Reddit reviews There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
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HarperOne
The question is not whether you feel close to god. The question is do you believe in God?
If the answer is, as I suspect it might be, "I don't know," then that is what you need to tackle first. You would have to remove all the questions of halal and haram, whether you can drink alcohol or not, eat bacon or not, because at this point they are irrelevant. They are details of what God has asked us to do, which mean nothing if you don't believe in God.
You have to assess whether you believe in God without involving your wants and desires into it. Then you'll have to face a very important and difficult decision: if you do believe in God, and become convinced it is the truth despite your emotions, are you willing to act upon that truth?
That statement you said about taking off the hijab and feeling the wind in your hair was me. I was lost. I too had read the Qur'an so many times with no real comprehension. I was in a swamp of doubt drowning in emotions and desires of what I wanted to do but which Islam was preventing me from doing. It was all Islam's fault you see, why everything was wrong, and everything would become so much better without it, because then I'd be in control of my life and decisions. I would do all the nice and fun things I couldn't otherwise do. See, that's what shaytan does, he masks the real issue in shallow wants and delusions of control that distract you from the real problem in hopes that you go completely off course.
I had a total emotional and faith breakdown one day complete with tears, as I came to the realization that I rationally believe that God absolutely exists and could not lie to myself, even though my heart felt emotionally empty of that belief. I had that breakdown because I thought myself too weak emotionally to face that belief and its consequences, that I almost didn't want to. But I did, I begged Allah for help, put my reason in charge of my emotions, and... I slowly got over it. I won't say I magically overnight went from resentful to pious, it has been a journey of many years. But with every small effort I made to stick with my deen, it became much easier and more good came my way. It still requires daily effort but now, alhamdulillah, my belief is no longer just rational and emotionally empty, but incredibly rich and filled with utter love for my Creator. The more love I have for Allah (swt) the more those wants and desires I used have feel like they were the prison and that now I feel the joy of freedom that only one who was in a prison can feel.
Some of the things that seem to have helped for me and for my younger sister (who went through what I went through a couple of years after me, but her faith was emotional and she needed to work on the rational part) that may help you too: Reading some philosophical works: reading the kalam cosmological argument helped me, she's currently reading There is a God by Anthony Flew (a famous atheist who ended up believing late in life). She also started a Qur'an club among a group of friends who were interested and we meet every other Sunday to discuss a surah. That has helped tremendously for us to connect with the Qur'an on a personal level. Listening to Nouman Ali Khan discuss the Qur'an has also helped us understand it a lot. Also, I feel like I'm sharing this video a lot these days, but here goes: Jeffrey Lang - The purpose of life.
My point is, find whatever works for you.
I pray Allah (swt) will guide you and make things clearer for you.
Edit: added some resources/links. I hope they help!
Here are a few that might interest you.
https://strangenotions.com/wright-conversion/
C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity
http://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450724094&sr=1-1&keywords=mere+christianity+by+c.s.+lewis
Catholicism & Reason: Creed & Apologetics by Edward J. Hayes
Anthony Flew's "There is a God"
http://www.amazon.com/There-Is-God-Notorious-Atheist/dp/0061335304
In terms of the existence of God, it was largely Anthony Flew's "There is a God" and C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" that got me to a place where I could at least be open the idea of the existence of God.
Please take notice of the reply that follows this for a continuation of my response.
First, I think you may find this helpful.
I appreciate your kind approach and apparent openness to persuasion, which motivated me to write this. I hope you'll find it worthwhile. I'll try to start simply:
What is a philosophical argument? Think of it as a mechanism for deriving implications from certain observations of the natural world. If, from these, we arrive at theological implications, they are just as significant as any other information (say, from science...which is built upon philosophy anyhow) in that they are explanatory and represent an advance in knowledge. There has been a considerable change in the Anglo-American collegiate realm regarding Christian theism, especially in philosophy departments. The secularization of academia today was, in large part, due to the privatization of Christian institutions and advances in observational astronomy. The former because Christians left colleges for their own academic strongholds, and the latter because we began to see what had previously been thought of as astrological influences and personifications as what they really are: distant spheres of (hydrogen) gas (which should stop no one from considering Christianity, in light of the fact that our belief system distinguishes the radically contingent universe from a God who exists by the necessity of His own nature).
