How to Talk to an Atheist
Posted in Diversity & Inclusion
No one is born an atheist. People have the freedom of choice to become atheists as much as they choose to become Christians. No matter how atheists persistently try to deny it, atheism is a belief system. You need faith in order to believe that God does not exist.
When conversing with atheists, it would be helpful pointing out the logical problems in their belief system. If you succeed in showing atheists the natural outcome of some of their main claims and arguments, you are in a much better position to share the Gospel with them. Here are some principles that atheists believe and how to refute them.
There is no God
A person would have to be omniscient and omnipresent to be able to say from his own pool of knowledge that there is no God. Only someone who is capable of being in all places at the same time, he who has a perfect knowledge of all that is in the universe, can make such a statement. In other words, a person would have to be God in order to say there is no God.
I don't believe in God because there is so much evil in the world
Many atheists consider the problem of evil as an airtight proof that God does not exist. However, it is impossible to distinguish evil from good unless one has an infinite reference point that is absolutely good.
This reference point is like a compass that guides a boat on a cloudy night at sea, and that can only be found in the person of God. God alone can exhaust the definition of "absolutely good." If God does not exist, then there no moral absolute by which one has the right to judge something or someone as being evil. Therefore, the reality of evil actually requires the existence of God, rather than disproving it.
If God does in fact exist, then why hasn't He dealt with the problem of evil in the world?
God is dealing with the problem of evil, but in a progressive way. Atheists falsely assume that God's only choice in fighting evil is to do it in a single act. However, God is dealing with the problem of evil throughout history, stripping power away from the wicked, holding all men and women accountable for their actions, letting justice prevail.
It shouldn't take all of human history for an omnipotent God to solve the problem of evil
Let's say at this very moment, God declared that all evil in the world will now simply cease to exist. It would mean that every human being on the planet would simply vanish into oblivion. That wouldn't be preferable.
The atheist may argue that a better solution must be available, even suggesting that God could have created man in such a way that he would never sin, thus avoiding evil altogether. With that scenario, man is no longer man. He would no longer have the capacity to make choices, meaning God would have created robots who only act in programmed ways.
Your goal is not simply tearing down the atheist's belief system. After demonstrating some of the logical impossibilities of his claims, share with him some of the logical evidence for redemption in Jesus Christ, and the infinite benefits that it brings. Perhaps through your witness and prayers, his faith in atheism will be overturned by a newfound faith in Christ.
