Good NEWS Atheists the answers to your TWO main questions.

[ChristFollowers]

Personal experience of God. That's what all the evidence in the Bible is. After all, did Saul of Tarsus believe because he read the gospels? NO! The gospels weren't written yet and Saul didn't believe the disciples. Instead, Saul had personal experience of the risen Jesus that utterly convinced him (who didn't believe) that this was the truth.


Look, I understand your frustration at Christians trying to proselytize you. Of course they aren't going to convince you, because your (and my) personal experience is that we have no personal experience of God. Until you do, you won't be convinced.

However, to be charitable, they have to try. Assume for the moment that Christians are correct: that belief in Jesus will lead you to a more fulfilling life and life after death. This means that they have an ethical duty to try to bring those benefits to everyone. To deliberately leave someone out is, from their point of view, to condemn them to death. It is the same as rescuing someone that is drowning. You have to try.

You can argue that their tactics are both objectionable and counter-productive. You can say that their personal arrogance hurts their cause. But you cannot ascribe the effort to simple arrogance or selfishness.


Not all of them. Harvey Cox, for instance, has written quite a few books arguing that God's house has many rooms, and that these other religions may be some of the rooms. However, yes, theists are atheists to other religions. Most of the time. However, Truth here is referring not to theists who believe other versions of deity, but people who believe that no deity exists at all.


I would say that I do not believe those versions of deity are correct. I can give you my reasons for that belief, but I would not pretend to be able to prove it.

Your generalization of Christians is far too broad.

Again I ask.....what proof do you have other than the Bible? How do you know Saul of Tarsus existed? Because a book say he existed so you think he existed, right? Dont get me wrong....I believe in the Scroll God commanded Moses to write. The Bible isnt the Scroll because the Bible has been changed over time....changed about a million times.

Oh my bad you said "personal experience" I guess my cousin being raped as a child is a personal experience for her to believe in God, huh? Anyways....I have had 4 personal experiences (as a child...couldve almost died from all 4) that God is real. know God is real! He saved my life (from dying) four times when I couldve died. One of those experiences was what made me believe in God in the first place. But not once did I say I didnt believe in God or that He isnt real. You assumed this because I dont classified myself as a Christian, right???

Christians are not trying to proselytize me. I believe in God and Jesus. They are my best friend. I just dont read the Bible you read because its not the orginal Scroll God commanded Moses to write. God isnt ONLY for Christians.

Also thats fine if someone wants to try to convince someone to believe in God....thats a good thing to do....but actually criticizing Atheist isnt getting it. Maybe Christians should ask why and try to understand why an Atheist dont believe in God instead of saying "God is real or it is wrong to be a Atheist" Understanding people is the best way to convert someone to God. If someone see you are understanding and very patient then they will listen to you about the Word of Christ. Christians nowadays just criticize and that pulls people away from Christ.

 

[Arikay]

Faith.

 

[ChristFollowers]

Faith.

My cousin had Faith that a man wouldnt rape her when she was a teenager......

 

[Captain Jackson]

Creation or Evolution [/b](I think I ordered this one)http://tomorrowonline.org/lev.htm

Truth Traveler, I recommend that you read through this thread. Perhaps you will realize that evolution isn't always (and probably isn't often)what makes people into atheists. Have a chat with some atheists. I'm sure they will tell you that they don't believe in your God for reasons other than the origins of all things.

Also, you are performing a false dicotomy.

 

[lucaspa]

Oh my bad you said "personal experience" I guess my cousin being raped as a child is a personal experience for her to believe in God, huh? Anyways....I have had 4 personal experiences (as a child...couldve almost died from all 4) that God is real. know God is real! He saved my life (from dying) four times when I couldve died. One of those experiences was what made me believe in God in the first place. But not once did I say I didnt believe in God or that He isnt real. You assumed this because I dont classified myself as a Christian, right???

If you had had the personal experiences you claimed, then why did you write about needing other "proof"? Why did you ask for "proof" other than the Bible when you already had it? Don't blame me if you trick me and I fall for it. I am assuming you are basically honest.

So I gave you the evidence people have for the existence of God. Personal experience. Whether it be of Saul or your own.

Now, why would rape be a personal experience of God? The connection escapes me. Perhaps you could connect the dots for me, please.

[quote[Again I ask.....what proof do you have other than the Bible?[/quote]
You already gave it: your own personal experiences.

