Honest Question to Atheists - Best Argument?

[robvalue]

I would actually love it if someone did bring a challenging argument. It's so dull reading the same ones over and over, or just hidden more and more under fancy language and irrelevancy. (The WLC approach.)

[ignoramus]

If I had to pick an argument which is the nearest thing to convincing, I'd go with the fine tuning argument. It's about 0.01% convincing, whereas every other argument I've ever heard is firmly at 0%.

Rob, even that one is complete and utter bullshit IMHO..

Think of it like the puddle story...
How can the water fit perfectly in this hole ... It must've been made for it!

If you reverse engineer the fine tuning argument, it's the same thing.

2 Scenarios:

1) squillions of big bangs have been going off for an eternity, but because "things" (new universal laws) weren't tuned, they fizzed out quickly.
(Except the one that was tuned properly) That's us. Only us.

2) All physical universes can only ever develop one set of laws ...It's in the dna of every quark!
The universe uses fractal logic as a normal phenomenon. It's everywhere. Trees. Galaxies, etc
We will find some patterns naturally occurring ...this is normal... Let's not become John Nash over this (A Beautiful Mind)

my 2c (less tax)

[abaris]

Not looking for "All Christian arguments are idiotic" replies. This is an honest question.

I never make blanket statements about any given group.

But to answer your question(s): No, none of the christian arguments ever gave me pause. The main reason for this being the age of the universe and the age of life on earth compared to the time humans are around. So far we've only clocked off about 5 percent of the time the Dinos roamed the earth.

So, no, the one and only god cropping up in the desert some 3000 years ago doesn't cut it for me in any case. No matter how well thought out your arguments seem to be.

[pocaracas]

Has there ever been a Christian argument, or something a Christian said, that made you, for even a split second, question whether your current atheistic stance is right?

Even if the argument turned out to be completely fabricated or disprovable, did it at the very least draw you closer to believing the Bible is God's Word and all that such a belief entails?

If not, has there ever been an argument that you didn't know how to answer, or that surprised you  against your expectations?

Not looking for "All Christian arguments are idiotic" replies. This is an honest question.

The thing is, no argument for any god is ever enough.
To actually show that something exists, you must *surprise, surprise* show it.
An argument doesn't show the god... only attempts to reason the god into existence, often relying on faulty old writings as if they attest to reality (e.g. the bible).

How about you, has there ever been something [insert competing religion here] said that made you doubt your "current theistic stance"?

No other religion has ever made me ever doubt Christianity. I view Judaism as incomplete Christianity; ending with the Old Testament is just a huge cliffhanger because so many of the prophecies stated in it are fulfilled by Jesus Christ (Deuteronomy 18:15, as one example). OT ends with promises of great things to come, yet for Judeo-believers, never will. Islam is a corrupted extension of Christianity, whose denial of fundamental Christian doctrine (Resurrection, Christ's Deity, etc) leave the same OT prophecies unfulfilled and therefore incomplete ("pierce my hands and feet" in Psalm 22:16, yet Muslims don't even think Jesus was crucified).

Ah.. that warm fuzzy feeling of a prophecy fulfilled.
A prophecy from ~500BC, fulfilled in around 1AD, or so the text written around 100AD says.

What about Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age spirituality? They may have had an appeal when I was agnostic, but they don't affect me anymore partly because the Bible frequently criticizes all other gods. Even the 10 plagues were largely an attack on Egypt's false gods (Numbers 33:4). It denounces those who worship "wooden and metal statues and idols", which can do nothing for us.

This bit is troubling...
If there was ever only one god and it showed up quite often (if we are to accept the OT, as you seem to be doing when you refer to its prophecies and these plagues), what on Earth possessed people to manufacture other gods?!
Did those other gods present themselves? Clearly impossible, right?
So all those other gods were manufactured for some very human-centric purpose... which? Power over other people? Money? Population behavior control?

Can't the same apply to christianity? And, hence, all gods are equally man-made and equally created for some human-centric purpose...?

On the other hand, if we take archeology's word, people were worshiping some of those other gods well before the god of the OT stepped into the mind of any human... And that renders Yahweh just another man-made god in the sequence of man-made gods from the middle-east.
At best, some other god is the real one. The original one. The one that people first worshiped - should be the one people had first contact with.
However, archeology suggests that initial worshiping was of the shamanistic kind, where the "spirit world" was visited by the shaman through a trance... and we now know how unreliable that is, given all the ways we can manipulate a brain with chemicals and drugs.
So... nothing remains... well, if we really really want to have a god, the deistic god remains. The ultimate creator god that stands at the gap in knowledge about the origin of the Universe... but does nothing else within the Universe itself, so why worship it?

