I can only speak from an Evangelical perspective which is What-I-Woz^TM.

Firstly, do these evangelists really think that the majority of the unconverted already believe that God exists and has the specified nature,
Yes. In the bible virtually everyone believed in *a* god so it is just assumed that you've already got that part of the argument sorted. Evangelism techniques start from that point for that reason. Even where people did not believe in Yahweh (for example the Greeks in Athens in Acts 17:16-34 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2017%20:16-34;&version=31;)) you could at least start at the point that there *was a god of some kind*.

I don't find this highly surprising - I guess at the time believing in god seemed like the most rational thing to do.

There were people who did not believe in god but the bible doesn't seem to think it's worth engaging with that at all... "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." " (Psalm 53:1 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2053:1&version=31)).

Alongside you have the argument that everyone knows that God is around anyway:

¹⁸The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
(Romans 1:18-20 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201:18-20;&version=31;))

You're without excuse Simon! ;-)

As a counter to this people can say of course that this isn't the case. The way around this contradiction is to say that "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." (2 Corinthians 4:4 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20corinthians%204:4&version=31)) where the 'god of this age' is the devil.

The argument is a bit more tricky to follow after this point, but basically because of total depravity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total depravity), unconditional election (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_election), and irresistible grace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_grace) you can't actually choose God yourself anyway. If there is any choosing to be done it is all because God chooses to unblind you and then you are overwhelmingly compelled to believe in him and follow him (yes obviously this idea creates lots of free will / love related problems!!).

This unblinding process occurs when the Holy Spirit uses the 'Sword of the spirit' (the Bible), which is why Evangelical Christians try to lace their conversations so much with direct quotes from the bible (of course most don't realise the reasoning behind this - it's just what they've been taught to do). A a friend of mine (http://podbo.livejournal.com/) (who is now minister of misinformation for UCCF (http://www.uccf.org.uk)) has questionned whether apologetics (the defense of explanation of the faith through reason and logic) is worth doing at all as from the Bible we know^TM that the reason people don't become Christians has nothing to do with their lack of awareness of God - people are blinded by the devil or choose to reject God even though you know the truth deep down (for those who don't strictly follow the three Calvinist doctrines mentionned above).

and merely haven't got round to doing anything about it?
Haven't had your eyes open / been compelled to follow / are choosing to sin and rebel against God.

[1]!
I'm in that category. The god of the bible is as Richard Dawkins said "The god of the old testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all of fiction.".

‘OK, I've heard your argument and am unsatisfied with it because it starts from a premise you have yet to convince me of. What are you going to do about that?’ Part of me suspects they would simply be unable to deal with the concept
It depends. For lot of the 'troops' they wouldn't really know what to do - but a small percentage are reasonably intelligent logical people such as ourselves and would reel out some appropriate apologetic arguments to you.


Why are you an atheist Simon? Are you a weak or a strong atheist (as defined by Wikipedia), please feel free to tell me to RTFP if one exists :-)

I think it's pretty shocking you reject God when there are so many proofs (http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm) of God's existence ;-)

I had an entirely secular upbringing: my parents never mentioned God to me at all. I picked up the concept from my extensive reading and from clues like the lyrics of Christmas carols, but until I was eight it wasn't clear to me that it was anything more than a polite fiction on about the same level as Father Christmas; it was quite a surprise when I went to a new school and one of my classmates gasped in shock at me swatting a fly "because it was one of God's creatures". At that point I woke up to the idea that people actually took this concept a lot more seriously than Father Christmas, but it still didn't strike me as a reason to start believing in it myself. At that point, if you'd explained weak and strong atheism to me, I think I'd have had to describe myself as a weak atheist: seeing no reason to believe in God's existence, but not positively believing in his absence either.

Some time around age sixteen (I think) I became aware that I could no longer give mind-room to the idea of a god without some part of my brain just going "yeah, right" and considering the idea to be fantastically unlikely. At that point I became something closer to a strong atheist, which is where I still am today: rationally I have to accept that there is no incontrovertible proof of God's nonexistence any more than there is of his existence, but emotionally it seems overwhelmingly likely to me that he does not in fact exist, and if it were feasible to put money on the question then I would unhesitatingly bet on there being no God.

That website's fantastic, isn't it? I particularly enjoyed the "Argument From Intimidation" :-)

Sometimes I think I would prefer to be a meta-smug type, as that to me seems to be what most atheists do in reverse. (I hadn't seen that site, it is pretty awesome.)

Considering I am just back from church, I thought I would chip in.

Everyone has doubts about God's existence at some point. The difference is that you have *faith*. I doubt I could convince you, or anyone of His presence. Personally, my reaction to looking up at the night sky is to see the Face, and Handiwork, of God. Sure, I know it is an emotional reaction, but that is the difference between myself and my mother. She isn't a church goer, nor brought me up to go either. I chose. And that is the choice we make. Your reaction seems to me the same as hers. You emotionally don't think there is one, whereas I do. I think most atheists love to show their smug learning and arguments, but alas you can't argue with someone who has faith, or believes, as well, they believe, and you don't. No amount of reading and debate on either side will, more than likely, convert/convince the other. Both sides have the choice. And long may that remain so.

Of course, I am also an unrepetant heretic.

I grew up in an overtly fire-and-brimestone area in an overtly fire-and-brimestone country. (You know all those religious nuts in the US? They came from my part of the world. We didn't get rid of enough of them, it seems.)

These tracts are great:

http://www.chick.com/default.asp

Armageddon! Armageddon! Arm a geddon out of here (etc)

Yeah Jack Chick is amazing - he taught me the errors of my ways when I found I was worshipping by playing Dungeons and Dragons!

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp