Free thought blogger and atheist activist JT Eberhard has given a talk several times this year about why the arguments for the existence of God fail. During the talk, Eberhard discusses his year-long experiment of attending church and asking Christians why they believe in God. The lecture is designed to give atheists an outline of how to dialogue with believers and deconvert them. I have to admit, it was very interesting to watch; Eberhard is a talented speaker, and it’s good that he’s trying to foster discussion between two groups of people who tend to ignore each other.
Having said that, I think there are some additional debating tips atheists should be made aware of before they go on a campaign to debunk Christianity. So, if you’re an atheist and reading this post, take the following into consideration.
Argue with people who can answer your questions
The sad fact, and Eberhard confirmed this, is that the average church goer isn’t prepared to rebut the typical skeptical arguments, however ridiculous they may be. This is no doubt a problem that churches need to take seriously and begin addressing, but atheists shouldn’t make uninformed church folk their targets if they’re truly interested in a meaningful discussion.
Instead of quizzing some member of your local church about the best arguments for the resurrection, go to an apologetics conference and ask the same questions. If you run in the same circle that Eberhard runs in, get in touch with the Ratio Christi group at your university. The chances are that somebody or some group of people in your area is willing and prepared to have a thoughtful discussion about the reasons to believe in God. The same rules apply to the internet. Don’t engage in a pointless debate on youtube; go to theologyweb, leave a comment on this blog, or find another apologetics blogger who can answer your arguments. In sum, don’t reach for the “low hanging fruit,” as Eberhard put it.
Read books not written by Richard Carrier
Richard Carrier is a scholar and a good writer. But he’s only one guy, and apparently one of the few writers most atheists turn to for information about the Bible. And since he takes some rather unique positions (to put it politely) on issues like the Christ-myth, it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the work of other scholars. You don’t have to read just apologetics works, but New Testament studies is a massive field and there are more and better sources of information than Carrier, or Robert Price, or David Fitzgerald. Not only will you be better prepared for your debates, because you’ll lose if you rely on just those three, but you’ll get a chance to live up to that free thinker title you so proudly wear around. After all, what good does it do to only read authors you already agree with?
Don’t just make fun of Ray Comfort
Yes, the banana argument is dumb. Come to think of it, a lot of the arguments put forward by popular Christian apologists are dumb, or at least oversimplified. So as part of your reading assignment described above, read books written by conservative scholars. People like Ben Witherington, Daniel Wallace, and Craig Blomberg are good examples. These are the people putting up the most compelling defenses of the Christian faith. Worry about what they have to say, not popular evangelists like Comfort.
Remember that we’re not all creationists
You may know all the reasons why a literal Genesis creation story is ridiculous. And you may have memorized all of Richard Dawkins’ arguments. But what happens when the Christian you’ve approached informs you that he accepts evolution? There go all those platitudes about the incompatibility of science and religion, the God of the gaps, etc. If you really are so certain that Christianity is a flawed worldview, then make sure you have a solid understanding of what it teaches. Don’t base your skepticism on the fact that some Christians harbor weird ideas.
Brett Strong,
Just making fun of someone’s explanation doesn’t constitute
a reasoned argument against it. Have you never
heard some Christian go on at length about how the theory of evolution sounds
so ridiculous? He will laugh at how
it all sounds like a fairy tale and then conclude by asking “who could believe
such nonsense?”
But what actually follows from this sort of talk? …nothing.
No conclusions logically follow. Here’s an example of what I mean. If you had never seen a butterfly before and
I were to tell you that a butterfly starts out as a tiny egg, which becomes a
worm and then dies inside of a coffin that it made for itself (just before it
died), and then it dissolves into a liquid which reconstitutes into the flying
insect that you now see… would you be surprised? Would you laugh at my claims and compare them to the Transformers
comic series? Well you might, but do
you think that your laughter would in any way make me want to change my
view? Of course not, you would have to
give me reasons. The simple fact that from your perspective something “sounds weird”, does not persuade me to doubt its truth if I have good reasons to believe it.
Cenglish, its easy to show that the NT Jesus is a fictional character (just by commonsense)…for “the NT Jesus (according to the gospels) is written identical to Marvel Comic Book characters (like Superman or the Invisible Man); for the NT Jesus character (a man with superhero powers) ‘FLY’S’ in the air and DISAPPEARS into a raincloud (hmmm), DISAPPEARS through walls, DISAPPEARS before people’s eyes (puff, gone!), APPEARS OUT OF THIN AIR (‘boo!’ scaring the heck out of people), CONTROLS THE WEATHER (tells it to shut up and it does; cool), WALKS ON WATER (and invites his student too do the same), raises a ZOMBIE from the grave, gave his students the power to raise ZOMBIES from the grave, became a ZOMBIE himself and then raised himself from the grave (and during that time a horde of ZOMBIES raided Jerusalem; hmmm!), and this alleged 2,000 YEAR OLD ANCIENT MAN WITH STAB WOUNDS IN HIS HANDS AND FEET AND SIDE (i.e. superhero NT Jesus) is supposed to come back (with a tattoo on his leg) on A FLYING WHITE ‘POLICE’ HORSE (that’s right a flying horse! Hmmm, very interesting) backed by an entire army flying on white ‘police’ horses too (hmmm) to gather BILLIONS of ZOMBIES in the sky (along with the living)—whisking them off to the cosmos …hmmm…sounds like fairytales to me…”
Cenglish, check out what Matt Chandler had to say about his Christian beliefs (Matt Chandler is the lead pastor of the mega church called The Village Church, in Dallas Texas; and he was laughing with his 5,000 plus congregation about the utter zaniness of the Jesus story)
“There’s a foolishness to what we believe!” “its crazy!” “a virgin gave birth to a guy who was god but only part of god but still completely god and man also, lived perfectly so they killed him, they buried him and he came back to life and then he floated back into heaven and one day he coming back on a white horse, to get us” “It’s crazy!”
