What Would Convince Atheists To Become Christians?; Five Definitive Links!

I've kept track of some atheist answers as to what would convince us to believe. Christians say we refuse to believe due to our unwillingness to repent from immoral behaviors. I suppose ISIS could say the same damned thing while chopping off a head. Now don't get me wrong, I think we can legitimately reject religions based on how they treat living things, especially disenfranchised minorities under their control, like slaves, women, children, gays/lesbians, the poor, the aged and animals to mention a few. That's the main point of my anthology that everyone should read, which also explains why atheists spend so much time and effort debunking religion.

Here is the Christian challenge: "I don't believe that if God appeared to us, atheists would believe. For atheists can always make the case that the appearance of God was a hallucination, or a trick by super-advanced extraterrestrials."

This bald assertion is akin to a second Christian claim that the reason atheists don't believe is because we are in conscious (or unconscious) rebellion against God, their particular God. Completely oblivious are they of the fact that they aren't in conscious (or unconscious) rebellion against Allah, or the Jewish God Adonai, or any other different God, or god, or goddess, or demon with their different (and bizarre) moral demands. Christians are narrow-atheists with regard to these other gods, so they judge them to be lacking in sufficient evidence just like wide-atheists do who reject them all. Christians themselves would scoff at the notion they are in rebellion against Allah, you see. So Christians who make this second ignorant assertion cannot be taken seriously if they also make the former ignorant one. The ignorance is one and the same.

Skepticism is a virtue. I think intelligent adults should double-check their experiences to see if they comport with reality. Mature adults should question whether an experience that feels like God might be better explained as a hallucination or produced by aliens. What's wrong with doing this? Nothing I can see at all. I wish believers would do that with their own private subjective experiences, just as former believers like myself have done.

When it comes to believing despite the evidence, readers should consider that the reverse is actually the case, from what I've seen. I've seen Christians revise their faith so much in my lifetime, as the evidence shows one doctrine then another incorrect, that they would probably refuse to believe if scientists discovered the elusive Theory of Everything. They would just say God did it. So I think Christians are projecting upon atheists what they themselves would do in light of a massive amount of counter-evidence. They would still believe despite it. In fact, they already do.

To answer this Christian assertion in detail there are five decisive links that every Christian should read. Separately and together they definitively answer it with finality. After reading them let's have done with such an ignorant notion, just one of many.

1) Greta Christina on 6 unlikely developments that could convince this atheist to believe in God.

2) Daylight Atheism on The Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists.

3) My contribution titled What Would Convince Me Christianity is True?

4) Richard Carrier's fantastic and long essay, Ten Ways the World Would Be Different If God Existed!

5) The most comprehensive list of answers I've found is by Daniel Bastian, who offered 20 examples in his essay, What Would Convince You?
The purpose here is to offer 20 examples that would move a jury, namely me, beyond reasonable doubt. In so doing, we will look at a number of expectations that could be considered consistent with the claim that God exists and then see how those expectations correspond to the world we actually observe. As noted above, most of the following will interface with the generic God of theism and in the process make direct contact with Christianity in particular. My personal view is that a wider appreciation of reality reveals a universe that does not appear the way we would expect if theism were true, leaving non-belief as a supremely rational position to hold.
Read 'em and weep Christians. Ya got nothing. You'll have to whine about something else from now on. ;-)

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