› ›

How to prove that God exists without the bible to someone

copticuser20copticuser20
edited December 1969 in Personal Issues
I haven't encountered this conversation with anyone yet but I know it's bound to happen sometime soon. 

So we believe in the Bible and that everything in it is fact. So it is easy (or easier) to convince someone (such as a Protestant) that your argument is true, for example our God is the true God.

Now how do you convince someone who doesn't believe in our God (an atheist, a hindu etc) that God created the world or even that He exists without using the Bible.

They obviously won't take the Bible as valid because the religion is fake in their eyes right? It's like a Hindu pointing to their book trying to prove that we get reincarnated into cows because this one guy in their fake book did. We wouldn't believe them, so how would they believe us if most of our arguments come from the Bible?

Thank you!

Comments

  • IoannesIoannes
    Read "Reasonable Christianity: A Response to Scientific Atheism". You can get it on amazon.com for like $8 or so. I have an ebook version if you would like that, it answers quite a bit.
  • RemnkemiRemnkemi
    [quote author=copticuser20 link=topic=13212.msg154903#msg154903 date=1335230713]
    Now how do you convince someone who doesn't believe in our God (an atheist, a hindu etc) that God created the world or even that He exists without using the Bible.

    They obviously won't take the Bible as valid because the religion is fake in their eyes right? It's like a Hindu pointing to their book trying to prove that we get reincarnated into cows because this one guy in their fake book did. We wouldn't believe them, so how would they believe us if most of our arguments come from the Bible?


    The first part of the answer is simple. Prove the existence of God through their own holy book. God is truth. The Trinity manifests Himself to all people. If you look hard enough, you will find passages in the Quran/Haditha, the Veda in Hindusim, the Tapitaka in Buddhism, Nag Hammadi Gnostic library in Gnosticism, the Classics books in Confucianism, the Avesta in Zoroastrianism, the Talmud and Tanakh in Judaism, and so on. All of these scriptures point to the Trinity (mostly in a very subtle form) because the Trinity is Truth.

    This leads me to the second part, which is infinitely harder. One needs to educate himself in what these religions actually teach, not what you heard from someone or from Sunday School. If you talk to a Hindu with the premise that their book says people will be reincarnated into cows, you're only going to prove your own ignorance. As Wikipedia says, "Hinduism does not have a "unified system of belief encoded in declaration of faith or a creed", but is rather an umbrella term comprising the plurality of religious phenomena originating and based on the Vedic traditions." They try to explain religious phenomena in various ways. It's easier to discuss the Resurrection of Christ and eternal life with the Hindu because he already has a philosophy of explaining religious phenomena, not a creed.

    This is only one example. The most important thing to remember is Orthodoxy is the only fully, complete faith based on Truth. The other religions have tidbits of truth that point to the Trinity. These might convince a non-Christian to believe in Orthodoxy.

    Atheism and Agnosticism is a totally different game. They have no intention of believing in God. As Ioannes said, you might be able to convince them of the existence of God through science. But more often than not, the scientific community, process and philosophy has developed to exclude God from any "real" science. Scientific method, by definition, is unable to prove or disprove infinity. So you're not going to go far with these people.

    Finally, "the effective, fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much" James 5:16. You need to pray to God that God will open their hearts to accept Him.
  • Mark96Mark96
    I know how to prove that Christ died and resurrected without the bible, if that helps?
  • peter_saadpeter_saad
    [quote author=Athanasius1 link=topic=13212.msg155727#msg155727 date=1337318879]
    I know how to prove that Christ died and resurrected without the bible, if that helps?
    Can you explain?
  • Mark96Mark96
    Well, It took my priest a hour to present it but I can give you the main elements:
    1. Christ's death - confirmed that when spear hit Him both water and blood came out - backed up by a highly respected medical journal; written by an atheist
    2. The Empty Tomb - including factors like the heavy stone being up the hill not down when removed and the linen that Christ was wrapped in being burnt with such great energy, unable to produced by anything and more; all accounted by 3 people but one being Josephus
    3. The Disciples Confidence - After Jesus died the Disciples were hiding in the upper parts of their houses and after Jesus appears to them they display such great self-confidence in preaching and spreading his word; risking their lives, travelling to far countries etc

    Forgive me, its very vague but I could get a hold of the presentation for you if you like?
  • peter_saadpeter_saad
    I don't understand. All these things are in the bible
  • Mark96Mark96
    The events obivously are but the evidence isn't..
  • George_Mina_Awad
    [quote author=peter_saad link=topic=13212.msg155770#msg155770 date=1337401387]
    I don't understand. All these things are in the bible