How do you know Saul of Tarsus existed? Because a book say he existed so you think he existed, right?

The study of history checks different documents. There are other documents by Roman writers attesting to the historicity of Paul. That's all we have to go on for most historical figures. Did the birth certificate lie? Maybe someone forged one. Maybe the head of Ceasar Augustus on coins isn't really Ceasar Augustus. It could all have been an elaborate plot. Maybe Josephus' history wasn't written by Josephus or General McClellan's letters to his wife weren't written by McClellan. Maybe he had them ghost-written by a staff member. You can play this game for all its worth whenever you want. There is very little absolute certainty in history.

Dont get me wrong....I believe in the Scroll God commanded Moses to write. The Bible isnt the Scroll because the Bible has been changed over time....changed about a million times.

And now you get into Higher Criticism which tries to track the various changes in the oral tradition and the written works until we have the copies that survived to our times.

Christians are not trying to proselytize me.

You just said they were. Now, if you want to mislead us about that, that is your problem.

I believe in God and Jesus. They are my best friend. I just dont read the Bible you read because its not the orginal Scroll God commanded Moses to write. God isnt ONLY for Christians.

Which is why Christians try to convince others that God exists. So God can be for them, too.

Also thats fine if someone wants to try to convince someone to believe in God....thats a good thing to do....but actually criticizing Atheist isnt getting it. Maybe Christians should ask why and try to understand why an Atheist dont believe in God instead of saying "God is real or it is wrong to be a Atheist" Understanding people is the best way to convert someone to God. If someone see you are understanding and very patient then they will listen to you about the Word of Christ. Christians nowadays just criticize and that pulls people away from Christ.

Now you are arguing method. Which I said was OK, remember? You are saying the particular way TruthTraveler tried to proselytize is counter-productive. I agree with you. It was counter-productive.

 

[lucaspa]

The more I look at your post, ChristFollowers, the more confused I get.

First you said Seems Christianity is sooooo sure of themselves. Other than "Books" what proof is there that God exists? This is directed at the Christians. Give me ONE proof other than the Bible.

Then you say in the response to me:

Anyways....I have had 4 personal experiences (as a child...couldve almost died from all 4) that God is real. know God is real! He saved my life (from dying) four times when I couldve died. One of those experiences was what made me believe in God in the first place. But not once did I say I didnt believe in God or that He isnt real. You assumed this because I dont classified myself as a Christian, right???

I concluded you didn't classify yourself as a theist because you made the statement in italics. You just gave proof other than the Bible. So why did you assume others did not have the same type of "proof"?

I believe in God and Jesus. They are my best friend.

So why don't you classify yourself as Christian? If you believe in Jesus that would seem to put you in Christianity, but you say you are not. Please explain.

I just dont read the Bible you read because its not the orginal Scroll God commanded Moses to write.

So what Bible do you read? And how do you know it is the original or even more accurate than the one Judeo-Christians use?

 

[Arthur Dietrich]

What a gip... My two main questions were:

When will I be able to get a new oven?

Where did I put my copy of Susan Kay's "Phantom"?

Then again, I'm not an athiest XXP

 

[Nathan Poe]

What a gip... My two main questions were:

When will I be able to get a new oven?

Where did I put my copy of Susan Kay's "Phantom"?

Then again, I'm not an athiest XXP

You think it's a gip? I am an Atheist and my two main questions were:

1: What should I do with my glasses now that I've had my eyes LASIKed?

2: If it takes a chicken-and-a-half a day-and-a-half to lay an egg-and-a-half, then how long would it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick all the seeds out of a Dill pickle?

 

[Sphere]

http://tomorrowonline.org/order.htm

FREE FREE FREE

I ordered 6 today FREE

Creation or Evolution (I think I ordered this one)http://tomorrowonline.org/lev.htm

and

Who is God?
http://tomorrowonline.org/lwg.htm

Pathetic. Instead of wasting everyone's time with your nonsense how about you educate yourself on the subject. You don't seek the truth, you look for false information to put your mind at ease..if you want to remain poisoned then do it without spreading the lies from these people. THANK YOU.

 

[Sphere]

Truth Traveler, I recommend that you read through this thread. Perhaps you will realize that evolution isn't always (and probably isn't often)what makes people into atheists. Have a chat with some atheists. I'm sure they will tell you that they don't believe in your God for reasons other than the origins of all things.

