What would convince a Christian that atheism is true?

Recently I was surfing the net and came across a page called “Ebon Musings: The Atheism Pages” and in particular one page entitled: “The Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists, What would convince an atheist a religion is true”. The author astutely points out that most ‘theists’ rely heavily on the “F-word” faith when asked; “…what would convince him he was mistaken and persuade him to leave his religion and become an atheist…”? They don’t have any reason to even think they might be wrong. I find this ironic since every Christian I know will readily attest to being fallible, imperfect and not having all knowledge. Yet they think that they couldn’t be wrong and misplace our faith.

The author also goes on to state: “To be fair, I invite all theists to respond by preparing a list of things that they would accept as proof that atheism is true. If any theist prepares such a list, posts it on the Internet and tells me about it, I'll link to it from this page.”

That is what this post is about; I want to post those things that must be proven for me to convert to atheism (which I define in most cases as the religion of naturalism). So here we go, and I apologize to everyone for the length of this post. But you should be used to it by now. Also, I would like to reference the article on our website The Reality Check entitled The Fundamentalist Dogma of Atheism. I quote many areas from this article in this post, since Darren and I wrote this and it is on our website, I did not include quotation marks in this post for things on our site.

In the following criteria I will use the phrase “scientifically prove” often. I want to define what this means in each instance so as to avoid over-lengthy explanation on each point yet avoid confusion from the start. When I say “scientifically prove(n)” I mean: The 5 points of the scientific method must be used correctly and in order without the exclusion of any point. The conclusion(s) must take into consideration the possibility of a non-naturalistic event (to be truly objective).

1. The universe is self-existing and self creating.

If this can be scientifically proven without violating Physical Laws such as the Law of Conservation Mass, the Law of Conservation Charge, the Law of Conservation Momentum, or the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, then I would convert to atheism.

2. The earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old.

If this can be scientifically proven without enormous mathematical extrapolation over colossal spans of unobserved time, then I would convert to atheism.

3. Life began as the result of spontaneous generation.

If this can be scientifically proven then I would convert to atheism. However, at this point scientists can’t even agree as to what the conditions were on pre-life Earth, the only “evidence” has been the production of certain amino acids (the building blocks of life) yet those amino acids produced had to be immediately quarantined from the environment that ‘created’ them because it was so toxic to them it would have destroyed them in seconds.

4. Mankind is the result of organic evolution.

If beneficial mutation and transition can be scientifically proven, then I will convert to atheism. The problems here are that scientists have yet to produce any beneficial result by random radiation induced genetic mutation and there is not even one credible transitional fossil. Not to mention the problems of irreducible complexity and the origin of information. Also, I would caution anyone using punctuated equilibrium as proof to not do so; it is circular logic at best and very bad science at worst. The postulation that we don’t see transitional fossils because every so often evolution makes rapid advances instead of the slow modification inherent to the theory flies in the face of reason and the very theory it alleges to support. The lack of evidence (transitional fossils) cannot be evidence.

“…The term “missing link” is misleading because it suggests that only one link is missing whereas it is more accurate to state that so many links are missing that it is not evident whether there was ever a chain.” Anthony Standen, Science is a Sacred Cow. 1950 E.P. Dutton, New York

5. Morality is an artificial construct.

If the origin of morality can be proven (verifiably) as a derivative of nature and not in conflict with natural selection or survival of the fittest and if history can show this pattern as true, then I will convert to atheism.

The problem here beings with the fact that no atheist can pinpoint the actual beginning of man’s morality, there is no definitive evidence to examine. Also, for every single time in history when societies abandoned the absolute standards of religion so that they could mettle it out themselves, the result was brutal tyranny and barbaric atrocities. This was made clear from Rome to revolutionary France to Nazi Germany to South Africa.

That is not to say that religion is free from bloodshed (Crusades and Inquisition) but in only one century, from 1900 to 2000, the death tally from non religious atheists (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc.) killing religious groups exceeded one hundred and twenty million.

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Now I don’t know what kind of response I will get from the author, but I truly hope (and honestly expect due to his behavior thus far) that if discourse does begin, that it can be civil and avoid some of the name calling that is so prevalent in this category of debate. I also would like to say that I am glad that this author hasn’t (to my knowledge) used the argument that theists and atheists only disagree on one thing. Supposedly while atheists disbelieve in all deities, the argument is that Christians (theists) disbelieve in all except the Judeo-Christian God.

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This is simply not true and is even verifiable in scripture that other ‘gods’ exist and are not to be worshipped. Etc. etc. If there is further communication betwixt the author and myself, I will try to post it here to let everyone know.

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See ya.