- Oct 19, 2013
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I believe in Jesus because of the life He lived, the very words He spoke, and the strong evidence of His life and after death, and His resurrection from The Grave.
Going around telling people who do believe in God, that God does not exist and there is no life after death, Reaching out to young people to bring them into Atheism. This thinking ultimately will most likely only lead to nihilism and no future upon death. If you knew that you live beyond the Grave. It will change your life from this knowledge. It changes everything.
Then I can only surmise that you have met some very strident atheists! Most I know AREN'T in the conversion business! Most simply state that "THEY hold no belief in deities and that, yes, it would appear that this short life is all we have, according to ALL the evidence around us."
I'm familiar with Shakespeare's plays. I would have most students read many of Shakespeare's plays, they are very enlightening. Yes, the words Shakespeare wrote were for the actor playing Macbeth to speak, but they are Shakespeare's words. And like many of his famous quotations, these quotations are quite profound and has applications beyond the plays they are found. And yes, Macbeth's character did degenerate from embracing evil (the 3 witches and his wife's impetuous evil heart), but IMO he kept his sanity till the end as he fully comprehended everything that went wrong for him and his deeds leading up to his death. Now I'm not dogmatic on this, My mother read it to me when I was 7 years old, right after Othello, and Hamlet. I owe a lot to my mother.
Yes, Atheists are a bit diverse. I've had a few atheists friends who were content to live their life without being an activist for atheism. However they did believe that god or gods do not exist, they were not agnostics, they were atheist.
A 2008 Gallup poll revealed that 6 % of the USA population believed that no god or universal spirit exists. An Aris poll the same year indicated that 1.6% of the USA population acknowledges to being atheist and another .5% acknowledge that they are agnostics. I do not know how you would take this, but by my view is that 4% of the population does not know what atheist or agnostic means, they simply know they do not believe in a 'god' or 'universal spirit' exist. I would think from the poll question that the 6% are actually atheists or agnostics.
A 2008 poll found 23% of Canadians are atheists or agnostics. Overall, Western Europe is not very religious, less than 20% of the population attends Church at least once a month. In Europe, the UK is at 20% Atheist, as of 2005, and France is highest at 33% of population are atheist. The average for Europe is 18% are Atheists. Atheism is growing most rapidly among those 40 or younger.
A 2008 poll revealed that Poland has a very large Catholic population (89.8%). 94% of the population of Poland believes in God. 97% of Romania believes in God, nearly all are Eastern Orthodox.
My 2nd point.
On another forum I discussed the question: Are we currently living in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, BNW? or are we actually heading into the Dystopian world of George Orwell's 1984?
I believe that both are in play in our post-Christian world.
BNW brings into to play the concept that we have one life to live, that upon our death, we cease to exist. This being the case, saving up for the future is meaningless, because all we ever will have is NOW. Thus Aldous Huxley, who was raised on his grandfather's (Thomas Huxley) and father's (Julian) strong support of materialistic evolution, concluded that indulgence in sex and drugs that make us happy is the ultimate life to live.
In the evolutionary scenario, humans are merely the last in a long line of amoebas, crocodiles, and orangutans resulting from fortuitous cosmic accidents. In such an arrangement, it is futile to speak of “personal responsibility.” There exists, in the grand scheme of things, no reason why one “ought” or “ought not” to act a certain way, or to do or not do a certain thing.
In Aldous Huxley’s own words:
”I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently, assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find reasons for this assumption.... The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do.... For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.” (1966, 3:19).
Huxley, Aldous (1966), “Confessions of a Professed Atheist,” Report: Perspective on the News, June.
It is out of this fatalistic view of life that leads tyrants to take advantage of the moral collapse by seizing power and wealth, thus fulfilling their conceived view of the Darwinian concept of survival of the fittest. From this we get George Orwell's 1984' NewSpeak'.
Orwell provides the mind control methods needed to obtain the Orwellian world he wrote about, as well as for the Brave New World of Aldous Huxley. Aldous's playing a recording while dreaming is not a realistic method of mind control. Orwell's is most effective, and we have seen it in the takeover of our schools by materialists.
Humanists had gained a chokehold on most institutions of higher learning. By 1938, the New York Herald Tribune reported a speech by Dr. Goodwin Watson, professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he "begged the teachers of the Nation to use their profession to indoctrinate children to overthrow 'conservative reactionaries' directing American government and industry."6
In his 1951 famous book, God and Man at Yale , William F. Buckley, Jr. commented that:
"The teachings of John Dewey and his predecessors have borne fruit. And there is surely not a department at Yale that is uncontaminated with the absolute that there are no absolutes, on intrinsic rights, no ultimate truths. The acceptance of these notions, which emerge in courses in history and economics, in sociology and political science, in psychology and literature, make impossible an intelligible conception of an omnipotent, purposeful, and benign Supreme Being, who has laid down immutable laws, endowed his creatures with inalienable rights, and posited unchangeable rules of human conduct .7"
George Orwell's Book '1984' captured the future perfectly. But it did not come directly from politics, it came from the materialists of Academia whom gives us only scientists and materialists educators that they approve of, by using textbooks, journalists, newscasters, teachers, etc., whom in turn influence the public, who in turn influenced elections of politicians to office, that allowed the Bible and prayer to be censored in public schools; But allowed relative values, abortion, a drug culture, foul language, disrespect, and being self centered, all to thrive.