Also, you are performing a false dicotomy.

He'll never take the time for this

 

[Cantuar]

Ok folks - for a better balanced view on evo - read Prof joseph behe

Somebody PLEASE tell me this guy means "Michael Behe." Isn't one IDist Behe enough to be going on with?

 

[Cantuar]

The second book has some interesting chapter titles. I was struck by "Blood Clotting: A Biological Miracle". This, no doubt, is lifted right out of Behe's Darwin's Black Box. But, of course, the author never went to the scienitifc literature to look at these papers, did he?

1. Doolittle RF, The structure and evolution of vertebrate fibrinogen: a comparison of the
lamprey and mammalian proteins. Adv Exp Med Biol 1990;281:25-37
2. Gray JE, Doolittle RF, Characterization, primary structure, and evolution of lamprey plasma albumin. Protein Sci 1992 Feb;1(2):289-302
3. Doolittle RF, Feng DF, Reconstructing the evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation from a consideration of the amino acid sequences of clotting proteins. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 1987;52:869-874
4. Patthy L, Evolutionary assembly of blood coagulation proteins. Semin Thromb Hemost 1990 Jul;16(3):245-259
5. Blake CC, Harlos K, Holland SK, Exon and domain evolution in the proenzymes of blood coagulation and fibrinolysis. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 1987;52:925-931
6. Doolittle RF, The evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation: a case of Yin and Yang. Thromb Haemost 1993 Jul 1;70(1):24-28

Yes, Prof, but Doolittle got it all WRONG, remember? I mean, Michael Behe SAID so, and Christians don't lie. Just because Doolittle has happened to spend several decades researching this stuff doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about, after all...</sarcasm>

 

[ChristFollowers]

The more I look at your post, ChristFollowers, the more confused I get.

First you said Seems Christianity is sooooo sure of themselves. Other than "Books" what proof is there that God exists? This is directed at the Christians. Give me ONE proof other than the Bible.

Then you say in the response to me:


I concluded you didn't classify yourself as a theist because you made the statement in italics. You just gave proof other than the Bible. So why did you assume others did not have the same type of "proof"?


So why don't you classify yourself as Christian? If you believe in Jesus that would seem to put you in Christianity, but you say you are not. Please explain.


So what Bible do you read? And how do you know it is the original or even more accurate than the one Judeo-Christians use?

I dont classify myself as a Christian because thats not what I am. Who said Jesus was a Christian, Jesus is Jewish. I am a person that believes in Christ. Different religious names just seperate religions apart from each other.

I can believe in God and Jesus without being a Christian, can I? You seem to be saying if I believe in Jesus I have to be a Christian. I can be Catholic or a Messaniac Jewish and still believe in Christ. I just choose not to associate myself with all these "religious" names. Is that ok with you Christians? I think differently from alot of Christians...so I couldnt be classified as one.

What Bible do I read? How do I know its the original one? I dont read the Bible or anything. I have both the Bible and Torah in my house(because my father family follows under the Jewish religion(since he is Hebrew) and my mother family religion falls under Christianity)....like I said I dont "deny" any Bible is wrong....the Bible and Torah has been changed over a million times....who knows if one of them is the original Scroll? I was raised to basically believe in God and not to let "religious names" seperate us. My family is kinda diverse since my father side reads the Torah and my mother reads the Bible....do you think that is wrong? To marry someone who doesnt have the same religion as you? As a child I was suppose to choose a religion to follow (parents ordered me to) so I choose to believe in Christ and not say I was a Christian or a Jewish. My family went to a Judeo-Christian Church. I didnt want to disappoint my mother if I choose Jewish and vice versa. So I just say I believe in Christ and go from there. Guess its not an "ok" thing to do by Christians standards, huh?

Do you think that the Scroll has been passed down for hundred of years and man hasnt changed a word in it?

 

[TruthTraveler]

Do you think that the Scroll has been passed down for hundred of years and man hasnt changed a word in it?

YUP, the Dead Sea Scrolls are on display in Israel.
If you could prove God was real there wouldn't be an Atheist on Earth.
It's not Like God looking in a Fish tank and we can point to him.

-----------------------------------------
As for reading about Evolution LOL I'm still reading through the Bible for my first time.

 

[hard_2_take_in]

The first 2 chapters are very poorly put together, I know Moses was obviously writing b4 the modern development of literature but surely a GCSE essay is better constructed?

