Hi,

I recently comes across a thread like the one in the URL below criticising God. How am I supposed to answer that?

http://britishbornchinesedb.org.uk/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9488

-- Marcus Hui (Marcus_hui@yahoo.co.uk), October 27, 2002

Answers

Marcus

Ps 14:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

Ps 53:1 To the chief Musician upon Mahalath, Maschil, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.

Of course, if they don't believe in God, they won't believe the scriptures.

Pr 26:4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

Pr 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

Sometimes you have to show the fool they are wrong, and sometimes you don't.

-- Tim (tlw97@cox.net), October 27, 2002.

Unfortunately, due to his arrogance, and his inability to believe in God, which he has deduced to a psychological phenomenon that was created, in his assessment, by us, there is little that can be done.

First of all you have to take into account that the heading of that forum is the "Psychology of God." Of course, it does not even seem as though he is taking God as a "given" since he places God in quotes. Since he has done this, he is seeming to infer that God does not exist as such, but, rather, is a phenomenon that can be explained through merely intellectual means. He attacks faith as something little children believe, when believing in fairytales, and he believes, as Marx did, that religion, specifically, Christianity, is an "opiate of the people."

In a word, he has turned all belief upon himself, attributing all "untapped" intellect as God. In a sense, he has made himself, and all humanity, gods. Christianity to him, as to Nietzshe, is a weakness, and Christians, to him, find confort in that weakness. All Christianity is a myth, and he believes that it is merely impossible to speak of this "myth" fully since he is bound by Christian terms that he doesn't necessarily like. This would be his allusion to agnostic and atheism. Clearly all he has done is create a new religion of his own, which he has deemed "no religion" and whose strength lies in his intellect alone. A classic example of someone who believes he has all answers and no questions, give him a abstract concept and I am sure he can wax philosophic for days, give him a rosary and it will only bring him confusion. However, for someone who espouses indepent belief, he sure likes to adhere to Marx and Nietszche a lot.

Behind every intellect there is a book, behind every Saint there is God.

God Bless

-- (seminarian@ziplip.com), October 27, 2002.

His theory doesn't hatch out when you think about how life came into existance. Yah, there might have been a "Big Bang", but who made it go Bang? And if thinking that life came from a "Bang" is not outlandish, then why is it so crazy to think that God made us? If he thinks that we have existed for eternity, tell him to look at how the green house effect is killing us with cancer, or how we are using up all the fosel fuels - If we were around for an eternety, we would have destroyed ourselves a long time ago! Hmmm.

I think people like that can be compared with people that wear a Mohalk, or pierce their nipples, or die their hair pink. They just want to walk against the grain. They want to rebel, and be noticed. Mark my words, on this fellows deathbead, I'll bet he's singing a different toon.

In Christ.

-- Jake Huether (jake_huether@yahoo.com), October 31, 2002.

Amen Jake. It's interesting to see how Athiests think they have it all worked out about God. Apparently, they have the technology to prove God doesn't exist , wow I'd love to see that.

Apparently they can prove that 0 + 0 = 1 Apparently male and female organs came into being at the exact right time to allow reproduction. And apparently either organ knew what the other needed to produce life.

Isn't it funny how even the most sophisticated man made technology today can't come anywhere close to the technology of our human body ?

Isn't it funny how a controlled lab with controlled environments and chemical mixtures haven't been able to come up with even 1 single living cell and yet supposedly, by some random event, bits and pieces came together to form life ?

Well God has made it abundantly clear through His creation that He exists and those who scoff at the believers will find themselves in very hot water... or should I say fire 8-)

Oliver.

-- Oliver Fischer (spicenut@excite.com), November 01, 2002.

You might have to recreate the condtions that were around when life first started to recreate life, our current environment might not be well suited for it(and I think people are doing this as best they can). Obviously, one wouldn't expect new life to be created with current life present, they'd get gobbled up by their more evolved competitors, and would expect the process to take a *long* time! Still, any self-aggregation of molecules would be a start.

I think sooner or later science will be able to do a LOT, and so don't use any "lack of science" arguments with athiests. My usual point is "so what's the POINT to your life"? Most people who are conscious have difficulty really *believing* they are just dirt, and if you can get them to be honest about it, they are one step closer to faith.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), November 01, 2002.

Oh science can and does do a lot, i just don't think science will ever be able to come up with the breath of life, that comes from God, that's His department. Humans cannot and shouldn't try to play God.

Also, as far as the conditions necessary for life are concerned, they already know what chemicals make up a human being, and u can remove any other life forms if u place em in a vaccuum first. I myself don't buy into evolution myself but i think i know what u were trying to say- survival of the fittest. basically if u have the chemicals that u need in a sterilized environment, you're still not going to succeed cos u don't have the thing that makes God our God and creator, and that is the breath of life. it's not a case of life coming from nowhere, it's from God himself. sorta like having a car but not the ignition keys cos they belong to someone else.

-- oliver fischer (spicenut@excite.com), November 01, 2002.

As a former Atheist (who even had a web site called "Jesus is Dead - Get Over It!"), may I offer some advice?