Seriously, to Christians, the Bible is the best proof of itself. Want physical evidence of God? Have a Bible, it is both the claim and the proof of the claim. May seem absolutely stupid, but the age of OT compared to the NT, how one reveals every little secret of the other (especially if you study it), makes the entire thing completely believable. If we only had the NT, I wouldn't believe it either.

That's one of the reasons tons of people believe it and remain believing in it... but it's not the core reason that makes people believe in the first place... indoctrination takes that piece of the cake.

Self-attesting accounts in the story don't mean that the story itself is grounded on reality.
Or else, Harry Potter could be real; Gandalf could be real; Superman could be real; Darth Vader could be real (if we ignore Episodes I, II and III )

[Nope]

Has there ever been a Christian argument, or something a Christian said, that made you, for even a split second, question whether your current atheistic stance is right?

Even if the argument turned out to be completely fabricated or disprovable, did it at the very least draw you closer to believing the Bible is God's Word and all that such a belief entails?

If not, has there ever been an argument that you didn't know how to answer, or that surprised you  against your expectations?

Not looking for "All Christian arguments are idiotic" replies. This is an honest question.

I lost faith involuntarily so I looked up many arguments for religion. None of them helped or made sense. The only ones that have any influence are the emotional kick in the gut, like saying that you will see someone again when after they die.

One reason that I hear other people repeatedly give for having faith is that they can't believe that there is something else or that life doesn't have an ultimate meaning. Contrary to what believers think, being an atheist is a humbling experience. This will sound like a contradiction and maybe it is but atheism is also empowering because I get to create my own meaning for my life.

[robvalue]

If I had to pick an argument which is the nearest thing to convincing, I'd go with the fine tuning argument. It's about 0.01% convincing, whereas every other argument I've ever heard is firmly at 0%.

Rob, even that one is complete and utter bullshit IMHO..

Think of it like the puddle story...
How can the water fit perfectly in this hole ... It must've been made for it!

If you reverse engineer the fine tuning argument, it's the same thing.

2 Scenarios:

1) squillions of big bangs have been going off for an eternity, but because "things" (new universal laws) weren't tuned, they fizzed out quickly.
(Except the one that was tuned properly) That's us. Only us.

2) All physical universes can only ever develop one set of laws ...It's in the dna of every quark!
The universe uses fractal logic as a normal phenomenon. It's everywhere. Trees. Galaxies, etc
We will find some patterns naturally occurring ...this is normal... Let's not become John Nash over this (A Beautiful Mind)

my 2c (less tax)

I agree, it is complete and utter bullshit, hence the very low convincing percentage I gave it a nonzero amount because it does evoke a very small kind of emotional response in me, whereas none of the others do. But I know it is an utterly irrational argument, and my emotional response means nothing. If I was an irrational person, I could kind of understand how that emotion could whisk me away.

It's just me being honest about my personal reaction to the argument.

Edit: extra bit!

Here is a problem with all religions relying on a text. Assume for a minute it was actually dictated by "a god". So what? That doesn't mean it's accurate, or of any use at all. To think otherwise is to assume that a god can't/won't dictate a load of shit. Why would you assume that? How can you possibly understand the motivations of a god? The only way to find out if it's true or useful it to analyse it ourselves.

[Iroscato]

I can't trust a religion that allows for many gods and acceptance of other religious beliefs.

!!

[Cato]

@OP

Not since I was 8 years of age.

[popsthebuilder]

Godliness is only a trend. I have never been one to follow trends. Trends are stupid.

Hope I answered your questions.

Wow. A trend. That seems a little backwards. Since conscious thought man has attempted to express his Devine connection to all else.

You being oblivious to this connection is the trend. It is due to the disconnect brought on by society, empirical method as the only law, and the fact that we are manipulated at our core from childhood to be oblivious to the fact that you can learn through experience rather than only academics which actually cripple the ability or even the understanding that one can learn through many avenues.

What I am trying to say is that we can tell what us real to us based on our bodies emotional reaction to certain thought. The disconnect between productive thought and emotion has caused the fad of needless over calculations which only confuse people and lead them into further question.

[Cato]

Wow. A trend. That seems a little backwards. Since conscious thought man has attempted to express his Devine connection to all else.

You being oblivious to this connection is the trend. It is due to the disconnect brought on by society, empirical method as the only law, and the fact that we are manipulated at our core from childhood to be oblivious to the fact that you can learn through experience rather than only academics which actually cripple the ability or even the understanding that one can learn through many avenues.

What I am trying to say is that we can tell what us real to us based on our bodies emotional reaction to certain thought. The disconnect between productive thought and emotion has caused the fad of needless over calculations which only confuse people and lead them into further question.

So your argument goes something like this; remain ignorant and enjoy God. Got it.