Light and dark is created - then he skips back to it a few days later almost as an afterthought to throw in the stars sun and moon to separate the light from dark - day from night.

Then he throws in the creation of man male and female to multiply just like the other animals - then in ch2 Moses seems to revise this detail of human creation - now it seems God had only intended to create Adam, but if he did what were all the preordained souls from b4 creation going to do, as mentioned in Revelations, if God had only planned at first for one Adam. Then it seems Eve is an afterthought designed to keep Adam company - ????

There seems to be a lot of shoddy contradictions here - oris it just me. And what about that talking serpent - you dont get too many of them anymore. And what about these giants that lived at the time - menationed in subsequent chapters - archeology has still to turn up some of these boys though I suppose that is not tantamount to their non existance.
I guess I'm just peeved for I come from a church who believes in the literal interpretation of scripture - and for the first time I have taken the time to read more objectively - And that story about Noah cursing Ham - g tough break for Ham - Noah was a right old b, how some ppl suggest that Ham actually took sexual advantage of his pathetic drunken old dad beats me - talk about readin between the lines......

 

[Modus]

....who knows if one of them is the original Scroll?

There is an article on my forum about the reliablity of the scriptures. Rest assured that the bible is extremely close to the exact words of the original authors.

Do you think that the Scroll has been passed down for hundred of years and man hasnt changed a word in it?

actually about 45 years. And yes, out of the 24,000 manuscripts found, some words were changed, mostly mispellings and stuff are also counted, there are very few changes that were made intentionaly. The changes are catogorized under intentional variations and unintentional variations. The amount of intentional variations out of the 24,000 manuscripts equal to about 50 variations that are actually important changes. The others are mostly just attempts to improve grammar.

Out of an article by Don Stewart:
Unintentional Variations

The scribes who did copy the text introduced changes. These scribal changes can be broken down into two basic types: unintentional and intentional. The greatest number of variants in the New Testament manuscripts are unintentional. They could creep into the text through faulty sight, hearing, writing, memory or judgment on the part of the scribe.

Intentional Variation

Some of the variations came about intentionally as New Testament scholar J. Harold Greenlee notes:

These comprise a significant, although a much less numerous, group of errors than the unintentional changes. They derive for the most part from attempts by scribes to improve the text in various ways. Few indeed are the evidences that heretical or destructive variants have been deliberately introduced into the mss [manuscripts] (J. Harold Greenlee, Introduction To New Testament Textual Criticism, Eerdmans, 1964, p. 66).
Bruce Metzger expands upon the intentional variations:

Other divergence's in wording arose from deliberate attempts to smooth out grammatical or stylistic harshness, or to eliminate real or imagined obscurities of meaning in the text. Sometimes a copyist would add what seemed to him to be a more appropriate word or form, perhaps derived from a parallel passage (Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, German Bible Society, Second Edition, 1994, p. 3,4).
The charge is often made that the text was radically changed by copyists. Again, the facts speak otherwise as Michael Holmes explains:

Occasionally the text was altered for doctrinal reasons. Orthodox and heretics alike leveled this charge against their opponents, though the surviving evidence suggests the charge was more frequent than the reality (Michael Holmes, New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Editors David Alan Black and David S. Dockery, Zondervan, p. 103).
Summary

With respect to the variations found in the New Testament manuscripts, most were unintentional. The few that were intentional consisted mostly of grammatical improvements. There is no evidence of any widespread altering of the text for doctrinal reasons.

 

[EvolvEarth]

This is what I think about this thread:

 

[LorentzHA]

http://tomorrowonline.org/order.htm

FREE FREE FREE

I ordered 6 today FREE

Creation or Evolution (I think I ordered this one)http://tomorrowonline.org/lev.htm

and

Who is God?
http://tomorrowonline.org/lwg.htm

Oh my.

 

[Robby]

As I read this, I am betting that, by this point, you are thinking that atheism is winning. Evolution is winning, but atheism isn't. Evolution is not atheism. Science simply shows how God created. Only if you have the faulty theology (atheism) of god-of-the-gaps does any of this help atheism. Get rid of god-of-the-gaps.

Hi
So you don't think that evolution is incompatible with christianity?

 

[Nathan Poe]

Hi
So you don't think that evolution is incompatible with christianity?

Why would it be?