From atheism to Christianity? How so?

[Tonus]

God created Adam and Eve to be able to freely choose whether they wanted to obey Him or not. They were not designed to fall short at all;

But earlier you said that "God already knew what would happen before He created anything, so He prepared a Savior beforehand" and "God knew we would fall." If god knew that humanity would fall with absolute certainty, then there are two possible explanations: one, he is as much a pawn of fate as anyone else or two, he deliberately set those events in motion. I don't think it can be the former, or there exists a force even more powerful than god, which compels him to act. Thus it must be the latter, in which case our failure was part of god's design and not the result of choices that were freely made.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

1. Why do you believe Jesus was resurrected?
2. Why do you believe it's something only god can do?

I hope you see how circular this is. If not, then answer away, XD.

I believe the evidence is sufficient, for example the martrydom of the disciples, the testimony of the women at the empty tomb, and many other reasons. For spiritual reasons, because when I gave my life to Jesus I was born again. This was a supernatural rebirth of my very being and it points to the reality that Jesus is alive.

Regarding the "evidence". Might I remind you that you're talking about a book that has not been vouched for by archaeology. That is as good as fiction or legendary tales, where maybe the person existed but other deeds were added to them. So those doesn't qualify as evidence, if you have any other evidence, please present them or link them. Otherwise this is completely circular. I believe god is real because the bible is real > The bible is real because god is real > I believe god is real because the bible is real .... etc.

As for your supernatural rebirth, that's just your own personal experience which we cannot decide whether is satanic or not. So it doesn't make sense to say personal experiences may be satanic, but I know mine aren't because of personal experiences.

I believe only God can raise the dead because it's God who gives us life. That is the testimony of Jesus, and I believe He gave us the revelation of who God is. It all hinges on the resurrection. If the resurrection didn't happen, as Paul said we are to be pitied above all men.

Again about circular logic when using the bible both as evidence and as the claim. Do you notice that every time you try to justify or explain your beliefs, you end up making more claims about what you believe in?

Well if you have anything else to show for the resurrection besides biblical claims then feel free. At the meantime, keep in mind that plenty of other mythologies involve resurrection. So if all it takes a for a mythology to claim resurrection for you to believe it happened .... welll ...

[Drich]

When we A/S/K as outlined in Luke 11 we are essentially asking for continual 'proof.' After all what better proof of God is there than God?

You have a fun way of shooting yourself in the foot don't you? What does Luke 11 say:

"One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father,[a]
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.[b]
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.[c]
And lead us not into temptation.[d]’”"

FAAATHER! When you, Drich from http://www.atheistforums.org, when you pray you say? FAATHER! Are you the son of God? Why do you say FAATHER?

So if everyone bound by the spirit of God are called sons of God, and all Christians praying adress God as FAAATHER, what is your fucking problem with Jesus when you say he's a SPECIAL SON. Like, a son going for special olympics, he's not a son like you and me he's a SPECIAL son. If Jesus was a special son of God he would have NEVER told his disciples to adress God as FAATHER. FAATHER should have been exclusive to him, but of course, we know he wasn't a special son, he was a son like you and me.

You make no sense!

We've already had this arguement my muslim brother.

You failed to answer it, if you want to try again here you go: http://atheistforums.org/thread-22398-page-9.html post 84

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Hmm, agapelove.

I'm fairly sure someone trolled AF.com with that username/idea a decent while ago.

Could be coincidence...

I have posted on atheistforum.com before, but I don't remember my nickname. It was awhile back but I sincerely doubt it was agapelove or anything like that. I doubt anyone would remember me because I didn't really interact with more than a few people.

I remember exactly where I've heard the term agape love before online. A character called Drich used to post repeatedly about it, in much the same way as you are now.

http://atheistforums.org/thread-16457-po...#pid385633

Again, could be a coincidence...