  • sordoeht
    We are limited for giving proof to the existence of God even with the Holy Bible, but one important thing that we can provide is evidence for the existence of God. The most crucial evidence for me is, I haven’t seen an atheistic civilization in recorded history in the entire world and this fact leads us to the conclusion that we humans whether we are born in India, Antarctica, Africa or during the Mayan, ancient Egyptian or Sumerian era, our heart crave for supernatural being and strongly believes there is a higher being than us which tells us that some supernatural being encrypted his presence deep in our heart no matter who we are. The other evidence is our universe is proposed to have a beginning since the 20th century and what is the cause of this beginning? If I am an atheist, I would say nothing caused it and how could nothing can cause something? And also if we think about it this something is not only highly complex and sophisticated but gave rise to the majestic and complicated stars, solar systems and intriguingly complex life like us and common sense can tell us that nothing shouldn’t cause something; there should be something that caused the universe and if there is no God, there should exist nothing, no universe no life, nothing, but critics might argue what caused the supernatural, but the honest answer is that we claim that the supernatural is outside of this reality and outside of the universe we don’t know, let alone in this universe, we even didn’t explore 1% of  it, how could we raise questions which is outside of it.
    Last but not least, our universe is fine-tuned universe, especially for life to exist, I am not a physicist to give the details, but most scientists agree it is fine-tuned universe, so who fine-tuned it? Do they really want us to believe that mere chance or luck fine-tuned it? I mean simple basic mathematics tells us that anything which has a probability of  less than 1 in 1000 could be considered as a chance, but above it, It is either orchestrated or designed, but the probability for the fine tuning is not in thousands or billions or even trillions, but 1 in 10 raise to 125,  we didn’t even designate a name for 10 raise to 125, but for us science shouldn’t dictate us to give evidence for our beliefs, but faith and reason our most powerful tools to guide us in  our spirituality and ways of life. I know most atheists and agnostics stumble in these three questions and the moral code that is encrypted in our heart, but I haven’t heard of any satisfying atheistic explanation for them and there are many evidences that can be presented by other people, but sometimes pure reasons doesn’t persuade our heart, unless God wills it, but the one thing we can do is, we can protect ourselves from deceptive questions that can lead us to question our faith.
  • CopticSoldierCopticSoldier
    Scripturally, the knowledge of the existence of God, is from God's self-revelation to someone who is willing and ready to hear.

    More than anything else God is the one who converts the souls of men.  He does this with beauty, when someone sees, touches or tastes God, they want no other food or nourishment.

    I remember at my parish we had a mission meeting when we used to invite people to come and find out about the Church.  I was just starting to come back to Church at this time from a long time away.

    I was asked by the priest to come because there was difficult guest who kept coming and arguing with people and asking for proofs.

    He was trying to stack the room with people who could answer her questions.  I went along and I remember her getting quite ruffled when speaking with the other attendees.  They were getting quite ruffled in return.  I remember vaguely an explanation which I gave her of how God would have been dealing with her all her life.

    I told her about the human heart as the centre of our experience of God and that God speaks to us.  God speaks to us inwardly and we meet Him there. 

    I told her how Christ is always knocking on the door of the heart and He comes in if we open for Him.

    Then she cottoned on and asked if I was referring to the conscience.  I told her that the conscience can sometimes be the voice of God but it is a part of our human so it is broken and corrupted like the rest of us when we life without God.

    It was very strange because I didn't give her a set of rational proofs, I tried to explain to her from experience that God has always been there but she mightn't have been listening.

    If you can give an explanation of God's presence more often than not we're pandering to people's egos and their need to be convinced which isn't really how God is known.  God is known by people who surrender themselves to have knowledge about Him, to have it as a Son or Daughter.

    Each person will want to find something different in Christ because each of us is different.  We should ask God to reveal it to us so we can help reveal Him to that person.

    If you're looking for a good place to hear conversion stories you should check out the illumined heart podcasts on ancient faith radio.  They regularly invite people from different backgrounds to come and share how they found Orthodoxy and this includes a number of people from eastern religions, new age movements, protestantism and so on.

    The person who conducts the podcast actually compiled a catechism course specifically for people from eastern religions.  He himself is a convert from Hinduism and he has a catechism class of 5 people who are awaiting conversion.

    If you have time you should check out these podcasts, some of them are quite powerful:

    http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/illuminedheart
    http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/illuminedheart/catechizing_new_age_and_eastern_religion_seekers
Sign In or Register to comment.