Edit: See also the follow-up articles…
Update to Bad Atheist Responses to Christianity
Why I Debate Theology

It will come as no surprise to my regular readers that I enjoy philosophical debate. I’ve had numerous discussions about various subjects over the years, and more than a few on religion. I’ve also read apologetics on both theism and non-theism, and books written by people who’ve gone both ways.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that many atheists compile arguments regularly used by theists, and explain why they don’t work. This is usually accompanied by a plea to stop using them because they won’t convince the atheist and only serve to waste everybody’s time. What I’ve never seen—although I suspect it exists somewhere—is a list of atheistic arguments that will not work against the theist.

I’m going to specifically address the atheist/Christian debates for the commonly cited reasons: I’m most familiar with Christianity myself, the atheist/Christian debates seem to be most prevalent on the internet, and almost everyone where I live claims to be Christian.

(Note that I am lumping all versions of Christianity into one group. I realize this does a disservice to the individual Christian. However, there are so many different types of Christianity that it’s not practical for me to give each of them their own space. If you’re a Christian and you think I’ve got your explanation of something wrong, you’re probably right. However, I have gotten someone’s explanation correct, because these are all rebuttals I’ve heard from Christians at least once.)

Over the years of debating, I’ve noticed there are a number of arguments which atheists routinely present, but are ineffectual at convincing Christians that Christianity might have problems. The problem for atheists is that these arguments make perfect non-theistic sense, and so why anyone else shouldn’t see the logic is baffling to them. I don’t claim these arguments are fallacious, only that they will be unconvincing. I’ll try to explain why they’re unconvincing and suggest a more effective course of action. The thing to keep in mind is that these arguments are not worth pursuing, and if you bring them up, you’re just not going to gain any ground. It would be better for the atheists to avoid these and concentrate their efforts elsewhere.

1. There are a lot of gods Christians don’t believe in.

Thor, Zeus, Ra: these are all gods that the Christian does not believe exist. Well, atheists are the same way, they just believe in one less god. When the Christian understands why atheists don’t believe in Thor, they will understand also why atheists do not believe in God.

This does not work, because the Christian does not disbelieve in these gods per se. The explanation you’re likely to hear is that these gods were fallen angels, exercising their dominion over the Earth. According to the Bible, Lucifer was given rule over the Earth, at which point he started to think, “hey, I’m doing pretty good with this Earth thing. I bet I could do the rest of the universe and heaven, too.” He was in middle management, but wanted to be the CEO. Well Jehovah didn’t like that, so he kicked him out of heaven for good and said, “you think you’re so good with Earth? You got it.” And a third of his angles got kicked down there with him. At that point it was free reign to have fun with the humans, and so you have lesser demons roaming around demanding sacrifice and acting like the gods they aren’t.

So actually, many Christians do kind of believe in Thor and Zeus. They believe all these “gods”—false gods, really—were the work of Lucifer and his minions, not necessarily that they didn’t exist at all. Appealing to their disbelief of other gods is unlikely to work because within the framework of Christianity, there’s an explanation of their origins.

Try this instead: use an example that’s less super-naturally based. Santa Claus might work, although that seems a bit condescending to me. You could go for Russell’s Teapot. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Whatever you choose, don’t lose site of the real reason for bringing up this argument in the first place. You’re trying to get them to admit they don’t believe in something because there’s no evidence to support its existence. Why don’t you believe in tiny pink unicorns on Mars? Because there’s no evidence for it.

2. If there is a god, He’s obviously not an intelligent designer.

Why are there vestigial organs that just cause us problems, like wisdom teeth? If God is so powerful, couldn’t he have done it right the first time? It hardly makes sense to say we were intelligently designed; in fact, the way we were put together seems very sloppy and lazy.

If you’re using this line, you’re probably talking with an anti-evolutionist, and possibly a young-Earth creationist, as well. One challenge here is that these people tend to ignore enormous bodies of evidence that might discredit their belief. To many of them, simply the fact that scientists did research is reason to dismiss it. After all, it’s mans’ world view versus God’s omnipotence. If one seriously believes that to be true, then it’s no contest. God’s got it in the bag.

But not all Christians are that way. I know plenty who are open to the idea of evolution, but they still believe God had a hand in guiding it along its course. There are some that say God did design everything, but over the course of billions of years (the “day” in Genesis being metaphorical). And I know some who just don’t know one way or the other. But even if a Christian undecided on the subject of evolution, this line will not convince them.

According to Christian doctrine, human corruption came after Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Christians generally believe that when humans were created, they didn’t have these problems. Some believe this was compounded by the flood. I’ve heard it argued that the flood destroyed some delicate atmospheric balance which kept everything healthy. When this was destroyed, so too did the bodies of all living things grow corrupt and broken. These poorly designed structures, then, are just the result of mankind’s fall.

Try this instead: emphasize how evolution predicts these things rather than how it seems like God bungled them. No, this will not work on the anti-evolutionist. It may, however, convince someone who isn’t sure. (It worked for me.)

3. The Bible contains numerous inconsistencies.

In the Bible, there are observations that don’t correspond with reality; God’s behavior in various situations is not rational or consistent; and different books describe the same events differently. How could plants be created before the sun? For that matter, how can you have “days” before the sun existed to define them? Why was burning the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah—presumably including innocent children—considered just?