Since the late 1900s we have done away with positivism, and its attendant verification principle (the idea that only that which can be verified through the senses is true...an idea which cannot be verified through the senses. It's positively self- defeating, meaning that it is self-referentially incoherent) and the works of philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga (the most contributive philosopher of religion in recent years...before he retired he was the president of the American Philosophical Association and the Society of Christian Philosophers) in revamping classical arguments for God's existence (such as the Ontological Argument, which has now become an exercise in modal logic), refuting the argument for atheism from the existence of evil in both its logical and probabilistic forms, and defending the position that belief in God is an epistemologically warranted metaphysical initiative (meaning that, in the absence of a defeater for Christian theism, it qualifies as a belief that can be held without reference to anything in reality, wholly substantiated by the inner witness of the Holy Spirit). The following are some arguments for the existence of God that I have so far studied and found compelling, and consider them in cumulation as indicative of the supernatural and of an orthodoxly conceived monotheistic God:
The Argument from Contingency (God best explains the universe's being existent rather than not), Arguments from our Moral Experience (we perceive an objective realm of moral values and duties that could not otherwise exist without God), from the coherency of the concept of God (the idea of God should not make sense unless He actually does exist. It's remarkable that it would be a rational idea. This is more popularly known as the Ontological argument, and I suggest you look into it as it is defended by William Lane Craig for an approachable start to studying it), from the probable origin of the universe (from which one may deduce a personal cause), from reason (evolution selects on phenotypes, and by extension, on survival value, not truth value. Thus, we have a defeater for naturalism by its invalidation of our cognitive faculties, rendering the naturalistic conclusion invalid), from the inability for non-theism to correspond to one's participation in reality (the consequences to atheism are so great that it seems we are forced, by our nature, to worship God. But to hold atheism is to not recognize God, conversely, holding theism is to recognize (worship) God. From a Christian perspective, should it surprise us that to draw away from the Source of Life in our greatest purpose is to find a life unlivable?), from religious experience, from intentional states of consciousness, from the "fine tuning" of initial cosmological and subsequent universal conditions for the development of intelligent life, from the comprehensibility of the universe, from the applicability of mathematics, and more.
On Intelligent Design--Here's what I think...there's a a great deal of confusion regarding inferences from instantiations of biological complexity to an Intelligent Source. Many equate this with Young Earth Creationism, when it's entirely different. Some stop when they fail to see how it categorizes as science (it doesn't, and that's not what matters anyway). Here you will find arguments such as that from the existence of consciousness.....the first cell of life, irreducible complexity, the linguistic properties of DNA, and the like.
Now, note that it is entirely possible to maintain atheism while still being convinced by some of these arguments towards their conclusions. Why is that? Because they each establish God's existence as more probable than not. My meaning is that they work to raise the probability of God's existence, promoting a sort of generic form of theism. Now, I want to guard against what keeps many from fully seeing the force behind natural theology: they are meant to be taken cumulatively, so that together they can raise the probability of theism's truth value such that it is rational to lend credence to it.
I get this a lot: "if there were evidence for Christianity, then everyone would be a Christian. Therefore, Christianity is not substantiated." I hope you can see why this should not be taken seriously. Firstly, it could be said of any worldview. If there is something evidently true on atheism, why isn't everyone an atheist? And so, if there truly is something rationally compelling about Christianity, I believe you will find it by earnestly seeking Christ where many others have found it (I've described some of these authentications below). Furthermore, college study is oriented towards specialization, which is decided by one's interests.
As for Christian evidences, I was originally convinced of Christianity by simply reading the Bible. If you are interested in pursuing truth, rather than arguments (which bear the inherently biased objective of discerning who's right rather than what's right) then I highly recommend that you seek God where He can be found: in His word, from which faith is derived, as it appears in the actions and words of Christians, and in the text itself. I think you'll find, in the person of Jesus Christ, that He knows us too well, and loves us far too much, to not be our Father. By this, I mean that there is something so true about Christianity: it makes too much sense. And way too much sense out of life and the world. As C.S. Lewis said, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." After I earnestly sought God for the first time, like (I should hope) David ("a man after His own heart"), I found that the scales fell from my eyes, like Paul, and I gained an entirely new perspective of the world and was changed to so great an extent in ways that I can only regard as supernatural. Not only that, I find Christianity to be a remarkably consistent and coherent worldview--not only as correspondent to reality, or as a philosophical conclusion to explain a wide range of the data of human experience, but also as an existentially relevant and experienced reality. Everything Jesus said has proven itself true in my life. Even this: John 8:32 "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
>See, the thing is, none of them are impossible, and all of them are very likely.
