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9/14/2011 10:05:26 AM
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topic:
Misunderstanding Christianity
phoebe
Posts 1
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As I was reading through this site, I noticed the anger atheists have of being labeled as having particular beliefs (such as thinking life is hopeless and meaningless, etc.) As a Christian, I am likewise perturbed by the "general" view atheists have of most Christians. Under your "frequently asked questions" you put the following "Christian" statement... "I know exactly who created the universe, and how. The universe was created just for me and other humans. The creator of the universe has a personal interest in me, and wants to have a personal relationship with me. He watches everything I do. When I die, he will reward me with unimaginable gifts and eternal life."
While I won’t argue that SOME Christians believe that, in general, that is not the perspective of most Christians. In particular, the statement "the universe was created just for me and other humans" is a distinctly UN-Christian perspective. Yes, we believe we were made "stewards" of creation and were given the unique task to care for creation - but that creation is "just for humans" is not an idea you will find espoused in the Bible. In fact, for the Christian, all of creation is God's and therefore every single piece of it is precious in his site.
For those who know their Bible a little better, there's a reason there are "four living creatures" standing before the throne of God - they are representative of the differing types of life on earth (a representation of wild animals, domesticated animals, birds, and yes, humanity.) The point is to show that all of creation is loved by God and important to God. Humanity has a responsibility to care for that creation - and when we choose to abuse it and treat it like a dumpster, we've missed the entire point of the creation account and what it means to have "dominion" over the earth. In fact, Revelation states that God “destroys those who destroy the earth.”
Now yes, we part company on whether or not we matter in the midst of the universe in any way shape or form. While we may indeed be evolved pond scum, we’re evolved pond scum that matters to the one who created the pond scum. Ultimately, the question that the Christian asks is if there is a God, what does that God want/desire of/for me and for creation? And that’s where the divine revelation of who God is and what His relationship to humanity and creation comes into play, first in the form of scripture (the recordings of people’s encounters with the divine) and second in the form of Jesus Christ (God’s most direct and ultimate self-revelation). Perhaps that makes Christians arrogant to think that a Creator would be interested in His creation and wants to be involved with His creation, but as I’m an artist, I kind of understand that. I don’t create something then walk away from it and act as though it doesn’t matter because I’ve got something bigger and better going on. Each creation, no matter how big or small, is important to me and has meaning to me. So if there is a Creator, I would think that he or she would be very interested in us. That is not to say that he/she/it would not be interested in other areas of the universe as well, but scripture is primarily about God’s relationship to humanity because that’s who God is seeking to communicate with through His divine revelations. That’s not to say God doesn’t communicate with other forms of life in other ways – it simply says that as far as humanity is concerned, yes – God is interested in us and has something to say about our role in this world.
And as for the “I know who created the universe and how” – that statement is rather loaded. If by “how” you mean God willed it into existence – then sure, we know “how,” but beyond that, most Christians rely on the scientific endeavor to discover the methodology (such as evolution) just like an atheist, as the Bible does not give the methodology other than to say that God spoke, and it came into being.
(And to attempt to read the creation account as a literal “six day” creation account misses the entire point and quite frankly, doesn’t even make sense – especially given the argument the original authors were engaging – which wasn’t the time span or attempts to refute evolutionary theory. It was written to refute the practice of worshiping the creation rather than the creator and to state that creation exists not as an accident, like many of the other creation myths that were floating around in the ancient near east stated, but that it was intentionally created and not so that we might be slaves to the gods, as other creation accounts of the time suggested, but so that we might partake in an almost divine role of caring for the rest of the creation. Being invited to partake in the divine Sabbath rest, etc. Not to mention the fact that it’s written in a poetic form that follows a particular “hymnic” style that was never intended to be read or viewed the way in which it gets read in today’s world. The "order" of creation addresses the different forms of creation that were worshiped by the people of the ancient near east - it was not meant to be seen as "first this, then this." Each phase of creation in Genesis 1 addresses two principle categories of divinity in the polytheistic/pantheistic religious culture, declaring that light/dark, sea/land, earth/vegetation, celestial orbs/stars, animals of water/sky, and finally land animals/humans, are all creations of God and the creations are not gods themselves.)
