(March 4, 2014 at 6:30 am)JesusLover1 Wrote:

(March 4, 2014 at 6:26 am)jesus_wept Wrote: The truth isnt always nice but it's not as assholish (is that a word?) as telling your children they mean less to you than Jesus.

---

And I suppose this is an example of the outstanding family values I keep hearing Christians going on about.

I asked a couple years later and she said she was wrong, that their love for me and their love for Jesus were different realms so they couldn't be compared.

I wouldn't have been happy with this response because it answers very little and seems more like something a politician would say to fob someone off than a mother. I mean what was she wrong about? It reads to me like she's saying she still loves Jesus more than you but she was wrong to compare it because of "different realms" (wherever that is meant to mean?).

(March 4, 2014 at 7:21 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: I know my parents would say "all is accomplished" would mean when Jesus saved our souls through his death on the cross. Did he not say "it is finished"?

So, their response is that the word "all," doesn't mean "all" in this specific circumstance? Their way out is to pervert language until it fits what they want to believe?

Kinda sounds like a trick to get around something inconvenient, to me. It's an old apologetic, anyway; this stuff gets passed around like syphilis, but it's hardly convincing, relying as it does on taking words to mean the opposite of what they mean.

And you're avoiding my other question too: what was different about the old testament time that made it okay to kill your family for your religion?

(March 4, 2014 at 7:38 am)Esquilax Wrote: And you're avoiding my other question too: what was different about the old testament time that made it okay to kill your family for your religion?

I don't know. When I brought up all the bad stuff God did in the Old Testament, that's when my mom said "Are you trying to ruin your mother?"

(March 4, 2014 at 7:44 am)JesusLover1 Wrote:

(March 4, 2014 at 7:38 am)Esquilax Wrote: And you're avoiding my other question too: what was different about the old testament time that made it okay to kill your family for your religion?

I don't know. When I brought up all the bad stuff God did in the Old Testament, that's when my mom said "Are you trying to ruin your mother?"

Ah, emotional blackmail. Always a good way to stifle dissent.

(March 4, 2014 at 7:51 am)Jacob(smooth) Wrote:

(March 4, 2014 at 7:44 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: I don't know. When I brought up all the bad stuff God did in the Old Testament, that's when my mom said "Are you trying to ruin your mother?"

Ah, emotional blackmail. Always a good way to stifle dissent.

Why don't you want to help me save these poor souls from eternal damnation?

Because you are doing it wrong. Ask one of them what it would take for them to turn to jesus.

(March 4, 2014 at 7:44 am)JesusLover1 Wrote:

(March 4, 2014 at 7:38 am)Esquilax Wrote: And you're avoiding my other question too: what was different about the old testament time that made it okay to kill your family for your religion?

I don't know. When I brought up all the bad stuff God did in the Old Testament, that's when my mom said "Are you trying to ruin your mother?"

So the moment you brought up a realistic, difficult question that wasn't heavily biased in favor of the religion they want to believe, they shut down all methods of communication and tried to cow you into silence with, as Jacob says, emotional blackmail. Doesn't anything there seem a tad suspicious to you? If there was an honest answer, a justification that could be given, if god really was good and his actions morally correct, why would your parents need to silence you, instead of providing an answer or urging you to research it yourself? The truth has nothing to fear from investigation, after all; additional knowledge only makes the light shine brighter on what is real. Why would they shut you down like that?

Quote:Why don't you want to help me save these poor souls from eternal damnation?

Jacob is respectful enough of our intelligence to understand that the things you're saying aren't going to convince us. It's part of the reason he's so well liked around here; he knows when to play to an audience.

And just to be clear, JL: you could convince me that your god is real, if he is actually real. I don't know a single atheist here who isn't at least open to the possibility, but we'd need good evidence that such a thing exists, and what you're giving us now isn't that. We are open to anything that's true, and you need to ask yourself why this is the one and only thing you believe in that you're having this much trouble coming up with evidence for.

Okay guys, what would it take for you to turn to Jesus?

(March 4, 2014 at 8:07 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: Okay guys, what would it take for you to turn to Jesus?

Quality evidence

(March 4, 2014 at 8:07 am)JesusLover1 Wrote: Okay guys, what would it take for you to turn to Jesus?

Think of other things that exist: if you were trying to show us any other thing, what would you do to get us convinced?

Chances are, you'd just show it to us, right? Or give us a way to feel its effects, something like that. You wouldn't need all these logical proofs, or the conviction of other people, or presuppositional nonsense... you'd just be able to show us. We live in a world with unprecedented levels of surveillance and photographic capabilities, it is literally easier today to provide evidence of something than it has ever been in the history of our species.

Why can't you do that for god? What makes that particular claim fail, where inanimate objects and air succeed?