No, the fact is none of them have been proven. None. And just because none are “impossible” that doesn’t mean that they are likely.
> We're just not sure exactly how it happened, but we have very good reasons to think that it did, in fact, happen.
You are sure it happened naturalistic-ally, not because of the scientific data but because of your commitment to naturalism/atheism. Again there is no viable theory of how life originated. None.
Physicist Fred Hoyle: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." source
This was kinda like the argument Antony Flew which convinced him about the existence of God. The odds of information in DNA developing “naturally are so astronomic” that they for all intents and purposes zero.
Flew’s argument is that if one tries to produce a 488 letter sonnet by chance it would be take one to the ~10^690 chances to get it right [that is 1 with 690 zeros after it] The number of particles in the universe is only ~10^80. There are not enough particles in the universe to write down the trials; you’d be off by a factor of 10 to the 600th.
If you took the entire universe and converted it to computer chips each one weighing a millionth of a gram and had each computer chip able to spin out 488 trials at, say, a million times a second; if you turn the entire universe into these microcomputer chips and these chips were spinning a million times a second producing random letters, the number of trials you would get since the beginning of time would be 10 to the 90th trials.
It would be off again by a factor of 10 to the 600th. You will never get a that paragraph by chance. The universe would have to be 10 to the 600th times larger. Yet atheists/naturalists say the info in DNA just happened by "chance". And remember the 10^690 chance is just for a 488 letter sonnet, not the much more complex 3 million base pair of DNA.
But we don’t have since the beginning of time [~13.8 billion years] for life to come about naturally, Earth was formed ~4.5 billion years ago and life first appeared ~3.5 billion years ago. So “chance” had only 1 billion years to bring about life naturally.
Furthermore “chance” has no causal powers, there must be some mechanism.
The comeback for naturalists is usually "we don't know" or, “well, it’s not zero so it still possible” so my question would be how is naturalism falsified? If it can’t be then it is simply dogma.
If one took a million chances a second since the beginning of time you’d only have 10^90 chances where as a 488 letter sonnet would need 10^690 chances. And DNA is more complex than the 488 letter sonnet. But it happened by “chance” with no known mechanism! Yes it does take faith to be an atheist/naturalist.
>Contrast with any and all religious explanations, which have no evidence whatsoever and rely entirely on philosophical claims.
You do realize that science has as its foundation philosophy? I listed ten of them previously. If one gives a philosophical argument against naturalism/atheism or for theism the one comeback that cannot be spoken is “but it’s not science” because what doe science has as it foundation? PHILOSOPHY!
So if you try to discount “any and all religious explanations” because they rely entirely on philosophical claims then you’d have to discount science as well since it relies entirely on philosophical claims for its foundation. Otherwise it’s just special pleading
>Let me google that for you. This link in particular seems like a good start.
Except I never said anything about "adding" info. I said the “origin of info in DNA.
>...you do realize that dozens of scientists the world over have dedicated their lives to answering this question, right? They don't just make this shit up, they study for thousands of hours the genetic code of every living thing they can find, study intensely how DNA changes, and try to come up with the most likely scenarios to explain evolution.
There is a difference between “how DNA works” and ‘how DNA originated”. And if scientists are commited to only naturalistic explanations how likely are they to find anything other than naturalistic explanations?
>It doesn't. It's just one more explanation that atheism/naturalism found, that super-naturalism hasn't even bothered trying to research before asserting nonsense answers.
So philosophy is nonsense? But science has philosophy as it foundation! Remember supernatural explanations are philosophical in nature. Sounds like a special pleading fallacy; science utilizes philosophy but super-naturalism cannot.
>Absolutely! You study and you study, and you eventually find out that the results you get make no sense whatsoever in light of naturalism, and results consistently and repeatedly go against naturalism.
That is the result! Given the current scientific knowledge a naturalistic explanation of the origin of life, the universe, the info in DNA in untenable. A naturalistic understanding of how the brain developed means that it isn’t reliable.
>In 300 years of science, that hasn't happened, ever. You need more than just the odd statistical outlier, you need massive, continuous results from all the fields of science, that are inconsistent with naturalism.
You think only science can inform us on this? but as has been pointed out: science has philosophy as it foundation so philosophical arguments against naturalism have as much merit as any
scientific arguments for naturalism...Oh, wait there can be no scientific evidence for naturalism since science assumes naturalism, and it is a fallacy to assume to be true what you are trying to prove to be true; it’s circular logicNone of your “analysis” of the ten assumptions that I listed earlier do nothing to show that there are not philosophical assumptions that science uses but cannot prove.
