Christians, THIS Is How to Answer Atheists

In this video, Calvin Smith goes over a potent yet often overlooked passage in the book of Proverbs that will give any Christian a lot of instruction in how to properly talk with atheists about the things of the Lord.

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[danbeaulieu]

The sheer dishonesty on display here.
Calvin has yet to say one true thing

[svn]

This guy is like reverse Bill Nye, I love it.

[brookepeters]

I am a homeschooled christian going into my senior year. For years since 7th grade we have learned logic debate, and studied philosophy. It is my dream to be a philosophy professor, and to be able to teach people how to understand philosophy and use it to understand the bible and to be able to answer the fool according to his folly. This video is amazing!!!

[ptolemyauletesxii]

Darwin published his great work on evolution in 1859. Epicurus was an atheist in ancient Greece. How then is evolution the 'foundational principle' of atheism?

[girlnextdoorgrooming]

I feel stupid. I didn't understand a word he said.

[strangementalitypaperYT]

For a video about atheists, this video has a conspicuous lack of atheists...

[Pigdowndog]

"The fool in his heart says there is no god"
The wise man shouts it from the rooftops.

[calscottoh]

Before I was a Christian, I said that it's stupid to think there's no creator.

[aliceosborne]

Why does it follow that if you don’t believe in a god that you must have a belief “hole” that must be filled with something else?!

[BrainNeedsFood]

Top tip, if you start off with an insult (i.e. calling someone a fool) your chances of convincing them of anything drop dramatically.

Anyways, after all of those scripture references, I'm not sure you're in a position to lecture anyone about thinking in a box: Your thinking is clearly boxed in by scripture.

This seems to essentially boil down to "don't engage with people with difficult questions, they're fools not to be dignified" - thing is, if you can't / won't defend your own position, you won't convince anyone it's intellectually sound.

Oh, and the "Athiestic Worldview" becomes a lot easier to understand when you realise that Atheists understand and even cherish the idea that no, we don't understand everything - but we believe that science has given us many answers so far, and will continue to provide new answers in future - as long as we remain curious. But pointing to Gaps in our knowledge and saying "God did it", well, that's an intellectual dead end. It's how curiosity dies.

[Naia]

There is an error in almost every sentence this man utters.

[FranciscoLinares-pelm]

The problem is not believing or not believing in a superior force, intelligence or order called God that we can’t fully comprehend. The problem is that Christians automatically believe that when someone speaks God, they are referring to their brutal God of War inscribed in scriptures, who allows, approves and enforces war, torture, death, r_pe and much more, as long as humans do his will, fear him and adore him.

[Kalopsia]

I wrote a book last week. In it I claim to be the one true god, and I am more powerful than the god you believe in. Your god answers to me. Don’t believe me? The first sentence in my book states that only fools reject me.

I am now your god, literally by using your own logic against you.

[Tiny_and_Reese]

Why do you even allow comments if you're just going to delete them?

Anyway, I'll just type my main points:

1 Do not talk to atheists like we're fools. We have good reasons for believing what we do and you approaching the conversation like we're foolish for believing what we do will anger us and have you approach the conversation without willing to listen.

2 Evolutionist is a propaganda term designed to make evolution"ism" and creationism seem like they're on equal playing fields when they're not.

3 Calling someone a fool but then explaining that you meant something else is still going to result in them remembering the insult, so just use a different word.

4 I understand using a different word means that to some degree you're not preaching your Bible anymore but:

5 Proverbs doesn't have the same definition of a "fool" as Psalms does so the inclusion of it is "cherry picking" . Proverbs describes a fool thoughout it's teachings as a character; as someone who is unwilling to hear wisdom and learn from discipline. Failure to fear God is included in there which is your strongest argument but atheist don't fail to fear, we just don't participate. But to anyone who think we do fail to fear God and since cherry picking is okay 1 John 4:18.

6 If he does want to make this verse about atheists, at least to some extent, then he has to contend with Proverbs 26:12 which places atheists as having more hope than he, a preacher hoping to explain the Bible, God's word, better than God could. If asked he might not consider or profess himself wise, but it is in actions that he betrays his thoughts.

7 Proverbs 26:4-5 is actual a cool sentiment about how whether you are a fool or are someone who argues with fools, you are still a fool and that whether you believe or not, we are all foolish and thus you shouldn't worry about being labelled a fool if in fact you have good reason for your position. 8/10 Actual wisdom.

8 Evolution is not atheist's founding doctrine. Please stop grafting positions onto us because it's more convenient for you to communicate with us that way.

9 The position that there is no God is not atheism, it is antitheism.

10 You can make wise decisions without God. In fact history is riddled with examples of such. The lightbulb. Philosophy. Heated floors. The Calendar.

11 Evolution and Creationism is a false dichotomy. One being proven false does not substantiate the other. As such, you can stop believing in Creation and also not believe in evolution, though I do admit there is a bimodal distribution.

