Oh my God, I'm an Atheist !!

I am not really disagreeing with here.However, the biblical text does disagree with you and with clarity and force.I don't want to get into a scripture slinging contest, as that rarely clarifies anything due the inconsistency of the text, but you know the passages I am talking about.You cannot believe the above and that the Bible is God inspired, breathed and inerrant. I have lost count how many times I have been told this by really good Christians. They often back it up with several poignant and on topic scriptural quotes. Maybe because if one really believes in the Bible as God's text book they get confused because this "simple" message and others are ambiguous and contradicted. RiverRat, I said nothing about children going to heaven!BTW neither does the bible or Jesus. I thought this was so simple!Little babies, children and mentally incapacitated are born into sin! We are saddled with the Original Sin (well supported by biblical references) when we are born. This is gospel, you view is not. Oh the irony, Pastor Taz and myself have to preach the Gospel to the believers!Concerning my prior point (which really is simple), let me be more succinct

If we are created to worship God
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If God really is as described in Bible

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Then there would be objective evidence indicating that. There is not. Christianity (not the do good and go to heaven stuff you are preaching) is only advanced by the active work of missionaries and evangelists. There is no innate leaning towards the God the Bible.

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If all Bibles disappeared in an instant and memories were wiped clean humans would invent a new religion with different trappings and nuances that would not resemble Christianity or the OT blasphemies.

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Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

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Edited by iceage, : No reason given.

What atheists talk about is atheism; it's not surprising to find that people talk about what is interesting to them, I trust. Actually, let's do that. Looking at the first page of topics in Faith and Belief, the first topic is this thread about how atheists secretly believe in God, started by Riverrat, a Christian. The next one Grizz started, and it's not clear what his personal beliefs are, atheist/agnostic maybe.Next, Taz's question about flood models. Then Mick's thread about how morals aren't based on religion. Para's "God and the Fairy Tree" thread is the first example of an atheist talking about God. Jaderis started a thread about how your religion is far more likely to be determined by where you were born than on its own merits, something everybody knows but few admit. Mod has a thread about atheism. ICANT tries to defend a literal Genesis account. Simple informs us of a creation museum. JustinC wonders about degrees of faith. A second example of what you say is universal appears - AiG proves that God has no logical basis.Riverrat and Phat each try to make a case for belief in God having positive effects. Faithful Servant tries to use "the heart" to prove the existence of God. Tusko wonders about miracles. Jon Paine warns us about a religious charlatan. JustinC tackles an argument about God's relationship to morality from the classical world. Kader describes his own transition to agnosticism. Lostcause wonders if God is a scientist, but I don't know what he believes. Could be your third example.Mjfloresta wonders what evidence it would take to convince us that there was a God. Iceage wonders about different kinds of religious experience. Rob castigates atheists for wanting it both ways on the existence of evil. Anastasia wonders who is more moral. Pete OS wonders how literally we're supposed to take Genesis, anyway. Archer Opterix informs us about evangelical Christians accepting evolution. Woodsy wonders if there's really a choice involved when it comes to accepting that which is supported by evidence. Greatest I Am poses a question from the Bible. Yours truly admonishes believers to get over their obvious terror at the prospect of being convinced by the arguments for atheism.Phat explores a classic parable of the Bible. Mike the Wiz is frustrated with sectarian violence. Phat tells Christians that they should not be afraid to doubt. Jon points out a Biblical double standard. Straggler attempts to define atheism. Jar riffs on Glenn Morton's "Quadralemma". Larni wonders why Jesus performs miracles in the Bible. Jon questions the validity of some homespun theology. Wolf poses some problems for the Flood position. Sidelined ponders the meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity (not, I presume, onion, celery, and bell pepper.)That's it. I saw three examples where atheists started threads to talk about God, and many more where Christians opened threads to proselytize or defend their religion. The rest were pretty evenly split between atheists defending atheism, Christians questioning atheism, and Christians and atheists pondering some aspect of human religious experience.My conclusion? NJ, you're extremely oversensitive - to the point of clearly having delusions of persecution - to atheists rejecting the validity of the hypothesis that there's a God.Atheists really aren't all that interested in God, because that's just something made-up. And getting the details of someone's personal make-believe is kind of boring. It's as boring as hearing about someone else's dreams. What we're very much interested in, clearly, is religion, because religion is a very real force that has an influence on each and every one of our lives. Usually a negative influence.

