Motivations for the non-belief in God

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start a thread to ask evangelical Christians (and other like minded theists) if they truly believe that Rawel has accurately described

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I think Rawel's quote was just an abstract for discussion. But from what little details I read, it makes perfect sense to me, nonetheless. To me, its about an undue stance on pride. Take for instance someone who feels they are highly intelligent. Should that actually instill any sort of pride? I say, no. The reason being, the recipient of such intelligence had no choice in whether or not they would become intelligent. That was all there in the DNA before they were a gleam in their parents eye. The same goes for racial pride, gay pride, sexist pride, or any other squalid form of pride. We were simply born. All of the credit goes to what formed us. And our parents formed us, but they were formed by their parents, and their parents, and so on. So the true credit goes to what instituted such policy to begin with. Therefore, all the credit goes to God. If you don't believe in God, then you shouldn't believe in pride either, because its completely illogical to be prideful over anything you had no control over.

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Okay -- I feel that I am highly intelligent, so I can be an example.

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For starters, who among us feels as though they are an idiot? Only the self-depricating type. But the point is, being prideful over your actual or percieved intelligence is pretty asinine, only because you had no control over how smart you were going to be. That means, if God exists, then He gets all the glory..... Amen. But even supposing that He doesn't is irrespective because you still had no control over it. What purpose does pride serve, other than setting up partitions against one another? Pride is vanity, fleeting, and ultimately dead weight. Dying to the self is living in Christ.

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I agree. And for the very reason that you state (except that I would add that my intelligence, if it is indeed high, is also due to my upbringing and education as a child, which I had little control over).

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I would say, don't confuse knowledge or wisdom with intelligence. I see them as three separate entities. Intelligence cannot be changed because you were born with it already. That's what makes intelligence quotients important, because it is designed to examine your reasoning ability, not what you've already learned. Knowledge is attainable by everyone. Being knowledgeable doesn't make any one of us smart. Wisdom, in my opinion is the greatest of these because it combines these two and adds in experience as well. But even this falls short when we are speaking about God.“What seems to man’s finite mind to be intricate and confused is clear to the spiritual one, who sees God behind all His works and ways... When God calls a man to act for Him in some particular capacity, He fits him for service he is to undertake. Augustine well said, ”God’s commandings are God’s enablings.’ The flesh may shrink from the great task, but he who counts on God will be able to say, ”I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord’ (Micah 3:8). God never sends anyone at his own charges or to act in his own strength, much less to be guided by his own wisdom.” -H.A. Ironside

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Now, what does this have to do with why I don't believe there is a god?

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Maybe you do believe in God and you just aren't willing to admit it. Maybe. Its like the man who maligns the Word of God based on unfounded scrutiny or the man who spends inordinate amounts of time trying debunk Him. Why such effort on something they allege doesn't even exist? There is a fine line between faith and reason. At some point, we all cross over.“Faith in antagonism to common sense is fanaticism, and common sense in antagonism to faith is rationalism. The life of faith brings the two into right relation. Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual; of impulse and inspiration. Nothing Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, it is revelation sense, and it reaches the shores where common sense fails. Faith must be tried before the reality of faith is actual.’We know all things work together for good,’ then no matter what happens, the alchemy of God’s providence transfigures the ideal faith into actual reality. Faith always works on the personal line, the whole purpose of God being to see that the ideal faith is made real in His children.” -Oswald Chambers

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