From atheism to Christianity? How so?

[Tonus]

Well, the scripture says Jesus is the lamb slain *before* the foundation of the world. Which means that God already knew what would happen before He created anything, so He prepared a Savior beforehand. We see in Genesis 3 that God gave the prophecy of the one coming from the line of Adam who would crush the head of the serpent. As far as God was concerned, the future is set in stone, so there was no risk per say. That isn't to say that Jesus wasn't tempted, but that God knew that Jesus would overcome every single temptation.

This means that god either intended for things to go this badly, or knew they would and did not alter events beforehand. Thus he is responsible for all of the suffering that has happened and that will happen. That doesn't work for me with the concept of a perfect and just being, or any of the other positive descriptors of the Christian god.

If god designed this universe to proceed in exactly this manner he did so deliberately, otherwise he was not acting of his own accord and is beholden to other forces. That confirms what I said before, that the game was rigged from the start. God did not take a human body to redeem mankind, he did so to rub our noses in our imperfection and low condition. If things are proceeding as he intended, then he is mocking us for being exactly as he made us. Otherwise he's mocking us for not winning the "god lottery."

[agapelove]

^ Brother, if you can produce a single unequivocal statement from the Bible where Jesus himself says "I am God", or where he says "worship me" and I'm ready to embrace Christianity.

P.S. Later! If you can show me tomorrow it's ok I embrace Christianity tomorrow. My head is on the guillotine!

Revelation 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

There you go. Let me know if you want to pray with me to accept the Lord into your life.

I would also like to continue to clarify the mission of Jesus, and the dichotomy of His two natures. Jesus, even when He did miracles, told the disciples and the people He was healing not to say anything about it. He was not there to proclaim Himself as God and draw attention to Himself, He was there to proclaim the Fathers will. He came as a suffering servant who had divested Himself of all of His divine privleges:

Philippians 2:5-8
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus was there to go to the cross, not to reign as King. Jesus, before the cross, never said the words "I am God", and nor did He ever say the words "I am man", or "I am a prophet don't worship me". He did make statements, however, which point directly to His divinity. You've written most of those off with an adhoc explanation drawing upon Jeremiah 1:5. It is a flawed solution for many reasons, one of them being John 1:1 which places Him at the beginning of the Creation with God, or Colossians 1:6 which testifies that Jesus is the Creator. When studying scripture we are supposed to believe what we read, not read what we believe. Otherwise you are just manipulating the material to make it read whatever you want it to.

While Jesus never said "worship me", He did accept worship from a few different people:

Matthew 14:33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
Matthew 28:9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.
Matthew 28:17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.
Luke 24:52 And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
John 9:38 He said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.

He did not correct them because He is God, but when John tried to worship the angel he was corrected:

Revelation 22:8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me,
Revelation 22:9 but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."

The man on the cross, supposedly Jesus said ellay ellay lamassa bahtani! Oh God, oh God, why has though forsaken ME? Why ME? Someone else is guilty for this crime and was supposed to suffer, not me. So that's 1 clue among many.

You're right about one thing; it is a clue. Have you read Psalm 22? Jesus did and He quoted it to let you know He was fulfilling it there on the cross:

Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

Psalm 22:14-16 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet (note: i do not believe that crucifixion existed at the time of this writing)—

The reason why Christians are very combative of this is because without a crucifixion, there is no Christianity. Christians believe that Jesus had to die AS A GOD BECAUSE A MAN CANNOT CARRY OUT THE SINS OF THE WORLD.

A perfect man can, and Jesus was fully man as well as fully God. He could bear the sins of the world because He was sinless, not necessarily because He was God. In scripture He is called the New Adam. It is not so much the crucifixion but the resurrection that Christianity hinges:

1 Corinthians 15:17-19 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

So I'm saying God died? Not only you want me to believe that there is a God, you also have to believe that Jesus was God and ON TOP OF ALL THAT, you have to believe that GOD DIED?

God, who took the form of a human being in real, human flesh, died on that cross. I don't find it unbelievable that God could do that, or would do that.

An evangelist from Argentina visited our church when I was 15 and prayed for my legs in front of everyone. One of my legs is slightly longer than the other (not really noticeable, unless you get to know me and are aware of my lack of self esteem. My lack of confidence does not resemble the way my hips move when I walk lol). Anyway, this dude prayed for my legs in front of everyone and we all saw my leg grow. We all saw it. I spent the following days making myself walk different with fear of the god taking the miracle away for lack of faith, though I could clearly see that my leg was back to normal already. Funny thing... but... we all saw it. Yes, we did. I mean it. I'm not kidding.

