Peaceful Response to the Question asked Why Won't God Heal Amputees

[HAL]

Is the lack of "objective evidence" a good reason to disbelieve in Christianity?

If not, why not?

[Brakeman]

1)what did you think the whole bible was telling you when you were "believing"?
2)what was your first reaction when you heard son of god died for you? how did it feel?

That was part of my problem, you're talking about FEELINGS!, what did I feel about hearing or reading about god? But christianity is more than just emotion isn't it? That someone's emotional state might lead them to believe is a very very weak argument for reality. Did anyone tell you, on the night you were saved, to be sure that it wasn't an emotional impulse, that you had to be sure god was answering you and make sure that it was not your imagination? Do you consul new christians not to believe until they are sure of an actual two way conversation with god?

..
4)The bible says "going to church, serving communion, teaching bible, praying really hard" does not make one "Christian"
   then what would you say to that?

Are you claiming that praying to god doesn't make one christian? Can you be a christian without ever praying to god?  That's a new one for me.. I thought I'd hard everything before..

[John 3 16]

feelings, emotions are important.
think about your life, marriage, career, ... all the important decisions you've made have feelings and emotions involved.

just praying to god does NOT make one christian.
or will save that persons from the fallen state.
one actually become "christian" first, then pray.
"one pray to god to become christian" is total wrong.
like velkin was saying she prayed so hard to god to keep her faith is incorrect.
saved one can pray to god to strengthen his/her faith is more appropriate.

bible says "nothing in the universe will take away god's gift" because it is God's gift.

[Brakeman]

I don't mean to be critical 3-16,

But in future posts, please flesh out your statements more.
It should be :

Statement - supporting reasoning point 1 - supporting point 2
Statement - supporting reasoning point 1 - supporting point 2

not,

Statement 1 - statement 2 - statement 3 all the time.

Tell us why you support your ideas.

Thanx..

[Brakeman]

one actually become "christian" first, then pray.

Really? how do you become a christian before any prayer? I thought you had to ask god to save you? Can you ask god something without talking to him? How?

Can I ask you a question without communicating with you? 

[54East]

Wow!  Had no idea things would be so intense on here.  So many posters are really driven to get their point across.  Sometimes I'm not sure what that point is supposed to be--to change my mind or to belittle me.  Conversation can be PEACEFUL as the title of this post says.

So...I tried really hard to figure out the blue box quotes so I can respond but ended up initially with everything, including my comments, in one big blue box.  I tried again and had some very eloquent words penned when -poof- my entire essay disappeared!

I chose to respond to AMBASSADOR PONY so I just copied what she said and my comments (AKA "ME").  I am going to a Women of Faith weekend Friday and Saturday so will not be back on here to read responses.  Hopefully will be back Sunday...

AMBASSADOR PONY: From what I've read, I'd muse that you probably have some deep emotional need for there to be a god. If you did not have that conept in your life, to rely on, things would seem meaningless and cruel. I would not guess that you adopted your god belief because of bad circumstances, but that it is a fundamental crutch keeping you afloat.

ME: Why is it so wrong to have a deep emotional need for something?  Especially a good, positive relationship?  God could be thought of as a crutch because man is crippled.  We don’t do well left to our own devices.  If I am drowning and someone throws me a float, I am not going to push it away and refuse it because I can save myself.  Obviously if I am drowning I cannot save myself and need help.

AMBASSADOR PONY: Do you find it to be a coincidence that the predominant type of belief (christian type) in the time and place you live just so happens to be the one true belief? Do you think your experience with belief is any different than the experience of belief (held with just as much conviction and providing just as much comfort) of people born in other places and times throughout human history?

ME: It is not a coincidence, no.  And yes, I do believe that my God is different than those other gods because the God of the Bible is the one and only true, living God.

AMBASSADOR PONY: Just to probe the nature of your belief further: How old is the earth, and does evolution explain the history of life on the planet well?

ME: As I understand it (and I wasn’t there when it was created, so can’t say for sure), but it appears the Earth is anywhere from 6,000 years to several billion years old, give or take a few years.  And if you mean evolution like every living creature started from one cell, ape is the forerunner of man, etc. then “no”, I don’t believe that.  I believe God created all living things.  Now if you mean evolution as things change to adapt to their environments, “yes”.