It is important to know that in the gospels, Jesus spoke as a Rabbi living strictly under the Mosaic Covenant that all Jews were required to keep, and it was His duty to teach the Jews to keep all of the Mosaic Law, and all the requirements of The Law with the proper Godly attitude of genuine love for God and for their fellow Jews, to show kindness to strangers in the land, and Jesus kept the whole Mosaic Law.
Jesus never taught the New Covenant and prior His death Jesus never reached out to the gentiles. To do so would have been a violation of the Mosaic Covenant and this would have disqualified Jesus from being the Messiah.
In Matthew 15: 21-28, Jesus referred to the gentiles as 'dogs' who are unworthy to receive the children's bread, the children being the descendants of Jacob, Israelites.
Matt 15:21-28 The Syrophoenician Woman
21. Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us." But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!" And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed." And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
27 But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once. NASU
Though Jesus came to the Jews, And this was the extent of Jesus's ministry to the gentiles prior to His crucifixion, He responded to them and even worked miracles for the gentiles who came to Him in faith. For it is God's nature to have mercy on anyone who humbly comes to Him by Faith.
Note that Jesus advises that differences be settled.
I also don't see Jesus tightening the law. As I noted before, Jesus believed in rooting out small sin before it developed into a greater sin. I find it interesting that Jesus warned that even thinking your brother a fool makes you liable to the fiery Gehenna. Remember, in those days Gehenna was the place of the city dump, and fire was constantly burning there.
Don't our emotions and innards start burning when we become angry and/or contemptuous with someone? Why would we want to turn ourselves into an analogy of a city burning dump? Let's get rid of our anger and contempt, and turn to ways of love and respectfully. Forgive and we will be forgiven of our wrongs.
Sometimes, a first, casual glance may have the reader thinking that Jesus was more concerned about how the individual treat others, than he was concerned about the individual. I believe a second, closer look, reveals that Jesus was just as concerned, perhaps even more concerned, for our well-being. I am a spirit, my body is my clothing for me, a home for my spirit, whom I control, until my body dies.
Going around telling people who do believe in God, that God does not exist and there is no life after death, Reaching out to young people to bring them into Atheism. This thinking ultimately will most likely only lead to nihilism and no future upon death. If you knew that you live beyond the Grave. It will change your life from this knowledge. It changes everything.
Then I can only surmise that you have met some very strident atheists! Most I know AREN'T in the conversion business! Most simply state that "THEY hold no belief in deities and that, yes, it would appear that this short life is all we have, according to ALL the evidence around us."
I'm familiar with Shakespeare's plays. I would have most students read many of Shakespeare's plays, they are very enlightening. Yes, the words Shakespeare wrote were for the actor playing Macbeth to speak, but they are Shakespeare's words. And like many of his famous quotations, these quotations are quite profound and has applications beyond the plays they are found. And yes, Macbeth's character did degenerate from embracing evil (the 3 witches and his wife's impetuous evil heart), but IMO he kept his sanity till the end as he fully comprehended everything that went wrong for him and his deeds leading up to his death. Now I'm not dogmatic on this, My mother read it to me when I was 7 years old, right after Othello, and Hamlet. I owe a lot to my mother.
Yes, Atheists are a bit diverse. I've had a few atheists friends who were content to live their life without being an activist for atheism. However they did believe that god or gods do not exist, they were not agnostics, they were atheist.
A 2008 Gallup poll revealed that 6 % of the USA population believed that no god or universal spirit exists. An Aris poll the same year indicated that 1.6% of the USA population acknowledges to being atheist and another .5% acknowledge that they are agnostics. I do not know how you would take this, but by my view is that 4% of the population does not know what atheist or agnostic means, they simply know they do not believe in a 'god' or 'universal spirit' exist. I would think from the poll question that the 6% are actually atheists or agnostics.
A 2008 poll found 23% of Canadians are atheists or agnostics. Overall, Western Europe is not very religious, less than 20% of the population attends Church at least once a month. In Europe, the UK is at 20% Atheist, as of 2005, and France is highest at 33% of population are atheist. The average for Europe is 18% are Atheists. Atheism is growing most rapidly among those 40 or younger.
A 2008 poll revealed that Poland has a very large Catholic population (89.8%). 94% of the population of Poland believes in God. 97% of Romania believes in God, nearly all are Eastern Orthodox.
My 2nd point.
