Why Atheists don't believe

D'ya ever think of taking it up a notch RjB. Your putting down of Christianity..well... simplistic. You do know that some of the very best minds in the world have examined its claims in some depth and come to the conclusion it is true? This in itself doesn't make it true. But you seem to be closing the door before the horse has bolted.And some of the very best minds in the world have examined its claims in some depth and concluded it is false.But at least the best minds did one thing. They examined it. Anybody can sit in the stands hollering and booing. But it takes a bit of balls to get into the game.Why Christianity if you haven't the time or inclination to check them all out? No reason perhaps except this quiet one. With all the worlds religions (if you do a cursory inspection) your eternal position is decided upon what YOU do. Pray to the west, go to church, be good, get your act together, meditate, go to a monastery, seek enlightenment etc etcChrisitianity is the only faith system in which your eternal position is decided not by what you do but what God does FOR you. A small point of uniqueness but perhaps enough to figure out which game to get into. Should you ever.

quote:

---

Chrisitianity is the only faith system in which your eternal position is decided not by what you do

---

I thought that Blasphemy of the holy spirit was an unforgivable sin?

Yet another example of how Christians drive folk away from Christianity. The John 15:18 defense. Reminds me of the songs the Christians sing on the bus and here on the board when they spout their intolerance: The folk that quotemine John 15:18 always seem to forget to read the whole thing, or go on to the beginning of John 16 where we find: This clearly is a reference to today's intolerant Christian Right and Fundamentalists. They are the ones who proclaim that certain people are not "True Christians", that only They know the will of GOD.Yes, it is Christians that drive folk away from Christianity.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Clarity that has folk predicting the end of the world for the last 2000 years kind of clarity you mean?

Your avatar is fighting its way through the jungle, but the enemy is us!I agree with Jar that Christians drive people away from Christianity.Remember that IF the Truth is as we believe it to be, God Himself will draw all men unto Himself.Indeed, Philipians declares that He who began a good work in us....will be faithful to complete it!I would not worry about those who occasionally attack the Christian idea of truth...they don't understand what makes them so irate!
You say its not your job to get them to believe....but it IS our job to be receivable because if they receive you, they will have a conduit to God.(Does that sound arrogant? If so, please slap me around thusly! )

Yup, another good example. After they been wrong on just about every possible issue, from evolution to the flood to the conquest of Canaan to end times to prophecy to civil rights to the fall is it any wonder that atheists ignore Christians?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

To be honest I haven't ever dwelled on this all that much. But now that you ask I'll try and fit it into a overarching understanding of how it is that "if man saved then God has saved/if man is lost then man has lost himself"Its a good question for it aims at the root of the predestined/own choice paradox. My take:Man is born a sinner. Rejecting God out of hand and without thought. A slave to sin. A natural born sinner as it were.But he has a conscience. Conscience being (I take it you know your Bible) the action of the Holy Spirit on a man - aimed at convicting a man of his sin - the fact that he stands unrighteous before God.Thus, whilst a fish adrift on a raging sea of sin, there is a hook lodged in him. As a man his natural tendency is to fight and wriggle and squirm to free himself from that hook. This doesn't involve the man doing something as such. He does it naturally. He blasphemes the Holy Spirit in doing so. He rejects, naturally, the pull of the Holy Spirit on the line which binds him.(Could a blink of an eyelid be said to be a man consciously 'doing' something. Not really - its a natural reflex)But if a fish does nothing at all? Then it will be drawn to shore as sure as night follows day. And the motivation not to act naturally? It comes from God. He presents us with a reason not to act. Not to blaspheme the work of the Holy FisherMan. The senses feel the hook. They could act as they have always acted. Or they could do nothing. not respond to the call of nature. Not blink.When a man does nothing, he doesn't blapheme the Holy Spirit. For how can doing nothing at all blaspheme anyone?

Have you ever seen the studies on correlation between intelligence and lack of religious belief? There is a reason that intelligence is correlated with a lack of religious belief; it doesn't take long for intelligent people to realize that most religions are ridiculous.(of course there are smart religious people as well, I don't mean to imply there aren't)One thing that I a lot of theists just don't get about atheists is that our lack of belief is just that. We place god on the same level as santa claus. It has little to do with morality or whatever (although I do think much of the "morality" preached by religion is actually evil)

So all the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere prior to 1492 aren't "non-Christians?" How does that work, exactly?

I wonder which are the ones which fell outside the remit of the 'most' Which only goes to show that whatever the correlation, 'smarts' ain't the deciding factor. If more one 'smart' person and one 'stupid' believes then neither 'smarts' nor 'stupid' was the deciding factor in their believing. Which kind of figures with his words "I come to seek and save the lost (and presumably not the smart)" The max. potential that Santa delivers is a Slaystation II game (at least down my way: did you know that you can have sex with a hooker on Grand Theft Auto - where X marks the spot?). God has the potential to deliver eternal life. If you want to coalesce the two then your choice. Rather weak it seems to me. Santa can only be less than us. God defines us. Agreed..we have none to speak of (See the worldwide delivery schedule of Santa next Christ(*sigh*)mas I couldn't agree more.Edited by iano, : typos and tighten

No disrespect CG. But when your "I just dropped in" average sentence-per-post drops below a certain minimum I reserve the right to not reply

I should have said all..... but Deism, Buddishm and the like (which may or may not be religions) aren't obviously ridiculous.Religiosity and intelligence - Wikipedia

I can see you still don't understand at all.Maybe this will help.....Atheists see god/gods/etc/whatever the same way we see Q on Star Trek. And Q could actually make me omnipotent.

I'll leave it to the various protagonists to defend their case

But you know Q can do nothing of the sort. But you don't know in the same way about God. Atheism doesn't know anything. It is extreme agnosticism: I REALLY don't know...