I had a dream at age six and I had it again several times through out my life. All of it came true, unfortunately.

I believe you, and I have seen it with my own eyes. I'll give you a new one that just happened today.

I was talking with a friend of a friend and they were telling me how they had been unemployed for a few months and they were having difficulty paying the rent. I said we should lift this up to the Lord and so we prayed and asked that He would help her with a job and the money she needed. Two or three minutes later she gets a telephone call. It was her son who had just found out he had more money than he thought he did, and he was going to give it to her to help her pay her bills. It was just about enough money to cover her rent. When things like this happen, and they do to me all the time, it would be irrational to ignore it as direct evidence for divine intervention.

So, basically... if it's extraordinary, it's divine.

Well, what you call extraordinary is impossible by the worldly standard of rationality. Why would prayer make your leg grow out? How could your dream tell you what was in the future? The answer is, it couldn't happen; yet the bible says that there is a God who answers prayers, and knows the future. Your experiences are evidence that there is a God and they contradict a belief in naturalism. That is something that I could not ignore. I think the most rational course is to follow the truth where ever it leads, even if it is something we would not prefer.

If it's divine, it's the Christian god. I don't know, therefore, Jesus? You say you read the Bible. Did you also read the Book of Mormon? The Quran? How exactly did it make sense that all of it had an explanation in Christ?

It was a journey to get to that point. I did read through all of the other books, studied the different religions, even the esoteric ones. I read all of the enlightened masters, explored all of the different philosophies, delved into the occult; I left nary a stone unturned. It was only when I read the bible that what God had revealed to me made sense. He had prepared me beforehand so that when I read the bible I would know it was His book. It was enough to give my life to Jesus, and when I did that, that is when everything changed and God gave me a new life.

If you were an atheist, were you atheist because you didn't know enough about any gods to even take notice, or was it a conclusion reached by critical thought and reason? This reminds me of the Catholics around here. I ask them about the original sin and the stare at me with googly eyes. They are Catholic by default. They grew up around it and they consider themselves Catholic, yet they know nothing about their own "beliefs". They believe that what their parents believe is true, but don't really know what it is that they believe in. Why were you atheist? How did you determine that there was no reason to believe in any gods? Could it be that you were like an empty vase ready to be filled with something... anything? Because... I am skeptical of an atheist who had researched deities and science, who had given things some thought in order to reach a logical conclusion that believing in a god does not make sense would consider these things you mention... evidence, supernatural phenomena, and revelations.

I wasn't actually looking for anything, because I didn't think any of it was real. I didn't see any evidence for it, any reason to believe in anything supernatural, and I had logical reasons to believe that. Those reasons were overcome when I experienced it first hand. I hadn't gone looking for it; It was that I started to have those spiritual experiences and then all of the "coincidences" (God winks) (and which had never happened anywhere near that frequency before) and that led me to believe in an all powerful God. It was a 7 year journey from there when I was born again and became a follower of Jesus Christ.

But I did try. When I was in AA i tried to bend the construct to meet reality, this led to a hefty does of denial. (The program is anything you want it to be -- horseshit.) I left AA for good in 2001. It's a long story, but in a nutshell, I looked at the program from a deconstructionist and critical analysis point of view. My blinders came off and so did my denial and cognitive dissonance.

I agree with your assesment of AA; I think most Christians would. If you can say a flower pot is your higher power, obviously you are playing some kind of mind game with yourself. I don't know if you've ever heard of it but there is a Christian based recovery program called Celebrate Recovery, which is founded on Jesus Christ as the only higher power. Here is the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Lifes-Healing-Choi...ng+choices

If Agape would do as I suggested, and dump the cult for just two months -- he would be able to see his experience for what it really is and see how the group has infested his thinking -- cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and flat-out denial.

As I brought up earlier -- I do believe that some people are more prone to magical thinking than others. Some people, I suspect, just have some inner need to go talking to the sky, and pretending to get answers, when they know damn good and well that they do not. There are some people who do naturally function better under an authoritarian system than they do setting their own goals.

The problem with your theory, at least as it applies to me, is that I wasn't converted by anyone. No one ever once witnessed to me about the Christian faith or explained the gospel to me. I became a Christian entirely of my own volition based on what God was doing in my life and my own study of the scripture. Even when I became a Christian I was not spending too much time interacting with other Christians until the last few years when I got involved in my local community.

Saying it was a reality you experienced is claiming too much. All you can claim is an internal experience. There is no way to objectively verify it.

You had thoughts and emotions, or possibly a delusion. You cannot dismiss that out of hand.

