Bishop Barron on Atheists at the CNN Belief Blog 

As a Roman Catholic, it's great to see that you also reference clergy of other Christian denominations, such as the Anglican priest John Polkinghorne. I have his book "Questions of Truth" and it's great. Once again, I'm giving this video a thumbs up for your ecumenical effort :)

Thank you Bishop Barron for the well-articulated wake up call! I needed to hear this message. Count on my unceasing prayers for your courage, resilience and strength to keep doing the great work through your WordOnFire ministry!

@Renshato But friend, you're begging the question. There aren't many people who believe in unicorns, precisely because such a belief is entirely unwarranted. Has it occured to you that so many people believe in God, precisely because there are good, rational grounds for holding that belief?

Love you, Bishop Robert Barron!

Oh brother! You have to be kidding. Absolutely no church has been more thoroughly attacked in the wider culture than the Catholic Church. Notice, please, on which page of the paper are the accounts of child sex abuse by Protestant ministers, and then compare it to the page on which the accounts of child sex abuse by Catholic priests ends up. And then explain how this "coddled and protected" Church has been forced to pay out over a billion dollars in restitution.

May GOD bless you and your ministry Bishop Barron

Friend, I just don't get your point. I don't see how praying for anyone is disrespectful.

Fr. Barron, as a new Catholic, your videos have been a great to my faith especially in providing an intellectual foundation. I also admire your respectful manner in responding to vitriolic critiques. I think it's defensible to say that if atheism is true, then it's truth is a parody of truth as truth holds no significance in a universe without mind or morality. Mind and morality walk with truth in giving meaning to existence. Atheism depends on this trinity to form a sustainable argument. The implications follow...

I don't see how the difficulty of making an intellectual decision has much to do with the truth or falsity of that move. The argument from desire that I am proposing is not a matter of "wishful thinking." It is grounded in the fact that we do indeed desire the unconditioned good, true, and beautiful. Therefore we have at least an inchoate understaning of that reality. But the properly unconditioned cannot be merely subjective, for that would render it conditioned.

As far as criticism of New Atheism goes, I'd highly recommend David Bentley Hart.

oh my, that was great! I will re watch and share this. Thanks Bishop.

@wordonfirevideo Just wanted to say love your videos. Keith Ward and Alister Mcgrath both said they were originally atheist because it was the fashionable way to think. Keith Ward described the fact that there are many atheist in Europe not as an intellectual movement based on reason but a social mood based on anti-religious and anti-theistic ideologies or indifference. There are atheist who take these topics seriously but they don't get too much media attention. Thought I'd add that.

No. My argument was far more pointed than that. I maintained that Hitchens's deep and abiding passion for justice was, in point of fact, a passion for God, since God is properly characterized as unconditioned justice.

Back a few years in Boston as a young adult involved in a number of groups, the largest contingent of committed christians came from MIT, BU and Harvard and we had quite a few in the biomedical sciences, engineering, etc. These are now Deans and prominent scientists in academia and industry around the country and continue strong in their faith. I, as many scientists, have found one's daily search for God to be similar to a search for truth in the physical world. My faith actually makes my science more innovative as I don't feel always bound by what is known but am prodded to take the next step-- always searching. I find that the most ardent atheists are sometimes limited in their science because they are tied too much to the existing world of literature. They can be quite successful; many are great 'industrial' scientists with great productivity, but they could be better if they opened their mind and their souls.

I saw Father Barron's video about Hitchens. He actually admired Hitchens because he was one of Father Barron's influences. He wasn't saying that he was going to "pray for that atheists soul that it may not be damned to hell" but rather to pray for his health.

Excellent

I don’t know if this will reach Bishop Barron or not, but the church needs to go back to tradition, I came from Brazil, when people is definitely losing their faith due to the modernization of mass, the parish I’m in now in Texas brought me back to faith because it’s way more traditional, I dare to say we should go back to Pious V rites for the mass. Last but not least, we need to rise the bar in apologetics and catechism, as John Paul II said, we have to be true to the faith, even if we become 12 again.