For example for “3) the knowability of the external world” you say, “No idea what you mean by that. I look outside, I see rain fall from clouds, I can know that rain falls from clouds.” But the success of the scientific method assumes not only that reality has the quality of rationality, but that it is also knowable. That is, it is conceivable that my mind/brain is rational, but I could be irrational, and not able to form valid conclusions about reality - which is the implications of a brain that evolved for survivability and not rational thought. Per evolution/atheism our brains are organs for survivability, not pipelines to the truth. The scientist cannot prove that his or her mind is capable of anything more than utilitarian problem solving that may or may not speak actual truth.
>Under supernaturalism, if you make a new anti-cancer drug, how can you tell if the drug actually works, only works in 50% of patients, or if it's just a god messing with your results and that you have no way of knowing whether or not they are messing with you?
As I said if God set up the world as orderly then science could work. Now you want to say “if it isn’t orderly” then it wouldn’t work. Well, yes but that isn’t what I said. So you are using a strawman.
>We have never known anything remotely as accurate as this. Science can...
This isn’t science vs religion. As I’ve said before science can work without naturalism, if we have an orderly universe. In fact science did work without the presumption of naturalism.
>Saying I don't know is far better than pretending to know with made-up answers and mythological stories.
This is another strawman.
>It doesn't show naturalism false, it shows that our knowledge is incomplete.
if any failing of naturalism can be answered by saying, ”I don’t know” or “*we haven’t figured it out yet” how then is naturalism ever falsified?
Even if all the data pointed to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science not because of a lack of data but because it is not naturalistic. all that would have to be said is, “We haven’t figured out how this date conforms to a naturalistic model of the world.”
>What would prove naturalism false is again, irrefutable evidence that there is more than just the natural, that there is a supernatural realm affecting our reality in demonstrable, clear, repeatable ways.
Irrefutable evidence? You do realize that nothing in all of science is irrefutable, don’t you? All scientific knowledge is open to inquiry, and can change given enough data.
But you put the bar for supernaturalism to Irrefutable, that’s another special pleading fallacy from you. And why does it have to be repeatable? Do we know that WWII happened? Yes. Is it repeatable? No. So we can know things even of they are not repeatable.
>Since we already covered that ground, I'd like to ask you what you think of a god that would make us deliberately with a brain that isn't great at math, logic, and figuring out what's true.
Already answered. He didn’t, an unreliable brain is only a problem if it came about, as atheists/naturalists believe, by an unguided, purposeless process.
Might be bullshit, might not.
https://www.amazon.ca/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304
There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind is also a good read about one of the most prominent atheists, Anthony Flew, and what turned him into a deist. Gerald Shroeder's argument was instrumental in this and can be found as number 5 on this page as well as Roy Varghese's book The Wonder of the World: A Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God.
That's a very tortured reading of just one of the stories of a post-resurrection appearance.
I was thinking about what you said about us deserving more proof. Frankly, I think we've got far more than we have any right to when compared to previous generations.
In Jesus' day, only a few thousand people saw him work a miracle. Only a thousand at most saw him after the resurrection. In all of human history, seeing the supernatural has been confined to a relative handful of people.
Today, though, every single person in the developed world has access to
No, we don't get to see Jesus in the flesh -- walking on water or otherwise -- but we've got more than any generation since his has had. Far more. And we're going to be held responsible for what we did with that privilege.
Alright here are some of the best resources I know as a Catholic. Hope they help!
Edward Feser's blog as well as his The Last Superstition and 5 Proofs of the Existence of God
Stephen Barr's Modern Physics and Ancient Faith
Francis Collin's The Language of God
Anthony Flew's There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
Thomas Wood's How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
Brant Pitre's The Case For Jesus
Tim O Neill on the Church and science, the Inquisition and the Galileo affair
Jenny Hawkins on Jesus and God, early Christianity and form criticism
Al Moritz on the Fine Tuning Argument
>There is a reason someone should believe in the supernatural and mystical aspects of Christianity. This is a large issue for me. Solely based on supernatural and mystical ideas, from an outsider perspective, Christianity is no different than animism or Buddhism. I can't have faith alone.
