One of the biggest mistakes that atheists make when arguing with theists is that they ignore the “internal logic” of the theist’s position. So what do I mean by “internal logic”? Any viewpoint, ideology or worldview always has a largely consistent internal logic. While there may be inconsistencies they are usually easily glossed over and ignored. This is true of anyone who doesn’t have a psychological condition that precludes it.

So while atheists rail against the “illogical” positions of religious people, if you look at their worldview it will have logical rules and be largely consistent. Any inconsistencies will have explanations that fit the logical rules of their worldview. I’m sure many atheists will vehemently disagree with what I’m saying here, so let’s go through an example I often use.

Noah’s Ark. Atheists love to use Noah’s Ark as an example of religious illogical beliefs. And they will use arguments such as “There’s no way Noah could have had enough food for all the animals on the Ark”. Or, “There’s no way all the animals could fit on the Ark”. Or even, “If it rained hard enough to cover the world in water the Ark would have dissolved like spun sugar”. And many more similar arguments, all of which completely ignore the internal logic of the theist’s position. Because in the theist’s worldview God is omnipotent, literally all powerful, and can make anything happen that it wants to happen. So saying “It’s impossible for all the animals to fit on the Ark” is nonsensical. God wanted it to happen, so it happened. Continuing to argue this point simply shows that you don’t understand what God is capable of. “It is impossible for Noah to have enough feed” is easily and simply ignored through the internal (and consistent) logic of “With God all things are possible”.

By ignoring the internal logic of a theist’s worldview many atheists make their arguments completely nonsensical from a theist’s point of view. The argument devolves to Atheist: “This is impossible” Theist: “No it isn’t”. With no possibility for change in either argument, because neither debater can understand the point of view of the other. This is why so many atheists completely fail to overawe theists with their logic and reasoning, because from the theist’s point of view it isn’t logical or reasonable at all.

So how do we address this issue? Well it means we need to use more care when formulating our arguments. If you want to make a point that a theist will genuinely listen to then you need to make sure it follows the internal consistency and logic of their worldview. So here’s an example: the theist believes that God is omniscient, and is capable of anything. However theists always place limits on the extent of God’s power without realizing it. This is necessary to maintain internal logical consistency. Because if God is capable of literally anything, then it would be possible for God to come up with a better way of dealing with the sin in Noah’s world than killing 99.99r% of all life on the surface of the earth. So a better argument is “Is God capable of dealing with all the sin in the world around Noah, but without killing most of the life on the surface of the planet, and yet retaining all the benefits of his giant flood?” And of course the answer is Yes, God is capable, so the argument may then continue to “Why didn’t he”. The theist will invariably offer many excuses, but you can simply remind them of the first question, one which must always have the same answer, but will also lead them to the inescapable conclusion that God’s methods were not optimal or necessary.

While they may not admit it in the conversation with you this has a good chance of sticking in their heads as an unresolvable inconsistency in their worldview. Something that will inevitably lead to them either changing their worldview, or becoming more open to reason. Using arguments of this nature, ones that fit the internal logic of their worldview, it is possible to make a theist confront the inconsistencies in their point of view, while without following the internal logic of their worldview it is impossible to do so.

So essentially you have to understand the theist’s point of view before you can reasonably argue against it. Something many atheists fail to even attempt.