Have you watched some of Keith Ward's videos about QM and religion? If not I encourage you to do so. He talks about topics his physicist colleagues tell him about QM and how the language they use to describe some of the things they study is a lot closer to the language theologians use to describe God than most realize. Not that QM "proves" or "confirms" God but it sympathizes with the idea of realities beyond space time.

My humble thoughts: To study these matters to a degree that would allow one to intellectually spar with a well educated person would require much time - possibly several classes or even a college degree. There are so many philosophers and theologians, ancient and modern, with so many points, counter points, and counter counter points. However, some errors I’ve noted in these discourses is a lack of focus. To prove that a noncontingent creator exists is an entirely different argument than proving if a book or story is true. If I were to go to a bookstore religion section and pick out a few dozen books and claim that they are all true and put them in my collection (or bible) and then state that every other book in the store is false, no one would believe me. In debates about the existence of God, I’ve observed people attempting to logically prove God then using a bible story to prove it. These are two different topics or arguments. I’m also interested in the upbringing of atheists. I’ve never heard someone say they were raised by a very loving, kind, caring, intelligent, and religious person, and they vehemently disagree with everything about that person’s beliefs. Atheists usually give a story of being raised by atheists or a close childhood contact with a strict or unloving religious relative or teacher. And now they disagree with all of their beliefs - which would be expected. So I wonder if the disagreement is solely logic based or if there’s a deeper psychologic driver.

There is a Christmas song called, 'O come, O come, Emmanuel, and one of the verses starts off with, 'O come, desire of nations. Bind in one the hearts of all mankind.' This describes beautifully that God is desired by all people and it's this desire that can ultimately bind us together as one. People need to know that God is love. Atheists need to know that the love, peace, and joy they are searching for is in Jesus Christ. God, is the love they are searching for. We are all looking and longing for the same thing! We need to make that connection.

So in discussing matters pertaining to miracles, there's no shortcut around having to get our hands dirty. We have to asses what's known in Bayesian probability as the conditional likelihood, or "expectedness function" of the evidence given certain competing hypotheses. For any two hypothesis H1, H2, and observation O, O confirms H1 over H2 only if O is more probable under H1 than H2. This principle holds in trials by jury, phorensic investigations, and in everyday science.

@TheFutureengineer20 "..it depends on what religion you follow.." Exactly. Which is why we should not treat this topic as a matter of indifference nor say that there's no way of knowing and leave it alone. We need to have discussions like the one we are having right now.

I understand now! Hitchens spent a large portion of his adult life criticizing the claims of religion not because he had good reason to, but because he was a closet theologian! WOW You learn something new everyday!

Bishop Barron, In the movie "The Case for Christ", when Lee consulted the opinion of a psychologist, she said, mentioning the names of the famous atheist like Freud. Nitsche, etc, that these people have problems relating to their own fathers. Could it be that the new atheists now have the same problem and that how could they relate or accept a father that is invisible when they could not even relate with their own fathers? If this is true, how could we make these fathers model themselves with our Father in heaven? And how could we convince these atheists that their rejection of God is rooted in their rejection of their own father?

Good point bishop Robert for modern Herods,.......Lord have mercy on us and those who are denying the longing for God and at the end not finish as Herod!!!

I like this guy even though I'm also an Atheist, raised Jewish. I may not agree with his Faith but I don't see him as an enemy. He seems rational and fair.

I’m basically catching up with most of Bishop Barron’s preaching, what I see is people is blinded by “science”, we have to follow Saint John Marie Vianney, pray, pray, pray, and keep praying, I was driven to this page by the Grace of God, I believe only by his grace an atheist will experience the truth.

@wordonfirevideo Fantastic. Thank you!

Couldn't agree more! I mean come on. Do they honestly believe they can have an intellectual conversation by mocking the other side? They're all about tolerance and respect for the believers, and yet they say "religion and its followers don't deserve any respect or sympathy." I don't see how that can lead to anything but civil disorder.

@SpeaksToDragons "An organ functions properly is a organ that is alive." --It's more than that, since the heart can be alive but not functioning properly, which is why people get pace-makers.

