All of the presenters had compelling stories that described in detail how their lives changed once they applied the secret principals.

I watched the movie several times only to discover the secret was never revealed nor did they explain how to actually make the law of attraction work in your favor.

I searched for a year and finally discovered exactly how the secret law of attraction works.

Anybody can put the principals to work for them and change their life dramatically in a short period of time.

It’s true, they are laws and they work all the time but its your choice to make them work for you and not against you.

Your comment exemplifies the rift between atheists and believers. I can understand that this is difficult for you. Luckily, as you say, you’re not out to convert anyone; you’re just trying to give a rational explanation for your beliefs.

Most atheists find arguments concerning free will and the lack of evidence of God to be either self-contradictory (such as, how can a god both desire humans going to heaven after they die and provide a reasonable world view that denies his existence?) or inconsistent with other definitions of God (such as omnipotence). Remember: us atheists don’t work within a framework of theology, so concepts like “free will” (other than in a philosophical sense) do seem quite silly to many of us.

If arguing from free will won’t provide a reason for atheists to accept your belief, I suggest not giving any specific theological reason. Instead, you might say that you believe in God because you cannot do otherwise. Your reasons may be culturally, genetically, or evidentially determined, but belief may seem natural to you, just as non-belief seems right to us atheists.

You can explain that beginning from a certain set of basic beliefs, one would come to the same conclusions as you do. You do not have to defend these assumptions as true; you only have to demonstrate that stemming from these precepts, your belief system is coherent, well-thought-out, and rational.

While you may not be able to convince atheists of the truth content of your position, they might acknowledge that you arrive at your beliefs just as reasonably as they do.

My atheist friends sometimes ask well-thought-out questions about my beliefs, and of course there are times when I simply don’t know. I’m seeking my own answers to the mysteries of the spiritual — for my own knowledge and growth, mostly, but also to try to explain what I believe and why to those who ask me.

There are a number of conundrums I’m trying to resolve when it comes to intelligently explaining my beliefs to those who believe differently.

One is the issues of faith and free will. At this point, most atheists roll their eyes and throw up their hands. And who can blame them? My friends have said “If God exists, why doesn’t he just show himself? Do something to prove he’s there?”

I try to answer them by evoking the subject of free will. We MUST be able to choose what we believe. Unless you’re blind, color blind or just nuts, you have no choice but to believe that a clear sky is blue. Faith doesn’t enter the picture. You’ve seen it. Everyone’s seen it. The sky is blue. Period.

God won’t show himself or in any other way make his existence blatantly obvious because that would remove our choice. If an enormous hand reached down from the clouds and waved its finger in your face with a voice of thunder pronouncing, “Yo, I’m yer God,” and everyone around you saw and heard it too, you’d have to believe it actually happened. (What conclusions you’d draw from it are up to you.) So God uses subtlety.

When I was a kid my brother took me down to a local creek, and I splashed and played on the banks all morning. After lunch he showed me how to look for arrowheads, and when I knew what to look for, I could find several. They had been there all along, of course, but I didn’t know to look for them. Once he gave me the knowledge, I could see them among the rocks.

The atheist wants proof, and I understand that. So do I! But the conundrum seems to be this: To see proof, you must be willing to believe — if only a little. The atheist must say, “Show me proof, and maybe I’ll believe.” God says, “Believe, and you’ll acquire the discernment to see proof.” Not delusions or seeing things that aren’t there because you want to see them, but actual proof. Like the arrowheads that were actually, physically around me that whole morning at the creek, but I didn’t know how to see them.

My atheist friends say, “How convenient!” And I have to shrug and say, “I believe in God. And he makes the rules.”

Is there any possible way I can explain this clearly to an atheist? I’m not out to convert or change his beliefs. Only to concisely explain this point. I think it’s one of the main reasons atheists and theists run into such a huge brick wall between them. There’s no real way to resolve the proof = belief, belief = proof issue.

Thanks for posting such a heartfelt comment.

I don’t know about your personal life, but if you’re in college or high school, and if you enjoy discussing these matters, you can form a club for believers and atheists to formally debate. You can see if your school will finance speakers, &c.

On the subject of “evangelical atheists”, there’s not much I can say without knowing more about your personal experiences. If these atheists that dog you are using fallacious arguments, correct them! Learn more about their views than they do, then take them on! Yet, if their arguments are intelligent — but annoying as all Hell — you might want to be polite and tell them to get out of your face. There’s a time and a place to deconstruct someone’s worldview.

In my own personal life, I’m not one to confront believers. The only times I do so are online, during live debates, or if the conversation has already turned towards a theological bent.

(It’s wonderful to hear from you! I’ve had so much to do; comments have stopped.)

(1) No, an emerging religion doesn’t provide an argument: the human condition — our desires, our neuroses, our psychology — has little to nothing to do with such philosophical truth statements as “The Mormon/Christian/Jewish/Muslim god exists.” Perhaps the “reason” isn’t reason to believe it is true, but is a comforting (but not necessarily true!) message of that growing religion, or it is a fad, or its members are quite adept at making convincing (but faulty!) arguments, or it is beneficial to be a member. Part iii of Comment#2 addressed this. We cannot know why someone believes, only if her belief (say, in green Martian men stealing her socks) is possible, plausible, or reasonable.

(2) Do you trust the testimonies of those that have observed the “miracles” of Sathya Sai Baba?

If so, I have a bridge to sell you; if not, why not?

(3) Ed, I found an interesting online book by Richard Carrier, Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False?. It might interest you.