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t8 the fact is, the english definition for the word fool has nothing to do with a persons opinions of religion. if the blble says it does, than the bible is wrong. I would not expect you to believe that because when the facts say one thing and the bible says another, you dismiss the facts and go along with the bible. You ask if I am not devoted to atheism why am I argueing the position? News Flash! it is possible to argue a position without being devoted to the position being arugued. You say Worship is simply that which you give most attention to? I give most of my attention to my family I guess you would conclude that I worship my family. let alone the fact that the dictionary defines worship as "The reverant love and devotion accorded a deity an idol or a sacrad object" which does not describe my family! again, the facts/dictionary say one thing, your religion says another, you dismiss the facts and go along with your religion. When you call me a fool, because that is how the bible describes my opinions that is about as constructive as me calling you a gullible idiot because Jessie Ventura (the exwrestler and governor) said all Christians are gullible idiots. You don’t respect what Jessie Ventura says, and I don’t respect what the bible says. so insulting me is not constructive unless it just makes you feel better which I believe is the case. You say Hitler and all the other Christians who have done horrible things in the past are not true christians? the dictionary says anybody who professes Jesus as Christ is a Christian. it has nothing to do with behavior it is all about belief. That would be like me saying Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin were not real atheist because, real atheist would not do those things
Peace
Ok so you have given up with truth or logic and resorted to shallow accusations. If you reject the bible or God or advice, then that is your choice is it not.
Would it not be foolish to believe that a 747 assembed itself from raw ingredients by pure chance. Yet the odds of that are far more feasible, than the complex atomic, solar and galactic structures forming itself out of raw materials. That is even ignoring how the raw materials got there in the first place.
So I have the right to say that anyone who believes that a 747 can make itself, is foolish, just as the man who says there is no God. They are both saying the same thing.
Now if someone says that gambling your money is foolish and you say that you gamble with your money, then how can you say that someone called you a fool. No he spoke the truth and you called yourself a fool by reason of that judgement. Your only defence besides saying the judgment is wrong, or admitting your error and changing would be to try and justify gambling as being a wise thing to do and then say something like all non gamblers are idiots if you wanted to be extreme about it.
Same with your argument. I didn't call you a fool, I said the bible calls Atheists, fools. I believe the scriptures as I am entitled too. So you then resort to name calling without justification. That says to me that you lost the debate, that you ran out of wise things to say or you do not have any foundation on which you have placed your belief or your argument.
You then talk about worship, but if one can worship money or a person, then one can worship anything. Anything that you make number 1 in your life besides God is an idol. It is even an accepted word in use when describing a musician that you absolutely adore. Even family shouldn't be put in the place of God. God first everything else second. Second place in someone's life if they have God as number 1 is better than being numero uno by a godless person. To make people number 1 will only lead to dissapointment and imbalance in your life.
But it is your choice as you have a will and this will belongs to you and you alone. I can offer advice, but if you do not want it, then I have done my bit to help you and there is nothing more that I can do for you.
I was only trying to connect you to the source of all goodness and love, but if you want to be cut off or to not even acknowlege a source for these things, then again that is your choice. At least you cannot plead ignorance if you do not like the consequences of being cut off from God.
You then say that “all Christians are gullible idiots” and this proves my point doesn't it.
Psalm 53:1
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.John 15:18
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.If you reject God, that will not affect me personally will it. I was only trying to help you, but I have an eternity to gain and I still believe in helping people even if they spit in your face.
Anyway I hope that you see the light at some point. Not for my sake but for your own.
No hard feelings.