Unfortunately, in certain forums (youtube, for example,) one is sometimes forced to censor certain atheists in order that intellectual engagement should continue unimpeded. Too often, the atheist argument is emotional; not intellectual, and I'm not talking about arguments lacking intellectual substance. They should be answered. I'm talking about the type who simply curse and scream as best they can, in the hopes of disrupting whatever legitimate discussion might otherwise have gone on.

Fr. Barron, I enjoy watching your videos, and I agree with what you said in this video. However, I have tried to challenge atheists, but it just doesn't work. The only thing they're interested in is throwing insults at anybody who believes in God, or defends religion. I've tried to point out the holes in their arguments, and they call me all kinds of obscene names. My question is, how can we engage these atheists when (it seems to me) all they do is throw insults at us?

I wholeheartedly agree. QM does point in a direction that there is a mind behind it. Physics is probably one of my favorite courses of scientific study. And, I am always perplexed at how many atheists stake a claim to QM as proof of non-existence of God (never mind the fallacy in logic). Understanding QM and metaphysics, we know better the macro-cosmos by the micro-cosmos that is our mind. As Napoleon Hill always said, "thoughts are things." QM may be the actionable mechanism of creation.

atheists don't like to admit it but through their criticism they search for God without rest.

Could you please unclude in writing the names of the people you named. It would help me and other non English speaking people to catch right their names. Thank you and may God bless you

Many atheists don't "attack" religion, they challenge them. After all, if your beliefs are factually and morally true, and they can stand on their own merits, then why get so defensive? All claims, religious or scientific should endure the gauntlet of scrutiny.

@grunderlyme It was also traditional to marry one of the same religion, to marry someone of the same national origins, and to marry one of the same race. All of these were examples of "tradition". Since being attracted to the same sex is biological in origin, and its legal to be gay in the US then their isn't any legal reasons to prohibit same sex couples from marring, none at all.

An observation: when one engages in the act of thinking one is reflecting the intellectual image of God one is made in. The better the quality of the person's thinking, the closer that person will feel to God, if but incrementally. When one falls in love with their own thinking, ie intellectualism, one is moving away from God with false worship, distorting the reflection of God one is made in. It strikes me that this would explain all the incongruities found at the core of atheistic arguments.

@grunderlyme We are not talking about "murder, rape, or torture," we are talking about the subtler forms of morality. The notion that Americans owned slaves, unless you own property you couldn't vote, mixed race marriage, prohibition of alcohol, separate but equal doctrines, racism, etc. This isn't a conversation about Christians and violence, so I will not go their.

I am not pro abortion, but I am firmly against making it illegal or condemning those who make that hard choice. If stem cell science wouldn't have been hindered so firmly by the religious right we may have been able to make synthetic stem cells on the required scale by now. It's a sperm in an egg, ''God'' kindly gave us millions of sperms and cause us to drop eggs monthly. We can condemn the parents, we can produce poor conspiracy theories, but we're saving millions of lives.

@SplatteredRemnants I think you make some valid points about the duty of the parents, but I'm not trying to mount a pro-abortion case here. I was merely listing examples of what an atheist might consider when weighing up the abortion issue, given that they don't see the Bible as a relevant factor.

@grunderlyme The definition of the marriage is a red hearing in regards to the rights of same sex couples getting a marriage license. Denying same sex partners a marriage licence is discriminatory towards gays which is illegal.

that is the question isnt it? lets say i have my degree in chemical engineering. am i reduced to knowing only that which a chemical engineer is taught in school for their trade?

Could you elaborate more on why humans are wired to believe in a higher power? Does your reasoning align with the idea that if humans are ever satisfied what could possible be left for them to discover? to be motivated by? that could touch them in the heart and soul the way religion does?

Especially, do not pray that someone "does well" in like an audition or concert. It implies that you believe they are not satisfactory on their own.

@swedishbutcher Not influenced by humans, but revealed through humans because we are the image of God. In fact, that's one of the ways you can tell who is a real Christian. It's only in rare occassions that God reveals himself to a person and that's usually when there's a calling on one's life or when they've hit rock bottom persay and call on God with such a genuine heart that he's has to.

