Questions ABOUT non-believers

[Moose]

The woman didn't say Satan made her do it, she said JESUS made her do it.... huge dilemma. A religious person trying to assert that she is satan-infested has to prove she's lying...

 

Please, don't forget who Satan is...."The Great Deceiver", a very powerfull salesman and force......I believe that he could've convinced her that it was what Jesus would have her to do or even convinced her that he was Jesus himself.

 

Every Christain is a soldier against such force and it's not an easy job. There are two things that have existed since History began, Good and Evil. Christians don't battle Muslims on the field, who said that???? Well, who ever it was, don't confuse, "Americans" to automatically be Christians.

 

There have been thousands of people who came to America believing that if they are a citizen of this country, then they are automatically a, "Christian".

 

You know, I've read the bible, it is a history book in a sense. But I'm more interested in Prophecy and the here and now. If you really study prophecy and look around you....you will see the truth. I'm going to a Prophecy conference on the 28th and 29th. I should have some interesting information for all to dissect.

[Papillon]

Contradiction alert, moose

 

Doesn't the bible explicitly state that no one is to predict the future, and even trying is useless (and sinful? Not sure of my facts here?)

[Moose]

No it doesn't. As a matter of fact, Daniel and Revelations are two of the books in the bible that deals purely on future events. You may be refering to the Old Testament.

[moimeme]

You have no choice in the matter, because you can't do different from what he already knows. You have no free will.

 

You're missing the point.

 

You have a teenage daughter. She has freedoms. You *know* she is going to drink. It doesn't stop her from doing it. You could, if you wanted to restrict free will, strap her to her bed and not allow her to leave the house. However, you don't. You let her go out, *knowing* that she will certainly drink.

 

That is how it works. That God knows what you're going to do and *doesn't* stop it shows that you do actually have free will.

 

The fact that you choose x, y or z religion to fulfill it with, is due to dogma and indoctrination.

 

It's true that you can't have a decent discussion with dogmatic atheists because they refuse to acknowledge that you have any intelligence. Let me flip it around. There is a mathematician who has written a book to prove God exists. He says that, mathematically speaking, the probability that the earth and its people was created by chance is impossibly much greater than that it was created by design. If you read a lot of high-end physicists and other scientists, you find they come to religion not through 'indoctrination' but because the existence of a God makes more logical sense than other explanations for how the world came to be.

 

Nobody, Papillon, indoctrinated me to have a spiritual experience. I'm not a born-again Christian, or any sort of zealot or enthusiast. But on a day when I was wondering why I could not 'give myself to Jesus' just by going onstage at a talk the night before (NOT a regular event for me - this was a one-time talk, not a weekly meeting or anything like that) I realized that I thought that if I did, maybe God would want me to be a nun And then I was filled with joy and peace, all the goings-on before me vanished (I was actually at Mass on Easter morning LOL) and the words 'Ego sum, noli timere' appeared before me. It means 'it is I, be not afraid'. I got it. LOL. I could 'give myself to Jesus' - he wasn't going to ask me to do something I didn't want to do - like be a nun

 

It was pretty damn cool, I gotta tell you.

 

My stock answer to people who say you can't believe in something you can't prove empirically is 'prove that love exists'. You can no more do that than prove God exists.

 

But if you want to be scientific, quantum mechanics is now saying there may be as many as 27 dimensions! We poor boobs trapped in Third Dimensionland cannot possibly hope to comprehend that which we cannot perceive due to our limited abilities. Mankind has learned more and more things once thought 'impossible' were indeed possible - it's just the lack of knowledge that made them seem so. That we don't understand how a Divine could exist or work doesn't mean it doesn't exist, merely that we are too stupid to apprehend.

[Papillon]

Moimeme, where did you hear the word "Jesus"? Answer me that question? Why did you not hear "Allah", or "Buddha" or "Vishnu", or whatever?

 

Simple. It's circumstantial, through and through. Jesus, Allah, the Buddha, Vishnu, etc, did not appear in front of you in a line so you could choose between them. You never made that choice! You "chose" jesus simply because it was the only choice offered to you as a child. You went with what you knew, even if you hadn't embraced it before.

 

As for the little mathematical spiel - that is so simple to debunk it's not even funny.

 

Let's have a little thought experiment (Damn, I sound like Richard Feynman now ):

 

I have two glasses. One is exactly double the capacity of the other. The larger one is filled halfway with water.

 

HOW MUCH WATER DO I HAVE?

 

 

I'll wait for you to answer before I continue....

[moimeme]

The name doesn't matter, Papillon. I believe the Divine has all those names. I don't think Christianity has a lock on God. Don't mistake me for a fundamentalist.

 

 

As for the little mathematical spiel - that is so simple to debunk it's not even funny.

 

Then please go ahead.

 

And I believe my challenge came first. Prove love exists.

 

I'll not hold my breath waiting for your answer.

[Papillon]

The thought experiment is part of the debunking. So please answer.

 

 

Please, don't attempt to fool me with rethoric. Love is an ephemeral emotion, and it's existence or not is a moot point. Love fades, your alleged god alledgedly does not, and is alledgedly real and not ephemeral. So the two are not comparable. In any event, you are trying to shift the burden of proof with horses***. It's transparent, and I'll simply ignore it.

 

 

 

HOW MUCH WATER DO I HAVE?

[HokeyReligions]

Does it matter to anyone if others believe differently from you? How would you (any athiest or agnostic out there) feel or react if suddenly someone who believed in God and worshipped in a traditional christian way (no matter what the sect) were to claim that they no longer believed? What would it matter if you 'converted' someone to your way of thinking? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I'm just curious about why so many people who do not believe in creation seem to want to change other people's minds to their way of thinking? What does that accomplish?

 

I don't believe in God or creation. But my mother and husband do. They find comfort in their belief and their faith. They can't prove to me that God exists. I can't prove to them that God doesn't exist and I don't want to. I don't want to take away something that comforts them. I see no harm in believing in creation or God, or following the teachings of most religions.

 

I know from their standpoint, if they could convince me that God does exist and I were to fall down on my knees and start crying and praying to their god or jesus - they would be thrilled. They would believe that I would go to Heaven when I die and that they would see me again. But that is the only difference it would make. It wouldn't change myself or my behavior or actions while I'm alive. It wouldn't change anything about me.

 

I don't believe in creation. If someone wants to feel sorry for me---that's up to that person. It doesn't matter to me. I'm not responsible for their feelings. I'm not going to suddenly 'see the light' as I lay on my bed dieing someday, and be saved and salvaged and live forever in some other dimension known as Heaven. That is a hope for the living who don't want to face death without the possibility of life afterward.

 

If I should have loved ones (christians) around me when I die, I'll try to remember to call out "Jesus!" so that the loved ones will be comforted and may believe that I found their god at the end.

[Papillon]

Hokey, what pisses me off is when you explain YOUR side of things, then the believer attacks you for being "dogmatic", and "assuming we don't have a brain", and that sort of thing. That's when I get incensed and want to DEMOLISH them in a flood of logic and rationality (yeah I know it's a contradiction, but anyway )

[YellowLioness]

Nobody, Papillon, indoctrinated me to have a spiritual experience. I'm not a born-again Christian, or any sort of zealot or enthusiast. But on a day when I was wondering why I could not 'give myself to Jesus' just by going onstage at a talk the night before (NOT a regular event for me - this was a one-time talk, not a weekly meeting or anything like that) I realized that I thought that if I did, maybe God would want me to be a nun And then I was filled with joy and peace, all the goings-on before me vanished (I was actually at Mass on Easter morning LOL) and the words 'Ego sum, noli timere' appeared before me. It means 'it is I, be not afraid'. I got it. LOL. I could 'give myself to Jesus' - he wasn't going to ask me to do something I didn't want to do - like be a nun

 

Thanks, Moi. This made alot of good sense to me. I've always wondered how to reconcile my similar fears.

[murasaki]

Originally posted by HokeyReligions

Does it matter to anyone if others believe differently from you? How would you (any athiest or agnostic out there) feel or react if suddenly someone who believed in God and worshipped in a traditional christian way (no matter what the sect) were to claim that they no longer believed? What would it matter if you 'converted' someone to your way of thinking? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I'm just curious about why so many people who do not believe in creation seem to want to change other people's minds to their way of thinking? What does that accomplish?

 

Hear hear! I could never figure that out myself.

 

I think the people who are most vehement in their condemnation of others' beliefs, and/or the most insistent and vocal about the correctness of their own beliefs, are people who somewhere deep down have some insecurities about what they believe. Because if you're comfortable with what you believe, it doesn't matter what others' beliefs are. Even if they drone on about how they're the ones who know "the truth" and suggest that you're duped/naive/going to hell if you don't agree with them, who cares?

 

Everyone has their reasons for needing to believe what they believe. That's true for all sides of this unresolvable debate. And since the only shoes I've walked in are my own, I can only know what my reasons are. I can only justify my beliefs insofar as they pertain to me.

[YellowLioness]

Moi, what happens if God's will isn't your will?

 

Like, what if God called you to go to Alaska and witness to the Inuits?

 

When you say that God wouldn't want you to do something that you wouldn't want to do, are you saying that God would change your mind about wanting to minister?

 

I don't know; at first I agreed, then I realized I had more questions.

[bye2past]

Originally posted by moimeme

You have a teenage daughter. She has freedoms. You *know* she is going to drink. It doesn't stop her from doing it. You could, if you wanted to restrict free will, strap her to her bed and not allow her to leave the house. However, you don't. You let her go out, *knowing* that she will certainly drink.

 

Moimeme, you can't compare my "knowing" my daughter will drink to God's knowledge of everything. Remember, the Christian notion of God knows everything and He is never wrong.

 

My teenage daughter may not drink -- she may see someone puke at the party and lose her appetite. I don't really know what she's going to do. However, GOD knows everything! And he's never wrong! So if you subscribe to a belief in the Christian God, then He already knows (without question, he doesn't just "hope" or "expect" you'll do certain things) what you'll do for the rest of your life. And he's never wrong, and he knows everything, then you can't do any differently than what he knows about your future. Therefore, you have no free will.

 

The crux of the argument lies in the definition of the word "know." In your example, when you say I "know" she'll drink, what you're really saying is that I "expect" she'll drink. I don't know 100% for sure though. In fact, the only things we really "know" about are math concepts, like 2 + 2 = 4. We know that, we don't just "expect" that 2 + 2 = 4.

 

Christians believe, however, that God knows everything without question, AND that's he's never wrong. If that's the case, then if you believe in Him, how can you possibly have free will??

 

I'm telling you, I'm not just making up this argument.....look in any Philosophy 101 textbook and you'll see the argument even more clearly laid out (with other arguments that prove how crazy religious arguments are).

[Moose]

Christians believe, however, that God knows everything without question, AND that's he's never wrong. If that's the case, then if you believe in Him, how can you possibly have free will??

 

We have free will because God, even all knowing, doesn't interfere with our decisions. He may already know what they are going to be, but I do not, therefore that allows me to change my path.

 

God isn't up there moving us around like toy soldiers. He knows what we are going to do, when we are going to do it and he even knows when He'll reveal Himself to us. BUT WE DON'T.

 

He also knows if you have a willing heart, or an unwilling heart.

 

Here's a statement that will make you think too:

 

"There are no absolutes"

 

Tell me, is this statement true????

[bye2past]

Originally posted by Moose

We have free will because God, even all knowing, doesn't interfere with our decisions. He may already know what they are going to be, but I do not, therefore that allows me to change my path.

 

God isn't up there moving us around like toy soldiers. He knows what we are going to do, when we are going to do it and he even knows when He'll reveal Himself to us. BUT WE DON'T.

 

Tell me, is this statement true????

 

I'm not saying he's CONTROLLING you...but you simply CAN'T change your path, because God already knows what that path is!! If you change that path, you prove him wrong!! And God's never wrong, isnt' that right?

 

So then I ask you, what are those God-given "choices" then? Just tricks to make to believe to actually have a choice when you really don't? That's not a very nice God, insulting your intelligence like that.

[bye2past]

Originally posted by murasaki

I think the people who are most vehement in their condemnation of others' beliefs, and/or the most insistent and vocal about the correctness of their own beliefs, are people who somewhere deep down have some insecurities about what they believe. Because if you're comfortable with what you believe, it doesn't matter what others' beliefs are. Even if they drone on about how they're the ones who know "the truth" and suggest that you're duped/naive/going to hell if you don't agree with them, who cares?

 

Everyone has their reasons for needing to believe what they believe. That's true for all sides of this unresolvable debate. And since the only shoes I've walked in are my own, I can only know what my reasons are. I can only justify my beliefs insofar as they pertain to me.

I agree with you, and I genuinely wish I could somehow not get so uptight upon seeing such blatant stupidity, with lines like "To believe without knowing shows our trust in Him."

 

In an effort to try and explain the vehement person's pyschii, it's as if you hear someone else proudly claiming the the song "Uptown Girl" was in fact written by Frankie Valle. Sure, you can keep your mouth shut and just let the person lie to everyone like that. But something inside of us "vehementers" just can't let the absurdity continue -- we simply MUST say something. And more importantly, we CERTAINLY don't want that false information being disseminated to other people.

 

Maybe you can help me out -- how does one be tolerant of someone else's belief system when one is completely against it?? Where do you get that wonderful restraint??

[Moose]

You'r right, however, God gives us choices, options, and it's up to us which option, or choice we choose. Even if He knows what we are going to do, we still have a will to choose whatever we want.

[bye2past]

Originally posted by Moose

You'r right, however, God gives us choices, options, and it's up to us which option, or choice we choose. Even if He knows what we are going to do, we still have a will to choose whatever we want.

But do you not see that's a fake choice?? How is that benevolent? It's certainly not free will, unless you somehow believe that simply having a choice (whether it's rigged or not) is having free will.

