Motivations for the non-belief in God

I know people who would have become hitman who were saved by the grace of God and changed. They goto hell because they won't admit how filthy they really are.

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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.

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I think the problem is that many of us fail to see any essential difference.

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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

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They goto hell because they won't admit how filthy they really are.

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You used a word inappropriately. The word "admit" implies that they refuse to acknowledge a truth that they recognize. However, these non-Christians, agnostics, and atheists do not believe in the evangelical theology and so do not recognize that they are filthy. They are stating what they sincerely believe to be the truth.

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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

If you can't see the difference than you're a damn fool.Edited by Guido Arbia, : No reason given.

Taking a break Guido. You just earned a time out.

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Whatever. You're kind of missing the point.Edited by Guido Arbia, : No reason given.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Oscar.Theistic Jews do not believe in Jesus Christ. They are theists and yet you say they are atheists?
Theistic Hindus do not believe in Jesus Christ. They are theists and yet you say they are atheists?
The vast majority of the world's theists, both at present and throughout history, do/did not believe in Jesus Christ and yet you say that all those theists are/were atheists.[the sound of one mind boggling]To try to drag you kicking and screaming to some sense of perspective, as atheists like to point out at times: Christians disbelieve in almost as many gods as atheists disbelieve in; atheists just take it one step further and disbelieve in one god more than the Christians do. Yes, the Matthew 7:20 test. Which "creation science" based theology fails hands-down. One atheist friend told me that his Christian neighbor firmly believed that he would be a mass axe murderer if he weren't a Christian. To that, my friend expressed the hope that his neighbor stays a Christian.But I would submit that that friend was just parrotting what his church had been teaching them, what had been expressed by theists on this forum, that without God they would just go wild and kill and rape at will and without hestitation. Kind of scary to think of what will happen when those people discover the other lies they had been taught (ie, "creation science") and lose their faith. In more ways than one. Refer above to the "axe murderer" and the consequences of these people losing their faith.In other words, religion doesn't provide any real basis for morality, but just imposes it. That's building your house upon sand -- upon quicksand if your theology is based on "creation science".

Your response is surprisingly blithe. The usual evangelical position (the non-Reformed position) is that humans choose of their own free will whether to accept God's offer of salvation. Unfortunately, people are not in complete control over their beliefs. They are exposed so some facts and not others, to some misinformation and not others, and their unique experiences will lead them to consider some sources as more reliable than others, and different mental states will lead them, perhaps, to different conclusions from the facts that they accept.So, in most cases, a person's non-belief in God is not under her control. She believes what she believes. So, if people are being divided between those who will go to heaven and those who go to hell, and if this division is, in part, based on what these people believe, then people are being rewarded or denied a reward on the basis of something that is not under their control.Of course, the non-Reformed evangelical doesn't accept that God would work in such an arbitrary manner. I started this thread to ask evangelicals how they insist in claiming they know what motivates an atheist in her (presumably voluntary) non-belief in spite of her own statements to the contrary.

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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

Hey Guidobaba, don't be like that, I know you're goodly really or Phat wouldn't be so kind to you. Chiro's just trying to show you that one can basically go about life trying to do what's right - they might even acknowledge their sins. They might be sorry for them. That surely counts. It carries weight with me, if a person is basically a goodie. And I trust that it therefore carries weight with God, no matter what the bible specifics read.The bible is just a Guido-guide, not Jesus Christ.Yet it's not clear that an atheist cannot be a sheep. Indeed, to my mind, the allusion is that if you love people, take care of them etc.., then you're a sheep. If you don't believe me, please read about the seperation of the sheep from the goats, and have an open mind.Either the author believed that it was clear that only a believer could be a sheep, because "only a believer does good"theology, or the author is infact saying that anyone who does those things is a sheep. Since we don't know, we simply cannot infer that disbelievers in particular, burn forever. I personally think that if Christ was good enough to die on the cross, then he's trustworthy enough to accept atheist sheep. I trust he will do this, personally, if he exists.I can't believe that people burn forever just for being born and finding themselves in this odd existence and then dealing with it. No way. Sooner or later, you'll see that the Gospels carry the "gist" about Christ, but that there was many Gospels, some accepted, some unnaceptable. All that matters is that the four give us a guido-guide. They are not super-duper accurate facts, but just accounts by witnesses.Since God gave atheists minds capable of reason, then it's logical to assume that those atheists who study the bible as something literally true, will find many contradictions and atrocities unworthy of the real creator. Therefore I think it's best for a believer to put their full trust in Christ rather than the bible.This doesn't have to be a wishy washy faith - but infact, a clever one, and an honest one. That's all. It doesn't matter what people say about that, or if they label as liberal. They can label me as anything, I still know that I have this theology because of the cleverness of my own intellectual musings.