Cenglish, check out what Christian super-elite Peter Kreeft (a major PhD Christian apologetics guy with over 60 books written/an elite professor of Philosophy at Boston College) stated:
“The incarnation is 99.99999999 percent unbelievable!” “How could we ever believe such a thing all by ourselves unless we were mentally deranged!”
Brett Strong…I’m not against Christianity (please enjoy your Jesus like kids enjoy there Santa; awesome!), but rather I’m against Christian divisive dogma like hell talk, sinner talk, obey the bible talk, god is mad at you talk, etc
Cenglish: I have been a featured guest on the Justin Brierley Unbelievable show, Redemption Radio show, Backpack Radio show, Pleaseconvince.com, and I was a featured (hour long) guest on Greg Koukls Stand to Reason show when J Warner subbed for him (check it out on Str.org radio archive November 11th 2011)
Yes, Cenglish, it just takes commonsense to defeat or neutralize any Christian or Christian Apologist…check out my website: http://jesusisahoax.blogspot.com/
Incredulity isn’t an argument. But thanks for playing.
When you’re done acting like you’re so genial, you could start engaging christianity seriously here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-new-atheism-and-five-arguments-for-god, and if you don’t like reading, you can actually see a debate! (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates), or a talk (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/evidence-for-jesuss-resurrection-southampton-uk), or read a book (The Ressurrection of God Incarnate).
Oh, and let me analyse your arguments.
Argument 1.
(1) I see similarities between christianity and comic books
(2) Therefore christianity is false.
Analysis:
Obviously non sequitur. Example? Let me tell you a tale: Once upon a time a man named Strett Btrong wrote an comment against an old religion named Thriscrianity. Is your comment non-existing, them? I don’t see the point.
Argument 2.
(1)Some christians say christianity is implausible
(2)Therefore christianity is implausible.
Analysis
Non sequitur again.
Argument 3.
(1) I find your faith ridiculous.
(2) Therefore your faith is untrue.
Analysis
I don’t think I have to say it again.
Argument 4.
(1) I don’t believe in christianity
(2) Therefore christianity is false.
Analysis
As pointed before, incredulity is no argument.
Argument 5.
(1) Christianity is evil.
(2) Therefore it is false.
Analysis
Now, I disagree, there are great contributions from christians to mankind, and although some might have done bad stuff, that proves nothing. A timeless ad hominem you have presented here. For fast assessment on christian influence on history please read Rodney Stark’s “The Rise of Christianity” and “The Triumph of Christianity”, The New Concise History of the Crusades or something like that. I don’t think you can show christianity to be the root of all evil, the worst demon on earth or nothing like that, and know what? Even if you could, that would not prove it false.
And I hope you are not saying that Jesus never even existed, you really should read newer historical books if that’s the case,
This is supposed to constitute a well-reasoned argument?
Creationism is a weird idea? Really? Well, if you believe that, then I guess that does qualify you to write this article on “Tips for atheists”, since you’re apparently halfway converted to one yourself. This is what happens when one deems themselves more intelligent than God’s word – humanistic thinking takes over and they start compromising and rationalizing instead of being lead by the Holy Spirit. A Christian who holds to view of evolution completely undermines the Biblical historical narrative…”Imago Dei”.
If the object is to deconvert believers, why should atheist only target the intellectuals? Most believers are NOT intellectuals, so shouldn’t they target THEM?
If you really want to know if there is evidence for God, then the obvious answer is no. You should talk to the people who are capable of having the debate.
Dear banana_nut_bread (by the way, great nickname),
Maybe you’re right, the point is to deconvert believers, but should that be the point? I thought the so-called “brights” claimed to have “reason” while Christians only had faith. If that’s true, shouldn’t the brights be champions of intellectual honesty, and instead be looking for good, honest, intellectual discussion rather than deconversion of the “weak”?
But you’re totally right, if the brights have given up on pursuing and championing truth, and wish only to persuade those they think are easy targets, then they should focus on the average church-goer. In either case, the church has a big problem on her hands: teach the masses (no pun intended) the intellectual arguments for Christianity.
The point I made in the last paragraph seems relevant: “If you really are so certain that Christianity is a flawed worldview, then make sure you have a solid understanding of what it teaches.” You’ll never develop that understanding if you try only to pick off people in church.
To be honest, I do take offense that you consider Creationism a “weird idea” (or that seems to be what you’re indicating). I accept Genesis as a literal account and I have reasonable ideas for doing so.
Otherwise, a good article and an interesting read.