A reminder that the topic concerns death bed conversions, not belief systems.Please stick to addressing the topic issues and address the position, not the person.Please direct any comments concerning this Admin msg to the Moderation Thread.

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Any response in this thread will receive a 24 hour timeout.Thank you

Maybe because you think that freedom entails anarchy-- hence, no rules, no social mores, etc. Your reasoning goes on thus: I haven't been raped. Since no one has hurt me, rape must be extrapolated and manipulated in to terms that grant its freedom from prohibition.Your greatest problem, as I see it, is that you believe freedom entails the unmitigated possibility to do every thing you want to do without reaping a single consequence from those actions. But, Taz, what is a contradiction?A contradiction is that where two mutually exclusive absolutes are posited at the same time. Where I see God's sovereignty and man's responsibility are not two mutually exclusive absolutes.We are not absolutely free, rather, we are free within confines-- interestingly, the very confine that dictates the very freedom to begin with. God has given me the privilege of the will. In the assignment of that will, He has that over-arching sovereignty, without violating that freewill in the process, but setting it up so that the entailments of those freedoms are inescapable.But since you are so fond of freedoms, why do you attempt to restrict my freedom? I don't have to ascribe to your philosophies any more than you have to ascribe to mine. You bash my beliefs, calling them intolerant, yet you've single-handedly committed the fatal flaw of contradicting yourself because you are intolerant of mine.Are you so obtuse that you can't see that about yourself? You give with one hand, and by that giving, you call yourself the great philanthropist who lives and let live-- never judging others. Yet, with the other hand you take away, and with all the scorn you can muster, you've judged those you claim are judging.

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"The problem of Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it is difficult and left untried" -G.K. Chesterton

Remember, kids! Being gay is the moral equivalent of rape!Oh, and Taz is silly for thinking that Nem's beliefs don't make him a better person.Edited by AdminPhat, : No reason given.

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"I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut."
-Stephen Colbert

Then can you define what your spirituality entails? I'm fascinated by Deists because I've yet to have one of them explain to me how or why they believe as they do. Is it so inexplicable that you could not rationalize it? And I'm refuting that notion given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Your website provides ample proof that many atheists have a deeply vested interest in God. Oh, but you do excuse your behavior.All answers and all questions come from a paradigm. The very reason you raise the question is that there is a paradigmatic way in which you are seeking to answer it. When you take that question, it will inexorably borrow from a Judeo-Christian worldview in order to justify itself.Why?Because any person who seeks to answer the questions in a totally secular way has no moral framework from which to even raise the question, let alone, answer it. The best you can do is say that you don't see a moral framework. But that only begs the question:How do you know what a moral framework ought to look like, that you would actually scorn me for excusing my behavior and calling it the will of God? Are you not making assumptions that I will understand it as being a bad thing to do on my part? The way I see it, Christians merely express their beliefs, just like everyone else does, but secular thought has made it so that it is not only taboo to speak about spiritual or moral matters in a public setting, but that they can manipulate the very Amendment used to protect their freedom and make into the thing that now condemns them and strips them of that freedom.And then if somebody does not see life in the exact same fashion as they do, they get branded as intolerant. But, then, this is the face of the New Tolerance movement... Its intolerant!

