Evidence for God and What about the “New” Atheists?

The wonderful 3 Mormons:

 

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Let’s start with this series of short, 5-minute videos from Prager University. 21 videos total are available in Prager’s Religion/Philosophy section.  Consider subscribing to this YouTube channel.

Dennis Mark Prager is an American conservative and nationally syndicated radio talk show host, columnist, author, and public speaker.

He’s also a believing Jew.  Of course, LDS people don’t share all specific beliefs with Dennis.  However, we do have much in common.  Including most of the following beliefs about God, evil, morality, free will, etc.

 

Blake Ostler, an LDS attorney and philosopher, shares many of his insights relative to the nature of God in over 20 podcasts found here at “Exploring Mormon Thought”.

One is linked below.  Please review all his others.  They’re awesome and insightful!

Ostler explains how one can know truth from spiritual experiences:

 

Alvin Plantinga, perhaps the world’s leading religious philosopher, discusses the position that all religions can’t logically be simultaneously true.  Alvin is not LDS.

John Lennox articulates the differences between faiths, especially between the 3 major monotheistic religions.

Judaism believes Jesus died, but didn’t rise.  Islam believes Jesus didn’t die.  And Christianity believes Jesus both died and rose.  1 of these 3 (or none) is correct.  All 3 are not correct.

Thoughtful Ravi discusses why he believes Christianity is the true faith.

Ravi is great in a question-and-answer format:

New Atheism

In my experience, the climate today with strident new atheists makes people who leave faith feel more supported, trendy, and smarter. It’s ridiculous, but seems to be the case.

The atheists arguments are no different (and in many cases worse) than in C.S. Lewis’ day. Yet, most people have no idea.

They usually haven’t gotten to the bottom of things till years into their journey at which time things look pretty bleak.

Classical atheists were sad that God didn’t exist and owned that the outlook was completely miserable. New atheists are strangely glib and sometimes ecstatic in their claim that there’s no God. They seem to forget that — according to all previous atheists — life is bleak and meaningless in the absence of God.

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No ultimate meaning, despite finding meaning week to week in subjective and personal choices month to month. New atheism is a pop-cultural phenomenon.

Richard Dawkins (perhaps the most famous atheist in the world today), outside the pop culture, is ridiculed by academics for his poor arguments and avoidance of past obstacles. But your cousin who left faith doesn’t understand any of this. He thinks he’s smarter than you, you dummie!

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I have an atheist/agnostic friend who used to be a full-on LDS-hating atheist. Now, after a few years of cooling down, kinda hopes for God, but still rails against the Church. He just can’t let go of his critical interpretations. Most (85%) of our doubts are emotional doubts.

This fellow, William Lane Craig, is a wonderful creedal Christian defender comments on new atheism:

Discussing the most significant cultural challenges to belief in our society: