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thepyro222
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thepyro222
2,151 posts
Peasant

I grew up atheist for 16 years. I had always kept an open mind towards religion, but never really felt a need to believe in it. My sister started going to a Wednesday night children's program at a church. Eventually, I was dragged into a Christmas Eve service. Scoffing, I reluctantly went, assuming that this was going to be a load of crap, but when I went, I felt something. Something that I've never felt before. I felt a sense of empowerment and a sense of calling. Jesus called upon my soul, just like he did with his disciples. he wanted me to follow him. Now, my life is being lived for Christ. He died on the cross for my sins, and the sins of everyone who believes in him. He was beaten, brutalized, struck with a whip 39 times, made to carry a cross up to the stage of his death. This I believe to be true, and I can never repay him for what he has done.
I still have my struggles with Christianity, but I've found this bit of information most useful. Religion is not comprehensible in the human mind, because we cannot comprehend the idea of a perfect and supreme being, a God, but we can believe it in our heart, and that's the idea of faith. Faith is, even though everything rides against me believing in Jesus, I still believe in him because I know that it's true in my heart. I invite my fellow Brothers and sisters of the LORD to talk about how Jesus has helped you in your life. No atheists and no insults please

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Blkasp
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Blkasp
1,308 posts
Nomad

[quote]He is perfect and he can control what he does with ease.
The Bible verse doesn't say that God doesn't lie. It says that it is impossible for God to lie.
Hebrews 6 [/quote]
And by percetion means he cannot lie.
Case solved.

And how can Evolution be true if you cannot provide the full "supposed" links and evidence?
I can provide the links, but they are irrelevant to our discussion of whether or not God exists.

Facts of links there are, but there is still not enough evidence to fill every gap in the evolution theory.

Professor Nilsson, after 40 years of researching had concluded: "It is not even possible to make a caricature of evolution out of palaeobiological facts."

Evolution is taught by mouth and by literacy, just because it is written doesn't mean we should believe it. The same thing goes for the Red Sea, no matter how much evidence of witnesses, there is no video of it happening and so there will always be doubt.

In the Red Sea waters plunge to 1900m, but at a place called Nubweiba, there is a shallow underwater "bridge" or "walkway" leading to the present day Saudian Arabian coast. Also adding to the evidence, there are piles of human and horse skeletions, even ancient 4, 6 and 8-spoked chariot wheels on the seabed.
Blkasp
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Blkasp
1,308 posts
Nomad

SORRY FOR DOUBLE POST - MAJOR SPELLING ERROR
And by percetion means he cannot lie.
CORRECT BELOW
And by perfection he cannot lie.

BigP08
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BigP08
1,455 posts
Shepherd

@vesperbot:

You're over-generalizing. This is a wrong approach. Also, your statement is a non sequitur.

I'm basing this off of what you said. Angels were perfect, and humans were meant to be imperfect. Angels, you said, had no choice but to be one way or the other because they are perfect. Doesn't this mean that they lack free will after the initial choice is made? So perfect angels did make the incorrect choice, didn't they? If my logic is flawed, please let me know where.
Well, what kind of free will we have then? If God knows what choices we will made, then our will is predetermined already, thus we have no free will. So, this is also wrong.

That's the point I'm making. We cannot have free will if we have a perfect God. Do you agree that God must be imperfect or that we must not have true free will?
Ask God, then. Read Isaiah's verse for details.

Why does it have to be that complicated? Why couldn't he make us morally correct beings like him that don't have to live with the constant threat of burning eternally in Hell simply because we don't know whether or not he eists?
Basically the same. God creates good, and determines what's good. So, yes, God is free in His will to choose what's good for us, and we are free to either accept what God provides, or to not accept.

The Bible verse I have above suggests that God is incapable of choosing evil, not that God chooses not to be evil. Those are two different things.
"Pics or it didn't happen" fades before this. However, you are not forced to believe, but if hundreds of independent sources tell you so, not believing all of them is at least foolish. (But we can be foolish, as we have free will.) Not believing several sources is less foolish.

Hundreds of people claim to have been abducted by aliens. How reliable are these claims, even when they are backed by each other? I guarantee I could get thousands of people to claim that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists and that we have seen it. Quality of the evidence over quantity. Extraordinary claims like a miracle requires some extraordinary evidence, not copies of translations of claims that these things happened.

@Blkasp:
And by perfection means he cannot lie.
Case solved.

I wasn't asking you to prove that God is perfect if he can't lie. I was asking you to prove that God has free will if he can't lie. Case open again.
Evolution is taught by mouth and by literacy, just because it is written doesn't mean we should believe it.