AMBASSADOR PONY: Additionally, are you really willing and able objectively to examine your own belief behaviour and to think critically about it? Honestly? My impression, based on very little evidence, is no, you aren't. I'd like to be proven wrong.

ME: I am not looking to become an atheist, Buddhist, Muslim, Hare Krishna, or Mormon.  I have already examined my belief system and have thought critically about.  In fact continue to do so even today, though I am secure in my belief in the God of the Bible.  My goal here is to find out what ATHEISTS THINK, what drives their beliefs, and if something happened to take them from a position of believing in God to believing in no God.

NOTE:  I am not a new Christian nor am I a young person.  I have 50 years of living, studying, reading, listening, learning, worshiping, experiencing, and making intelligent decisions.  Just wanted to make sure you all understand that I am not an off-the-cuff kind of woman.

[12 Monkeys]

54 East  Your first intelligent decision was to come here and expose yourself to free thinkers. Nobody makes you stay and I highly doubt you will even win a point when debating here.

 Some of the free thinkers here are ex-theists so they have used the arguements you may try to put forward,and now can rip them to shreds.

 Good-luck BTW what critical thinking could you have possibly done your BABBLE screams SPAG (self projection as God)

[John 3 16]

Sorry brakeman.
I just didn't want to say too much about Christianity before I hear Velkyn's response.

becoming a christian means accepting god's gift and be saved from god's wrath by FAITH.
only by faith, because "without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6)

by believing, one can be righteous before god, no one else is considered righteous without faith of Christ.
not by praying, praying is one of communicating tools between God and man, not a way to become Christian.
only by Christ, through Christ, because"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."(john 14:6)

oh BTW bible verses are my only supporting documents.
I have nothing else.

[Ambassador Pony]

ME: Why is it so wrong to have a deep emotional need for something?  Especially a good, positive relationship?  God could be thought of as a crutch because man is crippled.  We don’t do well left to our own devices.  If I am drowning and someone throws me a float, I am not going to push it away and refuse it because I can save myself.  Obviously if I am drowning I cannot save myself and need help.

Where did I say it was wrong to have a deep emotional need for something? I said I assumed you had such a need, in relation to your beliefs, based on your posts so far, nothing else. I feel it is important to establish, if you behave as though a significant need is as good as evidence. I find that having a discussion with such a person, on certain topics, is a waste, since they do not value intellectual honesty. They value only maintaining an idea they feel they need, regardless of it's evident falsity.

I see it in the manufactured meaning you applied to my statement above about emotional need, and I see it just below in your rejection of evidenced reality in favour of your belief.

AMBASSADOR PONY: Do you find it to be a coincidence that the predominant type of belief (christian type) in the time and place you live just so happens to be the one true belief? Do you think your experience with belief is any different than the experience of belief (held with just as much conviction and providing just as much comfort) of people born in other places and times throughout human history?

ME: It is not a coincidence, no.  And yes, I do believe that my God is different than those other gods because the God of the Bible is the one and only true, living God.

I bolded the part you did not answer. Could you answer that?

ME: As I understand it (and I wasn’t there when it was created, so can’t say for sure), but it appears the Earth is anywhere from 6,000 years to several billion years old, give or take a few years.  And if you mean evolution like every living creature started from one cell, ape is the forerunner of man, etc. then “no”, I don’t believe that.  I believe God created all living things.  Now if you mean evolution as things change to adapt to their environments, “yes”.

Is this based on an understanding of the science, proper study, and expertise, or an emotional need for it not to be true, and subsequent search for all material validating that choice? Honestly, please.

AMBASSADOR PONY: Additionally, are you really willing and able objectively to examine your own belief behaviour and to think critically about it? Honestly? My impression, based on very little evidence, is no, you aren't. I'd like to be proven wrong.

ME: I am not looking to become an atheist, Buddhist, Muslim, Hare Krishna, or Mormon.  I have already examined my belief system and have thought critically about.  In fact continue to do so even today, though I am secure in my belief in the God of the Bible.  My goal here is to find out what ATHEISTS THINK, what drives their beliefs, and if something happened to take them from a position of believing in God to believing in no God.