Hello t8
after reading your last post, it seems you gotten your facts mixed up about me. you say it would be foolish to believe a 747 could assemble itself by pure chance! an argument used against people who deny the universe has a design to it. But if you remember my 3rd response I said "I don’t deny the universe may have a designer I don’t know enough about astronomy to make that judgment call, I just don’t believe YOUR god is the designer. You say I reject God? I can’t reject something that has not been presented to me, now I know that God is invesible, but you gotta realize, to me the invisible and the nonexistant look alike! Now if you remember on my 5th response I said "If I saw proof of the existence of God, I would believe." so the argument that I reject God does’nt fly. as far as you not calling me a fool, c’mon you know you did, you just used the bible to cover it up. if the slang term in the bible for an atheist is fool than it is still an insult to use it on people who are unaware that it is a slang term. Example, in England the term "Fag" is a slang term used for a cigaritte. in America the term ‘Fag" is an insulting word for homosexuals. if I am in America and I say "I am going outside to burn a fag" they will think I am insulting homosexuals. I know little about bible slang so you must use american terms when responding to me and in america fool has nothing to do with anyones religious opinions. if you dont believe me get a dictionary and look it up. and finally (I had to laugh at this one) you accused ME of insulting YOU! you say I called you a gullible idiot? you can’t be serious! I never called you such. I said Jessie Ventura called christians gullible idiots. and just as you don’t respect his insulting rants as fact, I don’t respect the bibles insulting rants (calling Atheists fools) as fact. Most of my friends are Christians and even though we don’t see eye to eye on religion, I have too much respect for their beliefs to insult them that way. Can you say the same? I think not!
and finally you say that you just wanted to connect me to a source of goodness and love! well…. I am perfectly happy with my life just the way it is, as a matter of fact I could probably show you a thing or two on how to improve your life if you would just give up that religious stuff!peace
Fair enough dude,
I didn’t understand the "Jessie Ventura called christians gullible idiots" part, but I do now, even though I do not know who he is. I also thought that you acknowledged design, but not the designer part, so sorry if I misunderstood that.
The bit about what fag means in USA and UK is true. I am from New Zealand and fag means both. I got caught out once when I was at a party and made reference to my brother going out for a fag rather than smoking inside, trouble was I said it right in front 2 gay guys. They looked at me to see if I was insulting them and it was hard to keep a straight face, even though I didn’t mean any harm whatsoever.
Anyway it was good talking to you even though we didn’t agree. Iron sharpens iron and all that.
The burden of proof does not lie with the atheist to prove that god does not exist. The burden of proof lies with theists to prove that it does. If I told you that you MUST accept the fact that little green gnomes were living in my attic simply because you couldn't prove that they weren't, you would call me crazy.
Why is the non-existence of God the default?
Atheists talk about the non-existence of God as if it were fact. I would sure like to hear some proof? But they cannot show any.
Do you not think that there should be a burden of proof to back up an assumption that is not proven? Or shall we all just put our head in the sand and believe what we are told to believe?
Here you people talk about people who dont believe in god and how they need proof, well what about the other side of the fence? the people who do believe in god….do they have proof either? you cannot say that someone who chooses to not believe in the theory that the world and everything was created by god needs proof, you dont need any proof what so ever to back up your beliefs, everyone is entitled to there own opinion. So, maybe its not the same as yours, but that doesnt mean to say that the opposite belief is wrong? you people all talk about god and the bible like its the most amazing thing ever, but YOU have no proof either. For all you or anybody could know, the bible could have been written by a caveman, bored one day, decided to use his imagination and create a story…write it on a wall….years later someone finds it and decides to publish it and make the world believe that this is how the world began. You cannot say that someone who doesnt believe in god needs proof to back up what they believe, when you yourself a “believer” have no proof either. We will never know. Personally i believe that there is no god, im not saying your theory is wrong, im just simply saying you shouldnt consider somebodies belief as wrong, that is discrimination against those who dont believe, now if you really do beleive in god, do you think someone considered so high and mighty by someone such as your self would approve that you discriminate someone who has different opinions?
Welcome death blooms,
No you are entitled to your opinion and if we do not agree with you that is not discrimination is it?
Are you familiar with the bible? Have you got one?
This forum is to discuss and share and help one another understand it so if you haven't got one then that is a good place to start. Then we can show you what is in there that makes it so amazing.
If you have no interest in God why did you come aboard? You are still welcome anyway but we would like to have some meaningful conversation. You don't need to believe in God but I am sure you believe in something outside of yourself?
What about the stars and their beauty. Have you ever looked up there and wondered how it all began?Disagreeing with what i believe in isnt discrimination. But they way people see us as….how do i put it, they see us as i dunno, dark people who need to see the light. Weve seen the light its jst a different kind of light to yours. I dnt have an interst in god, i have an interest in seeing how people react to what others beleive in, which in my case is the opposite of beleiveing. I was actually searching in google and i went to a site about atheists and then there were links everywhere and so i read what the people here had to say, so i registered and decided to write back on my oppinion. Yes i look at the stars and i do think theyre amazingly beautiful, but personally i dont believe that “god” created them. No i dont have a bible and im not completely fimular with it, but i had religious instructions as a child and ive heard some of the stories, this is why i choose not to believe, i think it is a unrealistic theory.
