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It goes both ways. There are a lot of atheists that simply are unwilling to ask those tough questions. Maybe it scares them. Or maybe they're here, putting up a facade of unbelief while investigating the claims of religion.
Honestly though? The Bible says that faith itself is a gift from God. I've sat and explained the Gospel message for HOURS to people and then have them look me in the eye and they summarize it completely opposite of what it actually is. I think that some people simply are not called to believe, and are not gifted with faith. It's what Romans 8-9 says, Ephesians 1-2. Some are called, some are not.
I've said it before but here it is again: I would love for there to be a God. I would love for there to be some deeper meaning and some sort of backstop to how bad things can get. I would love to think there is some great equalizer out there and anyone who has been hurt will be made whole. I don't even give a crap if I end up being one of those that is destroyed due to some defect on my part. It just looks to me like what people use for evidence is not evidence at all. It looks like a bunch of wishful thinking.
Shutting off spiritual belief and ignoring that realm obviously has a big placebo effect, as we see in reading the comments. Face it Jumbo, you're engaged in exactly what you're complaining about others doing. Your system of disbelief is your religion.
I haven’t given you proof of the non-existence of the following:
1) The invisible vacuum cleaner god who permeates the universe and watches everything you do.
2) The race of super-intelligent space crabs, that lives in a distant galaxy and can communicate with you telepathically.
3) The green cheese that exists at the center of the moon.
4) The all-powerful Frankfurter Deity, who’s essence inhabits the chili dogs at every gas station in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and who controls everything in the universe.
5) Zeus, the Greek god of the sky.
6) The Pizza Hut in Appomattox Court House, at which General Lee had lunch immediately after surrendering to General Grant on April 9, 1865.
7) The computer simulation (that we all think is reality itself but is really just a computer simulation) invented by aliens in a distant solar system.
8) Vishnu, one of the gods of Hinduism, who is worshipped by millions.
9) The Golden Plates, from which the Book of Mormon was translated.
10) Narnia, the world that can be accessed via a wardrobe located in a house in the United Kingdom.
11) The invisible Aliens from the planet Neptune, who inspired Gavarillo Princip to assassinate the Archduke of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914?
I am not able to provide proof of the non-existence of any of those things.And yet you do not believe in the existence of any those things. Why? Why the double standard?
What about the tablets on which God personally inscribed the Ten Commandments? That's something all Christians and Jews believe, but they can't be proven to have ever existed either.
And on the other side, I was brought up in the Calvinistic sin/death/hell version of Christianity, which affected me very badly. I was told God loved me but he was watching everything I did and was gonna get me if I was bad. Crying too much was sinful, and I tended to cry a lot so I had to force myself to learn how to stop. Short version, my cousin died when I was six, but I didn't cry because I was trying to be good, plus I had to pray for her to get well every night, and in my mind according to what I heard in Sunday School, obviously I didn't pray correctly and that's why she died. Shortly after that, the OCD I still carry manifested itself.
You can see why I have little tolerance for the ones on here who still promote those beliefs.
I ditched religion and "decided" to be an atheist, but I kept finding myself "praying to a God I don't believe in", as the song says. In my thirties, my now-ex decided (as a result of his Catholic upbringing, I suppose, since he didn't attend any church) that we should have our soon-to-be born baby baptized. He was doing work at the local Episcopal rectory at the time and talked to the priest there and liked him, so we attended that church, and I heard a very, very different presentation of Christianity from the one I grew up with. It was a community, and they talked about love and justice and standing up for what was right for other people.
When the marriage became so difficult and then died and God didn't seem to be anywhere in the vicinity, I again decided to be an atheist, but it didn't work out. Right after that was the whole 9/11 WTC experience, which made me SO ANGRY at the response of the churches using the attacks as a recruiting tool and an excuse to hate Muslims, some of whom ran out of that building along with me, and one of whom saved the lives of some of my coworkers. Oddly, the realization that we are all more alike than different, that we are on different paths on the same mountain, brought me back onto a Christian path.
And here I am now, still hiking up the mountain, continuing as I go to meet and talk with people of other faiths when our paths cross.
Thanks for sharing. This part resonated:
Quote:
I was told God loved me but he was watching everything I did and was gonna get me if I was bad. Crying too much was sinful, and I tended to cry a lot so I had to force myself to learn how to stop.
I grew up much different religiously - Catholic household do an hour a week and you're good. But I had an old-school authoritarian step-father who felt he was always right, men don't cry, never said I love you, etc. It impacted me in certain negative ways, but luckily he did love us, is a good guy, is a person who's flaws are more clear for me to see now and is overall good for my family. But I can see how this would be much more different to overcome with an authoritarian God and when eternal hell is involved.
I'm still hiking too and maybe we'll cross paths maybe not. I think there's different paths and different mountains for different people.
Shutting off spiritual belief and ignoring that realm obviously has a big placebo effect, as we see in reading the comments. Face it Jumbo, you're engaged in exactly what you're complaining about others doing. Your system of disbelief is your religion.
equivocation doesn't suit you (making religion bad anyway), and in this case, it doesn't apply.
Is your religion non-Islam or anti-Islam or non-naturalism or something? That is... if your system of disbelief is somehow your religion. How many religions do you have?!?!
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 02-22-2018 at 06:50 PM..
So, how is your delusion of no God not a sugar pill?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thoreau424
Yes! Great point. They paint a picture that could easily be turned around 180 degrees to show themselves perfectly. But they won't admit it. They've lived by a way and approach that blocks reality before being given a breathing, living chance of being seen. Choking on a binge of placebos.
Calling atheism a placebo is like a doctor saying "here have this sameness-pill, it will do nothing for you"... and getting (somehow) a placebo effect from it. LOL
Full disclosure:
That type of placebo effect also exists if I remember correctly.
It seems that some people just want something to do [like taking a pill they know won't work], and that will get them feeling a bit better sometimes.
Still, those people won't go around pushing their holier-than-thou Panacea upon everyone.
I've said it before but here it is again: I would love for there to be a God. I would love for there to be some deeper meaning and some sort of backstop to how bad things can get. I would love to think there is some great equalizer out there and anyone who has been hurt will be made whole. I don't even give a crap if I end up being one of those that is destroyed due to some defect on my part. It just looks to me like what people use for evidence is not evidence at all. It looks like a bunch of wishful thinking.
The burden of proof is on you to open the door to the spiritual realm in a genuine/valid attempt to show itself to you. Likewise, the burden of proof is on you to show that God does not exist.
Will do that again (have done it)... as soon as you open your heart to naturalism and the mundanely beautiful. Make a genuine/valid attempt to make naturalism make perfect sense to you. That can't seem that ridiculous to you.
The burden of proof is on whoever wants to prove something. If theists/atheists don't meet their burden of proof, then they are not believed.
It is as simple as that.
Now, how about you show 100% conclusively that Allah isn't that God,
or that the FSM didn't create the trickster Yahweh of the face hidden in dark smoke and of the Terribly allowed Cooking Fire.
(delicious lamb, delicious fish, delicious anointing oil, delicious salt of the Earth).
What about the tablets on which God personally inscribed the Ten Commandments? That's something all Christians and Jews believe, but they can't be proven to have ever existed either.
I’ll add it to my list as item number 12.
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