I would think that a clever person would be looking for an accurate portrait of reality, regardless of what she wants or needs it to be. That's one thing you can note has moved people to a lack of belief in the existence of deities.

I am completely open to questions, East54, and I will answer honestly. I don't have any other questions for you.

[Anfauglir]

In a christina point of view it's a mistery.
my honest answer "I don't know"
answers I got in this forum "because there is no objective evidence"

John, do you think that Hindus feel the same way about atheists?  Do you think that Hindus feel the same way about Christians?  Do you feel the same way about Hindus?

Quite naturally (both because you believe in Christ, and because you were raised and live in a society where Christianity is the majority faith) you find it hard to understand why someone can just "not believe".  And similarly, the Indian of devout belief, raised in a country where Hinduism is the majority faith, likewise has no idea why the Indian atheist simply "does not believe".

Now imagine that you live in a country where there is no single majority faith - where, let's say, there are millions of Hindus, millions of Christians, millions of every faith under the sun.  And where every religion is - essentially - simply saying "have faith".  In other words, consider yourself in the shoes of the educated atheist who has examined numerous faiths, rather than (as you seem to be assuming) that atheists are simply rejecting YOUR god.

It's why the "objective evidence" answer crops up so often.  Because without it, there IS no way of choosing between your faith, and the faith of that guy over there, or that guy over there.

To repeat Hal's question:

Is the lack of "objective evidence" a good reason to disbelieve in Christianity?

If not, why not?

[Anfauglir]

Now if you mean evolution as things change to adapt to their environments, “yes”.

Interesting.  Presumably then you must believe that there are limits to how far a particular type of creature CAN change to adapt?  That while a creature can change a little in one direction, there is a point at which no further adaptation can take place?

Where would you envisage these limits to be?  How would you envisage these limits came in to being?

To take a specific: do you accept that all breeds of dog today evolved from an original wolf-like creature?  If we took a breed like a Great Dane, and selectively bred for height and strength, do you think we could one day end up with a creature that would very closely resemble a horse?

[pianodwarf]

BTW bible verses are my only supporting documents.

Bible verses are not supporting documents.  Bible verses are claims that require supporting documents.

[pianodwarf]

Atheists are atheist because they don't want to believe, not because they want to sin.

John, you do not find out who people are by telling them who they are.  You find out by asking them who they are.

try saying "I can commit any sin I want to" after you truly received the holy spirit and forgiven.

I had a roommate who said exactly that.  And if you tried to tell him he was a "false Christian", he'd be furious; I saw some other Christians try to tell him that and witnessed his reaction myself.  (Although he would have no problem telling certain other Christians, such as unitarians, that they were "false Christians".)

I can easly spot false christians this way.

And I can easily spot false Scotsmen, too.  They're the ones who put sugar on their porridge.

the one mis-understood god's gift would say something like that, but if you look into the bible little deeper, that's not true.

And my ex-roommate, conversely, would say that you are the one who needs to look into the bible a little deeper.  Skeptics are not going to privilege your opinion over his, or vice versa.  They're just going to lump all of you in together and say that Christians can't agree on what their book says.

[velkyn]

Velkyn.
I am not going to judge whether you were true or false Christian, because I don't even know you. Only God knows.

No, God doesn’t since God is imaginary.  I do challenge you to prove it exists.  I have no time for vague claims. 

I did notice that you didn’t bother with answering my two questions in my post.  It doesn’t surprise me but I’ll give you another chance: And getting back to those prayers, I prayed a lot to keep my faith.  And I got nothing.  Not a peep from this god.  No revelation like Thomas, nothing. If this god is all Christians say, that it wants all people to beleive in it, to worship it, that it Loves everyone, why would this happen?

and

But it seemed much more likely that this god didn’t exist just as Odin or Zeus or Amon-Re didn’t exist. There was no evidence for them so why think that any of these nonsensical claims were true, even if they were from people I trusted?