[Angrboda]

Have you heard of the monomyth? It's like that: there's a basic template that many classical narratives follow, and when it comes to gods, we can find even more similarities: the concept of a god dying and then rising later isn't an uncommon one, for example. Nor is the use of wine as symbolism, among many other things.

(emphasis added)

In classical Hinduism, the drug soma plays a similar role.

Soma (Sanskrit सोम sóma), or Haoma (Avestan), from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma-, was a Vedic ritual drink of importance among the early Indo-Iranians, and the subsequent Vedic and greater Persian cultures. It is frequently mentioned in the Rigveda, whose Soma Mandala contains 114 hymns, many praising its energizing qualities. In the Avesta, Haoma has the entire Yašt 20 and Yasna 9-11 dedicated to it.

It is described as being prepared by extracting juice from the stalks of a certain plant. In both Vedic and Zoroastrian tradition, the name of the drink and the plant are the same, and also personified as a divinity, the three forming a religious or mythological unity.

The Rigveda calls the plant "God for Gods" seemingly giving him precedence above Indra and the other Gods (RV 9.42)

There has been much speculation concerning what is most likely to have been the identity of the original plant. There is no solid consensus on the question, although some Western experts outside the Vedic and Avestan religious traditions now seem to favour a species of Ephedra, perhaps Ephedra sinica.

There's also the suggestion that Jesus' missing years were spent in India. Given the similarity between his philosophy and the tropes of religion in Persia and India at the time (Zoroastrianism in Persia, and Smriti influenced classical Hinduism and the Sramana traditions in India, respectively), the parallels make such a suggestion hard to dismiss.

[Chas]

Well, you may have once been indifferent to the idea of a god, but you clearly were not a skeptic or a critical thinker.
Your internal experiences do not qualify as evidence.

My rationality is confirmed by the evidence of reality, no faith required.

To say your rationality confirms your rationality is to argue in a circle. How do you know you're perceiving the evidence correctly?

Strawman? I did not say my rationality confirms my rationality, I said reality confirms it.

My perception of reality is confirmed by the response of reality in response to my action.

[agapelove]

I'm rapidly losing respect for you. You claim that everything Jesus taught was unique or OT inspired, in response you're given examples of things that predate the Old Testament or existed contemporaneously with it in areas of the world that had never heard of it, and your answer is to reiterate your initial claim, and display how little you looked into our claims before you decided they didn't matter; the Code of Hammurabi was a legal code (systemic) enacted by a king for the entire nation. You're just wrong here, and asserting your initial claim again isn't going to make you any more correct.

In this case I am simply asking you to show me the golden rule in the Code of Hammurabi..I don't see it in there, could you point it out to me? Let's get down to the point which is that you say the teachings of Jesus appear elsewhere. We can debate the significance of that once the point is established.

I literally said, in the part you quoted, that I don't think the Jesus story borrowed specifically from other sources; I'm saying that certain narrative elements of the Jesus story have parallels elsewhere, which to me, is an indication that the story was written by humans, rather than being something that actually happened. Have you heard of the monomyth? It's like that: there's a basic template that many classical narratives follow, and when it comes to gods, we can find even more similarities: the concept of a god dying and then rising later isn't an uncommon one, for example. Nor is the use of wine as symbolism, among many other things. To claim that Christ represents some unique and wonderful account is to merely ignore the many, many ways in which it is not.

Well, let's look at some specific examples; you say the account of Christ is very similiar to other accounts in many, many ways..so let's compare it to the account you feel is most similiar and examine the validity of the point.

This seems to me to be one of those "no, but yes," answers. I asked you whether god denied selfless prayers for the safety of someone recovering from heart surgery in order to conceal his presence from scientific study, and you answered yes.

That isn't what I was trying to say. My theory is, God would have answered the prayers in the same way, with or without the study. He possibly could have just arranged to have the right people in the study to meet the statistical average. Not that he answered the prayers to create the effect, but he simply arranged for the right people to be in the study for the effect to appear.

I can't begin to count the ways in which this is dishonest, but I'll start with the most obvious: according to you, if I pray and nothing happens, that's still not evidence that prayers are ineffective. And if lots of people do it and it doesn't work, it's also not evidence that prayer is ineffective. So what's the failure state, here? How can you possibly, honestly say that if you pray you'll find god if you're willing to excuse every instance of that not happening? This is just confirmation bias run amok: you'll circle every hit, while ignoring every miss, and yet somehow I'm supposed to think you and this prayer action has any credibility at all?

If you're testing for the God of the bible, He promises you won't find Him that way, because He only allows people to approach Him in faith. So a study like this can never prove or disprove His existence. That's all I am saying and I am not saying it proves anything about the validity of prayer. I am only saying that if you want to know if the God of the bible exists you have to approach Him in faith and a study like this will not help you find Him.

But earlier you said that "God already knew what would happen before He created anything, so He prepared a Savior beforehand" and "God knew we would fall." If god knew that humanity would fall with absolute certainty, then there are two possible explanations: one, he is as much a pawn of fate as anyone else or two, he deliberately set those events in motion. I don't think it can be the former, or there exists a force even more powerful than god, which compels him to act. Thus it must be the latter, in which case our failure was part of god's design and not the result of choices that were freely made.

God knew when He created creatures that had a free will to accept or reject Him, that they would fall. His design was to allow us to choose freely and He honored their choice and ordained a Savior to redeem them.

Regarding the "evidence". Might I remind you that you're talking about a book that has not been vouched for by archaeology. That is as good as fiction or legendary tales, where maybe the person existed but other deeds were added to them. So those doesn't qualify as evidence, if you have any other evidence, please present them or link them. Otherwise this is completely circular. I believe god is real because the bible is real > The bible is real because god is real > I believe god is real because the bible is real .... etc.

The bible has been extensively verified by archaeology; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_archaeology

Jesus Christ is a real person and so therefore His existence is a matter of historical record. The bible gives eye witnesses accounts of what Jesus said and did. Have you ever studied the evidence for the resurrection? If you are interested this book gives a detailed account of what the evidence is:

http://www.amazon.com/Assessing-Testamen...0889466165

As for your supernatural rebirth, that's just your own personal experience which we cannot decide whether is satanic or not. So it doesn't make sense to say personal experiences may be satanic, but I know mine aren't because of personal experiences.

It is simply evidence of the validity of what Jesus said, but my claim hinges on whether Jesus was resurrected or not.

Again about circular logic when using the bible both as evidence and as the claim. Do you notice that every time you try to justify or explain your beliefs, you end up making more claims about what you believe in?

The bible gives evidence, and there is evidence from other sources. Whether the bible is the only source we have on the life of Jesus or not does not discredit the idea at all. The eye witness accounts themselves must be examined to see whether they are valid or not. Historians validate eye witness accounts in a much different manner than most skeptics seem to assume they do, and most of our historical records are based on eye witness accounts.

Well if you have anything else to show for the resurrection besides biblical claims then feel free. At the meantime, keep in mind that plenty of other mythologies involve resurrection. So if all it takes a for a mythology to claim resurrection for you to believe it happened .... welll ...

The bible is the main source of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus; if you are going to reject it out of hand you have to explain why it isn't a valid source of eye witness testimony, and you haven't established that. You have made the claim it simply talks about legends when it actually talks about people who are known to have existed and places which have been verified by archaeology and historical records.

Strawman? I did not say my rationality confirms my rationality, I said reality confirms it.

My perception of reality is confirmed by the response of reality in response to my action.

Sorry, not trying to strawman you here; I am trying to see how you can validate your reasoning without using your reasoning to do it. From what you've said, you are still using your perception. You perceive that the response of reality to your action confirms your perception of reality. My question is, how do you know it is a valid perception?

---

Happy New Year everyone!

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Regarding the "evidence". Might I remind you that you're talking about a book that has not been vouched for by archaeology. That is as good as fiction or legendary tales, where maybe the person existed but other deeds were added to them. So those doesn't qualify as evidence, if you have any other evidence, please present them or link them. Otherwise this is completely circular. I believe god is real because the bible is real > The bible is real because god is real > I believe god is real because the bible is real .... etc.

The bible has been extensively verified by archaeology; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_archaeology

Jesus Christ is a real person and so therefore His existence is a matter of historical record. The bible gives eye witnesses accounts of what Jesus said and did. Have you ever studied the evidence for the resurrection? If you are interested this book gives a detailed account of what the evidence is:

http://www.amazon.com/Assessing-Testamen...0889466165

Actually it hasn't. There was no worldwide flood. There was no exodus from Egypt. It hasn't been shown that Jesus existed as the bible described.

And You just linked me a William Lane Craig book. That guy is a dumbass, he's a creationist. He has no respect for evidence or the scientific method.

As for your supernatural rebirth, that's just your own personal experience which we cannot decide whether is satanic or not. So it doesn't make sense to say personal experiences may be satanic, but I know mine aren't because of personal experiences.

It is simply evidence of the validity of what Jesus said, but my claim hinges on whether Jesus was resurrected or not.

So your claim has yet to be proven.

Again about circular logic when using the bible both as evidence and as the claim. Do you notice that every time you try to justify or explain your beliefs, you end up making more claims about what you believe in?

The bible gives evidence, and there is evidence from other sources. Whether the bible is the only source we have on the life of Jesus or not does not discredit the idea at all. The eye witness accounts themselves must be examined to see whether they are valid or not. Historians validate eye witness accounts in a much different manner than most skeptics seem to assume they do, and most of our historical records are based on eye witness accounts.

GIVE ME the evidence from other sources regarding the resurrection. It's quite simple, I've already explained why you cannot use the same thing as claim and evidence. It does discredit the idea a lot. Do you not understand the concept of legends? If you look at history, every prominent ruler has a mystical story tied to them, usually a prophetic dream or a miraculous occurrence at birth. Am I to believe all of that just because someone had the audacity to come up with it? Actually history is constantly being verified by looking at multiple sources and archaeological findings, both of which you have admitted the resurrection does not have.

Well if you have anything else to show for the resurrection besides biblical claims then feel free. At the meantime, keep in mind that plenty of other mythologies involve resurrection. So if all it takes a for a mythology to claim resurrection for you to believe it happened .... welll ...

The bible is the main source of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus; if you are going to reject it out of hand you have to explain why it isn't a valid source of eye witness testimony, and you haven't established that. You have made the claim it simply talks about legends when it actually talks about people who are known to have existed and places which have been verified by archaeology and historical records.

I have explained that. Your not understanding the standard of evidence required to claim something has happened in history is not the same as my not explaining it.

Verified places is hardly the same thing as all the events that claimed to happen in this space are also verified. Or are you saying that because New York exists, King Kong exists as well?

[pocaracas]

It never ceases to amaze me how people twist into knots trying to make some sense of their own mental faculties... And arriving at some outside agent who's responsible for those very personal and inner faculties.
Can't you see that's your brain at work in finding parallels between what you "experience" and the stories others have made up around similar experiences they had?
The human brain didn't differ that much from individual to individual, doo it stands to reason that these things in your mind have happened to others... And that some others have taken advantage of it.
Congrats on being another conned sheep.

[Belac Enrobso]

Say someone... pfffff, any random atheist, not calling out anyone... converted to Christianity. How did this happen? Anybody else... er, I mean anybody here been there, done that?

I confess I'm skeptical to this. First thing to pop into my head is that this is just another fundie trying to save souls by fitting in then sticking the hook down the throat.
Granted I could be wrong. Show me.

This should suffice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96kwILL35ig