Yesterday Matthew Paul Turner pointed to this video by Christian author and radio personality June Hunt, about how to get an atheist thinking so much that he or she might be willing to transition from their hard-core atheism to, at least, a form of agnosticism — and therefore leaving them open to considering the Christian God.

Ms. Hunt sure makes it seem simple. The “circles of knowledge” approach for those who admit to being seekers of truth, she says, “has been very successful.”

But it occurs to me that, using the same logic, the same isn’t-your-knowledge-pretty-limited? circle-drawing approach would be just as effective in forcing a Christian to consider that Allah could be the true god and Islam the one true religion. Because couldn’t some form of truth exist outside that which think we know?

It could also force us to admit that Norse mythology could an accurate worldview. Or that Joseph Smith and his Mormon faith were true. Or that Mictlantecuhtli, the skeletal Aztec god of death who wears a necklace of human eyeballs, could possible exist in a horrible afterlife somewhere outside our limited range of knowledge.

Know any Christians who are just a few quick questions away from making those leaps? Me neither. Then why do we expect atheists to be ready to do the same?

I think humility is good, and admitting the limits of our knowledge is healthy. That’s why we doubt: because we don’t know everything. And that’s also why we seek truth.

But that doesn’t mean conversion is quite this easy, even with powerful illustrations of empty circles.

[Original H/T: Christian Nightmares]