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If I believed in an afterlife in which everyone wallows in lemon meringue pie, then being unbelieving about that inherently means abandoning all hope of the eternal lemon meringue.
What I hope in / for is a clear apprehension of reality -- which has nothing to do with whether I like said reality or not, or would prefer a different one.
I guess I just have more courage in the face of reality than you. Yes, life is a random deck of cards. Your "ifs ands & buts" notwithstanding. You play the hand you are dealt and you don't rely on an invisible man in the sky to help you with it.
You see it's equally true of you as of me: anything and everything you have can be taken from you at any time, for any reason or for no reason. You choose to live in denial of that, imagining (1) a control panel somewhere (2) at which sits a powerful entity who cares whether you are squashed like a bug or not. I choose to live in recognition of it. Then when s__t goes down I don't have to wonder where (2) is and why he's not manning (1). No existential angst. Just stuff happening. Works way better for me.
Hope for a life of happiness. If you do find joy in this realm, it can be snatched away in an instance, anytime any place. No amount of money or friends can protect you from pain. In fact, some of the most miserable people out there are the wealthy ones.
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Originally Posted by mordant
I guess I just have more courage in the face of reality than you. Yes, life is a random deck of cards. Your "ifs ands & buts" notwithstanding. You play the hand you are dealt and you don't rely on an invisible man in the sky to help you with it.
Well maybe you do have more courage. I certainly wouldn't be willing to gamble my enternal destination on a whim. You have countless Christians out there attesting to having supernatural experiences with God. That would at least make me a bit uneasy if I was an atheist, but you have to assume they are either lying or delusional. So the majority of the world's population are either liars or mentally ill. Is that really the reality that you are willing to believe in?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
You see it's equally true of you as of me: anything and everything you have can be taken from you at any time, for any reason or for no reason. You choose to live in denial of that, imagining (1) a control panel somewhere (2) at which sits a powerful entity who cares whether you are squashed like a bug or not. I choose to live in recognition of it. Then when s__t goes down I don't have to wonder where (2) is and why he's not manning (1). No existential angst. Just stuff happening. Works way better for me.
Different strokes, I guess.
I don't live in denial at all. I have no doubt that God is real because I've seen it and lived it
If I believed in an afterlife in which everyone wallows in lemon meringue pie, then being unbelieving about that inherently means abandoning all hope of the eternal lemon meringue.
What I hope in / for is a clear apprehension of reality -- which has nothing to do with whether I like said reality or not, or would prefer a different one.
I guess I just have more courage in the face of reality than you. Yes, life is a random deck of cards. Your "ifs ands & buts" notwithstanding. You play the hand you are dealt and you don't rely on an invisible man in the sky to help you with it.
You see it's equally true of you as of me: anything and everything you have can be taken from you at any time, for any reason or for no reason. You choose to live in denial of that, imagining (1) a control panel somewhere (2) at which sits a powerful entity who cares whether you are squashed like a bug or not. I choose to live in recognition of it. Then when s__t goes down I don't have to wonder where (2) is and why he's not manning (1). No existential angst. Just stuff happening. Works way better for me.
I thought anecdotal evidence doesn't count? It does? Cool, then I'll share a story of mine. One day when my mom was a little girl, her father suddenly had a massive heart attack. He was doubled over and turning blue from the lack of oxygen. He whispered to his daughter to pray for him, pray for him. My mom immediately started asking God to save him and the next thing she saw was him sitting up, color back and laughing. He was proclaiming that God healed him! He lived well into his 80s.
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc. It's a basic fallacy taught in freshman philosophy courses.
Cat Stevens converted to Islam after he narrowly escaped drowning in a rip current. He believes Allah saved him. So which god is real? Allah or the Christian God?
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Like I said before, you can shout that God is imaginary all you want. It doesn't change reality. God is real, and you have no proof to show otherwise.
I have no proof to show that the Great Cosmic Sky Hamster isn't real. And yet, oddly enough, you don't believe in the Great Cosmic Sky Hamster. Why the double standard?
I'm going to start a Jeffbase Negative Proof counter, starting immediately.
Since 7/18/15, jeffbase has used the Negative Proof fallacy 0000001 times.
Hope for a life of happiness. If you do find joy in this realm, it can be snatched away in an instance, anytime any place. No amount of money or friends can protect you from pain. In fact, some of the most miserable people out there are the wealthy ones.
You hope for happiness, I hope for happiness, we all hope for happiness. Are you suggesting that your god protects or enables or ensures this happiness?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Well maybe you do have more courage. I certainly wouldn't be willing to gamble my eternal destination on a whim. You have countless Christians out there attesting to having supernatural experiences with God. That would at least make me a bit uneasy if I was an atheist, but you have to assume they are either lying or delusional. So the majority of the world's population are either liars or mentally ill. Is that really the reality that you are willing to believe in?
Are you willing to gamble that you won't die today in a horrible car accident? You're not going to get into your car today and drive someplace, I trust.
Or do you not really consider it enough of a risk to give you pause?
It's the same for me. I'm not gambling my eternal destiny on a whim ... nor am I assuming I have one to gamble with in the first place. I see no evidence for it ... less evidence than actually exists that you could die horribly in searing pain in some automobile-related conflagration any given day ... and so I am even less concerned about it than you are about an auto accident.
As to how much I weight Christian testimony / sentiment ... how much do you weigh the testimony and sentiment of millions of Muslims that their understanding and experience of god and the testimony of his alleged final prophet? How much do you weigh the testimony of Mormons concerning the words of Moroni? Or of Scientologists concerning the assertions and claims of one L. Ron Hubbard? How much do you credit other formerly widespread notions such as that there are four elements or that disease is caused by bad ethers?