@SpeaksToDragons (2) Children generally fare better in households raised by their biological mother and father than any other type of household. We allow adoption among heteroseuxal couples. But we don't promote it. So far, there is little to no evidence of how children actually fare in same-sex households. So there is no justification for supporting those unions

Father, your success in telling the truth can be gauged by the way you are upsetting the athiests. God bless you Paul

@SpeaksToDragons "No one choices to be gay the same as no one chooses to be straight" --So? No one chooses to be an alcoholic either. That doesn't mean we should be promoting the kind of behavior (drunkeness) which typically follows from this kind of disordered condition (alcoholism).

@sonicBlue00 "..they wouldn't like it if someone else did it to them.." That's not morality that's just enlightened self interest. Morality runs deeper than that. It's almost 3:00 am where I'm at I'll continue this discussion another time.

@SpeaksToDragons Incestuous and same-sex relationships are not marriages for the exact same reason: the kind of sex in both relationships is not naturally ordered to the healthy procreation of children.

apologizing for not fighting against something as much as the church should have, is not saying that the church was for the Nazis movement. further, it is well documented in many places that the catholic church not only offered resistance to the Nazis in covert manners, but did save many thousands of jewish people. catholics were also put in the death camps...did you not know?

@grokulskyd Sorry I am late to reply to your comment... but I thought it was interesting. I just wanted to assure you that I don't have any doubts about whether I should believe or not. This is not the reason why I like to participate in discussions and watch videos by excellent speakers like Fr. Barron. It's really just an interest that I have and I like to discuss ideas with people who hold different ones than mine. Isn't boring to discuss with people you always agree with?

The vast majority of non-believers battle for basic rights and secularity in society. Secularity doesn't mean promoting godlessness either. And we can see that the amount of vocal atheists is completely dependent on the liberties the religious claim in the area. You can of course be religious in public, but not endorsed by the government. Education, healthcare and law are things religion should not dictate and although they of course have a say there is a limit where faith carries no weight.

@SpeaksToDragons "Marriage is not a public institution." --Yes it is, because the government recognizes it as such by giving such a union tax breaks. "No law prohibits childless couples to marry." --Why why would it? So long as the two are from the opposite sex and not incestuous, they can marry.

@snailrace7 The only political issue with which I agree is particularly "religious" is wanting to teach Creationism is schools, which I agree is wrong. But scientifically, it is not certain there is such a thing as global warming; or if there is some global warming, whether human beings alone are responsible for the natural flucatuations of global temperatures.....

@grunderlyme Their isn't any marriage police who decides which hetro couple can and cannot get married. Marriage license authorizing two people to marry independently of whether or not they will have children. Having children is a personal choice and not of government mandate. People can form a bond purely based on love like older couples. no one stops a marriage because they cannot bear children. Haven't we gone through this route before?

and this has what to do with the 200 million uncited comment?

@SpeaksToDragons "The same way laws were change to allow women to vote, blacks to vote, allow for mixed marriage." --I repeat for the 100th time: gays can already marry. Marriage is the loving union between a man and a woman whose joint reproductive capacities are naturally ordered to the procreation and union of children. Everyone has a right to this thing, including gay persons. There is no discrimination.

@grunderlyme Slavery was also time-honored tradition of British America and up to the 1860's it was part of culture for Christians to own another human being and prevent them from having rights. It was also tradition to deny the rights of colored people. Women didn't vote and did not have the same rights of men. People are not voting because of a religious reasons not legal ones. This has been made into a religious debate and not of a legal one.

@sonicBlue00 The social convenience or inconvenience of something, or the way it makes you feel has no bearing on whether or not it is true. Bertrand Russell said the same thing in response to Christians who said believe in Christianity because it gives comfort and because it teaches people to love. There are people who get pleasure out of harming innocent people or raping children. Just because something can bring about a good end that doesn't make it okay or true. What concerns me is truth.

@grunderlyme If you wish to live in the 50's be my guest. We live in society that gives us more choices and more control of our lives.

Their hearts are attentively listening indeed. It seems they want to be proven wrong somehow. But it takes work on the part of the seeker in order to find what they are looking for. I think pride plays a role in being a key obstacle. The nature of the current culture doesn't help either.