I don't, but I also recognize that is impossible to completely verify your own rationality, since you are using your own rationality to do that. At some point we all taking a leap of faith in our capacity to reason. My reason was telling me that the evidence was valid, enough at least to continue to pursue that line of reasoning.

I'm also of the opinion that there was a historical Jesus, I just find it strange that for someone that could make miracles happen, there's so little contemporary confirmation of his existence. So much of Jesus' story is echoed in other, earlier religions and mythologies (Horus, Mithra, etc etc) and consequently, many of his teachings can be found elsewhere too. You're wrong about the golden rule, for example: it pops up in ancient Babylon, China, India and so forth, well before the bible came about.

I haven't really researched the history of the golden rule; do you know what is the earliest known quotation of it? What I do know is that Moses wrote the pentateuch in 1400 BC which was 900 years earlier than the quotation by Confucius. Even if it were found to be older than the Old Testament, I wouldn't see that as being a problem for the credibility of Jesus.

As far Jesus borrowing from Horus, Mithra etc, that was the claim of a famous documentary called Zeitgeist which has been roundly debunked. You can check out some recent information on that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knNjbWKwz8E

I have found no accurate or reliable sources for that information, and there are almost no scholars that I know about who hold to that position today. For Mithra comparisons, from my own research, I can tell you that it is actually the other way around. It was the followers of Mithra who borrowed from Jesus because the writings are dated after and not before Jesus.

Except that you're vastly overstating the importance of your religion on the world stage, or even in western culture, helped in no small part by the vagueness with which you're doing it. And I also notice you aren't splitting your religious group down into its component parts (catholics, protestants etc) to get your number; remember, according to each of those groups, the others aren't true christians. Do they really all unite together like that, except through numerical convenience?

Regardless, we're skipping over the important fact that what you're really doing here is a simple argument from popularity: it wouldn't matter even if you're right, because the level of influence something has, and the number of followers it accrues, says nothing about whether or not it's true. The most you can really say out of this is that many people have been tricked; you haven't come a step closer to proving that the reason they all follow christianity is because there's a real god making that happen.

Can you demonstrate that?

Well, first of all I wouldn't say that Catholics aren't true Christians. They have a lot of beliefs that aren't in the bible but, so do a lot of prostestants. What matters is if they know Jesus personally, and I think many of them do. That said, I am not trying to prove anything with my statement other than offer a possibility. The possibility is that the impact of Christianity on the world, and its prominence in history and even today points to the truth of what Jesus said. If He is the Son of God, the result we have seen matches His claims. Napoleon put it very eloquently:

http://www.thesacredpage.com/2008/04/nap...jesus.html

God can't lie, can he? So if he's controlling the results, wouldn't that mean that he's bound to produce truthful results for the experiment, or else he'd be lying through his actions? So you're now in a situation where either god was telling the truth, and hence prayer is ineffective, or that god was lying, which is something sinful that he apparently can't do. Which is it?

What you have to see is that all prayers are answered, and sometimes that answer is no. To a man with no faith, he will see the no answers as being unanswered prayers when they are actually answered prayers. So, the study itself could never accurately measure the effectiveness of prayer for that reason. God could arrange the circumstances so that those prayers which were answered yes would never have a statistical significance, and He might do that because He only allows us to approach Him in faith and not by testing.

Pascal's Wager is, in short: "Just be a christian: there's no cost involved, and you're saving yourself from potentially infinite risk." You got real close.

hehe

I know there isn't a question to be answered.

How do you know that?

This means that god either intended for things to go this badly, or knew they would and did not alter events beforehand. Thus he is responsible for all of the suffering that has happened and that will happen. That doesn't work for me with the concept of a perfect and just being, or any of the other positive descriptors of the Christian god.

If god designed this universe to proceed in exactly this manner he did so deliberately, otherwise he was not acting of his own accord and is beholden to other forces. That confirms what I said before, that the game was rigged from the start. God did not take a human body to redeem mankind, he did so to rub our noses in our imperfection and low condition. If things are proceeding as he intended, then he is mocking us for being exactly as he made us. Otherwise he's mocking us for not winning the "god lottery."

God knew we would fall which is why He prepared a Savior before hand. You are indicting Him for doing nothing to stop it, but I think you're not acknowledging that God is offering everyone a choice. Just because God knows what you will choose doesn't mean you don't have a real choice. If I know you prefer vanilla ice cream to chocolate, and I offer you both, when you choose vanilla did you not have a real choice? I think what you would prefer is that God would not create a scenario where anything can go wrong, but in that case He would just be creating robots. God created real people with real choices, and He provided a Savior so that anyone who made the wrong choice could be redeemed. That is perfect, and just in my opinion.

