What Would You Say to an Atheist?

Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

J.D. Greear

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 630 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2019

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pastor J.D. shares four questions that are helpful to start a conversation with our atheist friends, neighbors, and coworkers.

A glimpse inside this episode:

Atheists have many questions for Christians. But they have to answer a lot of questions, too. For instance:

Blow the roof off approach (Francis Schaeffer)

What about origins?

Dawkins says, “Darwin’s theory works for biology, but not for cosmology (or, ultimate origins).”
In God Delusion, Dawkins admits this is a problem. He says, “Cosmology is waiting on its Darwin.”
- In other words, he thinks that while they have explained how life took shape on the earth, he admits they still have no idea where life itself, or the materials that produced life, came from.
- We need a theory, he says, as to why anything exists.
- Because it is self-evident that nothing times nobody can’t equal everything.
Then he says, but don’t worry. We’ll figure it out eventually. That’s what we call a blind faith leap!

What about design?

Goldilocks principle (Our world is ideally designed to sustain life, “not too hot, not too cold, just right”.)
CO2
Tilt of the earth
Water molecule

What about evil?

If we are only biology and chemistry, there’s no such thing as true justice, only useful strategies for preserving our kind.
For atheists, a statement like, “You really ought to” or “ought not to” doesn’t really have any meaning.
- (This doesn’t mean they can’t be moral, just that their morality lacks a consistent intellectual foundation.)
- The only way we can say that something is unjust is if we appeal to a higher vision of how it ought to be.
Big deal when it comes to justice?

What about personhood and personality?

Christopher Hitchens example
Steve Jobs example

What about Jesus?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	LifeWay Leadership Podcast Network.
0:06.5	Hey, this is J.D. Before we jump in to ask me anything for today, I want to tell you about something I'm pretty excited about. You know, small groups typically meet once a week. I would imagine a lot of you are involved in a small group I am, but life happens every day. And that's why Lifeway created the daily discipleship guide.
0:21.6	It's a new addition to the Bible Studies for Life curriculum
0:24.1	that gets used at the weekly meeting to help generate discussion.
0:27.3	It also contains five daily devotionals
0:29.6	that will reinforce the learning that you're doing all week long.
0:32.6	It's going to give you a consistent time in God's word
0:35.0	that's going to help you create the habit of daily Bible reading.
0:38.4	There are a few things as valuable in my spiritual life as daily getting into the Word of God.
0:43.5	It's an essential behavior for growing disciples.
0:45.8	And so I'm excited about this resource and they're a big part of our podcast here and help
0:48.9	of making it possible.
0:50.0	So if you'll go to Bible Studies for Life.com slash DDG,
0:54.6	you can download four free sessions there of the daily disciples of God,
0:57.7	and I promise you you won't be sorry.
0:59.8	And now I hope you enjoy.
1:01.2	Ask me anything. Ask Me Anything with Pastor J.D. Greer. I am your host, Matt Love. And J.D., I'm actually
1:24.6	very interested in this question today because we've been doing something around the summit, who's your one, really putting an emphasis on kind of building relationships with people that are far from God.
1:33.1	And I think when Christians think about meeting friends that aren't Christians, talking to people that don't believe the same things they believe, one of the scariest, one of the scariest or potential interactions is with someone who says, I don't
1:44.9	believe in God at all. I'm an atheist. I feel like we all kind of have that moment of like,
1:48.0	okay, I don't know what to do with that? Right. So the question today is just how do you
1:52.2	respond to somebody who is an atheist? It says, I don't believe in God at all. How do you engage
	...

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