@SpeaksToDragons "Polygamy is found in the bible " --So is murder, drunkeness, and adultery. That doesn't mean God approved of these things. God does not endorse polygamy as a regular practice. In fact, God explicitly condemns Solomon's taking many wives in Deut. 17:14-17: "Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away," which is why God punished Solomon later.......

@SpeaksToDragons I already refuted your subjectivism two days because it entails a logical contradiction. Two changing conceptions of marriage cannot both be "right." One of them must be wrong. Logical consistency demands it.

@wimsweden "I think the perfect communicator should tell me where it is" --He has and did. You just think that whenever someone says something without you yourself having been there, no one else should believe it. Yeah, ok, genius.

Flu vaccinations are not really on the same scale as denying a child vaccinations against polio and smallpox. Sadly I have yet to find a portrayal from the other side where any flaw in vaccination is reflected in reality nor even more than a pseudo-scientific understanding of what a vaccine contains and why. There are innate extremely minor risks with vaccinating but none related to the claims of those who advocate for an anti-vaccination position.

@okely231 if you're so intelligent, then why do you have a grammar error in your argument regarding the connection between lack of intelligence and spirituality? (there should be THEIR)

Most critics say that b/c there are similarities b/w Christianity and other religions that they find it difficult to believe in. I'm the other way around. If there weren't any I would be slow to believe in it. It would call into question Jesus' claim that he's the embodiment of truth. And I would find it difficult to think that Christianity is the religion that happened to get it right while the countless other religions are just complete nonsense.

@TheMrgoku1985 what fallacy does one cite when their opponent either doesn't listen or doesn't understand? I didn't make the claim that the Christian God did anything. I pointed out the problems of using Thermodynamics 1 & 2 to critique this. Christians would contend that God made the Universe-including entropy, quantum mechanics,our ability to discern (to some extent) the above and many others etc.. Given that a counterclaim is just as unprovable...that is just 'happened'...it's a stalemate.

@sonicBlue00 Showing them that murder contradicts their own belief system has no bearing on whether or not what they did was bad. What ultimately concerns me is not just morality but moral expression. For example the 9/11 terrorists may believe it's wrong to kill their neighbor however they may not consider people living in the US their neighbor and may have no problem doing what they did.

@sonicBlue00 That's exactly my point. If you have no moral reference point what they did can be justified within the framework of your worldview because morals are arbitrary and relative. If you're an atheist you have no logical reference point to give human life or morality any value and thus no way to argue what they did was wrong within the framework of your perspective. So I find it funny when guys like Dawkins go on these moral crusades against religion.

I am an atheist and I watch your videos. Your mention of Christopher Hitchens reminds me of a discussion video he was in. He commented about how disappointed he would be if religion was gone and he had no one left to argue with. I'm not sure I feel the same way. My brother is a Benedictine monk (I guess a novice technically), and my talks with him rarely seem like arguing. Even though we have such vast differences in beliefs, we seem to hone in immediately on our areas of agreement. That's how I feel about your videos. There's this huge gap in our realities, but somehow I feel attuned to those things we share in common. One of those things is your obvious love for your fellow man. I really appreciate your videos. I don't study them as some kind of weapon in arguments against Christian philosophy, but because they help me to better understand what some other people think, like my brother. Thank you for that.

Mahalo Nui Father Barron. I lost my last job, after daily harassment for a year from an atheist office manager. That was 4 years ago in the heart of downtown San Francisco. She was eventually fired as well 2 years later. But my point is this: she asked whether I was Catholic after I was hired, and I said yes, not thinking of an ulterior motive on her part. But, you know, now I see it as a blessing in disguise; I would not have otherwise deepened my life-long Catholic Faith. Your homilies and lectures are such an inspiration to move forward and fight the good fight. Although I can't contribute to your ministry financially, I will always keep you and your colleagues in my prayers each day. P.S. I live in Pinole CA now and haven't been to SF, except once for an interview last year. Now I avoid the city altogether. Blessings.

@Sarusource Oh come on! In the age of Hitchens, Dawkins, and Maher, you really think that atheists are the ones who are being bullied? Authentic science has nothing to fear from authentic religion. When the two clash, it is a sign that one or both have become decadent. And after Mao, Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, you're honestly more worried about religion than about ideological secularism?!

