Atheists/ Agnostics only please.?

Question

I will be going to see my friends pastor, and i would like to have certain issues to discuss with him. I want him to explain to me for example, predestination, and evolution... What can i ask or debate over? What could i possibly ask him that might leave him without an answer or that might be difficult to answer?

I am agnostic.

Thanks for your help

Answer 1

Whenever they don't have an answer, they tell you something similar to one of these things:

1. You have to have faith
2. God is beyond our logic
3. Whatever God does is good

If you can get one of those, you know it's a good argument.

Answer 2

How can god be all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing?
Ask why god allows bad/evil things to happen. He will respond with the usual "free will" argument. To which you respond by asking about natural disasters and disease. To which he may respond with the typical "obstacle course" argument (i.e. a test of faith or character). THEN you go in for the kill. Say that if you gave a 4 year old girl a genetic disease to 'test or improve her family's character' he would think you were a vile person, so why not think that way of god?

Another:
If he brings up the Bible as being symbolic in some places such as the Genesis account of creation, bring up the fact that it was taken as literal truth for centuries; and that the general rule for whether or not a particular passage is symbolic or literal is whether or not it has been proven impossible by science and/or logic.

Ask if prayers being answers is proof for god, are unanswered prayers proof there is no god? Lots of believers like to count the hits and ignore the misses.

Why did Jesus cure a blind man but not cure blindness?

If he does not accept evolution, he will undoubtedly say he believes 'micro-evolution'. Proceed to ask where there exists an observed barrier where change over time can not pass a certain point.

If he says something like "can bou seriously believe all this happened by chance?" or "the chances of X happening are Y" then inform him that the chances of anything that has already happened happening are exactly 1; and he is misusing statistics. Shuffle a deck of cards, the odds of those cards ending up in the order they did are less than 1 in 8x10^67.

If he believes in a young earth, ask why has god made the earth and universe look so old? In Romans is says you will know god by what is created, so why does what is created tell us the earth and universe are old? Ask if he seriously wants to call god a deceiver.

If he makes an argument from design, point out that 98% of all species that have existed are now extinct. Ask him to explain the perfect designer's abysmal failure rate.

Answer 3

If he is willing to deny evolution, then no amount of evidence or reasoning will help the discussion. Still, I could give him this food for thought:

The universe is fourteen billion years old and contains more stars and planets than there are grains of sand on the earth. Humans are only one of millions of species on this planet, and we are a relatively new arrival. The complexity of the universe as science has revealed it, in which earth is merely a speck of dust, is considerable.

Why reduce existence to religions created a mere 2,000 years ago, by a few male homo sapiens who didn't understand the universe, who created deities with the same emotional predispositions as their own, and who perpetuated their beliefs in the name of "faith," often with coercion and violence? The Bible says that stars are mere decoration and that plants came before light, obvious errors.

Why would a god require faith in a universe where so much is available for people who wish to learn about, if they do so without emotional biases? How could the god of the bible call for stoning workers on the Sabbath or burning a human city (Sodom) when it created a universe with billions of galaxies, that is by every measure indifferent to human conceits? Doesn't the awe inspired by our universe surpass the simple answers given by holy books?

Answer 4

I would ask him if god already knows me before I was born, then why can't I live like I want to without intimidation from christians, and since god knew me, and knew I don't believe in him, why does his followers keep trying to introduce me to him?

...and meat bot...that thing about god doing good things...when a tornado rips through a trailer park and injures and kills many people, why doesn't god get the credit for it?

I think I've heard some of the people thanking god for saving their lives although their trailer is gone...what do they think? Who is responsible for that storm?

Answer 5

if god has a plan for all of us then life is predestined and if life is predestined then we have no free will and if we have no free will how can a loving god send us for hell for being part of his plan?

any illusionist/magician worth his salt can do what jesus did so what makes him so special?

there are tons of holy books for other deities yet you don't believe in them so why believe in a deity because a book tells you the deity exists?

if being gay is wrong and such is found in leviticus then why don't you follow all the other rules and regulations set down in leviticus? how's the shellfish industry by the way?
if he answers that times have changed or jesus changed the old ways then ask: well then why is homosexuality still seen as wrong?

why would such a god allow certain evils such as slavery and sexism to continue to exist when they are seen now as wrong why not just tell them not to do it?
if answered: it was meant for people of a different time then ask: why then haven't the laws changed again?

Answer 6

Take a printed copy of this:
http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/jews-jesus/jews-jesus-index.html

If he tries to pull Isaiah 53, point out that 53 is actually incorrectly separated from 52, and then point out that 52 is specifically talking about the Jewish People themselves, not the messiah.

But frankly -- why bother dude? Leave well enough alone. If you don't like the idea of seeing him, then don't go see him.

Answer 7

I have talked to several pastors and reverends and I find that it is best to just listen to them and ask general questions that you'd like to hear them explain from their point of view. Don't try to stump them, it's pointless. It all comes down to faith. They need no proof to hold their beliefs.
It was my final conversation with my own pastor the convinced me that there was no God.

Answer 8

Consider why you have no arguments of your own, yet you go to see someone for the purpose of debate. Who forces you to see this pastor? Are they really your friends or do you just want to fit in? Perhaps you want to hurt these people? Try reading "The Little Prince" to find out what really matters in this existence.

Answer 9

It seems kind of obnoxious to go and pick a fight with a pastor. Is this the planned purpose for this meeting? Does he know that's what you'll be doing?

Just ask him why god hates the Jets.

Answer 10

Ask him this....

1.If Adam and Eve only had two sons, and one was killed, where did everybody else come from????

2. With the hundreds of translations, changes, edits, chapters added, chapters removed, how can anyone look to the bible as fact or truth?

Answer 11

What purpose would the argument be for? To change their mind? To make them realize they were stupid? I've tried that before and I realized that I was the one who was in the wrong. They were being respectful and I argued with them mostly just for argument sake. And if you are agnostic technically you should be neutral on most things. Agnostic does mean "don't know" (the truth) after all.