I grew up atheist for 16 years. I had always kept an open mind towards religion, but never really felt a need to believe in it. My sister started going to a Wednesday night children's program at a church. Eventually, I was dragged into a Christmas Eve service. Scoffing, I reluctantly went, assuming that this was going to be a load of crap, but when I went, I felt something. Something that I've never felt before. I felt a sense of empowerment and a sense of calling. Jesus called upon my soul, just like he did with his disciples. he wanted me to follow him. Now, my life is being lived for Christ. He died on the cross for my sins, and the sins of everyone who believes in him. He was beaten, brutalized, struck with a whip 39 times, made to carry a cross up to the stage of his death. This I believe to be true, and I can never repay him for what he has done. I still have my struggles with Christianity, but I've found this bit of information most useful. Religion is not comprehensible in the human mind, because we cannot comprehend the idea of a perfect and supreme being, a God, but we can believe it in our heart, and that's the idea of faith. Faith is, even though everything rides against me believing in Jesus, I still believe in him because I know that it's true in my heart. I invite my fellow Brothers and sisters of the LORD to talk about how Jesus has helped you in your life. No atheists and no insults please
If their's a God who's all knowing and all powerful, yet chooses to leave this world in poverty, crime ridden, allowing murder, and thievery etc... All in the hopes that people will believe in him on their own and not by his visible actions, then I spit on his name and him (btw where's the sense in this? Believening in something without seeing actions).
Some people say these acts are by Satan, by if they are then why doesn't this all knowing, all powerful God stop him?
I believe if he's all knowing and all powerful all the worlds problems are his fault. Completely and uttler his fault, and his alone.
A God like this needs to be overrun and defeated.
P.S. If any of this is insensitive or confusing blame God, he's all knowing and all powerful. He could've fixed this paragraph.
and it pretty much ended with my mom saying okay I didn't have to go and my dad saying i'll end up in hell. I didn't have to go to church anymore though.
No offense, but I couldn't help but perceive that in a slightly humorous fashion. "I'll end up in hell. I didn't have to go to Church anymore though."
Maybe it's just me, I hope not.
I was lucky, I had a mother who didn't care all that much for what I believed and a father who taught me to think for myself, with a bias towards the lack of belief in a deity but by no means a grudge against me going religious.
Now there are plenty of moral / philosophical conflicts between mine and his beliefs but I'm grateful he didn't shove all those at me when I was younger than I am now.
MGW once said that he disregards personal experience as objective evidence, but subjectively they can amount enough strength to overcome any "reason" provided by those who don't believe.
If you saw it with your own eyes, beyond a shadow of a logical doubt that what you saw was true, but you can't prove it to anyone else? That doesn't mean it's unreasonable.
Personal experience, with any possibility of another explanation - I would probably take in as a misconstrued "act of God".
And you are too constantly ignoring/denying MY arguments.
It generally helps if you be specific by, say... throwing out an argument that has not been replied to, or replied to poorly.
As for the actual cause of what caused the Sun to do what it did in 1917 (if it was indeed the Sun), that's not quite my area of expertise. :/ (Not that I have one)
Just get one person to say "hey the sun looks kinda funny" and let the fish story build from there.
Fish story? ... I'll just say that the "fish story" I know is not relevant to this topic (however bad that came out).
I believe if he's all knowing and all powerful all the worlds problems are his fault. Completely and uttler his fault, and his alone.
Whilst I don't feel the need to dabble into his moral / philosophical quandrys, I think it's pretty obvious that he hasn't properly taken on the responsibility of raising us. ^^
I've been wondering if god is forcing you to like him then do you still have free will? I want to know you're opinions. Because I have no idea.
He's not forcing you, but it's close enough to it.
Free will doesn't mean you have any more integrity. Peoples integrity when indoctrinated or even gullible (not the best way I could put it, but it's 3:36AM and I think you will understand) can easily be taken over by the "survival" instincts or (again, no better way to put it) plain cowardice.
Sorry for not posting all that much (in terms of quantity, not quality). Quite happy with 301 pages.
I've been wondering if god is forcing you to like him then do you still have free will? I want to know you're opinions. Because I have no idea.
1) This presupposes that free will exists (what I don't believe) 2) Saying "either worship me or I'll torture you for an eternity" comes pretty close to forcing in my opinion.
Oh yeah, sorry grimml I didn't think of it that way because I don't belive in the whole belive me or hell. I should've remembered to think of that though. I still don't understand about the free will. I asked a question on another thread about it. Could you please explain why you belive we don= have it?
Okay. Well then it wouldn't be forcing. But I guess that some people would heavilly disagree with you.
To come back to your question, no we wouldn't have free will, I guess. But in the end it wouldn't matter like Kasic said in the Atheist thread. We could still have the illusion of free will (everybody chooses to love God for obvious reasons). No matter if free will is real or just an illusion, it doesn't really change anything to us, does it?
"I caught this big 5 foot fish. it's the biggest fish I ever caught" The next time the story is told, "I caught this 10 foot fish." next time, "I caught a 12 foot fish and it was storming." Eventually, "The storm was raging, I though it would rip my boat apart but I hung in there then this monster of a fish, had to be 100feet long at least took hold of my line and dragged me for miles, but I finally wore him down and he was mine."
Basically means more you tell the story the more exaggerated it becomes. This can happen with individuals or groups.
I knew the Fish Story but I don't see how it's the same or even similiar to what happened with the Miracle of Fatima. :P
One person goes "hey the sun looks a bit funny" the next guy goes "yeah it does look a bit funny now that you mention it" and before long you have people claiming it was doing all sorts of things in the sky.