So when you bash Christians – please remember, the vast majority of Christians are not out there attempting to “save” you. (Because any true Christian would know that salvation is not the work of humanity, but the sole work of God. Yes, we witness and testify to what God has done in the world, and faith is created on the basis of that testimony and witness… but we do not “save” anyone. Our role in salvation ends once we’ve made our testimony. At that juncture – it’s up to God and the other person, not us.) You’re speaking of the fringe fundamentalist Christianity that yes, for some bizarre reason is growing in America – but it still is not representative of the vast majority of Christians in the world. My relationship to my atheist friends is not so that I might “save” them, but is so that I might be in community with them, to love them, and to be friends with them. To work with them in the Godly endeavor of feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, tending to the needs of the poor, and living peaceably with all.
The problem most atheists encounter is that they never encounter true Christianity – they encounter so-called Christians who do not actually live out their faith and are not true representatives of Christ. They encounter the Christians Gandhi encountered when he stated, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
And btw – as for the “unimaginable rewards” of eternal life – the Bible’s definition of eternal life is as follows: “Now this is eternal life – that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) To have eternal life simply means to have an eternal relationship with the Creator. The “reward” is to be able to live in full community with God without the pain and sorrow we experience on account of our broken relationships with one another. Eternal life is about restored relationship – restored relationship with both God and our fellow humans. It’s where we seek to live our lives for the sake of others and not for our own selfish ambitions. Where war ceases, where harming one another comes to an end – that is God’s vision for the future of humanity. Restored relationship that doesn’t involve our sinful, selfish ways. And we Christians pray for that reality to be here on earth, not in heaven. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” So any Christian that states that we’re just biding our time and what we do here, how we interact and relate to one another doesn’t matter in any way shape or form is sadly misinformed. We are to live out our lives striving toward making the heavenly kingdom a reality in THIS world. Because this is the world that God has created and is the world he seeks to redeem and renew.
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8/17/2011 7:18:06 PM
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topic:
Why You Should Care - March 5 Edition
blueeyes1972
Posts 1
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I am new to this site and see that no one has posted anything lately. The reason I came across this site is because I have had many people lately try to "save me" and convert me to Christianity. I like the people, but dislike them trying to change me. I respect their opinion to believe in Christianity, but wish they wouldn't try to push it on me. I would like some opinions of good ways to politely tell them to please leave me alone about it. Thank you in advance for your help.
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12/9/2010 12:25:14 AM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
JustTheKidNextDoor
Posts 6
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Yrreg wrote:
I put in bold your words above, to bring your brain to the fact that you are using a question as an argument, that God is into an infinite regression therefore He cannot be existing.
The argument is only to show that you cannot stop the regression of questions wherever you please. If you're gonna ask the question "who created X" it has to be asked about everything ad infinitum. What you're doing is neutralizing the regression at your own personal and whimsical convenience. Asking "who created" something is already the wrong question to ask, because we're talking about a phenomenon we don't know the nature of. By saying "who" you're already making the presumption the phenomenon that caused the beginning of the universe has a mind, is self-aware. The phenomenon might as well have been a natural phenomenon if any. The question won't be answered either by invoking a conscious omnipotent being or through a-priori reasonings anyway. And if it's not, we should, in the meantime, behave as scientists, apply Occam's razor and get rid of unnecessary presumptions.
The most probable anyway is whatever caused the beginning of the universe has no mind, cause it would make no sense complexity occurring first. If there's god, and it has a mind, that mind must have been the result of evolution through natural selection. No mind has ever been observed to just popped into existence. No mind could have ever been the first uncaused cause, regardless of the way you wanna conceive it.
Something that can conceive the whole universe in itself has to be considered complex, and the first uncaused cause, cannot be other than simple.
Through debates like this, one day, maybe the atheist side might give you that there was at all a first uncaused cause for the beginning of the universe. Some already do. But what theists do is make a lot of presumptions about the first cause. They already want ascribe it to a self-aware mind, and they endow it with other divine attributes found of course, in the conception of their own personal deities in their own sacred scriptures. If there was a first uncaused cause, that's all we have. It doesn't follow from there it had a mind, or was omnipotent, or was omnipresent, or that is still around us or that it wants our worship. The first uncaused cause, might as well have been a natural uncaused cause.
I was laughing at the parroting accusation, cause I presume you're religious, and your religion has its own sacred scriptures. If not it doesn't matter, because doctrines and dogmas don't necessarily have to be put down on paper. But honestly, have you ever seen a human discipline any more "parroting" that religion, repeating the same old unchanged things for thousands of years without anybody raising a single brain-cell. Come on. The blind man laughing at the one-eyed.
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12/8/2010 3:32:05 PM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
Yrreg
Posts 7
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About time you get to the fact of paradigm shifts among scientists, it's like flavors of the month with ice cream.
And do some personal original thinking, instead of parroting words from others who are themselves parrots.
Parrots appear to talk but they don't really think; that is why if you have a parrot which picks up words from everyone you allow inside your home, you'd better keep it away from the parlor where you want to meet people accustomed to decent speech.
Yrreg
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12/8/2010 3:16:44 PM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
Yrreg
Posts 7
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JustTheKidNextDoor wrote:
[Yrreg says] "You must answer the question, who created God, in this way, God is the only necessary being Who has always been existing and He started everything."
In that case you wouldn't be behaving as a scientist with intellectual honesty. You cannot answer questions with whims or wishful thinking. God's existence is your personal presumption that many don't share, and not because they cannot answer the question "who created God", but we don't have enough evidence to believe in a god in the first place. What you wanna do is force a pretext (God's always been) to prove a presumption (God). I don't consider that intellectual honesty. It's like saying: unicorns exist (presumption), but you can't see them cause they become invisible to human eyes (pretext). I'm really not interested in that kind of talk.
[...]
[End of quote from TheKid.]
I put in bold your words above, to bring your brain to the fact that you are using a question as an argument, that God is into an infinite regression therefore He cannot be existing.
Don't you if your brain is not already pickled in silly words manipulation feel right away that there is something wrong with that kind of pseudo reasoning?
You cannot get it?
There is no infinite regress of God creating God creating God creating God... to the nth time.
An infinite regression does not exist in the universe, it is only in the mind of foolish men or men who from malice prefer to be foolish rather than wise.
What you are into is to ask the question again and again and again... but not infinitely because you will die within the next for certain 100 years.
Now, you say you will invent a machine that will repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat the question.
Very smart(?) but still not intelligent and not informed.
Don't you or have you not read that astrophysicists tell us that the energy in the universe according to their speculation will wear out, then no more movement, wherefore your machine will stop.
Just don't be silly, do some really genuine original cogitation with your brain, and not miasmally pickled in foul swamp pseudo thinking.
And don't bring in unicorns, that is unworthy of a true thinker; no one ever defines God as a unicorn except deceitful atheists who grab at all and any straws not to do intelligent thinking but to resort to false analogies from wicked intentions to insult God.
What about this false analogy:
Your mother is promiscuous therefore she is no different from street walkers.
The fact that you atheists have to always sprinkle your writings against God with derogatory words like magic, unicorn, leprechaun, spaghetti, fairies, show very glaringly that you cannot or more correctly from spite against God will not go into reasoning, but are into insults while putting up a perverse excuse that you just want to show that God is all fiction like unicorns, etc.
How can God be fiction when you can touch the nose in your face?
Think about that.
Yrreg
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12/8/2010 2:24:04 PM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
JustTheKidNextDoor
Posts 6
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Science is the most reliable of human disciplines nowadays to obtain objective reproduceable predictable knowledge about the universe. It has restrictions, but because our senses are limited, and this discipline is way too intellectually honest to venture into magic. You have to open your mind, but not so wide that your brain falls out of it.
When you say that scientists of the past were greater you mean they were more willing to believe in magic, and that's because they were misinformed. Scientific knowledge is real knowledge. It might be wrong some times but the good news is the discipline is self-corrective and intellectually honest and its discoveries are scrutinized under what's known as full-disclosure, which is one step of the scientific method, whereby results are reproduced by detached groups of scientists all over the globe. Science is fallible, but reliable at large. Faith has never shown a single sample of truth in its claims, the very opposite. I'd rather claim I don't know than to be wrong, and that's the scientific mindset. And yes, I subscribe to it, along with its restrictions. The restrictions is what makes the discipline intellectually honest actually.
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12/8/2010 1:58:45 PM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
Yrreg
Posts 7
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Today's scientists are into a dungeon of their own prescription, to not think beyond their nose.
So, don't bring in today's scientists, unless you also subscribe to the self-restriction of your brain cells to not work beyond the boundaries of your nose.
Scientists of the past greater than any today were not afraid to think beyond their nose, because for them genuine and integral knowledge is not limited by for example keeping one's brain pickled in a vat of empirical socalled evidence, which is always deficiently and fallaciously propounded as to exclude reasoning from the facts in the world and in life.
Yrreg
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12/7/2010 12:47:54 AM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
JustTheKidNextDoor
Posts 6
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[quote]"You must answer the question, who created God, in this way, God is the only necessary being Who has always been existing and He started everything.
In that case you wouldn't be behaving as a scientist with intellectual honesty. You cannot answer questions with whims or wishful thinking. God's existence is your personal presumption that many don't share, and not because they cannot answer the question "who created God", but we don't have enough evidence to believe in a god in the first place. What you wanna do is force a pretext (God's always been) to prove a presumption (God). I don't consider that intellectual honesty. It's like saying: unicorns exist (presumption), but you can't see them cause they become invisible to human eyes (pretext). I'm really not interested in that kind of talk.
Besides, many philosophers consider the universe to be the only necessary entity. Why can't you think like that, and we would be getting rid of one unnecessary presumption: God. We would be behaving like scientists by using the Occam's razor. So it's you who must answer the question of the universe that way: the universe is the only necessary entity.
[quote]If you don't accept that then there is nothing more silly in using your brain than repeating the same question again and again and again and again, not infinitely, but only until you die."
And I don't see anything wrong in asking questions once and again if they're legitimate questions that haven't been answered. You cannot ask just the questions that are convenient to your personal beliefs. "God has always been" is not an answer. It looks more like what you personally wanted the reality to be, a personal whim, so it's not not an answer that should be accepted by intellectually honest person. Let alone when the subject is a presumption.
edited by JustTheKidNextDoor on 12/7/2010
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12/6/2010 2:19:44 PM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
Yrreg
Posts 7
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You say:
"I, personally, believe that man doesn't need to worry about how we were created. Why does it matter? We're here now. Isn't that TRULY what matters? Also, Why does the Earth have to be 'created', yet God doesn't have to be 'created'?"
-------------------------
That is why man has intelligence and asks questions, making man different from animals which don't ask questions, otherwise you can see them writing books.
You have a mouth and you use it; you have a brain, so use it, ask questions like what am I here for?
Why does God not have to be created?
Ask people who know that God exists, don't ask people who deny that God exists.
Now, to people who know that God exists, they know God to be a necessary being creator of everything with a beginning.
You don't accept that kind of a God, then for you things have always been always around, but scientists who subscribe to the Big Bang theory tell us that things or the observable universe has not always been around.
So think about that, use your intelligence, that is what makes you different from animals whose only observable purpose to your eyes are to eat and to breed.
You will tell me that the question is being asked again, who created God if God created everything.
That is a silly question, you can ask it again and again and again until you die, that does not make it anything existing really like what silly thinkers want to call an infinite regression.
You must answer the question, who created God, in this way, God is the only necessary being Who has always been existing and He started everything.
If you don't accept that then there is nothing more silly in using your brain than repeating the same question again and again and again and again, not infinitely, but only until you die.
Yrreg
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12/5/2010 1:32:23 AM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
skapigeon89
Posts 1
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I, personally, believe that man doesn't need to worry about how we were created. Why does it matter? We're here now. Isn't that TRULY what matters? Also, Why does the Earth have to be 'created', yet God doesn't have to be 'created'?
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12/4/2010 12:22:11 AM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
Yrreg
Posts 7
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My observation is that I define God as the necessary being creator of everything that has a beginning.
Since you don't accept God, to what or to whom do you credit the beginning of the universe?
Or for you the universe has always been around?
In which case then there is something or someone in the universe that is doing the work of God, which then is God within the universe, but also He is outside of the universe -- there is no internal impossibility for the concept of God to be existing outside time and space, is there?
How is that?
Well, God is so huge and so subtle that he can be outside as to surround the whole totality of existence that has a beginning, and also so subtle that He penetrates every material particle and force or string or wave whatever that He has created.
Yrreg
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12/4/2010 12:12:02 AM
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topic:
Does God exist outside time and space?
Yrreg
Posts 7
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Here is the background of this thread.
And here is my thinking on that article referred to.
--------------------------------
Does God exist outside time and space?
Well, if you insist that God does not exists, then the question is not in order.
So the universe that you know exist without God, that is your preferred opinion.
But let me tell you my idea:
In this universe you know about, there were things existing before but now no longer, for example, our ancestors
So these things had an ending.
And there are things which will exist which now don't, for example babies who now are not existing but will be in the future.
So there are things which now don't exist now but will exist in the future.