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...you're a damn fool.

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Literally, it would seem.At any rate, sorry to see you given a week's vacation; maybe you can use that time to think of a way to explain the difference. I certainly don't wish to remain a fool!

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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

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Therefore I think it's best for a believer to put their full trust in Christ rather than the bible.

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that's an oxymoron!Jesus is described only in the Bible. You can't have one without the other.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

I agree with you mostly on this subject. From what I can see, Guido is being a bit Pharisaical on this matter. But I think it would be important to make the distinction between remorse and repentence. Some people are remorseful because they are caught, and indeed, they are 'sorry' for their actions after-the-fact. Repentence is something more. But even this falls short because surely there are those who are caught in habitual sin who's 'spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.'Aside from this, what is a 'goodie?' Jesus asks what is 'good?' The answer He gives is resoundingly negative if we are unbelievers but full of hope for the believer. "There are none that are good, no. not even one." So, doing good only means doing the will of God. And if we are the ones who are judging what is good or bad we may find ourselves decieved bg comparing ourselves to one another rather than seeing if we are in right relation with Jesus.What are your thoughts on this matter? A dichotomy or an axiom that we know little about? I guess that would all depend on what a 'sheep' is? A sheep has become a derisive term for those not deemed to be "free-thinkers" (whatever that means). It bespeaks of a people who blindly follow the flock, the majority, exhibiting herd instincts. But all one has to do is look at society to see who more aptly follows and who goes against the grain? When the Word speaks about the Gentiles in the OT, it speaks about those not consecrated. But it says that the Gentiles become a law unto themselves and that God instills in them a sense of godliness, knowing the difference between right and wrong in their hearts. There is no doubt in my mind that an unbeliever can do good things, things of God, unwittingly. The only difference is they don't recognize where that goodness comes from, nor when they do wicked things, do they feel repentence for those actions. At most they feel remorse. Almost everything in Christianity is counter-intuitive. Christ obviously wanted it that way. In that way He confounds the wise and gives knowledge to those whose faith is like that of a little child-- unceasing, unfettered, and a pure faith. If you want richess, He instructs us to give it away in order for the law of reciprocity to work in our lives. Just as well, it seems counter-intuitive that one must first believe, then they will be shown the truth, rather than shown evidence then believe. This would be the natural course of things, but God goes beyond this. Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : No reason given.

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"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt

yup! Yes, Jesus wanted his word to be confusing. Yes, Jesus only wanted unquestioning idiots to follow him. ofcourse, why do things the normal way when it comes to such an important thing as our salvation? let's do things backwards instead! Yes, God ignores the natural course of things that he setup in the first place (what was he thinking?) and still enforces in every other aspect of our lives and takes it One Step Beyond, as The Madness once said.(Legend fades into background, Suggs's voice booms into the room and ska music starts playing..)

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Hi Nemisisjuggerbaba. I never noticed this post to me untill now. I suppose you go with an axiom of;Dong good means to do God's will(like you said)The problem is that, what is God's will? I think if we take what Christ said as that will, then the axiom is a true one.But we must qualify what is good. I think remorse might indicate a regret, and some form of unspoken apology. I didn't mean a sheep in this definition. I refer to the sheep and the goats. A sheep being a good person.You see, if an atheist does the good things outlined, then he should qualify as a sheep. Helping the sick, feeding poor etc.. I can't see anything that suggests an exception, in those passages.bye for now.