I’ll satisfy your curiosity.  However, I’m guessing you are simply fishing for what you “pray” to be an answer you want and thus will declare if I was a TrueChristian or not. That’s what all of the questions point to, all what I’ve seen you declare as what a TrueChristian is. I’ve satisfied other Christians in their curiosity about me and my opinions, and not to surprisingly, they run away when they don’t get the answers they want. I’ll answer yours and then I want you to answer your own questions. Then we can see your version of Christianity.   

1)what did you think the whole bible was telling you when you were "believing"?

that God sent JC down to save us from sin.  One must accept JC as savior to be saved.

2)what was your first reaction when you heard son of god died for you? how did it feel?

He didn’t die, that’s the problem.  I had no caring about a god that sacrificed itself to itself.  I found no sadness in this at all since there was no true loss. It seemed that it simply had to be done that way, like any magic spell. When I was losing my faith, I wondered about the point of this and the fairness of it.  However, since he really didn’t die, something that even me as a child could understand, it didn’t bother me.   

3)what did you think the purpose of existence of bible

To spread a religion through the retelling of events of supposedly real people and to serve as a guide to what God wants us to do. 

4)The bible says "going to church, serving communion, teaching bible, praying really hard" does not make one "Christian"   then what would you say to that?

  Ah, there we go, the judgement that you so desperately wanted to make.  Unfortuantely for you, that is not the case.  The bible says that one must believe in God and Jesus.  I did, and I did all of those other things because of that.  The bible says that various things make one a Christian.  Those verses that your handle comes from.  Then we have that works count, and then that they don’t, that the only thing that makes a Christians is God’s whim, his “grace” given to only those he wants to give it too, no matter what belief or what actions people take.  You might want to discuss your version of Christianity with ddavis who is certain that there is only predestination.  In that your god is fond of competitions, we should have a who is the TrueChristian with the competing altars like God supposedly did once before.

oh and this is nonsense:

Atheists are atheist because they don't want to believe, not because they want to sin.

No this isn’t true at all.  I don’t believe anymore since there is no reason to believe.  Your god is as imaginary as all of the others.  You make up your own religion to match your personal beliefs.  I do find it amusing when you claim now that you can “spot false Christians” when you so piously said before that “only god knows”.  What a hypocrite.  I’ll ask you, John, why you “just don’t believe” in Allah, Tezcatlipoca, Amon-Ra, etc?   

like velkin was saying she prayed so hard to god to keep her faith is incorrect.
saved one can pray to god to strengthen his/her faith is more appropriate.

Yep, that’s exactly how I prayed.  Please God, help me keep my faith.  Means the same as “strengthen” in this context.  I was “losing” my faith, I still had it but it was diminishing.  Nice try though, attempting to use the good ol’ “you weren’t doing it right” excuse common to so many Christians. 

[velkyn]

Wow!  Had no idea things would be so intense on here.  So many posters are really driven to get their point across.  Sometimes I'm not sure what that point is supposed to be--to change my mind or to belittle me.  Conversation can be PEACEFUL as the title of this post says.

Conversations can be peaceful.  However, you make baseless claims and we counter them.  I find this peaceful but not allowing you to spread nonsense. 

I’d love for you to demonstrate that your god is any different from those other gods. It’s nice to make a claim but then you need to back it up.  It’s like when Christians come here and prate that one just needs to look around at the universe and “see” their particular god did it. I’d love to see you show how that’s true. 

You demonstrate again that you are willfully ignorant.  No, the world is not anywhere near 6000 years old. That is pure ignorance.  There is more than enough evidence to demonstrate that this is patently untrue. The same science that you enjoy everyday is the same that supports the BBT, evolutionary theory, etc.  I’m guessing that like so many hypocritical Christians, you disbelieve scientific discoveries only when they show your myths to be wrong. 

You claim to have thought critically about your religion but from just the bit about the age of the earth, it shows you are amazingly unaware of reality and have not thought about much at all. 

I’m 45 so whoop de do.  Age makes no difference in how coherent someone thinks.  This particular atheist thinks that religion is based on myths, not facts. There is not one shred of evidence for your myths or your god.  It causes much more harm than it has ever helped.  It creates a delusion that some people are better than others based on an invisible friend. 