On another forum I discussed the question: Are we currently living in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, BNW? or are we actually heading into the Dystopian world of George Orwell's 1984?
I believe that both are in play in our post-Christian world.
BNW brings into to play the concept that we have one life to live, that upon our death, we cease to exist. This being the case, saving up for the future is meaningless, because all we ever will have is NOW. Thus Aldous Huxley, who was raised on his grandfather's (Thomas Huxley) and father's (Julian) strong support of materialistic evolution, concluded that indulgence in sex and drugs that make us happy is the ultimate life to live.
In the evolutionary scenario, humans are merely the last in a long line of amoebas, crocodiles, and orangutans resulting from fortuitous cosmic accidents. In such an arrangement, it is futile to speak of “personal responsibility.” There exists, in the grand scheme of things, no reason why one “ought” or “ought not” to act a certain way, or to do or not do a certain thing.
In Aldous Huxley’s own words:
”I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently, assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find reasons for this assumption.... The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do.... For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.” (1966, 3:19).
Huxley, Aldous (1966), “Confessions of a Professed Atheist,” Report: Perspective on the News, June.
It is out of this fatalistic view of life that leads tyrants to take advantage of the moral collapse by seizing power and wealth, thus fulfilling their conceived view of the Darwinian concept of survival of the fittest. From this we get George Orwell's 1984' NewSpeak'.
Orwell provides the mind control methods needed to obtain the Orwellian world he wrote about, as well as for the Brave New World of Aldous Huxley. Aldous's playing a recording while dreaming is not a realistic method of mind control. Orwell's is most effective, and we have seen it in the takeover of our schools by materialists.
Humanists had gained a chokehold on most institutions of higher learning. By 1938, the New York Herald Tribune reported a speech by Dr. Goodwin Watson, professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he "begged the teachers of the Nation to use their profession to indoctrinate children to overthrow 'conservative reactionaries' directing American government and industry."6
In his 1951 famous book, God and Man at Yale , William F. Buckley, Jr. commented that:
"The teachings of John Dewey and his predecessors have borne fruit. And there is surely not a department at Yale that is uncontaminated with the absolute that there are no absolutes, on intrinsic rights, no ultimate truths. The acceptance of these notions, which emerge in courses in history and economics, in sociology and political science, in psychology and literature, make impossible an intelligible conception of an omnipotent, purposeful, and benign Supreme Being, who has laid down immutable laws, endowed his creatures with inalienable rights, and posited unchangeable rules of human conduct .7"
George Orwell's Book '1984' captured the future perfectly. But it did not come directly from politics, it came from the materialists of Academia whom gives us only scientists and materialists educators that they approve of, by using textbooks, journalists, newscasters, teachers, etc., whom in turn influence the public, who in turn influenced elections of politicians to office, that allowed the Bible and prayer to be censored in public schools; But allowed relative values, abortion, a drug culture, foul language, disrespect, and being self centered, all to thrive.
It is important to know that in the gospels, Jesus spoke as a Rabbi living strictly under the Mosaic Covenant that all Jews were required to keep, and it was His duty to teach the Jews to keep all of the Mosaic Law, and all the requirements of The Law with the proper Godly attitude of genuine love for God and for their fellow Jews, to show kindness to strangers in the land, and Jesus kept the whole Mosaic Law.
Jesus never taught the New Covenant and prior His death Jesus never reached out to the gentiles. To do so would have been a violation of the Mosaic Covenant and this would have disqualified Jesus from being the Messiah.
In Matthew 15: 21-28, Jesus referred to the gentiles as 'dogs' who are unworthy to receive the children's bread, the children being the descendants of Jacob, Israelites.
Matt 15:21-28 The Syrophoenician Woman
21. Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us." But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!" And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed." And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
27 But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once. NASU
Though Jesus came to the Jews, And this was the extent of Jesus's ministry to the gentiles prior to His crucifixion, He responded to them and even worked miracles for the gentiles who came to Him in faith. For it is God's nature to have mercy on anyone who humbly comes to Him by Faith.
Note that Jesus advises that differences be settled.
I also don't see Jesus tightening the law. As I noted before, Jesus believed in rooting out small sin before it developed into a greater sin. I find it interesting that Jesus warned that even thinking your brother a fool makes you liable to the fiery Gehenna. Remember, in those days Gehenna was the place of the city dump, and fire was constantly burning there.
Don't our emotions and innards start burning when we become angry and/or contemptuous with someone? Why would we want to turn ourselves into an analogy of a city burning dump? Let's get rid of our anger and contempt, and turn to ways of love and respectfully. Forgive and we will be forgiven of our wrongs.
Sometimes, a first, casual glance may have the reader thinking that Jesus was more concerned about how the individual treat others, than he was concerned about the individual. I believe a second, closer look, reveals that Jesus was just as concerned, perhaps even more concerned, for our well-being. I am a spirit, my body is my clothing for me, a home for my spirit, whom I control, until my body dies.
