RE: A Former Atheist
May 3, 2015 at 10:02 pm
(This post was last modified: May 3, 2015 at 10:12 pm by Theoretical Skeptic.)
(May 3, 2015 at 9:36 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: The "real Bible?" You mean the one that says in the first chapter of Genesis that god created the grass and the trees before he created the sun and the moon? You mean the one that shows fathers how to sell their daughters into sexual slavery (Exodus 21:7-11)?
I find that people who don't believe the Bible know a lot more about it and about Christian history than those who do believe it.
Leaving the church because you're disgusted at fellow Christians doesn't make you an atheist. To be an atheist, you have to be strong enough to stop lying to yourself about what is clearly truth and reality. You have to be strong enough to not settle for comfortable answers and convoluted explanations.
You, uh . . . you might want to check out my new thread on the Christian forum. The Real Bible: Genesis Chapter 1.
(May 3, 2015 at 9:43 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote: Yup... and?
And I don't think I have done what you said I did. I asked him if he celebrated Christmas with his children, he said he did with a son, I then gave him my take on Christmas saying he most likely celebrated it in the usual materialistic fashion. I then went on a rant on atheism due to the similar rants I have gotten on theism and the doubts that I was an atheist like I said I was. I stand by that and don't see why I would hesitate to.
(May 3, 2015 at 6:48 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote:(May 2, 2015 at 10:02 pm)Theoretical Skeptic Wrote: Okay. Let me ask you a simple question. What is the soul? Is it immortal, meaning does it die?
Perhaps you could provide some evidence of this thing you call a soul before asking our thoughts on it.
Sure. According to the Bible the soul is the blood or the life of any breathing creature. It comes from an Hebrew root word which literally means "breather."
"The concept of immortality is a product of Greek thinking, whereas the hope of a resurrection belongs to Jewish thought. . . . Following Alexander’s conquests Judaism gradually absorbed Greek concepts." - Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de la Bible (Valence, France; 1935), edited by Alexandre Westphal, Volume 2, page 557.
Plato quoting Socrates: "The soul, . . . if it departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, . . . goes away into that which is like itself, into the invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, and when it arrives there it is happy, freed from error and folly and fear . . . and all the other human ills, and . . . lives in truth through all after time with the gods." - Phaedo, 80, D, E; 81, A.
"The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture." The Jewish Encyclopedia (1910), Volume VI, page 564.