I’ll ask you a question, 54East. What would it take *you* to disbelieve in your god/the supernatural?

[John 3 16]

Velkyn,
With my questions, I just wanted to see how you were doing when you were a believer.
I am sorry to say this but you were not a believer. period!

why?, try looking at your answer "He didn't die" how is it even possible to say when you were believing.

therefore, you were not a believer, in the eyes of God, in the eyes of me, in the eyes of any atheists and theists.

That answers your question Velkyn, you weren't believing, therefore no prayers were answered.
BTW you don't pray to God to keep your faith, faith doesn't come from praying without faith, it comes from believing.
Believing Christ, Believing Christ died for us to save us.
That's why your magic spell to the air didn't get any response.

[One Above All]

BTW you don't pray to God to keep your faith, faith doesn't come from praying without faith, it comes from believing.

So believing comes from believing, but you have to believe in order to get evidence to believe?
You don't see any problem with that logic at all?

[velkyn]

Velkyn,
With my questions, I just wanted to see how you were doing when you were a believer.
I am sorry to say this but you were not a believer. period!

Nice.  Of course you don’t think so, because of your desperate belief that no one can reject your god.  Well, sorry to tell you, I can and I did and I was a Christian.  So much for your claims of not judging.   Funny how I knew you would show yourself to be a liar as soon as you started asking questions since you were trying to define just what I was so you could judge it.

why?, try looking at your answer "He didn't die" how is it even possible to say when you were believing.

So, show me where your JC died.  Death is permanent.  Resurrection negates it.  There was no loss.  Let’s look at exactly what I did say, not your attempt to expurgate it for your own purposes

2)what was your first reaction when you heard son of god died for you? how did it feel?

He didn’t die, that’s the problem.  I had no caring about a god that sacrificed itself to itself.  I found no sadness in this at all since there was no true loss. It seemed that it simply had to be done that way, like any magic spell. When I was losing my faith, I wondered about the point of this and the fairness of it.  However, since he really didn’t die, something that even me as a child could understand, it didn’t bother me.

I had been told the story but even a child knows that death is permanent and this wasn’t death. I had seen plenty of people and animals be dead and what JC did wasn’t that.  Christians often prate on how guilty they feel or how happy they feel that someone died for them.  Why should I feel guilty when this is what God wanted and required?  Why should I feel happy that someone was killed horribly for me?  As I stated, it was what God wanted and that was it. I didn’t ask for it but I was led to believe it was true so I *accepted* it with no problem. Do you feel either guilty or happy if you ask yourself the same questions?  Why?   

therefore, you were not a believer, in the eyes of God, in the eyes of me, in the eyes of any atheists and theists.

awww, and where did the “only god knows” go, John?  I see someone judging  and being such a pathetic hypocrite.  Sorry, as long as I had accepted JC as my savior, that’s all that’s needed, right?  JC was all about that in John 3. Believe in me, and that’s it. No mention of death at all. You decided to add other things to create your own version of a TrueChristian.  That’s quite typical, John.  Thanks for demonstrating that again.

That answers your question Velkyn, you weren't believing, therefore no prayers were answered.

Thomas questioned too, John.  His faith was weak, so was mine.  So where was the help and please do tell me the difference. I did believe since I spent the time praying, John.  Please do explain why I would pray to something I didn’t believe in. 

BTW you don't pray to God to keep your faith, faith doesn't come from praying without faith, it comes from believing.

Oh my.  So, John, where does believing come from?  I do expect an answer to at least this.  You do have a tendency to ignore questions from anyone else.  Not very honest of you at all.

Believing Christ, Believing Christ died for us to save us.That's why your magic spell to the air didn't get any response.

No, my prayers failed since there is no god.  Supposedly your god wants everyone to accept him right?  If so, even if I didn’t believe in the “right” way, I should still have gotten a response *if* this being existed and *if* this being actually cared for everyone to believe in it.  So, what was the problem here, John?

