'Seeking' God

[thesummerqueen]

Also, do you know how terribly Christians are persecuted across the world? Do you know how hard it is to stand against the tide? Serving Christ is no joke, sometimes it costs us our lives and the lives of the people we love. You can mock my desire to draw close to God, but have you ever met a missionary family? Have you ever met people who barely escaped with their lives or were beaten to a bloody stump because they were telling people about how God changed them? I just read an ad on the metro talking about north Koreans that are beaten and arrested for being Christians and the bible tells us its going to get way worse. No matter how you try to make my beliefs sound like an illusion there are people out there dying for this message because a piece of people literally hate what we're saying and hate our God which is a powerful confirmation there is a devil, there is evil in this world and he can't wait to kill us so that no one else will be restored or renewed.

Yes, and my people were persecuted simply for existing - we never even preached, and most of it was done by you Christians. I have sympathy for the individuals. I have none for your religion being "persecuted."

Yours is not the only belief system suffering at the hands of another.

---

In fact, I argue that a lot of people are drawn to Christianity simply for the martyr complex - leave people alone, quit trying to spread your good word. You'd "suffer" a lot less.

Jesus Christ, and I thought Jews had a victim complex....

[The Grand Nudger]

Who are you to judge her translation and faith? Neither of you have any evidence whatsoever and so I can only conclude that both of your respective faiths are equally as valid. Between the two, hers is more pleasant. I don't need any more reason or thought on the subject than this, because I don't require either of your faiths to be correct.

[salty]

Yes, we atheists don't have to work as hard to understand and make sense of our lives as you poor theists.

hehehhe. That's a funny movie...!

---

Also, do you know how terribly Christians are persecuted across the world? Do you know how hard it is to stand against the tide? Serving Christ is no joke, sometimes it costs us our lives and the lives of the people we love. You can mock my desire to draw close to God, but have you ever met a missionary family? Have you ever met people who barely escaped with their lives or were beaten to a bloody stump because they were telling people about how God changed them? I just read an ad on the metro talking about north Koreans that are beaten and arrested for being Christians and the bible tells us its going to get way worse. No matter how you try to make my beliefs sound like an illusion there are people out there dying for this message because a piece of people literally hate what we're saying and hate our God which is a powerful confirmation there is a devil, there is evil in this world and he can't wait to kill us so that no one else will be restored or renewed.

Yes, and my people were persecuted simply for existing - we never even preached, and most of it was done by you Christians. I have sympathy for the individuals. I have none for your religion being "persecuted."

Yours is not the only belief system suffering at the hands of another.

---

In fact, I argue that a lot of people are drawn to Christianity simply for the martyr complex - leave people alone, quit trying to spread your good word. You'd "suffer" a lot less.

Jesus Christ, and I thought Jews had a victim complex....

Smh...

[Captain Scarlet]

Well, that isn't correct. Jesus said knock and the door will open. Praying that may not get you saved, but it will open a door for future dialogue. If you ask God for the truth, and show that you actually do want to know what it is, then He will lead you to it.

Can xtians possibly refrain from telling atheists that it is their fault they haven't found god/ Jesus. It's a stoopid ad hominem because theism can't answer the problem of the hiddenness of god. This particular fallacy was presented in "the emperors new clothes". Theists just like the tailors have nothing to offer, but attempt to project their empty handiness onto atheists. To offer up a choice to your fellow humans of either you have found god already or you haven't looked hard enough is an empty con trick, nothing more. The one obvious probability that seems to have escaped your attention is that god doesn't exist, just like the emperors jacket.

I haven't found god, I haven't looked and I don't care. I'm delighted for you that you have gone looking and found god, if it makes you happy. Just don't expect others to when no part of reality backs you up.

[Ace Otana]

I want to make it clear that even though Christianity seems lovey dovey it's far easier being an atheist than being a Christian.

It's not that hard to think for yourself. Apparently that's too much for some.

You say that some were devout, they were religious actually because anyone that has experienced Jesus Christ doesn't just fall away when Dawkins writes a book or someone shows them a picture of the universe.

Gravely mistaken. Many atheists were in fact as convinced as you, still they discarded the illusion. Now matter what you believe, or want to be true. You could be wrong.

People who have been renewed and restored are not influenced by the world's limited view of creation.

How about no creation at all. Formation, evolution. You see fairies, we see a fool.

Have you ever marveled at the power of the human body to unconsciously make a baby, that it just gets to work? How limited someone must be to decide that all of that innate ability is random.

