Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
Here's what I KNOW you and others will never believe, as indeed you've just stated: I could have said all the same things.
|
I haven't read the rest of your post yet - but this is probably the only sentence I'm likely to agree with. At least up to a point. It is true that there's really nothing you can say on an internet forum that will get me to believe whatever religious claim you're about to make.
But to say that I will *never* believe is presumptuous - because maybe some good evidence will come along some day and I'll be the most devout Christian who ever lived. I doubt it. A lot. But it could happen, no?
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
In fact, I most certainly have, over the years, in one formulation or another, stated all the same things. I certainly could have and would have persisted in atheism, as I had for 14 years. It would have been inconceivable that I'd be saying what I'm saying now a mere three months ago. But then Jesus found me when I was NOT looking for Him!
|
Yeah, this is another one of those evangelist/proselytizing tropes I've heard a thousand times before. "I wasn't looking for Jesus, but ... there he was!"
Which is rather insulting to those who have spent years looking for him and never found him.
This trope also falls in direct contradiction to another trope I hear all the time: "If you believe with all your heart, you will find Jesus" or "Jesus will then come to you" or something similar.
So on one hand, Jesus barges into the lives of some people unanounced and uninvited - rather rude, in my opinion - while on the other, you have to believe first before you can really know Jesus or understand the Bible.
Well ... which is it? And while I know these two tropes are not mutually exclusive, if Jesus truly does do *both* at the same time, then, really, what's the point of doing anything at all? Might as well just live your life as an atheist and if you find Jesus under your couch or lying in bed with you in the pitch dark of the wee hours, then hey! You can choose whether or not to believe.
But the reality of it is that he either comes looking for you - or you have to go looking for him - depending on which one is more convenient to the argument being made at the time. Who cares about consistancy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
I received the inward call of God. He has demonstrated Himself to me beyond any shadow of a doubt in my mind, and has physically interceded in my own life and left me with a lasting faith of not only His existence but the eternal security that I am given.
|
This is the equivalent of those scam callers who say something like, "When I joined the program, I made $15,000 my very first month! By the end of the year, I had made my first million. Now I make over $400,000 per year. I can tell you without a doubt that the program works - it made such a difference in my life and it can work for you, too! Now, I'm a permanent member and I'll be making money and have financial security for the rest of my life. You can have it all too ... but first you need to sign up for our program. Just give your credit card number - sorry, we do not take debt cards ... and you'll be on your way to life you only ever dreamed of!"
I mean, tell me they don't both sound virtually identical?
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
And so now I have faith.  You probably think I'm "lying for Jesus," as you put it. Indeed, I have had unbelievers tell me they don't believe my story. That's quite amusing to me because I know from personal experience what's true in my own life!  |
Well, the "liars for Jesus" made it difficult to trust any of these shenanigans.
But the real reason why I find it difficult to believe these stories - not just your specifically - is because there are just too many similarities between witnessing Christians.
For example, there is the classic approach that goes like this: "I was once a criminal. I did drugs. I partied all the time. I had sex with multiple partners. I robbed and got into fights and ... I did this and I did that. But then I found Jesus and suddenly my whole life turned around!"
It's amazing how many Christians had the exact same set of past circumstances - just vague enough to omit any particular details but detailed enough to sound convincing to someone who wants to be convinced.
But ... there was a time in my life, just after graduating high school and my life was in free fall, I had some genuine baddie friends (of course they all ended up in prison). Thing is, they have a certain mannerism, a certain way they talk, a certain voice inflection, a certain vocabulary range, etc. And the people witnessing from the perspective of "I was once a baddie and then I found Jesus" do not have those mannerisms. None. Zero.
Not only that, but I have seen, and in some cases personally met, a few baddies who *were* genuine bad guys who did find Jesus - and guess what. Yep. Those baddie mannerisms were still there. Oh, they no longer did bad things - but they did NOT go from King Gang-Banger to Ned Flanders with a finger snap.
And for those reasons I have a *very* hard time believing that most of this is true. Oh sure, I'm confident that there have been people who were in a lousy place in their lives and religion helped them get out of it. No doubt. But the ones who push it - the ones who try to sell their experience like a drug dealer on the corner pushing their "primo stuff," they make me suspicious.
It's like those signs in front of churches - the ones where you can rearrange the letters to make a custom sign. Unless every pastor is extremely clever, I have no doubt there is some book or list somewhere that is filled with cutsy religious sayings designed especially for those signs.
