Atheist surprised when god answered his prayer

[Faith No More]

After all the Christians who've been here over the years and all they've shown about the way God works, you're still as clueless as the day you were born. Blind might be a strong enough word for the atheist here, let's try ignorantly, selfishly blind, just for starters. A man finds happiness and gives help to a little girl that humanity let down and all you can do is be sullen.

GC

That's quite an interesting interpretation of what I said. It's almost as if you have a bias that causes you to read things that aren't there.

It's fantastic that this little girl found the courage to speak up, but attributing such a simple act to God while touting yourself as a beacon of reason and logic is just silly. That you believe my criticism of his conclusion leads me to be uncaring about the girl's position is that bias I referred to.

In fact, specifically mentioning how rational he was while celebrating being able to be convinced by easily explainable evidence sounds more like a marketing ploy to give his conversion story more clout in the eyes of the faithful. It's the kind of thing that gets theists feeling tingly but makes atheists nauseous. It's religious masturbation.

[Silver]

After all the Christians who've been here over the years and all they've shown about the way God works, you're still as clueless as the day you were born. Blind might be a strong enough word for the atheist here, let's try ignorantly, selfishly blind, just for starters. A man finds happiness and gives help to a little girl that humanity let down and all you can do is be sullen.

GC

Think as wrongly as you wish. It is fine with me.

[Esquilax]

Death will answer that question in the end.

GC

You know, for someone who claims that his religion makes him happier every day, you do spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to insult, threaten and intimidate the people here. For all I can see, your religion has turned you into a close-minded, mean spirited jerk.

[Faith No More]

You know, for someone who claims that his religion makes him happier every day, you do spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to insult, threaten and intimidate the people here. For all I can see, your religion has turned you into a close-minded, mean spirited jerk.

Insecurities have a strange way of creeping out.

[Ravenshire]

Not the first atheist here has said a thing about how good it was she found help, why, because God was involved, so yes sullen.

Quit projecting what you want to see. It's quite possible to be glad that someone's suffering is being relieved and still be disgusted that credit is once again being handed to an iron age myth.

You know, your gawd could just leave off with the childish antics of the great cosmic game of hide and seek.

I do not believe God allowed her to be abused by a pedophile, the man did it of his own accord.

While your gawd stood callously by and watched.

It's you that's blind, God gave an opportunity to each one and they both chose to accept and that's grieving you to no end.

Happenstance, blind luck and a little girl's decision to speak out caused it to happen. I'm thrilled that the girl is getting help but honestly disgusted that you think so little of people you've never even met.

If this day hadn't happened they both could still be living in misery, this day happened because of Christianity and the God who mad it available to all.

That same gawd who simply stood by while a young child suffered.

GC, would you stop a rape if you could? If you answer yes, you are more moral than the gawd you worship. It really is that simple.

[Simon Moon]

If this day hadn't happened they both could still be living in misery, this day happened because of Christianity and the God who mad it available to all.

If you had the power to stop this young girl's abuse when it first stated happening, would you have?

[TubbyTubby]

Not the first atheist here has said a thing about how good it was she found help, why, because God was involved, so yes sullen. I do not believe God allowed her to be abused by a pedophile, the man did it of his own accord. God brought two hurting people together and brought healing to both.

Right, so god didn't 'allow' her to be raped, that was just a man.

I'm struggling to see gods limits of responsibility here. He sees whats going on but does nothing and waits until he can send a message through another man? Really?

What about another example, the 230,000 dead in the 2004 tsunami. Now, clearly that was not the fault of mere mortals? So god knew about this and did what? Bugger all, thats what. Did he cause the tsunami cos he likes to see a mini genocide now and again? Or was it out of his control so he just looked down on it in his mysterious way?

What about the countless rape victims who don't get to hear 'gods word' from a born again and suffer the torment of a dark lonely life and never recover from the abuse? How exactly does god choose who gets to hear the good word so that they can be saved? He clearly chose this one girl and seemingly saw fit to send his man to help her so what about the rest? I do hope you don't preach something about them not listening or accepting god, even you wouldn't be that fucking stupid surely GC?

You can't answer these questions because your almighty god can't justify itself apart from the fucked up idea of a god that rattles around inside your head. I don't even want to see your answer because it will make me sick. If you actually thought properly about things you would see why folk get pissed off listening to putrid bile about a monstrous make believe god that does, on the face of it, absolutely fuck all for anyone.

[Esquilax]

I'm struggling to see gods limits of responsibility here. He sees whats going on but does nothing and waits until he can send a message through another man? Really?

It's easy: anything bad, god is not responsible. Anything good, god is responsible.

You're not arguing against a factually based position here, you're fighting to get through a presupposition.

[Crossless2.0]

Clay Lein was a former atheist who needed substantive proof and logical reasoning before he would believe anything. So for most of his life, he did not believe in God.

"I had a very rational mind. It had to be logical. I needed proof. There had to be evidence. And if there wasn't proof then it was just something people made up," Lein told KHOU Channel 11 News.

Yeah, I'll bet he was quite the skeptic -- right out of the Lee Strobel school of pious bullshit. Let's see . . .

"God was relevant and He really wanted to do amazing things in my life," added Lein. "I became a Christian that day. And I heard a voice, and it wasn't Charleton Heston, it was more a thought that comes up and often times it sounds like Clay's voice but it was definitely God. And it said, 'Try me.'"

Uh, yeah. A guy has a thought that happened to sound like his own voice. The obvious explanation? God. Must be more of that 'personal evidence' that GC is so fond of claiming -- and just as convincing. Or maybe it's just another example of the shameless lengths to which believers will go to embellish their witness.

Anyway, despite the transparent mendacity at the heart of the story, I'm glad for the girl's sake.

[Alex K]

You guys must be quite miserable, living with all the doubt in your lives, the security of Christianity makes me happier each day, I feel sorry for you actually.

Now that's a very interesting statement, because it in my opinion very nicely illustrates two different mind sets. Now first of all I'm not 100% sure what doubts you think plague the atheist. I'll venture a guess that precisely the issues that religion pretends are settled are the ones one should have doubts about, because some of them are difficult questions without simple answers. Other issues I don't have much doubts about without religion as well. It's not a bug, it's a feature - having the freedom to freely think about issues that are important enough to be critically evaluated?