[Omen]

becoming a christian means accepting god's gift and be saved from god's wrath by FAITH.
only by faith, because "without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6)

:snickers:

James 2:24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

John, your christianity is a strictly evangelical interpretation, which other christians reject.  You don't possess the authority or ability to dictate solely what is required to become a christian anymore then they do.  Why would I believe a christian of a different denominational from your own? Why would I believe you?

I have no reason to believe either, because there is no reason to invoke any of it as true, beyond ones own random emotional dependency upon believing it.  This is one of those problems with any religious belief, there is no intellectual structure to assign belief based on its relevance or contingent understandable points.  The game of theology is one built on arbitrary selection of what one has presupposed as conditional for that belief system.  Why would I or anyone else ever take such a dogmatically irrational system of belief seriously?

[Hatter23]

becoming a christian means accepting god's gift and be saved from god's wrath by FAITH.
only by faith, because "without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6)

:snickers:

James 2:24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

John, your christianity is a strictly evangelical interpretation, which other christians reject.  You don't possess the authority or ability to dictate solely what is required to become a christian anymore then they do.  Why would I believe a christian of a different denominational from your own? Why would I believe you?

I have no reason to believe either, because there is no reason to invoke any of it as true, beyond ones own random emotional dependency upon believing it.  This is one of those problems with any religious belief, there is no intellectual structure to assign belief based on its relevance or contingent understandable points.  The game of theology is one built on arbitrary selection of what one has presupposed as conditional for that belief system.  Why would I or anyone else ever take such a dogmatically irrational system of belief seriously?

Oh the answer to that one is simple: Becasue it is THEIR dogmatically irrational beleif system.

[John 3 16]

Omen.

If there is a person claimming he is a christian, but he doesn't believe the message in the bible (Example Christ died for ours sins)
Should I call him a christian?

James was simply pointing out that, if one has true faith, his deeds will show outwardly,
if faith is an object, deed is like a shadow of faith, it follows an object, shadows only exist when there is an object, right?

So if no shadow, then no obejct.

Do you know how many people claims they believe, but when I ask them questions about God's salvation plan they either have no idea or don't believe.

[Omen]

Omen.

If there is a person claimming he is a christian, but he doesn't believe the message

What message that you can convey in terms to be understood as the only one?

James was simply..

This is your rationalization, a different christian has a different interpretation from your own.  I addressed this and specifically asked a series of questions:

Why would I believe a christian of a different denominational from your own? Why would I believe you?

Why would I or anyone else ever take such a dogmatically irrational system of belief seriously?

Do you know how many people claims they believe, but when I ask them questions about God's salvation plan they either have no idea or don't believe.

You don't actually possess the authority or informative context to claim that they do or do not.  Your claim can't be acknowledged as true, because you can't demonstrably defend your own arbitrary rationalization.. much less insinuate that someone elses is wrong by default.  That is plainly dishonest and arrogant of you.

[Ambassador Pony]

John, you are your god.

[Hatter23]

Omen.

If there is a person claimming he is a christian, but he doesn't believe the message in the bible (Example Christ died for ours sins)
Should I call him a christian?

James was simply pointing out that, if one has true faith, his deeds will show outwardly,
if faith is an object, deed is like a shadow of faith, it follows an object, shadows only exist when there is an object, right?

So if no shadow, then no obejct.

Do you know how many people claims they believe, but when I ask them questions about God's salvation plan they either have no idea or don't believe.

You definition of 'Christian' is narrower than "Christ died for our Sins," is it not? Yes or No.

 

[Omen]

My goal here is to find out what ATHEISTS THINK, what drives their beliefs, and if something happened to take them from a position of believing in God to believing in no God.

Most of us are former believers, some were always atheist, some even have formal theological education.  I used to believe, having grown up being indoctrinated into a religious thinking, and it is precisely the kind of rationale you used in your apologia in this thread that eventually lead me to becoming an atheist.  That is, watching christians try to justify belief in christainity using absurdly irrational or contradictory arguments, often for nothing more than a minute rationalization that is only applicable at the time it was randomly made up.  I couldn't suspend my intellect to consider most of those arguments as reasonable or even honest.