Okay, can you be intelligent to think that there are also things that always are existing in the universe you know, they never started to exist because they have always been existing, and they will not stop existing because they will always be existing.
What are those things?
They are the subsisting things that continue to exist when those things to which they gave subsistence stopped existing; and they are the same things which already exist before they give subsistence to the things which exist in the future.
You get the idea, they are the subsisting things which change into things of the future but are always existing even when they become the things in the future, and which which also continue to exist when the things which are existing in them stop existing.
They are the same things which were existing prior to the Big Bang and will be existing after the Big Bang stops existing.
So these things can be outside time and space.
Now, they need not be several things, they could be one thing, and that is God.
God is the primal substance that is permeating all things that come and go as He wills them to come and to go or to stay longer or shorter.
Yrreg aka Pachomius
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12/4/2010 12:03:45 AM
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topic:
Blasphemy Day!
Yrreg
Posts 7
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Well, that is certainly against the avowed policy of this website and forum.
That will add to the vehemence by which Americans look at atheists as the most distrusted minority in the country.
Yrreg
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8/6/2010 3:25:15 AM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
reddragon
Posts 1
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I'm not going to waste a lot of time on this. but essentially you belief system is just as idiotic as religion (idiot used in clinical sense, not pejorative)
http://keytoann.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/the-g-word/
walt
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4/20/2010 7:03:18 PM
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topic:
What's your opinion of the term "Bright"?
Skelvgaar
Posts 1
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I'm not a huge fan of Bright, but I understand the point. I prefer the term Humanist, but there are many others who think that term should carry specific points of view just as some atheists think you have to "believe" certain things to be considered a true atheist. That's no better than what religion does. I must admit, however, I do kind of like the term Enbrightenment as a modern movement which further progresses from what the Enlightenment achieved. Unfortunately when it comes to rational, logical thought and freethinking, the majority of the US populace is slipping into a modern day Dark Ages.
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3/9/2009 4:30:45 PM
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topic:
Common arguments against atheism?
The_Swindall
Posts 5
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I have been accused of having no faith in anything BECAUSE I dont have faith in a God. Which provoked me giving this face...  lol
When debating against a friend, he argued that 1. because the religion had been around for so long, it must be right.
2. because so many follow the religion, they cant ALL be wrong.
3. and the real winner.. Its obvious that christianity is real, because of the Bible 
Who can name the logical fallacies? lol
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3/9/2009 4:17:32 PM
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topic:
Why You Should Care - March 5 Edition
The_Swindall
Posts 5
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JustTheKidNextDoor wrote:
I would say:
* A theist is someone who believes nothing made a God that made everything else with zero evidence.
...and..
* an atheist is someone who doesn't know whether the universe was made or came to be, but is still searching, for he hates using the the «god of the gaps argument» for things he cannot understand --by now--.
A Theist is someone who believe's in a God. A God which had no creator, and created everything. (They wont see it as 'zero evidence')
A Atheist is someone with a lack of belief in God/s.
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3/9/2009 5:54:25 AM
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topic:
Why You Should Care - March 5 Edition
JustTheKidNextDoor
Posts 6
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I would say:
* A theist is someone who believes nothing made a God that made everything else with zero evidence.
...and..
* an atheist is someone who doesn't know whether the universe was made or came to be, but is still searching, for he hates using the the «god of the gaps argument» for things he cannot understand --by now--.
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3/8/2009 11:07:14 PM
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topic:
Things Every Christian Should Know
hatsoff
Posts 3
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Alexander wrote:
My $0.02.
I would have the first one read as "1) The Gospel stories (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were not written until anywhere from 20-40 years after the time of Jesus' alleged death."
After reading jesusneverexisted.com, I'm unconvinced there was a single person the gospel godman is based on. Instead, the story was based on several individuals, Jewish myths, earlier pagan religions, and outright fabrications.
Be careful of websites like that, which have clear agendas, and do not give citations by which to readily verify their claims.
Wikipedia usually makes a decent primer for this sort of thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus
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3/8/2009 7:38:00 AM
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topic:
Things Every Christian Should Know
Alexander
Posts 5
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My $0.02.
I would have the first one read as "1) The Gospel stories (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were not written until anywhere from 20-40 years after the time of Jesus' alleged death."
After reading jesusneverexisted.com, I'm unconvinced there was a single person the gospel godman is based on. Instead, the story was based on several individuals, Jewish myths, earlier pagan religions, and outright fabrications.
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