[pocaracas]

So you believe in the contents of a book because whatever it is that you experienced matches with something that book?
Care to say what is it that you've experienced and to what does match with in the book?

[Strongbad]

I know there isn't a question to be answered.

How do you know that?

The same way that you think you know that there is a question to be answered.

God knew we would fall which is why He prepared a Savior before hand. You are indicting Him for doing nothing to stop it, but I think you're not acknowledging that God is offering everyone a choice. Just because God knows what you will choose doesn't mean you don't have a real choice. If I know you prefer vanilla ice cream to chocolate, and I offer you both, when you choose vanilla did you not have a real choice? I think what you would prefer is that God would not create a scenario where anything can go wrong, but in that case He would just be creating robots. God created real people with real choices, and He provided a Savior so that anyone who made the wrong choice could be redeemed. That is perfect, and just in my opinion.

So...God knew we would "fall", and He knew that the only the thing, THE ONLY THING, that would appease His "anger", the only way to "provide a savior", would be a human sacrifice to Him. But not just any human sacrifice would do - it had to be His "only begotten son" that would satisfy his blood lust.

You "used to be an atheist", and this is what you now believe? Again, I can only exclaim: BULLSHIT!

[Tonus]

God knew we would fall which is why He prepared a Savior before hand. You are indicting Him for doing nothing to stop it, but I think you're not acknowledging that God is offering everyone a choice.

If he knew we would fall, then he designed us specifically with that in mind. Not only did he not stop it, he deliberately set it in motion. Everything that follows does so because he designed the first humans to fall short, then punished all of humanity for their success in falling short.

The only rule given to the first pair of humans is to avoid one tree in the utopian paradise that god has provided them. If he hadn't introduced this temptation, would Adam and Eve not have free will? If so, then the only way for them to exercise their free will was to break the one rule given them. If not, then we suffer because god added an unnecessary obstacle that was designed solely for the purpose of causing humanity to fall.

The story is written so as to put the blame squarely on god's shoulders, which is why it's such a tricky one for Christians to explain, and why there are such varied (and often unclear) explanations for it. Just the basic story --where god pats himself on the back for his "good" creation then watches it turn on him-- forces the believer to blame humanity for a shortcoming that is built into it. As you delve deeper the questions get tougher and the explanations more and more bizarre.

[Lemonvariable72]

What you have to see is that all prayers are answered, and sometimes that answer is no. To a man with no faith, he will see the no answers as being unanswered prayers when they are actually answered prayers. So, the study itself could never accurately measure the effectiveness of prayer for that reason. God could arrange the circumstances so that those prayers which were answered yes would never have a statistical significance, and He might do that because He only allows us to approach Him in faith and not by testing.

So when a mother prays desperately for food for her starving child, your god says no and lets that child die a agonizing death because it's part of his plan? If thats the case your god makes me want to vomit.

---

God knew we would fall which is why He prepared a Savior before hand. You are indicting Him for doing nothing to stop it, but I think you're not acknowledging that God is offering everyone a choice.

If he knew we would fall, then he designed us specifically with that in mind. Not only did he not stop it, he deliberately set it in motion. Everything that follows does so because he designed the first humans to fall short, then punished all of humanity for their success in falling short.

The only rule given to the first pair of humans is to avoid one tree in the utopian paradise that god has provided them. If he hadn't introduced this temptation, would Adam and Eve not have free will? If so, then the only way for them to exercise their free will was to break the one rule given them. If not, then we suffer because god added an unnecessary obstacle that was designed solely for the purpose of causing humanity to fall.

The story is written so as to put the blame squarely on god's shoulders, which is why it's such a tricky one for Christians to explain, and why there are such varied (and often unclear) explanations for it. Just the basic story --where god pats himself on the back for his "good" creation then watches it turn on him-- forces the believer to blame humanity for a shortcoming that is built into it. As you delve deeper the questions get tougher and the explanations more and more bizarre.

I'd like to add one thing to your point too. He threatened adam and eve with death if they broke the rule, but adam and eve had no way of understanding death like we do as no animals in the garden of eden died.

[Godlesspanther]

Well Agape, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and concede that you were, at one time, an atheist who had through a profound experience gained a belief in a supernatural construct -- up until that last post.

Now, I simply do not find your story believable on several counts.

First of all -- atheists are not impressed with spouting quotes from your favorite holy text. I ignore that just as if you were spouting random quotes from The Pokey Little Puppy. It is not just that we reject the claims made in the Bible -- the basic premise is wrong. There is no such thing as a book that was inspired by, much less authored by, a supernatural source. There is no such thing as a book that can always be counted upon to be right no matter what -- such a book does not exist -- end of story. You seem to be entirely unaware of this fact and your claim that you once held this view is suspect to say the least.