Thank you,
Yes people choose their own path. You sound as though you think about things pretty deeply. Since the beginning of time it has not been hard to notice that everyone dies. Some die old and some very young. Some have happiness and some don't seem to. People love and they hurt and they live and they die.
But not everyone likes that thought. Life can seem so short and so pointless.
Centuries ago men started to experience something new and terrifying. A being revealed itself to them and caused amazing miracles to happen. This being claimed to be the creator of everything but showed an interest in helping people.
Men started to write down their experiences and these were collected into books which fitted together to make a marvellous harmonious pattern no matter who wrote them. Men also appeared claiming to have been sent by this God who prophesied the future and it came about.
Then Jesus appeared and claimed to be the son of this being and he is recorded as doing wonderful healings and other helpful things for all.His life was recorded and it was found that many things about him were predicted in the books written 500 or more years earlier.He left his followers to continue his work and they also wrote books that all harmonised too with the old testament.
We read all these things we cannot explain and can only conclude that God exists and He loves us and wants to offer us a future beyond death. How can we refuse as His little kindnesses follow us every day since we obeyed His simple requests?
This God will help anyone so if you want us to pray for you in any way then tell us. Perhaps He will answer you and you too might learn to believe?Hi death___blooms,
If you look at a human eye and a camera and study them both, you will find that both use the same technology. They take light to create an image that is corrected by a brain in order to be rendered intelligible.
The thing is that the camera is the creation of man and has had millions if not billions of dollars of research put into it. Yet when we compare a camera with the human eye it is quite obvious which one is superior.
So whoever heard of nothing (if there is no creator) doing a much better job than intelligence (humans). That is simply not logical. This is but one very humble example of technology where nature superceeds the creations of intelligent humans.
If I place 10 pieces of paper with each one containing a different number from 1 – 10 into a hat and I ask you to blindly take out the number 5, you have a 1 in 10 chance of that. If I asked you to take out the number 1, put it back and then pull out the number 7, that would be a 1 in 100 chance. In this fashion if you were to take out numbers 1 – 10 consecutively that would be a 1 in 10,000,000,000. An astronomical number that seems near impossible. But intelligence which is not blind can simply recognise the numbers and pull 1 – 10 out very easily. So as you can see, intelligence has much better odds than nothing at creating anything.
Now look at all the creations of man and compare that to the universe, including the galaxies, stars, planets, life, and the atomic world. As you can see, man who is alive and intelligent cannot even minutely get close to the technology we see in the natural world and yet we who are alive will always have a huge advantage over blind chance. Yet it seems that the natural world has beaten us convincingly.
What I am trying to convey to you is nothing but common sense and is explained in the following scriptures:
Psalm 53:1
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.Romans 1:19-21
“For what can be known about God is evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result they have no excuse.”
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.Understanding the futility of denying a creator is not the actual reason I believe in God however, but it is just one pointer to the existence of a creator that confirms my belief. My greatest proof for God is in the personal relationship I have with him. God answers my prayers and he has even spoken to me on several ocassions too. One time he warned me of danger and I listened and he either saved my life or saved me injury. On top of that we have prophecies in scripture that predict future events with great accuracy and I have also seen miracles with my own eyes.
I have believed in God for just under twenty years and the first twenty years of my life I did not believe in God. (except when I was a very young child). I am also a very logical person and that has never contradicted my faith in God because to believe in God is logical.
I didn't originally believe in God because I needed a crutch in life ,or wanted to believe that my life wasn't meaningless and accepted fables to comfort me (as some say). No, the truth was that I actually didn't want to believe in God because I didn't want to give up my sinful and selfish life. That is the truth. But I also knew that I couldn't fight truth and I initially decided to follow God for 1 week in the hope that if he existed he may have mercy on me at the end of my life. I really didn't believe that I could serve him longer than a week because I liked my sin too much.
But God honoured my little commitment and really spoke to me in that week. I made another commitment to serve him and I accepted the gospel and he gave me his Spirit which gave me the power to overcome my natural desires and tendancies.
So after twenty years of serving God, am I sorry that I made this decision? Absolutely not. I have really lived life and done above and beyond what I would have done without him.
