Tag Archives: The Dawkins Letters

Podcasts

Debate on whether atheists can be good without God

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A great debate on whether atheists can make any sense of morality without God grounding objective moral standards. This one should be very good for atheists to listen to.

The MP3 file is here.

This is part two of last week’s discussion about the RichardDawkins.net atheist who converted. Listen to that part first if you want.

I feel a bit bad about this because it is clear that one factor that works to convert people to Christianity is that Christians can exhibit self-sacrificial love to others and atheists are basically at the mercy of their own selfishness. They just cannot behave morally when it goes against their self-interest, and that is SAD. Anyway, I felt badly because I began to worry about whether I have been as loving as possible while explaining Christianity to others.

Here is my entire series of posts explaining why self-sacrificial morality is not rational, if atheism is true.

On a related topic, I think Christians can also distinguish themselves from atheists and other religions in the way that men and women relate romantically. In Christianity, there is the tradition of chivalry, courtship and romantic love. The Christian Bible requires that husbands love their wives to the point of dying for them. This is lacking Islamic cultures, and not required in Hindu cultures.

But this lack of romantic love is also a problem in the feminist West, where women eschew chastity, marriage and children. Instead, women here have empowered the state to act as a replacement for husbands/fathers. The more that the state does for women, the less a really good man can distinguish himself and make himself useful. Men don’t like to share responsibilities with the state.

My most popular posts on that issue are here:

Something to think about.

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Podcasts

What caused an atheist on RichardDawkins.net to become a Christian?

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Here is a very interesting dialog featuring a pastor, an ex-atheist and a fundamentalist atheist. (H/T Two or Three)

Here is the MP3 file.

Check out a summary from Two or Three.

Excerpt:

But what made him convert?  Two things.  First, Robertson asked him two simple questions.  Why are you an atheist?  What would it take to convince you that God is real?  Morgan, who was used to philosophical arguments rather than more personal, emotional arguments, was taken aback.  He realized that he was not open to actually being convinced otherwise.  Second, he remembered the following scripture, which led to his conversion experience, an experience of love which made him a believer:

1 John 4:19
We love Him because He first loved us.

This conversion, and discussion in the interview, bring out a few interesting things that Christians might want to observe in their outreach:

  1. We should pray before posting responses when arguing with unbelievers
  2. Often, simple repetition of the truth of God’s love go around philosophical barriers that opponents have in their mind
  3. We must engage respectfully and kindly (argh!) and consistently
  4. The *experience* of God in genuine conversion is critical

This show was extremely interesting and helpful for understanding how atheists think, and why they become atheists. Don’t forget the testimony of former atheist A. N. Wilson that I wrote about before.