of the gaps” (or in this case, “ ‘mystery’ of the gaps”) only because science currently hasn’t done enough work here yet.
Seriously, it isn’t me you have to convince, I agree with you in fact. I just doubt this is convincing to those who hold to naturalistic views of this world and everything in it, whether atheist or Theistic Evolutionist.
And jellyfish presumably don’t have that kind of consciousness right now… but give us another 2 billion years, and say they have evolved into thinking, conscious, self-aware, sentient, rational beings just like us observing that “cogito ergo sum”, through the completely natural means of natural selections and mutation, and what, exactly, about that process required some external intelligent agency or “miracle” outside of the normal workings of nature? Presumably nothing. Consciousness, then, according to either atheists or theistic evolutionists, must in principle be explicable through nothing more than natural phenomena.
I don’t believe this myself, I’m just trying to present their case as I doubt this would be a convincing approach to Narnian’s brother.
There are plenty of scientists at biologos and elsewhere that see full compatibility between the God of the bible and evolution, but then they find in the bible a rational and loving God as they think of themselves to be made in his image and see the fall of mankind in becoming selfish and arrogant. They would see a God that is irrational and hateful not only as incompatible with evolution but as incompatible with reality itself. But then we are all a reflection of our God, even if we deny his existence as our God is what moves us to act the way we do, e.g. is the element in the forefront of our mind. As such you look that you are rather authentic to your God, and I am not surprised you try to deny that God. I would do so to if I would believe in your God.
If you are looking for arguments to justify your disbelief in the God you see in the bible, evolution is the way to go about it, as evolution is a logical consequence of the word of God, thus incompatible with your irrational God definition. A better way is to disprove an irrational God by showing that he does not magically regrow the legs of amputees. But then the only thing you disprove is your own God. It’s a bit like we scientists do when trying to make a model of the atom. You sound like a proponent of the plum pudding atom model who came to the conclusion that the atom does not exist because it does not fit your plum pudding model and you hated the ones that had a better model, thus you now try to convince them that atoms do not exist, insisting that it had to be a plum pudding. Religiophobia is not a good base for a debate, but it can give one “authenticity”.
funny that science found that subconscious decisions are taken subconsciously. We might even one day understand what life is,e.g. the movement of energy and matter et will. It puts the prayer “thy will be done” into a different context, thus that the will we execute may exist outside our own body, as your self can be. As I said once in a funeral poem:
"to live forever is the art
to learn to live in every heart "
and once you are aware of that death looses its sting.
I would respond to your brother in the following way:
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Begin by using your common belief in evolution. Point out that both you and he believe the same science, so consider the implications of that common belief. Start by considering the arc of history, from the Big Bang to the present.
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In terms of the Big Bang, the question should be, who or what caused it? You obviously believe that God caused it. What does your brother believe is the cause of it? Did everything just emerge spontaneously? Was our universe spawned from another universe? If so, what was the cause of the “parent” universe to ours? Neither of you can prove the matter, one way or another. You can point out, however, that just as your belief that God caused the Big Bang is a statement of faith, so is his belief is something else, the reason being that neither of you can prove the matter one way or another. In other words, as much as your brother likely thinks he doesn’t have any faith, he actually must when it comes to the Big Bang.
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From there, consider the existence of the various scientific constants related to electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and other constants. These are all fine tuned. Just tiny changes in these would mean the universe as we know it could never have existed. It doesn’t prove the existence of God, merely makes a very strong suggestion of His existence.
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Finally, ask your brother to consider the implications of human evolution. Scientists who study non-human mammals such as monkeys and apes report that our genetic cousins are like us in that they sometimes deceive, steal, bully others, and are prone to be violent. The reason, of course, is because it is evolutionarily beneficial. If we’ve all descended from a common ancestor, then we humans are very likely the same. You can then think of each behavior as a coin, with a head and a tail. The head of the coin represents the evolutionarily beneficial side of the behavior. The tail is the negative side of the behavior. We humans manifest both the head and tail of the very same behaviors. The big difference is that we have larger, more sophisticated brains than our non-human mammal cousins. Because of these bigger brains, we have greater consciousness, we understand the difference between right and wrong, and we also can choose to do wrong, even when we know something is wrong.
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The implication of the above is that we humans are all flawed. Our flaws (aka sins) are a by-product of our evolution. Because they’re a by-product, we can’t get rid of them, at least not by ourselves. We have an understand of right and wrong, unlike other creatures, but we still choose to do wrong periodically. We can’t help ourselves! Given that, we’d all better hope and pray there is the God portrayed in the Bible because that’s the only way we’ll overcome our own sinful natures. Mind you, that isn’t proof, merely a very strong suggestion of the need for God. Sure, your brother could be right … there is no God … but let’s hope and pray that’s not the case, because the implications of evolution are that we’re all screwed otherwise.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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The dilemma of knowing consciousness is the ultimate dilemma. It is not something science can resolve. It is the riddle of solipsism. Which everyone is quite sure is irrelevant … but is it?
And even if it is irrelevant, the observations from that perspective are the very stuff of the divine.
Atheists fill their world with probabilities. And yet any probability less than 100% is still just an idea. If we were absolutely confident that the probability of God’s non-existence was 80% … it’s still not a certainty, and atheists could be wrong… over and over again.