Well when you look at the world's religions, Christianity has a clear and impressive advantage in the miracles/mystical department. Historically, in Christianity, there have been numerous cases of Eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions, miraculous healings and the spiritual gifts and religious experiences of countless Christian saints -- men and women of great virtue whose admirable character only add to the credibility of their testimony. Examples of these include Paul, Benedict of Nursia, Francis of Assisi, Dominic, Hildegard of Bingen, Anthony of Padua, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Vincent Ferrer, Joan of Arc, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Catherine Emmerich, John Vianney, Anna Maria Taigi, Genma Galangi, Faustina Kowalska and Padre Pio. We also have a pair of impressive relics, the shroud of Turin and the sudarium of Orvieto. I'll also throw in Catholic exorcisms.
And these Eucharistic miracles, Marian apparitions and religious/mystical experiences continue to happen today.
What do Buddhism and animism have in comparison?
>Anything that discusses and argues against some common tropes from atheists such as Mother Teresa being a vile, sadistic person.
Honestly, I'm quite stunned at the portrait atheists have painted of her. At worst, she wasn't perfect and made mistakes. She cannot be a vile monster like Hitchens claims she was, that's ridiculous. Here are some articles that defend Mother Teresa -- here, here, here and here.
Check out any of Mother Teresa's personal writings (e.g. No Greater Love, A Simple Path, Come Be Thy Light) to see what she believed in, what she valued and how she saw the world. Check out books written by people who actually knew her such as that of Malcolm Muggeridge, an agnostic BBC reporter who ended up converting to Catholicism because of Teresa and ended up becoming a lifelong friend of hers. Or that of her priest, friend and confessor, Leo Maasburg, who was able to recall 50 inspiring stories of Mother Teresa. Or that of Conroy, a person who actually worked with her. Or any biography of hers. Find out what she was like according to the people around her. Then afterwards, determine for yourself if she resembles Hitchen's "monster" or the Catholic Church's "saint".
> The consensus is many are forgeries.
The consensus 'amongst people you subscribe to' is many are forgeries. Most of their ideas are quite frankly full of suspicion and more like conspiracy theories than a search for truth.
The consensus over the past two thousand years is overwhelmingly in favour of traditional authorship.
>I don't necessarily agree with that. I know that's the orthodox view, but I don't mind being outside of orthodoxy. I'd rather be outside of the traditional orthodoxy, since I find it often incorrect.
I'm hardly surprised to see you write that.
You do essentially deny all that makes Christianity Christianity.
I suspect your view stems from the doubts you have over the existence of God and anything miraculous such as the bodily resurrection of Christ.
In relation to these two issues, let me ask if you have considered the 'argument from fine-tuning' as evidence for the existence of God? It is the argument which caused prominent atheist professor Anthony Flew to change his mind about the existence of God (so much that he wrote a book about it ).
The second is related to the resurrection of Christ. Apologist Dr. Gary Habermas has compiled a list of twelve historical facts on which most critical scholars agree with regards to the death and resurrection of Christ. There is enough evidence here to affirm the truth of the event if you are really looking for the truth, rather that trying to doubt it.
> If we had writings of them clearly doing so, I'd certainly appraise him differently. We don't have that though, and we do have evidence of them fighting back and forth.
So you don't consider Galatians 2 to be evidence of this?
> It's not about what I "like", it's about truth.
That isn't how it appears I am afraid.
By the way, I am still interested to hear your response from here.
You wrote this:
> I follow Jesus. I follow him as best as I can despite us having flawed accounts.
I responded with this:
> What exactly do you follow?
> If the accounts are flawed, how can you trust any of it?
> Which parts do you adhere to and how do you choose them?
I am very interested to hear your responses please.
Start here -> https://www.amazon.com/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304/ref=nodl_
Then compare the evidence that Harry Potter is real with the evidence that God is real.
Take your time. You can’t afford to be wrong.
Have you read that book?
Do you want to spark a debate? If not, put two words together in amazon.com and you'll get you're answer.
If you did want opinions, there are only fake ones or ones where the guy had some kind of psychological damage.
book 1
book 2
God has always acted in symbolic ways.especially in the Bible. When a country brought down his wrath, he sent a plague or another country to conquer it. When he planned to absolve everyone of their sins, he sent Christ to die for us. When he spoke to his prophets, he always did it in a symbolic form.
Ex: Moses and the Burning Bush.
He still acts in such ways to this days. Miracles occur on a daily basis thanks to his mercy. Look up Literatures on his existence and read them to learn more. I’ll even offer you a link to help get you started.
https://www.amazon.com/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304/ref=nodl_
Adding one final book before signing off.
There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind
> I'm fine with granting that the Universe forming is a miracle.