I dont think most people who have made such claims, including Christians, are lying or delusional in the extreme sense of cynically promoting things they believe to be untrue or being completely and pathologically untethered from all reality. In the vast majority of cases if Joe Christian says he believes he walks and talks with his god, I am not going to claim that he doesn't really believe that ... only that he hasn't justified his belief to me.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
I don't live in denial at all. I have no doubt that God is real because I've seen it and lived it
Nor did I doubt it ... until forced to by circumstances to look at things I was not previously willing to look at.
Cupper, the reason it appears God doesn't care is because God has chosen to work through people. Instead, too many claiming to know God care about pointing out sin rather than correcting it through their own action. Their churches praise national violence for national interests, they make every serviceman a hero (my Vietnam service proved that many servicemen are not heroes, they are bullies and cruel), they pontificate over the sin of "others" while ignoring their own, and they nominally spend enough energy to sate their own guilty conscience while refusing to tell the government to get its priorities in order.
So that starving child is the responsibility of every person who claims Christ as Savior. He may be the responsibility of those who are NOT Christ followers, too, but none of them have the clear injunction of God's Word to: "He has showed you, O man, what is good.And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to humble yourself and walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8
Few churches are sending out that message with any conviction today. And from fundamentalists---well, their posts on these thread show that their interest is in YOUR sin, AND mine--not in loving kindness and mercy.
Cupper, the reason it appears God doesn't care is because God has chosen to work through people.
An odd choice for a benevolent, loving heavenly father with unlimited powers.
He has the ability to intervene, to protect, to comfort, to show compassion, mercy, etc., and doesn't, and then it is all our fault somehow for not doing his work for him?
More than that: he had the freedom to choose not to let things deteriorate to this point in the first place.
You do realize there is a difference between attending church, and being a church member?
The drop of 200,000 is the church members. And as you can see, the number of baptisms are down also. That means the sales funnel for a new members just does not exist.
Jeff, and others who are apologetics, you need to realize that the decline in church membership, attendance, and belief, is a precursor to more and more people accepting reality. As the report indicates, this is becoming more and more the way Millennials are looking at religion, and particularly the Christian religion.
Again as the report indicates, membership in the Southern Baptist Convention is getting older and older, and young people just have no interest in participating.
The decline in religiosity in the United States of America is real, and no matter how much apologists may want to deny it, is increasing.
And as Martha Stewart says, that is a good thing.
Yes, it is a good thing, and Roger Williams--the man who founded the first Baptist congregation in America--would applaud it.
Roger Williams--a staunch Calvinist-- would tell you that it's a good thing that being Christian provides no social benefit, therefore those who become members of the church are more likely actually to be of the elect. He would tell you that when being a Christian is a social benefit, it means the pews will be packed with the non-elect seeking those social benefits.
Cupper, the reason it appears God doesn't care is because God has chosen to work through people.
God is (traditionally) omnipotent. Deciding to work through limited humans with limited natural resources is downright irresponsible.
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Originally Posted by Wardendresden
Instead, too many claiming to know God care about pointing out sin rather than correcting it through their own action. Their churches praise national violence for national interests, they make every serviceman a hero (my Vietnam service proved that many servicemen are not heroes, they are bullies and cruel), they pontificate over the sin of "others" while ignoring their own, and they nominally spend enough energy to sate their own guilty conscience while refusing to tell the government to get its priorities in order.
Ok, so why did God allow his believers to go astray like that? Knowing that his followers would be corrupted, he shouldn't have decided to work through them in the first place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden
So that starving child is the responsibility of every person who claims Christ as Savior. He may be the responsibility of those who are NOT Christ followers, too, but none of them have the clear injunction of God's Word to: "He has showed you, O man, what is good.And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to humble yourself and walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8
The child is starving because of limited food resources. All life forms have been struggling for limited resources since life first began billions of years ago. Life is ultimately a bitter competition for limited energy. Fangs, venom, claws, and killer insincts are nature's way of getting this energy. Your God is a bit late to the party, don't you think? God could have intervened billions of years ago and blessed life with abundant energy so that predatory life forms would never have needed to evolve in the first place.
What saved (many) humans from suffering on the edge of starvation (like every other organism) was domestication of plants and animals, followed by farming. So thank those brilliant early humans who learned how to do selective breeding. And don't forget the tireless efforts of all of those scientists and engineers since the Enlightenment. You may think that an invisible man in the sky should get the credit, but that's not me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden
Few churches are sending out that message with any conviction today. And from fundamentalists---well, their posts on these thread show that their interest is in YOUR sin, AND mine--not in loving kindness and mercy.
Better yet, we could actually take care of the less fortunate like every other wealthy industrialized nation. But we've decided to let your God handle it, and the results are predictable.
If churches and neighborhoods no longer are something people "belong" to, then what DO they belong to? Employment and professional connections and social media appears to be about it. People don't really have time or energy for much more. Roughly a third of the people who live here aren't really invested in the 'hood. And even the owner / occupants are here not to build a sub-community together, but to have a place to "flop".
I'm beginning to think that I'm living in a dystopian world where no one talks to anyone except by email or FaceBook .
, I am not convinced that the social support and community once provided by these organizations is being replaced by anything equivalent. Or that the downward spiral is entirely a function of people getting hip to the BS of faith-based belief systems.
That sentiment is explored in this best-selling sociology book
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