Your attempt in this thread is a fantastic example, its delivered upon a set of vague premises regarding your belief, evoking randomly pleaded qualifications as if they were known or arguably understood.  All for the express purpose of justifying your own perception from within the belief system, but are really meaningless to anyone not indoctrinated into it.  It is immediately apparent where you suspend your rationality in such a way that I can't take a statement like this seriously:

I have already examined my belief system and have thought critically about.

I realized, after watching christians do exactly what you did in this thread, that I did it as well.  I frequently rationalized based on emotionally dependent beliefs, never actually bothering to reason through those beliefs to their inevitable logical conclusions.  I was never actually 'critically' thinking about it anymore then you exhibited in this thread or our crazy little friend John here.  At some point, once being removed from the platitudes and rhetoric of belief, it becomes meaningless.  The irony is that christians proselytize not based on reasoned evidence based arguments, but instead treat others who do not believe as if they were already constituent believers within the fold of understanding.

John is a fantastic example, where as it was pointed out that other christians reach contradictory or differing interpretations of religious belief from his own, and they possess no more reasoning or authority to deem their own beliefs self evident or to be understood as true then Johns.  Yet, john can't bring himself to acknowledge that, John ignored that immediate problem and simply reworded his rhetoric to again presuppose his own authoritative position delivered as an argument from authority.

I see no difference between you, John, or Fred Phelps.  All of you have arrived to your specific religious positions based on the same lack of reasoning and arbitrary rationale.  Atheism isn't a counter position to theism, it is instead the literal discarding of a way of thinking associated with religious belief.

[Morgan]

@54East
As a theist in the medical field, what is your stance on NDEs and the religious nature of a percentage?

I do want a satisfactory response to this. Of course, at your leisure, 54.

God could be thought of as a crutch because man is crippled.  We don’t do well left to our own devices.  If I am drowning and someone throws me a float, I am not going to push it away and refuse it because I can save myself.  Obviously if I am drowning I cannot save myself and need help.

No, we don't do well, that's why we have society with people who can help us, with or without a payment. Modern psychology is a neat alternative to religion, since it costs less time, money and other resources, nor does it preach homophobia, sexism, bigotry and many others hidden under a pretty veil of love and tolerance. As the old internet saying goes, "I'd rather trust the guys in lab coats who don't make me wake up every sunday morning to apologize for being human".

And yes, I do believe that my God is different than those other gods because the God of the Bible is the one and only true, living God.

If there is a person claimming he is a christian, but he doesn't believe the message in the bible (Example Christ died for ours sins)
Should I call him a christian?

What makes you think your interpretation is the true one? Nowadays, everyone has their own decoder ring which comes complete with an ego boost that makes them think their version is The One(TM).

[John 3 16]

CIRCLE OF ATHEISM


there is no god because there is no objective evidence

ok then do you disbelieve EVERYTHING if there is no objective evidence?

no, there are certain things we don't know yet

then why do you disbelieve God?

because there is no objective evidence

Can somebody break this circle of atheism for me?

[One Above All]

CIRCLE OF ATHEISM
<snip>

I see no circle. I see requests for evidence and dismissing claims that have no such evidence.

[Omen]

CIRCLE OF ATHEISM
there is no god because there is no objective evidence

Strawman.

There is no biblical god, because there is no evidence of the biblical god and all evidence contradicts the claims of the biblical god.  You're preferred cultural superstition is not the only one, nor self evident for anyone else besides you.  There is no such thing as a self evident label of 'god', to mean something in a shared extent between individuals objectively.   As a label it is meaningless and inseparable from its non-existence.

When I say your god doesn't exist, I'm talking about a specific defined context for your god.

ok then do you disbelieve EVERYTHING if there is no objective evidence?

no, there are certain things we don't know yet

Strawman.

I do not 'believe' things without evidence.  My answer is obviously yes and obviously something could exist and we do not know about it.

because there is no objective evidence

Can somebody break this circle of atheism for me?

Done, that was incredibly easy.

Can you answer these questions you've ignored:

This is your rationalization, a different christian has a different interpretation from your own.  I addressed this and specifically asked a series of questions:

Why would I believe a christian of a different denominational from your own? Why would I believe you?

Why would I or anyone else ever take such a dogmatically irrational system of belief seriously?