Atheist name wanted
I suspect most of us have an agnostic in our lives; some of us have the misfortune of having an atheist in our lives. Yes, I have just been subjected to another humorously misinformed diatribe against Christianity which, like most such diatribes, rails against a very narrow (but unrepresentative) sliver of Christianity of Christianity as if it were the whole of or at least representative of the Christian world. I'd like to up the intelligence of the atheist arguments that the atheist in my life makes. Do you have any suggestions for books, videos, or web sites of an atheist who genuinely understands Christianity? Or at least some apologetic works within Logos that spar against a worthy opponent?
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Anthony Flew comes to mind. He was a famous atheist philosopher, the son of a minister, so he understood the Christian faith well, but had concluded by the age of 15 that God did not exist. However later in life he converted to a position of Deism. Reading some of his later writing, and/or that of his friend Gary Habermas who helped convince him, might help nudge your interlocutor along.
Another possibility might be the apologist William Lane Craig who has engaged in dialogue with famous New Atheist Christopher Hitchens. Or you might check out this book: https://www.logos.com/product/53681/the-faith-of-christopher-hitchens-the-restless-soul-of-the-worlds-most-notorious-atheist or this one by the same author: https://www.logos.com/product/19531/the-grace-effect-how-the-power-of-one-life-can-reverse-the-corruption-of-unbelief
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Dan Barker, especially Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists
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MJ. Smith said:
... rails against a very narrow (but unrepresentative) sliver of Christianity of Christianity as if it were the whole of or at least representative of the Christian world.
Obviously, I can't comment on the railer. But it's not easy to answer your query ... what would be representative? The 'fundementals'? Not being picky, but the opposite 'side' is even worse ... in defending what one perceives to be Christianity? In the old days, it'd be 'the Church'.
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Rosie Perera said:
Anthony Flew comes to mind. He was a famous atheist philosopher, the son of a minister, so he understood the Christian faith well, but had concluded by the age of 15 that God did not exist. However later in life he converted to a position of Deism. Reading some of his later writing, and/or that of his friend Gary Habermas who helped convince him, might help nudge your interlocutor along.
Another possibility might be the apologist William Lane Craig who has engaged in dialogue with famous New Atheist Christopher Hitchens. Or you might check out this book: https://www.logos.com/product/53681/the-faith-of-christopher-hitchens-the-restless-soul-of-the-worlds-most-notorious-atheist or this one by the same author: https://www.logos.com/product/19531/the-grace-effect-how-the-power-of-one-life-can-reverse-the-corruption-of-unbelief
Speaking of Habermas....Mike Licona is another apologist that works with Habermas a lot.
Gary Habermas:
https://www.logos.com/search?query=gary%20habermas&sortBy=Relevance&limit=60&page=1&ownership=all&geographicAvailability=availableToMe
Craig:
https://www.logos.com/search?query=William%20Lane%20Craig&sortBy=Relevance&limit=60&page=1&ownership=all&geographicAvailability=availableToMe
Craig argues mostly from the Kalam Cosmological Argument.
Possible other sources:
https://www.logos.com/product/46390/christian-dialogue-with-world-religions-and-atheism-collection
Craig Keener does some apologetics work on miracles and Christological defense:
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Habermas' website: http://www.garyhabermas.com/
Licona website: https://www.risenjesus.com/
William Lane Craig: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/
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Without wishing to muddy the waters, it probably also depends on your atheist's generation/culture. I ran some sessions on apologetics in my own church and different generations reacted differently to various apologists. Boomers loved William Lane Craig and his slam-dunk approach, but the Millennials couldn't abide him. The Millennials, on the other hand, loved John Lennox and his avuncular, dialogical approach and Amy Orr-Ewing's gentler, more respectful approach.
Lennox is an Oxford Mathematics professor, but an excellent apologist, and quite a bit by him is available in Logos. If you can get access to it, his Oxford debate with Richard Dawkins is an excellent example of someone gently but intelligently rebutting the standard atheist tropes. I had a quick look, but can't find it available online - I have the DVD.
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Rosie Perera said:
Anthony Flew comes to mind. He was a famous atheist philosopher, the son of a minister, so he understood the Christian faith well, but had concluded by the age of 15 that God did not exist. However later in life he converted to a position of Deism. Reading some of his later writing, and/or that of his friend Gary Habermas who helped convince him, might help nudge your interlocutor along.
His debate with Habermas is available in Logos too.
Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate | Logos Bible Software
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GregW said:
If you can get access to it, his Oxford debate with Richard Dawkins is an excellent example of someone gently but intelligently rebutting the standard atheist tropes. I had a quick look, but can't find it available online - I have the DVD.
Agree with the comment and it is easily found online with Lennox Dawkins Debate.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Dave Hooton said:GregW said:
If you can get access to it, his Oxford debate with Richard Dawkins is an excellent example of someone gently but intelligently rebutting the standard atheist tropes. I had a quick look, but can't find it available online - I have the DVD.
Agree with the comment and it is easily found online with Lennox Dawkins Debate.
I wasn't aware of this one.
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Thomas B. Waren debated Anthony Flew and the debate was written up in the "Warren - Flew Debate". Thomas B. Warren defended the Christian faith so well in that book.