12 As far as we've seen nature is all there is. No magic or miracles that have ever been observed have been shown to be legitimate no matter how many people a book says were there and witnessed the event. You may want to call this close-minded but this distinction is arbitrary. If open mindedness is your goal, then you should listen to children who will believe anything. If it isn't, then you have a box yourself. My point being he has his box too, but is calling my box close-minded. He wants to make it sound like he also has my box incorporated in his but if this is his showing of understanding my position, I can clearly say he's either lying about his box or he doesn't actually understand mine.

13 A-theos doesn't mean no God. It means "without religion" or "without belief".

14 Entertaining a hypothetical is not the same as buying into a way of thinking. If you're going to debunk something, you must first hear it, understand it's implications, and then agree or disagree and ONLY THEN can you explain why you don't accept it. What you DON'T do is misrepresent your opponent by saying their founding doctrine is evolution. Seriously dude, what the heck?

15 The problem of evil still exists whether you believe in old earth or new earth.

16 This person's experience as an atheist and him not being able to answer questions about evolution and the notion that he believed for bad reasons, and judged others as mentally inferior reflects on him and him alone, not every atheist.

There, no swearing. Let's see if you delete this one.

[cheryldeboissiere]

I am getting very tired of how you POS take the Bible out of context, not only do you immediately call people fools, in the rudest of fashions, you remove a remark from its actual context. David, I think wrote the psalm, and is actually talking about amoral people behaving in a criminal fashion. Perhaps, he was referring to Christians. Nyah, they didn’t exist yet. But being amoral didn’t always involve a cross. So the section presents amoral people doing criminal acts —Why am I again thinking Christians? Sigh. Same criminals, who today would be Christians maybe forcing women to die in childbirth or maybe burning books or maybe attacking mosques or maybe — endless list. David then say the fool says there is no God. The criminal essentially believes he got away with it. This has no relationship to atheists who are not notably criminals. Atheists don’t attack mosques, spray paint statues, or attack lgbt people. They just argue and work at observatories (eg. Carl Sagan, Neilde Tyson Grasse). You, POS, have no regard for your own holy text since you chose to take the remark completely out of context, just so you can be spiteful, nasty, and rude. You already lost the argument because you distorted your own text. Anything after the misuser, inappropriate remark will also malfunction. You started out badly, with rudeness and mockery, so again noting everything else will FAIL.

[DejiAdegbite]

"The fool has said in his heart that there's not god"
But the wise proclaim it upon the rooftops.

[rockfan]

I appreciate how this guy openly admits that he doesn’t believe in evolution simply because it disagrees with the Bible

[steveoh]

You have missed the most important step here. You should "answer the fool" IF, and AFTER, the "fool" has ASKED a question.

For example.. I am agnostic - I do not claim to know that there is or is not any god. I am also "not theist", because no theist religion's doctrines have convinced me that their supernatural claims are possible or true. But.. I have not asked for an explanation, either.

Yes, there are SOME atheists who claim to know "there is no god". A smaller number of those atheists then, additionally, ask you and me to accept their viewpoint and agree that "there is no god" - but they fail to convince me to believe that, just as the Bible fails to convince me of its claims.

Here's the thing. If you approach me and offer to "answer" a question I have not asked.. if you ask me to believe what your doctrines claim.. the first question I will ask will NOT be "what evidence do you have to support these claims?" Before that, my question will be "HOW, EXACTLY is my non-belief any of your business.. what authority do you have to judge and try to change what I think?" If you can't cite an authority which I accept as having jurisdiction over me (and.. you can't.. the "Great Commission" is one of the CLAIMS in your Bible which I do not believe or accept..) then you will need MY CONSENT to proceed further in your attempt to convince me to become theist.

I recognize and respect your right to have your faith, to believe whatever you think is true, and to exercise all of the human and civil rights you have, as for example, fulfilling your duty under the "Great Commission" through speech "in the public sphere", like you've done in this video, or like Ray Comfort does in crowded streets - I'm not saying you can't, I'm not "telling you what to do", EXCEPT in so far as it affects me as a non-consentual trespass upon my life and my EQUAL right to believe whatever I think is true (and nothing else).

Also.. I know that your Bible also claims that it can define me as "making myself into a god". I dispute that claim too - I have never claimed to have omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, immortality, or credit for creating the universe. I have none of the requisite supernatural characteristics of a "god". In the role which you believe your "God" occupies, I do not see any "god" there, and I do not see."myself" there - instead, I see a veil of fog, an "I don't know" BETWEEN me and "there", and I do not see past the "fog". Nor do I have any need to lie, to pretend that I have any definitive answers about "gods", "origins", "immortal souls", or "eternal fates".

[aliceosborne]

Where did god come from? Who created god? If there needs to be a “creator” for complex things, what or who made the most complex “thing” … a god…

[deloftie]

If the modern Christian strategy to stop the trend towards atheism is to try and "poke holes" in biological evolution, one of the most supported scientific theories ever produced, well as an atheist I think that is a great idea. Have at it lads