I’m convinced that atheists won’t change their minds until God comes back. And by then it will be too late
@klausehrhardt4481 Says:
First things first: is there good faith on both sides?
Second: what do you mean by the word believe? To nominally believe in the existence is something quite different than to follow up what you are told. I could myself say that I believe in Satan in the first sense and not in the second, but what about all sins I committed till now.
@samcotten2416 Says:
Not a bad answer, but I think I have a better one that was probably closer to, if not the same as the one used by the apostles and early Christians. What Christians believe is *NOT* that these pagan gods don’t exist — what we believe is that they *DO* exist and they are demons. Great example, Bacchus/Dionysis, the god of wine in Roman/Greek paganism. In pre-Christian Greece and Rome, people could drink alcohol to their heart’s content and just claim to worship Bacchus/Dionysis; eventually Christianity comes along and says, “Drunkards will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven“ (1 Corinthians 6:10), basically bringing along a countercultural message. Also in Greek/Roman paganism, the leader of the gods, Zeus/Jupiter/Jove had many children with many different women, which would have been very acceptable back then (and could be said to be much more acceptable today in the post-Christian West), but not so much right after Christianity came along and brought the message of enforced monogamy to the world. As another example, in northern Europe, one could once claim to worship Loki the god of mischief if they were to embrace a life of thievery and dishonesty. The whole message of Christianity is that there is one all-powerful, all-knowing creator outside of space and time who actually existed before anyone even wrote or spoke about Him and that He is the arbiter of the one true morality above all moralities, no matter what any other god says. Following any other god than Him is following demons and choosing to pursue our sinful fallen nature, which really was what created those pagan gods to begin with. With alcoholism being as widespread and almost socially acceptable as it is nowadays, I’d never be arrogant enough to say that Bacchus/Dionysis doesn’t exist — I would simply tell people to flee him and become a brother or sister in Christ instead. Unlike those pagan gods, the God of the Bible is *creator* and not *created* — that’s where all your brilliant evidence comes in, J.
@StageWatcher Says:
As someone who doesn't believe in medicine, I just believe in one less system of medical science than modern pharmaceutical doctors.
@richardjstuart3978 Says:
It's nonsense. Arguing about the nature of God is a lot different than arguing that no God exists. As a Christian, when I read the Odyssey and hear Odysseus praying to Zeus, there are times when you can see they almost gets it. Same way reading the Arabian knights or other stories from around the world. There is always a core truth there trying to get out. It's why in the speech on Mars hill, Paul's comments that he can see they are all religious people. They are, they all had in common the belief that there was something out there beyond ourselves. I may radically disagree with the followers of Quetzalcoatl as to the nature of God, but we call all agree that God in some form exists. That's a staggering majority of people from the dawn of time to the present who agree that Atheism is false.
@Berkana Says:
Atheists have a more fundamental disagreement with the Christian world view than just believing in one less god. Atheism is implicitly a materialistic world view that denies the existence of any non-material reality. Atheists don't just deny God for the reasons you provided. They resist even considering evidence for God because their world view is not compatible with there being any spiritual entities at all. Christians do not deny other gods for the same kinds of reasons as atheists.
When atheists are confronted with evidence strongly suggestive of there being a powerful transcendent being who created life and the universe, or even of the existence of the human soul, such as from near death experiences, they often leap to speculative conclusions not because there is actual evidence for those conclusions, but because in their world view, those alternatives to a spiritual world view only have to seem plausible to be acceptable over evidence for the reality of a non material reality due to their unspoken commitment to materialism.
@peteryoo6373 Says:
It's also good to point at that it's not just the belief in the right number of "gods" that saves, but belief in the one, true, living God. One way you can do this is by asking the questions: "Does your belief in one less god have eternal significance?" This opens up a way to share the gospel of what happens after we die.
@eugenetswong Says:
I think that they obey 1 less god than us, but I insist that they are lying to themselves, and that on some level they do believe.
Thanks for your perspective on this. I now feel more confident about focusing on just Christianity's historical accuracy.
@Nfynity Says:
Those little-g gods are accounted for in the bible. They would be angels who kept not their first estate, or the offspring of them and human women (in genesis).
I think it is very consistent with how humanlike those gods are. There were probably giants who ruled over humans and required deference.
So i ‘believe’ in those gods in a manner of speaking, but i dont think they should worshipped or respected in any way. Anyways, it seems they died out and stories about them were heavily embellished. Im not sure humans are creative enough to invent such intriguing mythologies from scratch, and not out of purely a desire to explain natural phenomena (i see that claim a lot).
@noname-vw7kk Says:
Great job man loved it
@noname-vw7kk Says:
First
@marcoliverdavidruprecht715 Says:
If someone tells me that they don’t believe in the God of the Bible for the same reason that I don’t believe in any other gods, I tell them that I believe that the other gods are false because the Bible says so. Good luck using that to deny the one true God
@jimmylicata5336 Says:
I saw this on some talk show of Ricky Gervais touting this argument and he uses his pithy and sarcastic rhetoric and unfortunately gets a bit of applause out of the audience
@bartekabuz855 Says:
Norse, greek, egyptain etc "gods" are real. They are just fallen angels
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