These are the things believers most often say to atheists, written the way their best defenders would put them. Under each one is the reply. Under that is a little meter: even if the argument worked, how far would it get? To "something caused the universe"? To "a god who cares"? All the way to one particular religion?
How far does an argument get you?
Most arguments for God aim at a first step and then quietly jump to the last one. Watch for the jump.
Each card below shows how many steps the argument covers if you grant it completely. A filled step means "yes, if it works". An argument can be clever and still stop at step 1.
The arguments
How to have the conversation
Say their argument back in a way they'd agree with before you answer it. If you can't, you don't understand it yet.
"The Bible is true" is hundreds of claims. Pick one: the flood, the census, a prophecy. Finish it before moving on.
What evidence would change your mind? What would change mine? If the answer is "nothing", it's not about evidence any more.
"Faith", "evidence", "atheist", "God" mean different things to different people. Agree on them first.
Most people believe for reasons that matter deeply to them: family, comfort, community. You can disagree and still respect that.
The research desk pulls up verses in the original, statistics and encyclopedia entries in one place.
Serious believers have thought hard about every point below, and some of the replies have counter-replies. The links under each card go to the best neutral sources (mainly the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) so you can follow the debate further than I can fit here. If you think I've got their side wrong, tell me.
Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Cosmological Argument, Teleological Arguments, Ontological Arguments, Moral Arguments for the Existence of God, Pascal's Wager, Miracles, Divine Hiddenness, The Problem of Evil.
- Brendan McKay, Dror Bar-Natan, Maya Bar-Hillel & Gil Kalai, "Solving the Bible Code Puzzle", Statistical Science 14 (1999).
- Benson et al., "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP)", American Heart Journal 151 (2006). Parnia et al., "AWARE: AWAreness during REsuscitation", Resuscitation 85 (2014).
- Pew Research Center, Scientists and Belief (2009).
- Taner Edis, An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam (Prometheus, 2007); Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, the Qur'an and Science (1976), the book that popularised "scientific miracles". Behnam Sadeghi & Mohsen Goudarzi, "Ṣan'ā' 1 and the Origins of the Qur'ān", Der Islam 87 (2012).
- Gary Habermas & Michael Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kregel, 2004); Bart Ehrman, How Jesus Became God (HarperOne, 2014). Greg Bahnsen vs. Gordon Stein debate (1985) on the transcendental argument. Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies (Oxford, 2011).
- Dan Barker, Godless (2008); J. L. Schellenberg, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Cornell, 1993); David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, §10 "Of Miracles" (1748).