There is not as straightforward an answer as to why these things will be unconvincing. In a nutshell, each inconsistency is likely to have an internally consistent rationalization, even if it’s not persuasive to the atheist. There is, however, one general rationalization that you’re likely to hear any time you bring up Biblical errancy.

Today’s translations of the Bible do not have the full meaning (or metaphor) of the original Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, etc. True Christian Bible scholars are unbeatable in this; don’t even try. They will explain how a Hebrew phrase was translated as “women and children” when it really meant “families”—and families in that sense only referred to men of a certain age, so God didn’t really kill innocent women and children, etc. Something like that. There’s no point in arguing this. You might wonder at how useful today’s Bibles are if the translations are so incredibly faulty, but the Christian will simply respond that that is why you need to pray and seek God’s guidance. At this point, it may diverge into number four, below; regardless, you’re not going to win.

Try this instead: if you absolutely can’t avoid discussing the Bible, you’re better off talking about the embarrassing parts than the contradictory ones. There’s certainly no dearth of taboo material, like in Genesis 19 where Lot’s daughters get him smashed and rape him—or the entire book of Song of Solomon, for that matter.

4. Quoting Isaiah 55:8, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD.” [NIV] is a pretty lousy cop-out.

The problem with bringing this up is that the Christian is liable to respond with “Well, does science know everything?” And you have to concede that, no, there are some major unknowns in science. But once you concede that there are things you don’t know via your world view, you have to concede that there are likely to be things that they don’t know via theirs.

Additionally, astute Christians will point out that plenty of things fall outside the domain of science. If science can’t handle these things, how else should we go about it? The worst position that an atheist can put themselves in is leaning too heavily on science because it’s going to cause all sorts of contention, and you’ll spend more time covering old ground—trying to explain why science isn’t a religion—than advancing why you are an atheist (or whatever the main thrust of the argument is).

Now I know all the atheists are indignantly crossing their arms right now and thinking Uhg, these two explanations aren’t the same thing at all! And I agree with you, they’re not. But the trouble comes because most Christians don’t make that distinction. When you attack them with “it doesn’t make sense”—however justified—and they come back with Isaiah 55:8, or something similar, you’re better off letting them take the out. To call them on it opens the door for them to attack what you don’t know, and if you’re not absolutely comfortable with the gaps in your knowledge, you’re going to flounder.

Try this instead: use this as an opportunity to change the subject to something you prefer. Note what happens when the Christian says, “well, I don’t know the mind of God” or “God hasn’t revealed that to me,” or even just “I don’t know”. This is a retreated position. It’s like going back to home base. We don’t want to attack them in their base, no matter how tempting (or justified) we think this to be.

Instead, try to draw them out with an open ended question about something you’re more prepared to discuss. Personally, I would use some conversational jujitsu to change the subject to faith—something for which I have better prepared position—and enjoy discussing more, anyway. Substitute your own topic as desired and use the invocation of Isaiah to gain control of the discussion.

5. You can’t prove God exists.

You tell me to prove god doesn’t exist, but it doesn’t work that way. The burden of proof always lies on the one making the claim, so you need to prove that God does exist. But you can’t prove God exists.

From what I’ve seen recently, most atheists will not simply come out and say, “you can’t prove God exists.” Usually they say something like, “I just need some empirical proof, but I haven’t seen it. From what I can tell, I’ve got no evidence that God exists.” This is good because it defines the “problem” of your disbelief (to the Christian, it’s a problem) within yourself, and not as part of the universe. In a sense, you are telling the other person that they can’t prove God exists, but you’re doing it by implication. An implication which says that only God could provide the proof you need to see.

You will get two types of Christians who respond to this. The philosophically minded ones will say “you’re right; I can’t. God must be accepted through faith and he’ll make himself known through revelation.” The atheist may question the usefulness of faith or the reliability of revelation, but that’s simply more to discuss. This kind of a discussion can be productive, although I’ve found it tends to end at an impasse.

The reason it’s dangerous to tell someone that they can’t prove God exists is because they might be the second type. This is the person who is less familiar with the laws of logic. They simply do not see the difference between “prove God exists” and “prove God doesn’t exist”. You can argue all day about the burden of proof, and proving a negative, and all that fun stuff, but when you’re all done, the other person will still not be convinced, not because they’re a stubborn buffoon (although they may be) but because they just don’t understand logic. It’s unfortunate, but it happens.

Try this instead: reaffirm your own position. If they challenge you with “prove God doesn’t exist”, simply acknowledge that it can’t be done, and state that you need God to do x, y, and z (whatever you consider to be the criteria that would convince you), but this hasn’t yet happened, so you find his existence to be highly unlikely. When you tell someone that they can’t prove God does exist, this is really what you’re saying, anyway, so rather than introduce the logical confusion, continue to emphasize your position in a positive manner.

Again, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, it’s not that these points and rebuttals are wrong, but that they usually end up with the discussion wrestling over minutia. An atheist will generally fail to convince any Christian of anything with these arguments, and even if they did, it will only have staying power up to the point where the Christian learns the proper response to satiate their cognitive dissonance. As obvious as they may seem to the atheist, Christians have explanations and rationalizations for these lines, and they’re just not going to be effective in any serious philosophical discussion. Here’s to hoping we can improve the discourse a bit.

-Ted