You probably won't be able to argue an Atheist into believing in God. When I was an Atheist, I laughed at the arguments which Christians presented to me, because I had heard them all before and had answers for them already. But secretly, in my heart, I wept because I WANTED them to give me an argument that I couldn't answer. No one ever did.

And yet .. today I am back in the Catholic Church! Why? Well, it wasn't because a Christian gave me an airtight "proof for God" that I couldn't argue against. It was simply because a Christian was kind to me, and shared a joke with me that made me laugh -- and treated me as a friend rather than an enemy.

Let me tell you a (not so hidden!) secret - most of the Atheists you meet online think that all Christians are stupid. Really, they think we are intellectually inferior to them. So at best, the Atheists will treat us patronizingly -- "poor things, they just don't know any better" - and at worst, with scorn and contempt -- "idiots - how can anyone live that way?" (And by the way, don't quote that psalm about how "The fool says in his heart, there is no God" -- you are just confirming their belief that Christians hate them.)

You will have to mount a "sneak attack" to get past their armor - not by a full frontal assault, but by little "sorties". Humor is the BEST way. Not mean-spirited humor that makes fun of Atheists - that's just playing into their hands. Just gentle humor, intelligent humor - not even necessarily religious humor. Just get them to laugh with you - just once - and you are halfway home.

Be their friend. Love them. Pray for them (but don't tell them you're doing that!). Try to see them as individuals who, like each one of us, is in need of God's love and mercy. Atheists like to put up a bold front ("I can get along without 'god' just fine!"), but deep down inside, so deep that sometimes even they don't know it, there's a frightened little child, lost in the dark, looking for a ray of light.

-- Christine L. (chris_tinelehman@hotmail.com), November 04, 2002.

Christine,

You have my applause! I was born and raised Catholic, but up until I allowed God into my heart in high school, I experienced very much the same thought patterns you described; to this day most of my good friends still experience that hardness of heart.

An important thing to note here is that it is only the Holy Spirit that converts a person, that removes from his chest the heart of stone and replaces it with a natural heart. So why do we need to evangelize? That very question reveals a prejudice of individualism, but the truth is that no one is a Christian by themselves. To be Christian is to be in community! And it is in inviting and sharing Christian communion--in the manner Christine described--that the real Truth of Jesus Christ comes; the heart has been replaced, and the Holy Spirit has set the soul aflame with the passion for more, and anticipation of a final union with the Creator.

My own re-experiencing of my Catholic faith came about in the same manner but in a negative way. I observed in my high school colleagues the very depths of alienation stamped on them cruelly by agnostic parents and an atheistic public education program. I ran away from this in terror, because I saw it for what it was: the abyss, the dust in the wind, absolute meaninglessness and despair. It was the more intelligent and keen of my friends who recognized their own sorrow, but they were long ago blocked from understanding its source or meaning.

I knew that the only way to leave the abyss was to embrace something bigger than ourselves! This was difficult, because the community formed by my own parish youth group had degenerated into cheap, false sentimentality, and I and everyone else saw it. But where my colleagues presumed that the Youth Group fascade was the true face of Christianity, I was moved (by something entirely outside of my own inclinations, I believe) to seek the Lord through study.

And there I found my community! That was my very first step back into the Communion of Saints, so that while I remained the only Catholic in my localized setting, I felt a part of something utterly beyond the local setting, permanent, and True.

This did not turn life into any bed of roses! I went through a period of nasty despair myself (over my friends, who I loved, though I lacked that proper faith and trust in God). Since then I have grown, and I am still growing.

I think Christine will agree that the essence of speaking to an atheist is not actually one of a "sneak attack" (though it may seem that way, relative to what we sometimes regard the "direct approach") but rather the full and honest embrasure of the person as one loved by God. This is not to negate the necessity of challenging the atheist's presumptions--after all, in acting out of love you are already shattering the atheist's presumption about Catholics--nor is it an advocation of sophistical rhetoric or "advertising", which is fundamentally dishonest approach.

Rather, it is a model of evangelization that imitates the act of giving a gift to one who you already love.

Bear in mind that by no means does this give promise or ensurance of success. The very act of gift-giving is insulting to those of hard hearts, because one irrevocable pillar of their atheism is that they lack for nothing. Thus the giving of a Good Thing is interpreted as the pointing to a lack, a need, (or worse) a deficiency or a weakness. You do not give a treadmill to your mother in law for her birthday, even if it is the most wonderful treadmill there ever was.

Instead, you must show the atheist the goodness of this thing, this "Christianity." Without turning yourself into a poster-child, simply treat them in a manner that makes evident the working of Christ in yourself as it meets your own lacks, needs, deficiencies and weaknesses.

Then, if they open themselves to that Christian communion, they do so not for anything you did, but through you're having allowed the Holy Spirit to do his work.

God bless.

-- Skoobouy (skoobouy@hotmail.com), November 04, 2002.

What an amazing insight Christine, very helpful, and shows a way in which to approach an atheist with Christian charity, which becomes quite difficult when dealing with their arrogance. I am definitely storing that one away for the apologetical "archive" I have created for myself.

God Bless You and great to have you home

-- (seminarian@ziplip.com), November 04, 2002.