Or, during sermons, I've noticed that the pastor always ... *always* ... has an anecdote for whatever situation, event, or Bible verse he decides to talk about that Sunday. I remember thinking how fortuitous it must be for this one man to have so many varying experiences with so many varied people that he always has a story for every possible contingency.
But is that true? No ... because I think there are certainly books and seminars on how to be an effective pastor, and those resources probably have entire lists of anecdotes to give to the congregation when talking about hell or being saved or sexual impurity or whatever the sermon happens to be about that day.
And in those veins, I personally believe that a lot of this generic witnessing is a sales pitch with a script. It's usually pretty obvious when the witnessing comes from the person's own arsenal of personal experience - and when they're just talking out of their backside. Ya know?
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
As you said, you can't make yourself believe. I don't doubt that, as this is a Biblical doctrine. In John 6:44, Jesus conveys that you cannot come to Him unless the Father wills it. (And if the Father wills it, then His call is not something one is able to resist.) And 1 Corinthians 1:21 speaks to this:
For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
|
And this is why Christian doctrine is flagrantly immoral. So let's say for the sake of argument that the Bible is true. If the Father never wills it, I get to burn in hell for eternity for something that wasn't even my fault. Is that the mark of a good, fair, and
just God to you?
Moreover, don't get me started on how often the Bible talks about how one should stay ignorant and foolish in order to believe the faith. I find that rather ... odd, don't you think? That one cannot be both wordly and knowledgeable as well as have faith? The problem is - as the authors of the Bible clearly knew - that the more you know, the less likely you are to believe in the crazy absurdities found in that book.
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
I will never convince every atheist to have faith, because faith is not given by me. It is given by God.
|
Which, again, is a testament to the immorality of your doctrine. If it's not up to me to have faith and, instead, I have to wait around for God to give it to me, how can I be deserving of eternal torment?
By the way, your version of Christianity stands in direct contravention to the common Christian claim that "non-believers send themselves to Hell" for "choosing" not to believe.
So ... which is it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
Many Christians balk at predestination in general; however, the doctrine of predestination is not only Biblical but indispensable to understanding Scripture. The only hope I can have is to play some role in growing God's kingdom even if only among just a few who hear what I'm saying.
|
Then why does God send non-believers to Hell? Or, in fact, punish them at all?
Why even create non-believers at all if our final fate is all preordained?
Don't you find that at all immoral to create humans that will end up tormented forever through no fault of their own - and worse still - deliberately set their ultimate fate as being doomed to eternal damnation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
Indeed, the purpose of evangelism is not so much that God needs us to do His work, but that we need to do some of that work ourselves as an act of worship.
|
Actually, the purpose for evangelism is to conquer the world and put every last man, woman, and child under the Christian church. Because Christianity, like Islam, has a stated mandate to rule the earth.
I take issues with both religions because neither of them, at their cores, care one whit about religious freedom or rights of any kind, really - which is why we needed a secular document to create our rights. Because you certainly won't find them anywhere within religion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
I am putting forward what I certainly think are many cogent reasons to believe in the Gospel. (And in this thread, I haven't even addressed other issues such as the problems with evolution and uniformitarianism, and the failure of atheist cosmologies.)
|
I am confident that no argument you have against evolution, uniformitarianism, and cosmology are at all new and they have been thoroughly debunked. Otherwise, you would be collecting your Nobel Prize for proving God. Or someone else would have ... and probably would have a long time ago.
YOU can believe what you want. And while I may offer up counter-arguments to a lot of God-claims made on this forum, I will never tell someone they should deconvert or that they should give up their faith. As an atheist, it would please me greatly if you did - because that would be one less person in the world who believes in something we atheists see as completely irrational - not to mention damaging to the progress of humanity.
My view is that as long as your free to proselytize, I'm free to counter-proselytize. Those reading our posts can make up their own minds.
But forgive me if I do not feel kindly toward *any* religious dogma that, as I said before, has a mandate to conquer the world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
No single reason in isolation is a smoking gun. But when I look at my own experiences, as well as the MANY testimonies of other Christians--and in conjunction with the scientific and historical reasons to have faith--then there's no room for doubt!
|
There's room for an entire universe of doubt. Testimonies are the worst form of evidence for anything - let alone the most important decision of them all.
I think it's a travesty that people such as Abraham, Adam, Paul, Moses, and many others - including every Hebrew involved in the Exodus saw God, interacted with God, saw directly with their own eyes unquestioned miracles and divine power. For them, there was absolutely no doubt that God, Yahweh, existed.