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"The problem of Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it is difficult and left untried" -G.K. Chesterton

nemesis_juggernaut blathers:

quote:

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Because any person who seeks to answer the questions in a totally secular way has no moral framework from which to even raise the question, let alone, answer it. The best you can do is say that you don't see a moral framework. But that only begs the question:

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How do you know what a moral framework ought to look like, that you would actually scorn me for excusing my behavior and calling it the will of God? Are you not making assumptions that I will understand it as being a bad thing to do on my part?

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What in the hell are you on about? Why should anyone want to share your arbitrary and bigoted "moral framework"? Why do you feel this desperate need to impose this stupid, based-in-pre-history "moral framework" on people you don't know a goddamned thing about? Why can't you just accept that some folks' "moral framework" consists of nothing more than trying to do right by their fellow man? We don't need your silly and arbitrary "moral framework" to get by. What gives you the right to impose your morals on me, as you do when you deny me things like marriage and the sort of hate crimes protections that all xians enjoy?In other words, who the fuck are you to claim any kind of moral superiority at all over me?Edited by berberry, : subtitle added

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W.W.E.D.?

I can't explain it to myself, how could I explain it to you? Well, okay, if it makes sense to you that some people have a "deeply vested interest" in something they don't believe exists, I won't try to talk you out of it. I could care less whether you see life the same way I do. If it weren't for conservative Christian efforts to impose their religious beliefs on others in the realm of education, public policy and health, I probably would never have heard of fundamentalism, and this website wouldn't exist.No one is threatening the practice of your religion. If you lose in court on evolution, or if you lose a vote in congress on gay rights, or if you fail to close down an abortion clinic, that doesn't affect at all your right to worship as you believe. When you lose on any of these things, people don't come into your church, take all the Bibles and remove the cross.But when you win then people who have done you no harm fail to get a decent science education, or don't get birth control assistance or accurate sexual health information, or don't get certain jobs because they're gay, or have to get an illegal abortion.Clearly your side is the intolerant one, and to call people intolerant whose only crime is to resist your attempts to foist your standards on others is just what, unfortunately, we see all too often from conservative Christians.--Percy

Get back to the topic which deals with death bed conversions.Stop with the personal and rude language already.If this topic cannot be discussed in a civil manner, it will be closed permanently.Please direct any comments concerning this Admin msg to the Moderation Thread.

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Any response in this thread will receive a 24 hour timeout.Thank you Edited by AdminPD, : Reopened - Closing statement removed.

Its hard to tell because every one is different. When somebody asks me if I think that a recently departed person is in heaven or hell, I give them no good response.I do so because I have no way of knowing their eternal disposition. Do I have clues based on their life that give me a general indication? Sure. But we know from Scripture that the penitent man on the cross next to Jesus was saved right before his death, though he lived a life of criminality. We also know from Scripture that "that not every one who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom."That tells me that perhaps lots of people we think are going to be saved end up damned, but the people we think are damned might be saved.Is Jeffrey Dahmer in heaven or hell? I don't know. And I find it some what of a frightening prospect to even speculate.When RobinRohan died I worried about his eternal state because he had made it clear in life that he rejected the notion of God. Did something happen to him right before he died that God honored? I don't know. As much as I'd like to know in order to satisfy my curiosity, perhaps its just not my place to know. Whatever happens to someone right before their death is between them and God.

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"The problem of Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it is difficult and left untried" -G.K. Chesterton

quote:

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Sidelined ponders the meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity (not, I presume, onion, celery, and bell pepper.)

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LOL!

Um, no. The only time I think about the concept/idea of god is when I take part in a theological discussion, which happens probably less than once a week. The atheist constantly talking about the idea of god is a rare breed. Much like most christians really think about the idea of god only when they go to church. It's rare to find people who are very obsessive about a single topic. You just think they're everywhere because they are the most vocal and as such, the most noticed.I think about music far more than I think about the EvC or the AvT debates. Especially during the summer (which is why I've made less than 25 posts here in like 2 months when during school I make well over a hundred per month.As ot you thing about the pile-on, I can't help it that this board has more atheists than theists and that we all (or many of us, at any rate) like to have our say.

