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Author Topic:   Motivations for the non-belief in God
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 83 of 89 (355260)
10-08-2006 5:41 PM
Reply to: Message 81 by Christian7
10-08-2006 5:31 PM


Re: belief a prerequisite for ethics?
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.

"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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by Christian7, posted 10-08-2006 5:31 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 85 of 89 (355266)
10-08-2006 6:14 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by Christian7
10-08-2006 5:29 PM


Re: God cares
quote:
...you're a damn fool.
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!

"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

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Christian7, posted 10-08-2006 5:29 PM Christian7 has not replied

  
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