So why do we now have to make a decision regarding our eternal soul with nothing to work with except faith - which is not at all a pathway to truth. Why do I have to gamble that Christianity is the right religion and Yahweh the right God - when there are hundreds of other practicing religions and loads of gods to believe in? Why, because I just happen to live in a Christian country? If I had stayed in India, I would have become a Hindu - if I became anything at all. And if you had been born there, you would almost certainly be singing the praises of Ganesh or Shiva or one of the other Hindu gods.
There's no way I would gamble my eternal soul and the only concrete thing I have to base it on is the geographical odds of where I was born. Gee, must be nice for everyone born in a Christian nation. Guess you all dodged that bullet, eh? It's too bad that 2/3rds of the world's population were not born in a Christian nation and do not believe in your God. Too bad for them, right?
I mean, that's great that you don't have any doubt - but that's what religion demands of its adherants. Do not doubt because that is corrosive to faith. Doubting causes a person to ask questions, to investigate, to really think about what they believe, to delve into epistomology and logic - which usually causes their eyes to open and realize, reluctantly, that they have absolutely no good reason to believe what they do.
Because the people who flew those planes into the WTC on 9/11 - they didn't have any doubt either. So certain were they of the truth of Islam that they literally martyred themselves to prove the primacy of their own religion. Which is what happens when two religions with a mandate to rule the world begin butting up against each other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
Unfortunately, you seem to think this debate hinges on what it will take to convince you. You seem to think that I must have failed if I do not convince you. However, if not you, then perhaps there is someone else reading this message who needs to hear what I'm saying. For every argument, there will be a counterargument. Ultimately, you will believe what you want to believe.
|
Even if that were true - which it's not - I don't believe something just because I want to believe it.
In fact, that's rather ridiculous. Don't you think that I would love to live on forever after I die? Don't you think I wouldn't love to have an all-powerful and loving God who cares about me and always does what's best for me (and yet still allows me to make my own choices). Do you not think that I would want to live forever in a wonderful paradise where there is no more sorrow and sickness - no more pain and death? Do you not think that I would love to see all of my loved ones again? Yes, it would be SOO easy to have everything I need to know spelled out in a book.
The atheist position is the hardest position of all because we have to give all of that up. And we give all of that up without gaining a single thing for ourselves. It's not like we just believe in a different Heaven and everything is the same as Christianity except without a God.
No, we atheists leave ourself bereft of eternal life, of a loving God ... all of that. Do you think we did that without thought or care for the truth? In fact, we became atheists because, by all the available evidence, a lack of a god *is* the truth. The universe doesn't care what I want - or what you want - or what the entirety of humanity wants.
And if it means there is no safety net at the bottom of the fall, so be it -- that is the truth of it. And whether I believe the net is there or not, I'll still hit the pavement at 9.8 meters per second squared. Whether I want to or not.
One of the mantras of many atheists is to live our life to the fullest because this is the only one we get. And yet I am still fairly young but I have a painful disability that limits my mobility and prevents me from doing 99% of the things I used to enjoy. That is my life - the ONLY life I know for sure I will have - and it was ruined by a defective body.
So wouldn't it be really provocative for me to believe that this *isn't* my only chance? That once I die I'll be able to live again and not be crippled up and a virtual shut-in? Oh yes ... yes it would. BUT, there is no reason for me to believe that is true and I'm not going to hang on to an idea of eternal life when there is absolutely no reason for me to believe it.
I, of many people, have every reason to believe in God. But I don't. Not because I "believe what I want to believe" but because I believe that which can be demonstrated to be true. It is believers who believe what they want to believe - they are the ones who deny science, deny reality, and construct an alternate version of reality where their beliefs will be safe. Even to the point of constructing an entirely different - and exceedingly faulty - set of physical laws, scientific proofs, cosmological models while ignoring and denying the parade of fallacies in their reasoning.
But I do agree ... I know I'm not going to convince you of anything. But anyone who has the guts and courage to read what I say might get something out of this and, perhaps, have their eyes opened. Even if they flatly deny everything I say today, that little seed of doubt that I planted in their mind might take root - and grow to full-fledged non-belief maybe years or even decades from now. I was already told flat-out by some people that my posts actually did help them become a full-fledged atheist, so I know I'm doing my job. No doubt you're doing yours as well.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