If you are really interested in the truth, I would suggest that you read the following page. What have you got to lose?
Yes you are right i think about things deeply especially this topic. Well from the stories ive heard from the bible such as turning stones into bread, (or whatever it was he 'transformed' into food) then if this is true, why are so many people in the world dying from starvation?! why isnt he there to assist them? and if he sends signs to warn people from danger, what about the september 11th attacks? did he warn them? Do you really think that it is physically possible for someone from such an oldern day technology to transform stones to bread? part the oceans? fit all of the animals onto a boat?!, and yet you see this theory of believing in god as logical. And yeh, i know that everybody lives and dies, thats part is kind of obvious, but what does that have to do with believing in god?, theres is no need to pray for me…..seens as what i see praying as, you talking to yourself.
t8, please explain to me what the hell, human eyes, and cameras have to do with believng in god? I dont believe that 'nothing' created the world. Nothing = no thing, non-existent, but if the world and everything in it was created by 'nothing' then explain how it is possible for something that is non existent would be able to create anything at all?? It is not that i think that we just turned up here, i dont know how we got here, and nobody knows for sure, and we probably will never know but i think that we were more likely to be created by something such as a scientific reaction, compared to a person who preforms miracles. So if god exists, then how old is he? when will he die?! if people say he lives past as far as weve travelled, then how could it be possible for people to have seen him?! so what, your telling me now he can fly too? wow, you guys are right, the theory of god, is REALLY LOGICAL!
Hi,
Why is turning stones into bread difficult. It is much harder to create an intelligent self motivated woman from a sperm and an egg yet it happens very successfully everywhere every day. It is much harder to create an ant that is so tiny but is able ,not only to feed and care for itself but to work together with the whole colony for good of all.
Big explosions just destroy things and make even bigger messes.oh ok then, so your saying that turning stones to bread is not a difficult thing? then if it isnt difficult, why is it so special that 'god' can do it? if its not difficult, then it suggests anyone of any ability should be able to do it. If it was easy to turn stones to food, then everyone would be doing it…
Im not saying that one thing is more difficult then the other, im saying that the earth was more likely (in my views) to be created by a reaction (note i didnt say explosion) then a man,…if god created everything, then who created god?…and if he is real, then as someone mentioned earlier, people only use 1% of the knowlegde, he would have to know the 100% to know how to create EVERYTHING that he 'apparently' created…right?
ok that didnt make sense, ill try again.
Also t8 i would just like to add, there is no trueth, and no false. You cant say either believing/nonbelieving is wrong or right. There is no wrong or right side to the story. As i have mentioned, its about people having different opinions. If we all followed the 'trueth' as you call it, then this world would be plain and boring….
Hi,
Why would believing or not believing be right or wrong? Are you not making a moral judgement? But what reason would you have to believe in morals at all? If our God does not exist then surely neither do morals or any need for moral judgements? Where do morals come from ? our conscience? Where did that come from?To death___blooms,
I will leave you to it. If you cannot reason with what has been said at this stage of the conversation, then it is pointless for me to go on to other things. It will only prove to be unfruitful and my time would be better spent with those who are truly searching.
Maybe Nick will continue this dialogue with you, but I suggest that you listen to what he says as he will listen to you.
No hard feelings though.
Dear Nick,
You said “Are you not making a moral judgement? But what reason would you have to believe in morals at all? If our God does not exist then surely neither do morals or any need for moral judgements? Where do morals come from ? our conscience? Where did that come from?”
I like this question because it's fun. In my view “morals” and “conscience” have developed out of the necessity for survival. For thousands of years humans and animals have formed societies in order to better their chances of survival. These societies need rules or “morals” or laws etc… to function properly. Why? because disorder in society is dangerous/deadly for that society thus, rules and methods of ajudication are necessary. And by this logic one could say that conscience exists because we realize(it has been programed into our brians via thousands of years of societies) that when we break said moral code we endanger ourselves(because what moral code could continue to exist without enfocement). There you have it a logical explanation for the existance of “morals” not based on the existance of god but rather the necessity for survival via working together.
What or who is this great programmer of brains? I would like to meet him\her\it. It is a god of some kind surely? If there is a self protective gene where did it spring from? What an amazing fluke!
It is actually easier to believe in God- at least He has given us written instructions as well and not just amzing coincidences to rely on and believe in.
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