From Agnosticism to Atheism

Moving from “I don’t know if there is a God” to “There is no God”

Two students we met some weeks ago came both from Iran. The one was a Ph.D. student. He identified himself as an agnostic who became a convinced atheist.

We asked him, ‘How did you become an atheist? What convinced you to make the change?’

He said that there is no evidence for belief in God.

‘Someone who helped me was the atheist Richard Dawkins,’ he said.

I asked him, ‘So what kind of evidence helped you become an atheist?’

He stopped and thought for a while. Then he realized that there was no evidence for his position. He said, ‘It is the theist, the believer, who has to bring evidence for God’s existence.’

We actually have the same starting point

I tried to show that actually we have the same starting point. We try to argue that either there is or there is no God. So is there any evidence for either side?

I told him that evidence is important for my own faith. I mentioned that there is enough evidence that points to the reality of God’s existence. He was open to listening to some of these points. I used the Kalam cosmological argument, since both Islamic and Christian thinkers have used it as an argument for God’s existence.

There are many pointers for God’s existence

It goes as follows: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause. The cause of the universe has to be immaterial, outside of space and time. I said that these premises and the conclusion made sense. Then I concluded that it gives more weight to the existence of a God rather than no God. It appears to be the best, most logical explanation.

He was intrigued by this argument. I also briefly mentioned the fine-tuning of the universe (how the conditions for life in the universe are so delicately balanced as to be, really, almost a scientific impossibility), and also talked a bit about the person of Jesus and the evidence for the resurrection.

Knowing God personally, is this possible?

To the last question, if it were possible to know God personally and why, he replied with a clear yes! So we gave him our email, a website, and a few names of prominent Christian apologists to investigate further. We hope that we sowed some doubt about his atheism and that this will help them search and find God.

Are you open to investigate the claims of Jesus? Why not start now by reading the story of Jesus and also look for answers for God’s existence and the relevance of it for your life?

What next?

Start with one of the gospels, this is the story of Jesus. You can find it here

Find good answers for different questions here

Tagsapologetics

God’s design for marriage

STRUCTURING YOUR MARRIAGE AROUND GOD’S DESIGN AND VISION

Sunday, 26 February 2023|Time: 12:30 at ICF Delft 

Here is the link for the sermon

Marriage is God’s idea.

It reflects something of who God is: God is love. It also reflects something about the church: a loving community.
A couple can feel disconnected at times:

– Why is this happening?
– Is there something we can do about this?

It is helpful to go back to the Bible and re-discover God’s design and vision for marriage. We then must take (drastic) decisions to realign our lives with God’s vision.

We looked at Genesis 2:24 and some other important passages. Our focus is practical: how can we improve our communication?

What is the Christian faith all about?

Book Recommendation: Basic Christianity by the late John Stott

In this classic book John Stott explains the basic message of the Christian faith.

• who did Jesus claimed to be?
• what did he try to accomplish?
• what should be ‘our’ response?

You can see the vlog here

Tagsapologetics, StudentLife, Vlog

Make room for thought: is faith unreasonable?

View the vlog here

MAKE ROOM FOR THOUGHT: Is faith unreasonable?

Students in Leiden here in The Netherlands run a week with talks about the meaning of life.

So they asked me to prepare a talk about the question of faith in relation to reason. My talk was under the general topic of MAKE ROOM FOR THOUGHT. Here then is a summary of my talk in 5 minutes.

We all have the same starting point: we believe something about reality. The real question then is: which view makes more sense? Would like to hear what you think. leave a comment or ask a question. Stay safe!

Tagsapologetics, Corona, passionweek, Vlog

Passionweek Leiden 2020

Make Room

Students in Leiden organized a “passionweek” (PW) in February 2020. I gave three of the lunch talks and Mark Pickett gave one lunch talk and the evening talks during this PW. Attendance during these meetings went from about 60 to more than 150 students for each meeting.

We had many good conversations after the talks and some students expressed their desire to meet again and talk further.

See in the flyer below the topics of the talks. If you want to know more about the talks and/or have a question then leave a comment and I will try to reply within a week.

Do you also want to organize a passionweek in your city? Then contact me or leave a comment. For more information about the PWs have a look here.

Tagsapologetics, FEUER, passionweek