Five Foundational Principles to Use When Talking to Atheists

"You probably think Santa Claus is real. Or that the Earth is flat. Maybe your ancestors thought Thor caused lightning and thunderstorms. Or that praying to a statue would bring healing. We have moved past that. Now, we live in an age of science. If you still believe in God, you must be a superstitious ignoramus." 
 
This common attitude of internet atheists has led many away from faith. Believers must share the blame. A lot of Catholic Christians cannot give reasons for the hope that is within them. They have not learned to support their worldview with reasons and evidence. Rather, they’ve been told to “just have faith” and not ask too many questions.  

Because of this, atheism has been successful in winning converts. Many skeptical slogans have led others to doubt their religious beliefs. But although the slogans have surface-level plausibility, they do not stand up to scrutiny—all of them can be answered using the intellectual resources from the Christian tradition and contemporary philosophy.  
  
Five Foundational Principles 
 
Interacting with atheists can be draining. Not every conversation will go well, especially when you start out. But if you follow these five principles, you can drastically improve your mindset and your conversations.  
 
Here’s the first principle: Pray every day. Develop a daily prayer routine. Decide on a specific segment of time as your personal prayer baseline. It could be ten or fifteen minutes. This principle drives us to develop a deeper relationship with the Lord. This will allow you to discern more effectively what a person needs to hear in conversation. Also, it will prevent you from getting burned out or discouraged when dialogue goes bad.

Here’s the second principle: Whenever possible, start by asking questions rather than making statements. Asking questions places you in the driver’s seat of the conversation. You can steer it where you want it to go. You can make sure it stays on topic. Questions provide an avenue to learn what the other person actually thinks, providing you with valuable information for deciding how to help your conversation partner. Questions are powerful. 
  
Here’s the third principle: Don’t let people get away with vague, wishy-washy criticisms. Sometimes people make vague objections they think are enough to win the day. Consider the following:  

• “You know the problem of evil, right? That’s why I don’t believe in God.” 
• “You Catholics have that abuse scandal. Who would want to join a corrupt Church like that?” 

Too often when we hear questions like these, we immediately launch into a defense. Before the skeptic elicits a response from us, we must require that he make his criticism clearer, provide more detail, and, whenever possible, give us the fullness of the argument he has in mind.  
  
Here’s the fourth principle: Apologetics is most helpful to those who are already open to the truths of faith. 
 
This principle encourages realistic expectations. The most hardened, angry skeptics need  
our prayers. Perhaps they’ve been abused by a priest in the past or dealt with some other terrible circumstance in life. The Holy Spirit can work on the heart and soften them for future conversations.  On the other hand, those with a sincere desire to understand can be led closer to Christ with answers from the Christian intellectual tradition.  
  
Here’s the fifth principle: Don’t neglect the soft skills of evangelism. By “soft skills” I mean the ways of conducting ourselves outside of apologetic encounters. How should we interact with others? 

So don’t be a jerk. Give more compliments. Be openly Catholic by saying grace before meals, keeping prayers or pictures of saints on your desk, and include Mass in your discussion of the weekends and holidays. These soft skills do not require an advanced apologetic, and they can go a long way toward building trust and plausibility in religion.  
 
​​​If you're interested in digging deeper pick up your copy of John DeRosa's book, One Less God Than You