You obviously know nothing about evolution. You never will, your presupposition will keep you blind to everything except your religious beliefs.

I don't need to prove the existence of God to state my beliefs.

You do if you wish to be taken seriously.

you and many others are not able to meet me in the middle because you haven't decided that God is worth defending.

Why would we defend something we don't even believe exists? That makes no sense at all. We don't believe in god. What's to defend?

If you did, at some point, than you and I would have more to discuss.

You want us to presuppose god's existence. Not acceptable. You don't start with a baseless assertion and then try to disprove it.

Also, do you know how terribly Christians are persecuted across the world?

You're not being oppressed. You out number us! You knock on our doors, you press religious shit into schools, politics and businesses, and you say you're being persecuted? Wow....talk about playing the victim.

Do you know how hard it is to stand against the tide?

Easy when it's made of very thin paper. Actually, what tide? All I'm seeing is a bunch of fools running around and talking to their imaginary friend.

Serving Christ is no joke,

Everytime someone says 'jesus' I think of this -

sometimes it costs us our lives and the lives of the people we love.

Who's? Can you demonstrate how?

You can mock my desire to draw close to God, but have you ever met a missionary family?

I prefer to avoid nuts.

Have you ever met people who barely escaped with their lives or were beaten to a bloody stump because they were telling people about how God changed them?

First time I heard of it.

I just read an ad on the metro talking about north Koreans that are beaten and arrested for being Christians and the bible tells us its going to get way worse.

To be fair, North Korea isn't the safest place to go...for anyone! Atheist or Christian. It's a strong corrupt dictatorship.

No matter how you try to make my beliefs sound like an illusion there are people out there dying for this message because a piece of people literally hate what we're saying and hate our God which is a powerful confirmation there is a devil, there is evil in this world and he can't wait to kill us so that no one else will be restored or renewed.

No such thing as good or evil. Only our perceptions of such concepts. Dying for a belief don't make the belief true just so you know. They most likely died for a complete lie. Oh well....

[Erinome]

Everyone has the choice of heaven or hell, what they choose is up to them. Concerning a soul, the bible does say that the devil will be tortured for eternity, but mentions people being razed like sodom and gomorrah and we know that those cities were destroyed but they're not still burning.. so I don't know what will happen to people that go to hell, but I want to make it clear that we all deserve hell because God could have been done with us when we decided to disobey, it wasn't God's fault that Eve chose the fruit, it was fully her decision to listen to the serpent. I believe that God felt that people like you and me shouldn't suffer for a decision we couldn't stop, since none of us could tell Eve to get her fingers off that fruit the lord provided a way for all of us to choose, now no one can be blamed for someone's else's decision.

You are fucking nuts. I'd have a sliver of respect for you if you at least accepted the fact of evolution, but I can't have any respect at all for someone who shuns facts for an absurd story like biblical creation.

Please. don't. breed.

[lucent]

Ho ho, you don't know the Bible that you advertise very well do you?

You can't pray directly to God because of the incompatibility of your sinful nature and the purity of God's holiness.

Devout Christians would call you out as a 'compulsive liar' for asserting man can have an audience with God the Father lucent.

Ahh..did I write God the Father? What I meant was to pray to Jesus, not God the Father.

So even you agree that prayer is not effective. God has to stop listening to angels praise him constantly, get off his arse, and do something. Pity the creator of the universe's intellect means the only effective solution he could find to the problem of sin was sacrificing his own son to spare a few and burn everyone else in Hell.

Twisting words doesn't get you anywhere, you know? Why misrepresent my position just to get a cheap shot? What does it accomplish?

What I was saying is that the prayer I suggested doesn't make you a Christian, but it is a plea to God for the truth that I think He will honor.

I've "knocked" countless times before my deconversion, no one ever answered me in any shape or form, because there was no one else listening. I was a pathetic indoctrinated fool who was talking to myself the entire time.

I have, the path led to ridicule, pain and my deconversion.

If God is real, he failed me, not I failed him.

So, you feel that by giving up your faith, by not doing the most important thing God told you to do, God is the one who is in the wrong? Do you think He failed to realize that you would give up and betray Him? God tests our hearts..what do you think your grade is?

---

Who are you to judge her translation and faith? Neither of you have any evidence whatsoever and so I can only conclude that both of your respective faiths are equally as valid. Between the two, hers is more pleasant. I don't need any more reason or thought on the subject than this, because I don't require either of your faiths to be correct.

Wow, your wife is a Christian? Is she aware that you think of her as a mentally crippled fool who follows a hateful and bigoted religion? It's unbelievable that you're here mocking Christians day and night and you're married to one. I think I'm starting to get an insight into your personality..

Or do you lead a double life and have a double mind? Did you just admit that Christianity was pleasant? Is that why you're here now "defending" an idea of God, which you say is superior to ours? Basically, what is going on in that noggin of yours?

[Welsh cake]

Ahh..did I write God the Father? What I meant was to pray to Jesus, not God the Father.

...

What I was saying is that the prayer I suggested doesn't make you a Christian, but it is a plea to God for the truth that I think He will honor.

You're contradicting yourself.

So, you feel that by giving up your faith, by not doing the most important thing God told you to do, God is the one who is in the wrong? Do you think He failed to realize that you would give up and betray Him? God tests our hearts..what do you think your grade is?

You tell me. I think he's a fictional character, a tribal deity, made up by a band of murdering, raping, pillaging, plundering, slavery-endorsing, child-abusing Hebrews.

God tests those who merely wanted to talk to him? How dare he! What a colossal arsehole. God doesn't love us, otherwise there would be no need to put any of us to the test.

My grade? You tell me. I'm not in your Sunday School. I've embraced reality, my mortality. We're born, we live, we die. I value this world, the fragility of life and people more than I ever did before. If any God, be it the tyrant of the Bible or other is found to be real I want nothing to do with it. It never cared about human affairs before so why should it start concerning itself with us now? After so many have lived and died waiting for such a being in vain?

Wow, your wife is a Christian? Is she aware that you think of her as a mentally crippled fool who follows a hateful and bigoted religion? It's unbelievable that you're here mocking Christians day and night and you're married to one. I think I'm starting to get an insight into your personality..

Wow. What a pathetic personal attack. Now you're coming off as a condescending asshat lucent. Like my mother who is a devout Christian, Rhythm loves his wife not for what she believes only, but for what truly matters, the person she is, and simply for being there in his life.

Some of you Christians have forfeited your demonstrably real humanity in the name of a supernatural deity whose very existence cannot be proven or tested to be true. We don't mock you, you mock yourselves. We are using ridicule in an attempt to make those among you use critical thinking once in a while and respect secular values, not some first-born slaying monster-god. Its how we treat each other in this life that says the most about our characters.

[downbeatplumb]

Wow, your wife is a Christian? Is she aware that you think of her as a mentally crippled fool who follows a hateful and bigoted religion? It's unbelievable that you're here mocking Christians day and night and you're married to one. I think I'm starting to get an insight into your personality..

My wife is a spiritualist and she is well aware of stance on spiritualism.

But ultimately it makes no difference what she believes because we act exactly the same to each other as we would if we both believed the same.

I just dont go to the 'temple' were she 'talks to the dead' cos she thinks I'd giggle.

[lucent]

Can xtians possibly refrain from telling atheists that it is their fault they haven't found god/ Jesus. It's a stoopid ad hominem because theism can't answer the problem of the hiddenness of god. This particular fallacy was presented in "the emperors new clothes". Theists just like the tailors have nothing to offer, but attempt to project their empty handiness onto atheists. To offer up a choice to your fellow humans of either you have found god already or you haven't looked hard enough is an empty con trick, nothing more. The one obvious probability that seems to have escaped your attention is that god doesn't exist, just like the emperors jacket.

I haven't found god, I haven't looked and I don't care. I'm delighted for you that you have gone looking and found god, if it makes you happy. Just don't expect others to when no part of reality backs you up.

I can indeed answer the problem of the hiddenness of God: He isn't hidden. The existence of God is actually extremely obvious, especially from the design standpoint. The truth of that is displayed in the Creation itself. The incomplete and unworkable explanations science offers does not explain away design. For the specific problem of the hiddenness of Jesus Christ, there are two things to say:

2 Corinthians 4:4

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Unbelievers are deceived by the devil and blinded from seeing the truth about the gospel. Note, being deceived means you aren't aware you are deceived: ie, the reality you're looking at seems plausible without Jesus in it.

2nd, He isn't really hidden either. One of His central claims is this:

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Meaning that no matter what you do, you will not find the truth, or God, without Him. Now you've stated that you have never gone looking for Him, so I would ask how you would know whether God is hidden or not?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_dt9_iAhJI