It's not just written down, though. These things are tested in labs and can be tested and observed by anyone. I'm not even claiming that evolution is 100% true. I was using it as an example. Why do you choose to disbelieve in evolution but believe in old stories that may have been based on real events but do not have any demonstrably real evidence?
The same thing goes for the Red Sea, no matter how much evidence of witnesses, there is no video of it happening and so there will always be doubt.

Precisely the point. The reason we never doubt religion is because religion teaches us that not having faith is a sin. Why? Because if we questioned our beliefs we might not believe them anymore.
In the Red Sea waters plunge to 1900m, but at a place called Nubweiba, there is a shallow underwater "bridge" or "walkway" leading to the present day Saudian Arabian coast. Also adding to the evidence, there are piles of human and horse skeletions, even ancient 4, 6 and 8-spoked chariot wheels on the seabed.

Not saying I don't believe you, but would you mind providing the source? I'd like to read up on this.
Blkasp
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Blkasp
1,308 posts
Nomad

Not saying I don't believe you, but would you mind providing the source? I'd like to read up on this

I used the book: The Skeptic Guide to God by David Heenan, you can contact him(the author) via email at: mail@davidheenan.com
MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
9,470 posts
Farmer

But first consider this. If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away. It is like if someone refuses to believe that people have walked on the moon, then no amount of information is going to change their thinking.


Yes you can convince us with objective evidence that we can verify independently to your claim. The problem is you haven't presented any. We pressed it just comes back to faith, which doesn't get accepted.

The Bible verse doesn't say that God doesn't lie. It says that it is impossible for God to lie.
Hebrews 6


The contradictory nature of the Bible is another thing that makes it so hard to accept claims from it.

2 Thessalonians 2:11
Jeremiah 20:7
Ezekiel 14:9
BigP08
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BigP08
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Shepherd

OK, I'll get back to you on that point when I've read more on it. I'm also going to turn in for now, but I'll check this thread tomorrow. Nighty-night!

MageGrayWolf
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MageGrayWolf
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Farmer

Because if we questioned our beliefs we might not believe them anymore.


Anything demonstrably true should be able to stand up to such a test.
Blkasp
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Blkasp
1,308 posts
Nomad

2 Thessalonians 2:11

If you read from 2:1-12 it explains about the Anti-Christ has set the lie (not God) and God just puts a powerful delusion over it.

Jeremiah 20:7 is how Jeremiah thinks of his situation, he believes that he is decieved because he is a prophet of the Lord, when he speaks for the Lord, he is ridiculed for it, but if he doesn't speak for the Lord he says: "his word is in my heart like a fire," and later on in the passage, his emotions of anguish and dread are replaced by joy for the Lord.

Ezekiel 14:1-8 explains that these prophets have set up idols in their hearts and they are told to REPENT! If they don't repent, and if they utter a prophecy, the Lord will destroy him.

vesperbot
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vesperbot
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Angels were perfect, and humans were meant to be imperfect. Angels, you said, had no choice but to be one way or the other because they are perfect. Doesn't this mean that they lack free will after the initial choice is made? So perfect angels did make the incorrect choice, didn't they?
Yes, angels lack free will after initial choice, they do God's will if they decided to follow God, and they do Satan's will otherwise. About Satan himself - I'm not sure if he has free will, however God did let us know that He can command Satan somehow. Some theories exist that say God created one angel first, but that angel refused to be with God and is now Satan, and when God created a lot of angels, some fell into Satan's rule by doing the same. I don't know if these are true, though.

I was stating that you should not use general term of being perfect as "inability to make a correct choice".
Why does it have to be that complicated? Why couldn't he make us morally correct beings like him that don't have to live with the constant threat of burning eternally in Hell simply because we don't know whether or not he eists?
You cannot truly love someone if you're forced to. God wants us to love Him as He loves us. Choosing love over selfishness is no easy task, and if such a choice will be forced, there will be no value in such love, and no reason for this.
2 Thessalonians 2:11
Jeremiah 20:7
Ezekiel 14:9
Ripping phrases out of their context never does any good. Begone.
The Bible verse I have above suggests that God is incapable of choosing evil, not that God chooses not to be evil. Those are two different things.
Since God is the measure of good and evil, He can designate things as good or evil. Therefore, the phrase "God does evil" is a "P&^P" statement which is an unconditional false.
Hundreds of people claim to have been abducted by aliens. How reliable are these claims, even when they are backed by each other? I guarantee I could get thousands of people to claim that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists and that we have seen it. Quality of the evidence over quantity. Extraordinary claims like a miracle requires some extraordinary evidence, not copies of translations of claims that these things happened.
So you're basically loosening the ultimate claim MGW stated here sometime, "If there is God, let Him show infallibly that here He is", to a small degree. Still, if you would look to modern events that are named miraculous, you will find supportive evidence, and each of them witness for God. Say this issue (as the first one I have found in Google).
Blkasp
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Blkasp
1,308 posts
Nomad

Some theories exist that say God created one angel first, but that angel refused to be with God and is now Satan, and when God created a lot of angels, some fell into Satan's rule by doing the same. I don't know if these are true, though.