 

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want MY god playing tricks on me like that. It's not a true, free choice. It's an illusion because God already knows which you're going to pick. You simply don't have a real choice.

[Moose]

I think I know where you are coming from, but you need to keep in mind, God is not tricking us into believing we have choices......what He is in fact doing is allowing us to have a WILLING heart, or an un WILLING heart.

 

Does that make sense?

[bye2past]

Originally posted by Moose

I think I know where you are coming from, but you need to keep in mind, God is not tricking us into believing we have choices......what He is in fact doing is allowing us to have a WILLING heart, or an un WILLING heart.

Does that make sense?

I'm sorry, but that sounds just like rhetoric to me. It sounds like a sugar-coated way of telling you that you have no free will.

 

He's allowing you have a willing heart? It doesn't make sense to me....anyway, I think that's out of the scope of my point. I'm saying that there is no free will if you believe in the Christian God.

[Moose]

Ok, fair enough.

 

But tell me this then. Would you have your spouse, or significant other, love you because you demand it, or because she wants to?

[bye2past]

Originally posted by Moose

Ok, fair enough.

 

But tell me this then. Would you have your spouse, or significant other, love you because you demand it, or because she wants to?

Man, that's a loaded question. You're talking about what having a willing heart is, and that's totally fine...the issue is that regardless of you wanting to do X, Y, or Z (or be willing to do X, Y, or Z) has nothing to do with if you can ever really choose X, Y, or Z of your own free will.

[YellowLioness]

God can see everything: he is infinite.

We cannot: we are finite.

 

To us, because we cannot ultimately see the ends of the ripples that our choices create, it is free will.

 

Say that for lunch today you can have your choice of pizza, chicken, salad, sushi, whatever.

 

Say it is sort of predetermined (by Fate, Destiny, God) that if you eat chicken, you will get food poisoning. If you eat the pizza, you will gain a pound. If you get the salad, you will freak out because you get a bug in it. If you eat the sushi, you will be full and content until dinner that night.

 

Ok, so you CHOOSE which lunch you want, and thusly take the consequences. You don't KNOW that whatever fast food restaurant pissed of its employees by granting a 10% pay cut, and thusly decided to take out their aggression on the consumers.

 

This is how I see things. We make thousands choices every day, but God knows the outcome of each of those choices.

[HokeyReligions]

Originally posted by bye2past

I agree with you, and I genuinely wish I could somehow not get so uptight upon seeing such blatant stupidity, with lines like "To believe without knowing shows our trust in Him."

 

In an effort to try and explain the vehement person's pyschii, it's as if you hear someone else proudly claiming the the song "Uptown Girl" was in fact written by Frankie Valle. Sure, you can keep your mouth shut and just let the person lie to everyone like that. But something inside of us "vehementers" just can't let the absurdity continue -- we simply MUST say something. And more importantly, we CERTAINLY don't want that false information being disseminated to other people.

 

Maybe you can help me out -- how does one be tolerant of someone else's belief system when one is completely against it?? Where do you get that wonderful restraint??

 

Here is how I look at it: xyz believes in God. I do not. That doesn't mean I'm against it. As for those with similar belief systems (Christians have many different branches of their faith--from Catholic to methodist, etc.) All they can do is be a proponent for their own way of believing. Lead by example, witness to others when they can (not brow-beat people!) and if someone listening doesn't agree with it, they just walk away or say "I don't agree" and let it drop. If Moose's faith tells him that "To believe without knowing shows our trust in Him." is true, do you really think that anyone can tell him that he's wrong? Who's to say he is wrong? His way of belief simply isn't your way, or my way. He presents his view and belief system - you can present yours and people who hear both (or more views) will make up their own minds on how they want to worship, who they want to worship, or even if they want to worship. Each person accepts his or her own proof.

 

I believe there was a person on the grassy knoll, many other people do also. But its never been proven either way. Who really shot Kennedy? There is a question, a doubt. I could be right. I could be wrong. We'll never know. You might not agree with me and think I'm spreading lies by saying I believe that there was a second gunman. That doesn't make me wrong. Doesn't make you wrong either. So I don't see it as tolerance or acceptance of a lie. I don't believe I'm lieing when I say that Man created God, not the other way around. That is my belief.

[bye2past]

Originally posted by YellowLioness

This is how I see things. We make thousands choices every day, but God knows the outcome of each of those choices.

Exactly. And since God's never wrong, and he already knows what you're going to choose, how can you choose differently?

 

What is that choice then, if he already knows (without failure, of course -- He's God) what you're going to choose? Is it enough that you merely have a choice, even though it's not a real choice of your own free will?