That's cool. What is it about the Universe that leads you to think it could be a miracle? For me, it is the amazing structure of the laws of physics.
I ask you because, what is it about DNA, ribosomes and the amazing structures within biology that make you then think they are "natural"? To me, microbiology is even more amazing than the cosmological argument. Anthony Flew was the most famous atheist of the 20th century. After he studied DNA and the amazing interplay of physics, chemistry, he became a theist. He wrote "There is a God. How the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind" : https://www.amazon.com/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304
> Darwin's small changes : Source, please.
See link below. Stephen Jay' Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" is where the evidence leads, and large changes are required to advanced beyond the local minimum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_landscape
http://sciencenordic.com/suggesting-answers-one-darwin%E2%80%99s-mysteries
Here's Darwin on small changes ("slight modifications") from Origin of Species : “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.”
> Until you can show HOW it was "designed", the notion that it IS designed is nonsense.
Huh? That's my whole point. It is a miracle. Atheists often ask for signs, and in microbiology you can see many amazing machines.
Your response sounds like this logically: "unless I think it is not a miracle, I'm not going to believe it is a miracle".
> Second, variation in traits IS evolution by definition.
Unfortunately, the word "evolution" is heavily overloaded. The term "evolution" is used sloppily to apply to mutation, speciation and even abiogenesis. Those are each very distinct concepts. Darwin's book is "Origin of Species", not "new traits". Do you think that blondes are different species than brunettes? Species are things like cats versus dogs. If you love science half as much as I do, please stop trying to confuse the concepts.
I'll grant that.
Since I mentioned it above, the holy book of my religion which gelled with me / spoke to me is the Principia Discordia. I don't know if it's what you're looking for, though. If it doesn't gel with you, all I can say is you're probably looking for a different god. Nothing wrong with that.
To bring things back on track, you may be interested in Anthony Flew's There is a God. It's been a few years since I read it, though, and all I remember is that it was decent enough that I think I read the whole thing.
/u/kempff recommended starting with Aristotle's Physics. This wouldn't be my own main recommendation for an apologetics work, though. Aristotle's surviving works are rather cryptic in style (they are generally believed to be lecture notes not intended for publication) and do not engage with modern materialist views.
I'm going to recommend two books. Neither is a source of detailed technical arguments; each gives a fairly broad overview of the arguments for theism that the authors find most convincing. Maybe they'll open up some new avenues of exploration.
The first is There Is a God by Antony Flew and Roy Varghese. Antony Flew was one of the most prominent atheist intellectuals of his era. At the age of 81, he made the shocking announcement that he had become persuaded of the existence of God, though he still denied the existence of an afterlife or any claims of divine revelation. This book was his major public statement on what had caused him to change his mind (though he doesn't really get down to this until halfway through the book). Many in the atheist community reacted to Flew's new deism with denial and speculation about Flew's mental faculties in his old age, and it was alleged in the press that a senile Flew was being exploited by his Christian coauthor; Flew publicly confirmed multiple times before his death that this book represented his own opinions.
The second is The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss. The author is a Christian, but this book only goes so far as to defend the God of Aristotle and Flew, drawing on pagan, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh writers as comfortably as Western and Eastern Christians. He says he only aims to provide a definition of the word "God," but a great deal of ink is spent heaping scorn upon naturalism.
God isn't an object first of all......He can't be proved in the sense that I can show you some 'thing'. He is proved within yourself, NOT outside your self. It's really so very clever, because that way, all the wise asses can carry on denying him until they finally croak, and yet all those who really want to know him can do so too. Everyone wins....How awesome is that....God gives us all exactly what we want. Anyway, nothing anyone says here is going to make a big dent in what anyone else already thinks, but what DOES intrigue me is how Antony Flew, former self-proclaimed: 'most notorious atheist' had a complete 'volte farce' after articulately articulating the case for atheism for an entire lifetime: http://www.amazon.com/There-Is-God-Notorious-Atheist/dp/0061335304/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335701365&sr=1-1
Please read and try to understand that the very latest microbiological research has vastly strengthen the argument "intelligent' design and it consequent theological rammifications.
http://www.amazon.com/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304
and
http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342550912&sr=1-1&keywords=god+delusion
have fun being confused!
Deism. The evidence convinced Antony Flew to change his religion:
http://www.amazon.com/There-God-Notorious-Atheist-Changed/dp/0061335304/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1421880907&sr=8-2&keywords=theist+flew