I always thought that Satan was originally the angel of worship, but then he got selfish and falled away from God, bringing many other angels with him.
HahiHa
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HahiHa
8,254 posts
Regent

Ah yes, but he did. Noah's Flood.

Well, first off, noah's ark is an impossible scenario; secondly, he didn't press reset, he just applied a bottleneck and took what suited him best. People still had to suffer from one single decision some random gal did so and so many milleniums ago.

If you read the other person's argument, then God had put the tree in it so that Adam and Eve could choose to eat it if they wanted to. If there was no way to sin, then sinning is not really a choice, right?

For it to be a choice, he would have had to be honest to them and tell them about both decisions and it's consequences. The way he did in the bible, is nothing more than temptation.

We do know about God's existence however. If we didn't know about God, there wouldn't be a thread on Armor about God.

Em.. lol? We also know that the flying spaghetti monster exists, there is a thread about it somewhere on here too, even articles, books and an own gospel. Therefore it must be true.

A supporter of Evolution - David Kitts, Professor of Geology admitted: "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." As you say to us, if we cannot provide the evidence how can we prove it to be true? And how can Evolution be true if you cannot provide the full "supposed" links and evidence?

Stupid. In paleontology, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Because we can even explain why we haven't found everything up to now. Additionally, evolution is not a dogma and thus can't be presented finely finished up and polished on a silver tablet. If that is what you want to consider whether it's true or not, you didn't understand it at all.
BigP08
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BigP08
1,455 posts
Shepherd

@vesperbot:

I was stating that you should not use general term of being perfect as "inability to make a correct choice".

All right, I'll grant you that one. My phrasing earlier was a bit iffy. The point I was trying to make was that some angels, who are perfect, can no longer make the correct choice.
You cannot truly love someone if you're forced to. God wants us to love Him as He loves us. Choosing love over selfishness is no easy task, and if such a choice will be forced, there will be no value in such love, and no reason for this.

Even if we choose to love God against overwhelming odds, we were still forced to. Not by God directly, but by the brain that God gave us. But that's beside the point. My question is why can't God wire all of us (since he knows exactly what we will do) to choose him in the end rather than wire a select few of us to choose him and a great many more to burn in Hell forver?
Since God is the measure of good and evil, He can designate things as good or evil. Therefore, the phrase "God does evil" is a "P&^P" statement which is an unconditional false.

The quote didn't specifically say evil. It was a quote from Hebrews that said that it was impossible for God to lie. Regardless of whether or not we call these acts good or evil, God cannot both have free will and be incapable of lying.
So you're basically loosening the ultimate claim MGW stated here sometime, "If there is God, let Him show infallibly that here He is", to a small degree. Still, if you would look to modern events that are named miraculous, you will find supportive evidence, and each of them witness for God.

Not even so much that, but I'm just saying, if God exists, why would he make us have to guess with no evidence that he exists? Why do we have to use faith, blind obedience to what we don't know exists, to guess the correct religion among the many thousands?
As for you evidence, let me put it in these terms. These kinds of miracles are basically that someone was sick or dying and then was okay. If this is evidence for God's existence, then evidence against God's existence would be perfectly healthy people getting sick or dropping dead.
Miracles are subjective to what we believe. Just because we don't know why the person got better doesn't mean we can attribute it indefinitely to a god.
loloynage2
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loloynage2
4,211 posts
Peasant

If we destroy sin, in the process we destroy free will.

Not really. I mean I'm saying to stop the ideology of "sin". You could still steal, not believe in god and all those sins without it being a problem.

And to completely get rid of sin and make sure it does not come back, Satan will have to be defeated once and for all. (Which is what is going to happen in the future)

Why is he waiting? Why did he create Satan in the first place?
EmperorPalpatine
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EmperorPalpatine
9,444 posts
Jester

Why is he waiting? Why did he create Satan in the first place?

Just to mess with us.
Jefferysinspiration
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Jefferysinspiration
3,168 posts
Farmer

Satan will have to be defeated once and for all. (Which is what is going to happen in the future)


You hope. We technically have no idea who's going to win between the two.
^ Not to restart the "Well you technically have no idea if God exists."
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