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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Go to the sources of intellectual atheism, is my advice. Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, is from where most of today's cultural atheism stems. Immanuel Kant made atheism the intellectual stance of academia in the public sphere (this is why after Hegel, universities in the West have to bracket faith as something extracurricular, or beyond the scope of what is academically scrutable in the realm of higher education. William Desmond has written and spoken on this to masterful effect). See how Kant separates faith from the intellectual functions of the mind--"I had to deny reason in order to make room for faith," is his famous concession (from one of his prefaces to a later edition of The Critique of Pure Reason I think). Feuerbach merely takes this observation and draws out its natural conclusions for the claims of Christianity.
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I agree. What instinctively came to mind for me was Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am not a Christian". But I always regarded the argument as largely a straw person argument that has grown increasingly irrelevant over the years. However, it is interesting to me that he also mentions Kant.
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Thank you all - I think I have some productive starting points of threads to pull. My personal favorite agnostic/atheist is Gautama Buddha who was trying to find Truth without the assistance of revelation. He concluded that the purely human search for God was unproductive and therefore should be ignored.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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xnman said:
Thomas B. Waren debated Anthony Flew and the debate was written up in the "Warren - Flew Debate". Thomas B. Warren defended the Christian faith so well in that book.
And in that debate, if I’m not mistaken, Anthony G. Flew claimed to be an Agnostic not necessarily an Atheist.
DAL
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MJ. Smith said:
Thank you all - I think I have some productive starting points of threads to pull. My personal favorite agnostic/atheist is Gautama Buddha who was trying to find Truth without the assistance of revelation. He concluded that the purely human search for God was unproductive and therefore should be ignored.
I have many additional resources both in Logos and in my print library beyond the many excellent titles shared by others above. My own book (The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge) in Logos has notes on apologetics at 2 Peter 1:16 and Acts 12:12.
Available in Logos is the book by attorney W, Mark Lanier, Atheism on Trial.0 -
If I ever have an atheist, I'll name him Fred.
macOS (Logos Pro - Beta) | Android 13 (Logos Stable)
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Robert M. Warren said:
If I ever have an atheist, I'll name him Fred.
I'd name mine Al. AlAtheist (truth-seeker, from aletheia = truth in Greek).
(that's a lower-case L, not an upper case i)
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Rosie Perera said:
I'd name mine Al. AlAtheist (truth-seeker, from aletheia = truth in Greek).
(that's a lower-case L, not an upper case i)
I like it! I have a good friend whose daughter's name is Alethia.
For God and For Neighbor
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JBR said:Rosie Perera said:
I'd name mine Al. AlAtheist (truth-seeker, from aletheia = truth in Greek).
(that's a lower-case L, not an upper case i)
I like it! I have a good friend whose daughter's name is Alethia.
I wrote a short piece in seminary on the meaning of truth (difference between the Greek word aletheia and the Hebrew word emeth) drawing on Kittel and on Wolfhart Pannenberg's “What is Truth?” in Basic Questions in Theology. I'm still waiting (since 2010) for Logos to get that title. It was a good read, that chapter. Would love to see more of the book.
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Check out the stuff in Logos by Alister McGrath. I have:
The Dawkins Delusion
Intellectuals Don't Need God and Other Modern Myths
Why God Won't Go Away: Engaging with the New Atheism
If I recall, McGrath teaches at Oxford, so most will find his writings to be, intellectually, a step above popular-level apologetics.
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MJ. Smith said:
Do you have any suggestions for books, videos, or web sites of an atheist who genuinely understands Christianity?
This doesn't exactly match the criteria of what you're looking for, it's not exactly "apologetic" in nature. This may help in terms of understanding some of the reasons the person is an atheist. If you haven't heard of Charles Templeton, he was best friends with Billy Graham and started Youth for Christ with him. I would argue that he understood Christianity quite well, but eventually died an atheist. Might be worth the read to maybe help understand your friends worldview, if nothing else.
One thing I would suggest anyone watch is this video:
(2) A Christian Role-Plays an Atheist to a Group of Christians (Then Reveals Who He Is!) - YouTube
I don't follow Sean McDowell as much as I wish I could, but this video is very very insightful and I go back to it every so often.
I don't really have anything else to add aside from the standard apologists who have already been mentioned. Aside from that on the atheist side the standard: Hitchens, Ehrman, etc.This may sound ridiculous, but I would argue that you're undertaking an impossible mission... Mission Impossible, if you will. I would contend that an atheist who "genuinely understands Christianity" doesn't really exist, because they end up being a Christian. Though I'll admit this is anecdotal and really only speaks to the little corner of the world that I live in. I've personally had a hard time finding decent apologetics from "the other side" in my search, but I've really only watched mainstream debates. I've never read the other side's books (aside from Ehrman, but idk if I'd actually even count that)
One thing that may help... when you wish to talk to your atheist friend, what areas of apologetics do you think will come up the most? This may help us narrow down some resources.0 -
Frank Hodges said:
This may sound ridiculous, but I would argue that you're undertaking an impossible mission... Mission Impossible, if you will. I would contend that an atheist who "genuinely understands Christianity" doesn't really exist, because they end up being a Christian.
You misunderstand my mission. My goal is not to convince my acquaintance of the truth of Christianity, my goal is to help her not look like an ignorant, bigoted idiot on the subject. That may sound odd but often the first step is helping someone do no more harm. I've not known an atheist who understands Christianity but I have known agnostics and perennial philosophy people who do but I recognize most people in these forums would not call them Christian.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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