Bishop Barron, I can give a resounding YES in answer to all your questions. I'm a former atheist who converted to Catholicism at Easter Vigil, 2013. I cut my teeth on all the people you referred to. I don't think I've convinced any atheists that I'm right. And truthfully I've limited myself to trying to convince them that believers aren't. necessarily stupid, which is the foundation of most of their arguments. But none of them have caught me unprepared.

Whenever I've heard Richard Dawkins speak, two things become very clear: 1. Richard Dawkins absolutely believes in God; 2. Richard Dawkins is quite angry with Him.

I have lived my life as a nurse. Spent 30years bearing witness to death and suffering. When i was a young fanatical agnostic, i had the good sense never to diminish anothers spiritual beliefs as they grasped for comfort. Now i am in my fifties, and have and am a recent convert to catholocism. It was a slow process that i don't completely understand, and won't try to explain. Ihave watched and listened to the new athiets over the years, and have always found people like maher and hicthens, mean and spoilt in thier attitudes towards religion and the quiet people who follow leaders, like chrirst, allah, and the budda. Have recently read chris hedges"why i don't believe in atheists", and highly recommend the book. He takes these carnival barkers to task, leaving them undressed and exposed. Please pardon my grammer, and god bless you all

@Sarusource Hitler might have used religious language for cyncial and manipulative purposes, but ask the tens of thousands of priests and ministers who died in his camps how religious his Nazi regime was. And you don't see a connection between Stalin's and Mao's atheism and their atrocities? Then I would suggest that you read your Marx a little more carefully. And I can demonstrate to you from the Gospel of Matthew that Franco, Napoleon and company were bad Catholics.

My son was baptized Catholic, but fell away from the Church. He became more of an agnostic than an atheist. My son suffered from cystic fibrosis, a genetically inherited disease that affects primarily the lungs and the digestive system. Fourteen months before he died at the age of 26, he sat in my kitchen and vehemently denied the existence of God. Nothing I said to him made a dent in his head. I began to pray for him fervently nearly every single night and enlisted the help of my father who had died 35 years earlier. My son was born on the anniversary of my father's death, October 13th. (and yes, my father had a great devotion to Our Lady) and was named after his grandfather. Nine months later, my son came to visit me, after a hospitalization in which he had ended up on a respirator. It must have scared the heck out of him. He stunned me when he said he had gone to confession, got absolution and received Holy Communion. I was speechless. My son died of a massive coronary four months later, in my arms. 30+ people filled his room, only 4 of which were Catholic. We prayed the Rosary before he was disconnected from the machines. He had a lot of negative Catholic influence in his life from friends and news as well as websites that he visited. But, I will tell you this, from my own personal experience with this, the power of prayer is something you can't put a finger on. It leaves you absolutely stunned.

An atheist a homosexual and a vegetarian walked into a bar and the only way I knew who they were is because they let everyone know in the first two minutes that they were there.

Yes, and it shows how desperate and pathetic the movement is. When you drop argumentation and resort to mockery...you're little more than a playground bully.

On your second point, Father: “The atheist is not interested in anything except attacks on atheism.” - G.K. Chesterton

@mateo4424 Well, friend, you need to make a little better argument than that!

I don't believe in unicorns. If some people do believe in unicorns I wouldn't argue with them, write books about the Unicorn delusion or dedicate my life to proving unicorns don't exist. If Athiest do not believe in God and believe God is a fairytale and doesn't exist, like a unicorn, why are they so vicious and obsessed in attacking people that do believe in God? I think that's the point Fr. Barron is trying to make.

@Sarusource As I said, they were bad Catholics...therefore it's silly to blame the Catholic Church for what they did. And if Hitler was supported by Protestants and Catholics, those people were, precisely in that measure, bad Christians. How could they not be? Jesus said to love our neighbor, even our enemies. Khruschev wasn't as wicked as Stalin, but as an atheist Communist, he was committed to the elimination of Christianity.

I am Indonesian. I studied western philosophy...but the simplicity of the Gospels help me going back to my spirituality as catholic. Keep going on Father.