Perhaps you were a non-believer in the supernatural, in an uninterested way, but you have made it clear that you were never an active skeptic.

If you were really a skeptic, you would never have fallen for the cheap, sleazy, fake leg-lengthening parlor trick that has been used by scumbag faith healers for ages. I have an internet search engine -- so do you:

https://www.google.com/#q=faith+healers+...k&safe=off

Just pick one or two of the many articles and videos exposing this scam.

The woman who needed money -- just eliminate the supernatural and what are you left with? A woman was having financial difficulties and her son gave her some money -- so what. A skeptic will naturally pursue a natural explanation -- It appears that you never really had such a mind-set. Dreams that seem to be prophetic can be explained by paradolia and retrofitting. There are no cases of confirmed prophecy that can't be explained by natural means.

Are we really to believe that you started studying all religious paths except the one that is by far the dominant, most popular, most pushed in your culture and then looked at that one last and found it to be true? No -- I don't believe you. Are we to believe that you went on a quest for spiritual enlightenment without actually "looking for anything"? Again, I don't believe that.

Yes, I found AA to be a vile cult -- what makes you think that i would be interested in another stupid cult? Hint: I'm not.

And then you claim that you, all by yourself, in a vacuum, decided to Bible your mind senseless to the point that you buy into the whole thing hook, line and sinker, including all the right-wing political crap as well as the theological construct without any real-world human influence guiding you in that direction. Once again -- bullshit.

Yes, Zeitgeist is a crock of shit -- no doubt. So is the video that you provided.

Any anyone who was ever the least bit skeptical of supernatural claims would never use Pascal's Wager -- even most xtian extremists reject it as sub=standard argumentation.

Bottom line, Agape -- I think you are just as much a former atheist as was Lee Stroebel of Kirk Cameron.

Your story is simply not believable.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Three Christians post and a debate about theodicy starts. Does anyone have any more original and relevent questions?

[pineapplebunnybounce]

agapelove,

you may have missed my reply, no biggie, I'll repeat the question I want answered the most.

You said my grandparents were deceived by the devil, that their prophetic dreams only served to lead them to the wrong path and that it happened to you too and you ended up going into new agey stuff. So the question is how do you know you're not being deceived now and that the real god is the muslim god, which also talks about a syaitan (their equivalent of satan)?

[Ksa]

Revelation 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

The book of revelation was a dream. A man, if he eats too much or grabs the wrong mushroom, he has this type of experience. If you dream of your wife calling you a lunatic, will you slap her when you wake up? Why are you so illogical?

I would also like to continue to clarify the mission of Jesus, and the dichotomy of His two natures. Jesus, even when He did miracles, told the disciples and the people He was healing not to say anything about it. He was not there to proclaim Himself as God and draw attention to Himself, He was there to proclaim the Fathers will.

What blasphemy is this? Jesus did a low profile so people wouldn't be mislead into thinking he's God! If you're God, how can you proclaim yourself God? If you're water, how can you make yourself wet. You just are. God is arrogant! God told Moses on the mountain I AM, I am whoever I am, not your business Moses...go do your job. Moses felt bad for asking God the question. He wished he had kept his mouth shut. You imagine if the Jews barely raised their voice at God, what would happen to them? God does GODLY things, God doesn't do mundane tricks like giving life to the dead or turning water into wine.

Matthew 14:33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

I'm the son of God too, me, Ksa from atheistforums.org. You're the Son of God also. Anybody bound by the spirit of God is the Son of God.

Matthew 28:9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.

If I masturbate while worshiping the feet of a beautiful woman, or if I wash the feet of my father to care for him, does it mean both the woman and my father are God? I worship the feet because I want to, where's the problem? It's a PHYSICAL worship, not a spiritual worship.

Matthew 28:17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

Good old Matthew...I asked, from the lips of Jesus...why are you giving me what Matthew perceived? Matthew THOUGHT they were worshiping him as God, while Jesus thought they were accommodating him. Matthew was an idiot, I don't want to know what an idiot THOUGHT. I thought it was green light, went for it and died. I want to know what the MASTER said. If you are a V.I.P guest and you have 4 servants doing this and that for you, and they worship you, are you God? It wasn't a spiritual worship, it was a PHYSICAL worship. Jesus was...a V.I.P. so it was an accommodation, not a spiritual worship.

Luke 24:52 And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
John 9:38 He said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.

I go to church, put my head on the lap of a priest and say "Lord, I believe". Do I believe the priest is God? Do I worship the priest? Where's your logic? I asked from the lips of Jesus.