What arguments will you use to try and show a intelligent religious person, which hasnt seen to much proof that God probably doesnt exist, but may believe that this is the case if you give them good arguments? I know why I dont believe in God (or at least most religions), but I've read a lot of stuff and cant possibly explain all that. I am looking for obvious things that dont make sense in the bible, counter-arguments to some of the stuff such a person may say and so on. For example if they say ''it is probably best to believe in God, because you will suffer all afterlife if there is a God and you didnt believe, but you lose nothing if there isnt one" you can reply with pascal wager. Please post this and other related stuff here.

Disclaimer: I am talking about intelligent people who believe because are raised in a religious family and could have their eyes opened. I for example was a little hazy if I believed or not, but after some(may be a lot) research I did mostly this year, I am an atheist (lurking in this forum helped) and could have become one sooner if someone had given me the right arguments earlier.

Honestly, I think the most sobering thing must probably be to let them see the most stubborn religious debaters in action.

I don't think the goal should be to make anybody an atheist. I think the main goal should be to make people appreciate skepticism.

I am looking more for arguments/facts since if I show such a person something like that they might say that this people just dont understand religion, but this isnt proof of anything.
You are probably right about this.

Well, I'd imagine that we could have basically 1 of 2 scenarios:

1) They've examined their beliefs before. Clearly, their beliefs withstood the test. I doubt you could give them anything now that would change their mind.

2) They haven't yet examined their beliefs. So, make that happen. Just start probing to see if they have an understanding of why they believe and what implications that has for the world (what implications their beliefs have, not what implications them believing has). Then you should either succeed in your mission or you moved your friend into scenario 1.

That's pretty much what did it for me.

the spelling errors in your post make this sort of ironic. (not that we dont all make spelling errors - especially when ur on ur phone)

OP, the book The God Delusion does a decent job of discussing some of the arguments.
Other books that come to mind are God is Not Great, The End of Faith, Breaking the Spell, etc.

One book that might speak more to a religious person is Godless by Dan Barker, a former Evangelical preacher.

tell him to read the bible. if that doesn't turn an intelligent person into atheism then nothing will!

Let me know if you have any success because I've had none. There's something about religion that allows such a breach of logic that a normal person can't even see it. The classic arguments are...

You can't prove god doesn't exists...therefore there is a chance he does.

...to which i say this.....http://atheism.about.com/od/argument...GodScience.htm

2nd argument god is outside of this world therefore has nothing to do with the human mind thus we can't try to comprehend...i.e. faith

it's simple to say if it's outside this world then how do you know anything about it but that doesn't get through. This article explains it better than me.

http://atheism.about.com/od/argument...aithReason.htm

It's very frustrating not to get through to someone intelligent. I might end up breaking up with my gf of 8 years over this religious crap. She takes the stance that we can't know for sure but she has faith thus believes. I'm firm in my stance that there's no evidence to believe in something until evidence shows otherwise. Somehow I'm the close minded person. God help us all.

any stickied links for this?

not that i know of, but look on youtube for.... D'Souza (sp?), Hitchins, Craig, Boyd + debate and you'll find a decent amount then surely more will be linked from those.

For me, as a former Theist, the most compelling arguements against God are not necessarily showing inconsistenies in the Bible etc.

I think you have to take a step further back and ask why did people write religious texts. The fact that there are hundreds of religious writings, from bigger religions, to early Eygptian/Greek/Roman, to creation myths in Africa, South America, Australia etc etc, i believe tells us much more about man's search for answers than anything about a deity/deities.

I believe any idea of a transcendental deity has its roots in man's existential awareness of his own mortality. It is an external manifistation of an internal need for protection and meaning, a necessary mental creation by all early civilisations when they began their search for answers.

Some influences that i can think of right now are Freud

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_an_Illusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civiliz...ts_Discontents

Ernest Becker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death

Seriously.... before you decide to get into a debate with "a intelligent person"... you may want to work on your grammar a bit.

Also... what you are wanting to do is largely the reason atheist are put out with religious people. You are wanting to go change peoples ways of thinking to be the same as yours.
That's not much different than me wanting to witness to you and get you saved.

Perhaps you should concentrate on your own beliefs and not worry so much about trying to convince others that their way of thinking or believing is wrong.

but the bible specifically tells you to try and convert people, so...

I never said the debate will be in English as English is not my first language.

Pretty much agree with this. Proselytizing is kind of ugly if its not in an opened discussion debate type of environment.

Impossible

If someone is intelligent they should realise just how unintelligent they(context:mind) actually are and realise that God is logical. Intelligent people should also realise that any quantified or expressed or imagined definition of god is merely personification and semantic of such logic.

So before you go ahead with your almighty discussion of what intelligent people believe look at your own intelligence and realise that relative to whatever God may be it is blind/pathetic and incredibly (infinitely)finite, and so worship to god should be done in whatever form you wish.

How would any atheist convince me that God is not omnipresent, omniscient, malevolence (as i call 'karmatime')? And how could any theist convince me that God is words in a book or anything more than personifications based of imagination? You couldn't, How do you convince yourselves? It is other people which convince you, God would logically be closest to the average of all communicated definitions- the ridiculous and disproved. God should be undefined but not unknown, which is just a small part of the huge paradox that is life and the universe.

you Will never convince anyone who WANTS to believe that they are wrong.

this thread is for atheists, please do not post Ducwidt

Pascal's Wager is so incredibly inept and pointless from a logical point of view.

you know an intelligent creationist? Or is it a hypothetical question?

FWIW, I've found it quite useful in teaching innumerate people what EV means and why it can be correct to bet when you expect to lose.

You are correct! That's why I encourage them to keep reading the bible, not get some theologian to interpret it for them.

attending a catholic university that forced me to take religion classes worked for me...

Yeah I agree it's useful for teaching EV, but not as an argument for believing in god.