@SaborCardiff Oh come on, friend. Poor Bill Maher and Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris: religious people just won't leave them alone! That's why they're so cranky. I don't think that holds much weight as an explanation.

Don't believe you, friend. My proof: you came on my website!

@troyboulay I do appreciate your honesty on this score. It's rare. But I'd ask you to press the question. If I came forward and argued for the existence of elves and fairies on the planet Jupiter, you would simply write me off and pay no more attention to me--and you'd be right. You would correctly sense that I was just spouting nonsense. But by your own admission, you don't just turn away from religion in that way. I would suggest that this is because you know there is something there!

Envy is when you see something good a person posses that you can't have. so satisfy the emotion of envy, it is either to destroy the object one posses, take the good one possess, dismiss the value of the good a person possess. these are the attacks of none believers have done throughout the history against Christians. This is the reason why apologetic of Christianity always leads to the sharing of the truth and not just defense.

Thank you for this comment. I hope that some of the Catholic Liberal arts schools are listening.

@iminyourbushes Sure. The argument from contingency.

I was raised an atheist. I was a fan of the new atheist movement and even claimed to be anti-religious. I genuinely thought that because I believed atheism to be true that somehow made me more intelligent and rational than all religious believers. But then I studied philosophy at university and I came to realise that the new atheist arguments from Dawkins et al were all just bad. Philosophically illiterate and ignorant of genuine theological beliefs and arguments. A reasonable understanding of philosophy and at least a respect for consistency should make the proponents of this kind of fundamentalist atheism think twice. I certainly did. After awhile I put aside my pride and read for myself the great Christian philosophers like Anselm and Aquinas and Augustine and I began to see that actually these are very, very smart men, and that the accusations against believers like them, of being unreflective, mistaken, deluded etc., were completely disingenuous. But it took a good deal of time to go from atheism and philosophical materialism (which is totally untenable) to reading and appreciating Christian philosophy and theology. This is because I could not admit that I was wrong, that there could be serious thinkers with fierce intellects who had faith. I had been programmed to think all religious people were stupid and irrational. I thank God and his divine providence for helping me to eventually see the Truth. Reason took me most of the way but as the Bishop says, faith goes beyond reason. The atheists treat the concept of God as though he is an object that can be known. But as the Pseudo Dionysius writes, God is beyond reason and intellect and language, beyond human comprehension completely. For me, it isn’t that God exists, but that God cannot not exist.

@snapcase55 I know that you learned this language from Hitchens and Dawkins and company, but man, think for a minute. After Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot; after tens of millions of corpses produced by the radically secularist ideologies of modernity, you can tell me with a straight face that religion is the great threat to civilization!

st. thomas aquinas is a great reference as well!

Father Barron, it's been almost four years since this video was uploaded. I wonder if your message today would be any different? I admire your take-it-to-'em approach. It's just that one thing I have learned during my time on the internet, over a decade now, is that rarely if ever are any hearts and minds changed during a debate. Perhaps, a few seeds are sown that will later bear fruit. Let's hope so. In any case, I believe that a decade would probably be better spent in prayer for the confused and lost souls and by living a life of example. Leave contention to the contentious. That's not to say that all of your educational and inspirational videos aren't simply wonderful, they are! As for me, for now, I prefer the "the little way" of St. Thérèse . Perhaps the fight has just been taken out of me? Perhaps there is still a need for warriors? Perhaps it's not an either-or situation? Take care and God Bless...

@Renshato Have you explored those rational grounds? Have you come to grips with the argument from contingency, for example? Take a look at my video on it if you haven't. Or perhaps get Robert Spitzer's book New Arguments for God's Existence to see a really compelling version of it.

I am an atheist and I really appreciate this call to arms. I would absolutely love to have a dicussion with a theist where they not only can defend their religion and faith, but then back that up with facts and evidence. Atheists are genneraly not anti god, I did not become an atheist because I hate god, I became an atheist because the evidence point toward there not being a god more so than there being one. Come at me with more than the bible says so, or god said it so it is so, and I will be more than happy to hear you out and if the facts and evidence presented support it, I would have no issued to change my stance on god.

Praise the Lord, this brilliant intellectual mind is on our side to articulate the truth!