I don’t think there is a sensible way “To Convince an Atheist” - - but I do think there is a way for a person of faith to confidently say: “My own observations, my own hunches, my own values, tell me that you are wrong about the Universe. But my conclusion is not transferable. I may be able to describe why I believe something, but I cannot describe it in a way that would convince you.”
So I would never attempt to convince the people you describe. Life is a “come as you are party”… and if they do not believe, it would take an infinite amount of time to provide the material and the experiences they would need to intentionally change their position. But maybe life will bring them those experiences later in their personal adventures.
I am an atheist, so perhaps my view may help.
Your brother may need to realize that this is a matter of faith. We atheists lack faith when it comes to religious worldviews, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to be like us. You have faith that God operates through nature, and you don’t need scientific evidence to prove it. It is simply a matter of you and your brother disagreeing, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with brothers disagreeing with one another. In fact, I often say that it would be an extremely boring world if everyone agreed with one another. 
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I will fully admit that I can’t rule out Bigfoot 100%. They could be real, possibly. However, I don’t believe Bigfoot exists. Those are not contradictory positions. The same applies to atheism and a lack of belief in deities. Lacking belief does not require you to also believe in the non-existence of deities.[quote=“gbrooks9, post:54, topic:37506”]
I don’t think there is a sensible way “To Convince an Atheist” - - but I do think there is a way for a person of faith to confidently say: “My own observations, my own hunches, my own values, tell me that you are wrong about the Universe. But my conclusion is not transferable. I may be able to describe why I believe something, but I cannot describe it in a way that would convince you.”
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I would completely agree with this advice. Emotions, personal observations, and personal revelations are not transferable. To put it another way, other people can’t walk the path you have walked.
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@gbrooks9 Precisely, George! @Narnian would like to present a reasoned argument to his atheist brother for the existence of God. I am convinced that reason by itself will always be insufficient unless the person has been ‘conditioned’ by his/her life’s experiences. St. Paul is a good example. He had been persecuting Christ’s followers until his experience on the road to Damascus–a mysterious blow to the head that left him blinded and with a few day’s time to figure out what happened. He didn’t use his reason to come to a belief in God and to surmise what God had in store for him. After that, Paul related that story to the people he was trying to convert, and then he used his considerable reasoning power to convince them of the reality of the God they should worship. But even hearing Paul’s story first hand did not have nearly the impact that the blow to his head had on Paul himself.
There is the story of an old farmer who, to get the attention of his stubborn mule, had to hit it on the nose with a 2X4. Many atheists are like stubborn mules in this regard, and I (possibly on my way to agnosticism) probably fall into this category myself, since God used, not a 2X4, but a grenade fragment on my thick skull to get my attention. I thank Him daily for that favor, even tho I am not sure that I understood the message or how I was to follow up on it.
Al Leo
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Atheists love to tell us what God can’t do. Some Christians have the same delusion.
This may not work on your brother but it may work for you. I like to think of a very complex piece of fireworks. To set it off takes a small spark. The rest happens on its own. But what happens was built into the piece before it was ignited. The initial matter that exploded and evolved into what we have today was created by the creator or came into existence on its own. Belief in either one takes faith.
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ctreleaven, that is a fantastic reply. Thank you. I want to respond more to your points, for some ‘fine tuning’ so to speak, but will have to come back later.
If you put an @ symbol in front of a member’s profile name, it will turn it into a hot link… and also inform the person that you are responding to something they said/wrote.
Conversely, if you don’t put a @ symbol in front of their name, it might be weeks before they realize you have written a posting to them.
Can you see the difference here?
People also get notifications if you reply directly to their post, so the @ thing is not necessary in those cases.
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Narnian, I just finished reading a book by Lesslie Newbigin which is titled “Proper Confidence”. Even though it was written in the mid 1990s, it is very relevant to you and your brother’s conflict, and I would recommend a copy for you. If you like Lewis, you will really like Newbigin too.
You might remind your brother that our modern skepticism is not a world view that springs from some (non-existent) neutral platform as some modern secularists might wish to believe. “Doubt does not come from a vacant mind” as Newbigin writes. You cannot doubt anything without first believing something else. (And by belief, he speaks of something prior to any empirical verification – I.e. ‘faith’ in the fullest sense of how that word gets used in these parts.) Faith always precedes doubt, contra the denials of unbelievers. You cannot get to doubt without having faith in something else. Newbigin does a good job showing how culturally embedded and conditioned our modern habits of skepticism are.
If any of the above resonates with you, then read his “Proper Confidence” book. He has a solidly Christian message. I can’t guarantee that what he thinks specifically about evolution is what you or others here may want, but he gives good critique of both liberalism and reactionary conservative fundamentalisms that cling to shallow understandings of Scripture.
Blessings on your family relations and I wish you a fruitful new year.
One last chestnut from Newbigin: It doesn’t so much matter what someone believes about the Bible as it does what they do with it.
Edits applied.
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It appears that the problem may be in how to read the Bible Point out that ‘you must be born again’ John 3 is highly non lieratal and is a central teaching. See also jesus’ rebukes of disciples for their literalism. Eg. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees