Motivations for the non-belief in God

Let's say a person lives 25,000 days and does something wrong each day, even if it is something small. That is 25,000 sins. Do you think God should allow them free entrance to heaven for that many sins? I don't think so.However, Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, so that those who recognize they are sinners and need a savior can accept what he did for them and accept him into their heart and be saved. Then they will not be judged for their sin. It is that simple.

There is nothing in the bible to suggest that God is any of that. God offers everyone a free gift of eternal life. All they have to do is accept it. It is by their own volition that they enter into hell.

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All they have to do is accept it. It is by their own volition that they enter into hell.

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Actually, this is not quite true. According to that evangelical view (which I think you are espousing), one must accept Christ's sacrifice in order to be saved. However, obviously a belief in the existence of God and a belief that Jesus was his son (and God incarnate) is a prerequisite for this acceptance. If one does not believe in the existence of God or that Jesus, if he even existed at all, was anything more than another itinerate preacher, then one is in no position to "accept" anything.I do not believe in the existence of God or that Jesus was God incarnate. I do not voluntarily choose this belief; in fact, I fought against the loss of this belief. Therefore, if evangelical theology is correct, I will be sent to hell without my ever having made a voluntary choice.

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"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw

Keep going Guido. So far every one of your posts has simply supported what I have said.You show a picture of a tiny, picayune goddlet. If you vote for him your sins are forgiven.That is a clear example of what motivates folk to not believe in your goddlet.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Don't you find something a little inconsistent in this often repeated philosophy. A philosophy by the way that has evolved over time to its present statement.Consider this scenario. Some religious fanatics take a group of people hostage at gun point. Then a golden monkey idol is placed before them.A "free offer" is given that if they bow down to the golden monkey and swear allegence they are free to go. But if they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the golden monkey they will be tortured without mercy without end.Or one more thing to make this analogy fit. The fanatics have a dozen or so golden monkeys - each slightly different. Then they proclaim that not only do you have to bow down to the golden monkey you have to pick the right one true golden monkey or it is off the torture chamber for you.Also to make this even more bizarre the fanatics say the really do love you, with an infinite and pure love, and they really do hope the captives take the "freely given offer" and make the right choice. If they refuse or pick wrongly, well then it was their "own volition" that they choose the torture route - to bad.Now if you can consider (even momentarily) religion as being a meme transmission. Then one very successful theme for a meme would be:

Accept my diety and go to eternal paradise

Refuse my diety and go to eternal damnation

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Very attractive and very threatning. This theme is very popular among the competing meme's ... err religions and sects for good reason. There are variations of course, as you would expect - each competing for the possesion of your mind.

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Edited by troxelso, : No reason given.

Guido Arbia: If you're going to pronounce me 'wrong' you have an obligation to back it up. You didn't. But it does. Christian apologetics is what you are doing.If you don't think what you are doing here qualifies as 'Christian apologetics', explain why. Sweeping dismissal is not a reasoned argument.Personally, I see no reason why the term should be controversial. I understand this. I summarized that very argument and showed it to you. Here it is (from the post you seem to think you are contradicting):

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Moral Christians are Christians.
Immoral Christians are not really Christians.

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So much for your rebuttal.I added that another half exists to this argument as I have seen it presented by Christians on this thread: You have not stated this yourself, to my knowledge. But other Christians have, very clearly, and you have not disowned it. You have not even addressed it. You ignored this part of my post in your intended rebuttal.I then noted that these definitions of 'true Christian' and 'true atheist' in combination guarantee the conclusion:

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Ergo, Christians are more moral than atheists.

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I then asked you:

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Why should anyone find this argument convincing?

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To prove me 'wrong' you have to do more than pronounce my summary wrong, quote it incompletely, and then agree 100% with the part you quote.You have to show me that my summary of the argument is invalid. You already agree (without noticing it, apparently) with the part you actually discussed. That leaves the parts you didn't.You can prove the summary 'wrong' now in either of two ways:1. Tell me the second part, about atheists, does not represent your own belief, then state your belief on the matter.2. Show why the terms 'Christian' and 'atheist' as defined do not guarantee the conclusion.Either way, I would still appreciate your answer to my question:

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Why should anyone find this argument convincing?

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'Wrong' is not a valid answer to the question..Edited by Archer Opterix, : Detail.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

tell that to the folks who say that god selected you before you were born to go to hell, theres a lot of them

thats hilarious, you just proved AO's point, a moral christian is a christian, because they are moral, an immoral christian is not a christian because they are immoral, not because of thier beliefs.this IS apologetics, you are trying to fix it where to be a christian you have to be moral, but being moral isn't a requirement to be christian, believing in jesus as savior and god isEdited by ReverendDG, : No reason given.

But that is exactly what we are taught that your God does. One is punished simply for choosing the wrong god, effectively for "[c]hosing not to vote in [His] favour". And even if choose the right god, you are still punished for choosing the wrong theology; eg, choosing to believe in JHWH but not in the Christ. And even if you believe in the Christ, unless you believe in the right Christian theology you are not "a true Christian" (as we have been told repeatedly by evangelicals and in the past by traditional Catholics (refering to the classification of Protestants as "heretics")).So it's not just a matter of choosing or not choosing to believe in God, but rather of choosing the right god and the right religion and the right sub-religion (ie, sect and theology). And the proselytizers have yet to present anything that would convince us that their particular sect and theology is the right one. Indeed, they much more often demonstrate that it is the wrong one.Now, since this is a creation/evolution forum, here's the irony of what "creation science" proselytizers end up doing. "Creation science", through its "Two Model Approach" (TMA) and the rest of its rhetorics, claims that either evolution and old-earth evidence are true or God is true and they are mutually exclusive, meaning that they cannot both be true. Then "creation science" takes a few pokes at their strawman misrepresentation of evolution and other sciences and proclaim that they have disproven evolution and hence, through their TMA, they have proven God.In reality, they have created an artificial and false test which actually disproves God. Because the claims of "creation science" are demonstrably false and have been repeatedly demonstrated to be false, their TMA therefore leads us to the inescapable conclusion that God does not exist. "Creation science" created that test and then provided the evidence for the "non-existence of God". And they've convinced many in the public of that test and of the non-existence of God.Kent Hovind quotes an anti-public-school film: I assume that they are trying to condemn the public schools as being anti-Christian. But, assuming that those figures are correct, I interpret them as showing the consequences of having raised those children on the lies of "creation science" and on the false tests for the existence of God that it teaches them.Edited by dwise1, : Add concluding paragraphEdited by dwise1, : Added the irony after that "concluding" paragraph

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Secondly belief in divine requires adherence to cetain ethical disciplines.

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Hitler believed in God.

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Like I said, I never had deep thoughts or a serious internal conflict about the whole issue. But (and now we get on topic), I do think I can, in retrospect, identify the 'background' reason why I never believed. What it all comes down to, I think, is an ability to recognize that people can deceive themselves. People fool themselves all the time. Because they lack self-critique, because they lack necessary information, because they are deceived by their limited senses, because they are misled by their prejudices, because they want something to be true so much, that they disregard any indications that it might not be true. Because they are submerged in a culture that has all these properties.

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Somehow (it may have been a case of reading the right books or whatever), I came to realise that skepticism and something along the lines of the scientific method were the only ways to seperate pseudo-knowledge from reliable knowledge. An honest attempt to work around our inherent limitations as humans. And pseudo-knowledge was just unsupported opinion and thus totally, completely and utterly uninteresting. As an aside: I feel a mixture of respect and disbelief when I see some of the people 'on my side' discuss religious matters (Trinity, salvation, the Ark...) in here. I'm always immediately reminded about the 'number of angels that fit on the tip of a needle' example. What a complete loss of time, lol. Just the observation that there are so many religions, and that place of birth seems to be the overwhelmingly most important factor which determines to which religion one belongs, was more than enough for me to catalogue religion under 'pseudo knowledge'. How do you decide between religions?

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Bottom line: while the fundies always claim that science is arrogant because it claims to explain so many things, I find that the scientific mindset is actually the humble one here. And when I realized this, there was no way back (although I never was 'there', to begin with

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This is very nearly exactly my view on this issue, Annafan.While my parents are believers, unlike yours, my catholic upbringing and my attitude towards it are nearly identical to yours, as well.

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"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
- Ned Flanders"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

Nope. Wrong. Try reading my post again.An athiest is an athiest because he/she doesn't believe in Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what kind of person they are. A christian is a christian because he/she believes in Jesus Christ. Now a good christian produces good fruit. I know people who would have become hitman who were saved by the grace of God and changed. Religion plays a big role in affecting a person's morality.

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Russel wasn't exactly what you would call a quality human being, infact what he put his 'loved' ones through, was a classic example of why his 'atheistic morality', just don't work.
Sorry, but he's one for our side. By his examples that he was, "full of it".

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Does that mean that any believer, especially any leader of believers, who puts his or her loved ones through anything untoward is one for the unbeliever's side?Does it also mean that what they preach or promote is to be considered invalid?

Ha ha.

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I know people who would have become hitman who were saved by the grace of God and changed.

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I know lots of non-Christians, agnostics, and atheists who never even considered being a hitman.-

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Religion plays a big role in affecting a person's morality.

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What about the upstanding non-Christians, agnostics, and atheists whose morality are already on par with any Christians and so don't need it to be affected?

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"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw

God does not punish people for not chosing him. So you can forget about that right now. God punishes people for their own immorality (And no one can meet God's moral law). It just so happens that if we chose him and accept Jesus Christ as are savior, God writes are name in the lamb's book of life and blots out our sins. Christianity is not just for white anglosazen protestants. It is for everybody reguardless of what you are.Damn right you have to chose the right theology. But it's a very simple one. You don't have to accept many things. All you have to accept is Jesus Christ into your heart. You have to believe that he was born into this world, taught in this world, sacraficed his life fo r you and everyone else, died, rose again, ascended into heaven, and is comming back again. You have to believe what the bible says about the trinity. That there are three that testify, The Father, The Word (Jesus) and The Holy Spirit, and these three are one. Each one is a seperate person. Together they constitute the godhead. Really? I don't think so. I think alot of people have fallen pray to their jabberwok. (That is how you would put, isn't it?)In fact, there have been many well established athiests and evolutionists who have come to the saving knoweledge of Jesus Christ through reading creation science material and studying this. I know someone who is taking biology in college and he at the same time studies creation science material. There is no conflict between modern biology and creation science. There is not even a conflict in the fossil record. Yes, yes, I know. You have millions of fossils. Whatever. But how many transitional species do you have? 5? Why are they all dead? Any ignorant fool can observe this fact to be true. I goto the public schools, and indeed, I would say about 75% of them that were taught Christianity rejected it. God shows no partiality. God gives everyone a fair and equal chance to accept him, except for those who go straight to heaven when they die reguardless, such as infants, because they didn't get a fair chance. What exactly are these false tests?