But you still haven't answered the question. What is this topic trying to prove (or disprove) ?
Like I said, a desparate enough person, on their deathbed, might well accept/acknowledge God.What does this mean ? Only that people will do or say anything under the right circumstances. So, where are you going with this ?

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

Before making some observations I'll reiterate my answer: When I take my last dying breath, God will be the last thing on my mind. There will be no deathbed conversion. There won't be a scintilla, not an iota, of any doubt. Nada. Zilch. Zed.Now some observations.Concluding that I must harbor some doubts about the existence of the Christian God because I'm involved in discussions like this one is just wrongheaded thinking. I no more have doubts about this than I do about the fallacies of creationism, and I discuss creationism all the time.My interest in discussing God is actually slight. Some of you might already be aware that I almost never participate in the faith forums. This interest, to the extent it exists, stems from a worldview that sees only a rational and comprehensible universe, and so countering mysticism, myth and muddled thinking is the primary motivation.But of course there are atheists and agnostics (keep in mind that I fall into neither camp) who spend a lot of time in discussions about faith-based issues concerning God and heaven and hell and the eternal soul. I imagine they do so for the same reasons people everywhere get into discussions: a desire to convince others of their point of view, or at least to make their point of view known.To conclude that atheists and agnostics engage in discussions like this because they actually harbor doubts about the non-existence of God would mean that whenever anyone anywhere on any subject engages in discussions, it's only because they harbor doubts about their own point of view. If this were actually true, then it must be true for believers, too, meaning that believers engage in debates about the existence of God because they have doubts about it. Clearly that makes no sense. The fact is, people debate because they think the other guy is wrong.If you believers out there are still convinced that atheists and agnostics harbor doubts, then let me ask you, when you breath your last dying breath and realize that there's only nothingness after death, will you then realize that it has been a fiction all along? Now let me ask you the real question: Are you a bit insulted by the very question?You see, the problem with the question, and especially with the way it was phrased in the OP, is that it a) assumes there's a God; and b) assumes that atheists and agnostics know in their hearts there's a God.Some atheists and agnostics have conceded that they might well experience a deathbed conversion, but that given the circumstances it would be meaningless. I must admit that this answer appears to concede the very point the question was intended to make: that atheists and agnostics do, underneath it all, believe there is a God. I don't understand why a true atheist/agnostic would feel his mind might turn in this direction at death, so I won't comment.But I will repeat again my own answer, that despite that I'm a theist, I am more sure in my heart than of anything else in existence that the God of the Christian Bible, as well as his hell and caring and devil and tenderness and jealousies and hate and Holy Spirit and rages and miracles and eternal soul, do not exist. No matter how delusional I might become while in my death throes, it is doubtful to the maximum degree possible that I would ever turn to the Christian God.--Percy

Just to clarify on this issue, I -amongst others- have admitted that I might be the 'victim' of a deathbed conversion if I'm, in too much pain/fear/etc, i.e. if I'm not in a lucid state of mind.The point I'm making is that such a conversion would prove nothing at all other than the frailty of the human mind. It wouldn't offer any indication whatsoever as to the existence of God, neither as to the person's 'knowledge' of the existence of said God.It's the most natural reaction for people under stress/fear/pain to turn to thoughts that provide comfort and reassurance. People want to be reassured and comforted in such situations. It's why we tell people in accidents & battlefields that they're 'going to be ok' and 'it's just a scratch' even though their whole leg may be missing and they're fast oozing blood from their severed femoral artery. it's why the victims believe 'it's just a scratch' although they can clearly see that it isn't so.People will hang on to anything that gives them hope. For the vast majority of Christians fear of death is what sparks and kindles their faith in God. For atheists, like me, this fear will be at its highest when I'm on my deathbed, so I might crack then. The only difference between me and riverrat is that he cracked a long time ago. That would make you an atheist, vis-a-vis Christian God.

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